Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Do I need to go to university?

colah.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 279 posts

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#251

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #182
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Whenever I hear somebody complaining about the price of a plumber or other trade, I say "Yeah! Where do they get off, wanting to earn a living? Why can't they just live in a van down by the river like their parents?!" I'm perfectly happy to pay a competent trade for good work, at whatever rate gets me out of painting/plumbing/pumping sewage.

I hate the attitude that tradespeople should get paid less than white collar professionals, it takes the same to finish an apprenticeship as a bachelors degree, it's skilled work just as much as computer programming or accounting or law (incidentally the only time I needed a lawyer I would've been better off representing myself, he was literally worse than useless). I pay my barber $35 for a 20 minute haircut, he cer…

Pay is defined by political and economic leverage, not by intelligence or by actual ability.

Tradespeople aren't paid seven figures a year because they have very little political and economic leverage. Top-rank CEOs, and people working in corporate law and finance are, because they tend to accumulate both - although often from a place where they start with plenty.

You can argue that this is neither fair nor justified, and I will agree with you. In fact I will argue that this is a fundamental failure which makes any political and economic system that lacks feedback loops to limit excesses of privilege inherently unstable.

But it helps to be clear about how the system really works before criticising it. Cleverness is not the primary decider. Nor is skill. Earnings are set by leverage and perceived power, all the way down.

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#252

Post by cyberdr8gon »

jason0597 wrote: post #199
analog31 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to make the snap judgment that HN happens to be popular among computer programmers, an occupation that is fairly unique in terms of providing lucrative indoor work without strictly needing college training. Many of the programmers of my generation (graduated high school in 1982) have little or no formal training in programming. I don't know anybody who learned math or physics outside of a college classroo…

>I don't know anybody who learned math or physics outside of a college classroom. I think the vast majority has technically learned maths and physics outside the college classroom. The teaching quality I'm getting at my university isn't the greatest (bar a few exceptions), and I find myself regularly going to Khan Academy or 3blue1brown to understand a concept better. This is learning outside the classroom! In a lot…

I think part of your argument about learning from Khan Academy or 3blue1brown is highly predicated upon being in subjects that are widely known and studied, particularly introductory mathematics/physics/engineering. I personally cannot speak for physicists, but I imagine it is similar as follows.

One of the most valuable parts of a Engineering/Mathematics Degree (Both at the BS and the MS levels) is that of the upper division elective courses for specialization. At research universities, these classes often contain lots of information/techniques that can't be found in a textbook, let alone in a youtube video. At best, there might be a very cursory blog post, or a collection of research papers that you really aren't ready to explore on your own. Often, these classes result in final projects which can be expanded into research papers or portfolio projects with the professor teaching the class, both of which are valuable learning opportunities for the student and effective signaling mechanisms post-graduation.

These classes are where the real technical value of a college education is found.

In addition, there a quite a few classes which are offered if not required for such Engineering/Mathematics students which are pretty difficult to approach on your own and surmise in a short period of time. For examples, I point towards Analysis 1/2/Complex, PDEs, Dynamics, and Probabilistic Robotics.

I personally got a lot from my undergrad, I (and this may only apply to me) strictly would not have succeeded in learning all the topics I did if my only motivation was my personal learning in my free time, particularly in the short time horizon I did. The pressure cooker (cough engineering school) I went through was very formative, built a number of professional/personal connections, and taught me almost all the personal and professional skills I have.

This is just my 2 cents though.

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#253

Post by brianpan »

dcole2929 wrote: post #225

I think this article misses out on what in my opinion is the biggest reason to go to college for a teen and it all has to do exploration. Simply put you don't know what you don't know and at 17-18 that can be a lot. College gives you an opportunity to explore who you are and what you care about in an environment largely free of external stress (yes I know there can be stress but it's generally a lot different than "I…

But you can do that exploration without college. You act like a startup- be "ramen profitable" and agile.

What you say is true, but it is a real luxury to do this at university rates.

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#254

Post by [deleted] »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #238
da39a3ee wrote: post #232

This Thiel-influenced not-going-to-university thing has got quite tedious. It's as if people think the only thing worth learning is coding and entrepreneurship. If all you want to learn is programming and to a lesser extent computer science then I guess you don't really need to. However if you want to learn science, medicine, law, mathematics or any other real subject then of course you should. Plus if you want to ha…

It's that last sentence that covinces me that university is obsolete or at best misrepresented as an educational experience. Getting 100 grand into debt to have fun and have sex? Get wasted? And jf I appear to be cherrypicking the second half of your post, it's because thr first half is cherry picking itself - I'll venture that fields where you Do need university stamp of approval such as medicine and law are becomin…

[deleted]

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#257

Post by schwartzworld »

bregma wrote: post #139

I went to university. I did not receive any job training at university. It is not design for job training and I did not expect to receive job training. I am not a job. I am not a career. I learned two important things at university that I doubt I could have picked up otherwise. 1. I learned how broad knowledge is. I learned about things I did not even know I did not know about. Some of these things I learned in class…

> You don't need to go to university. We will always need garbage collectors and street sweepers, and remember, anyone can write bad software.

A couple of points:

- going to college has nothing to do with whether you can write good software. Even CS grads do a ton of learning on the job, and lots of great developers started as hobbyists or came in from unrelated fields.

- Going to University doesn't guarantee you a good job. When I waited tables, I knew busboys with masters degrees.

- You can get hired (even for senior / principal level roles) without a degree. The degree doesn't mean you are good at what you do, and so it's often not a factor in hiring.

The exception is junior positions which are easier to get with a degree, but this discrepancy vanishes after you break into the industry.

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#258

Post by toomanybeersies »

mywittyname wrote: post #191
toomanybeersies wrote: post #178

I don't regret going to university in the slightest in regards to my job as a software developer. I don't regret the $30k it cost me. Some days I do question if I should've become an electrician instead, but that was never an option for me growing up, it was more or less expected that I went to university. University was so much more than learning how to program a computer so that I could get a job, I knew how to tha…

Why electrician? My father is a licensed (but not union) electrician and I used to work as his assistant when I was a teenager. The job was pretty boring, mostly driving to job sites, running cables, wiring them up, etc. It never struck me as an intellectually stimulating job. He had a book with a bunch of formulas in it (called Ugly's, iirc) that I would read while driving to sites sometimes, but it was plug-and-chu…

I wouldn't want to be an on-call electrician, driving out and fixing ovens and light switches. Most of my tradie mates try to avoid those kinds of jobs too, ideally a job doing fit out on a large commercial worksite is what you want, office buildings and that kind of thing, even better if it's a union worksite.

I've always enjoyed construction work though (electrical and other), sure it's not intellectually stimulating, but it's rewarding. Sometimes I actually regret having such an intellectually demanding day job, after 8 hours of work often I'm too mentally drained to do what I want in the evening. There's also a certain sense of satisfaction from seeing your physical finished work that you just don't get as a software developer.

Working as an industrial electrician would be more my kind of thing, performing maintenance on machinery, programming PLCs, that kind of thing. Repairing equipment requires a lot of the same mental processes as debugging code, I enjoy doing both. It's a good cross between physical and mental work. The money is very reasonable, up to $50 an hour.

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#259

Post by thrwaway69 »

dcole2929 wrote: post #225

I think this article misses out on what in my opinion is the biggest reason to go to college for a teen and it all has to do exploration. Simply put you don't know what you don't know and at 17-18 that can be a lot. College gives you an opportunity to explore who you are and what you care about in an environment largely free of external stress (yes I know there can be stress but it's generally a lot different than "I…

I have something to say but I know my anecdote experience isn't worth much so I will shut. If I had a choice again, at the cost of being in poverty in future, I wouldn't go to school let alone college.

It has given me enough PTSD as a young person that despite all the evidence and stories of success or barrier to entries, I personally wouldn't choose that path and I have had a poverty driven life my early childhood so I am aware of how it is. It is better. Buying a bottle of sodium nitrite or jumping from a tall building doesn't cost much or require years of mental fatigue.

Although there are certainly more factors than school behind this. School just amplified it.

Some young people do evaluate all the risks and potential of backfiring it. They live in fear of it but no one cares about why.

It's fine to be emotional from a whitelist of decisions you can take but it's not fine to do that for school or college.

There is no safety net for these students in most places. Even if there is, I bet most parents are wholly unaware and know how to handle the situation.

There are no in-person learning places, resources whatsoever. All of them half baked. A lot of open source or coding/cs initiatives now a days require you to be a student at some college. People selectively filter out those all the time. Great! They have plenty good enough reasons to do this but that doesn't mean I have to see them in the good light because it does say that I am worth less because I wasn't willing to be a punching bag for longer.

Young people also tend to bully others about this more than the adults.

If someone asked me whether they should go to college or finish school, I would totally yes if they are fine.

But if that person had a terrible experience, driven to taking anti depressants, mood stabilizers and being on shit ton of anxiety pills out of that. I would tell them to quit after reconsidering the consequences. It's cruel people think otherwise. If all you could have is suffering and all people say it gets better, it's cruel bullshit because they aren't in the same situation. Anyone's reaction to their finger burning down isn't to wait for it to pass or follow the protocol on how to put out the fire or treat wounds unless they have been extensively taught. It's to panic and take the most emotionally rational decision they can take to protect themselves which sometimes might be different from what you should have done. Would you blame that person?

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#260

Post by non-entity »

glangdale wrote: post #86

It's clearly possible to do pretty well without a university degree, and I think there's a few slam-dunk cases where you shouldn't get a degree: 1) You don't actually want to do the work to finish a degree, 2) your only options are to get an extremely mediocre degree, or 3) you will have to go into savage debt to get a degree. Then there are the exceptional folks who could do well anywhere (who, presumably, would als…

Honestly 2 and 3 are the reason I probably wont go back outside of CS (and even then, a lot of what I've seen is mediocre at best) most of the online degrees I've seen are absolute garbage. And I make too much money to he able to afford full time in-person school, but not enough to self fund a bachelors degree at what it would cost me.
Post reply on HN