311–320 of 330 posts
I value the degree as something interesting I spent my time doing, but it taught me very little in the way of actual programming.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I agree trade schools are not considered enough for the value they can add, your comment strikes me as reinforcing the college degree path. 1. Beyond a few general requirements, most CS programs do let you focus on what you’re interested in, and to much greater depth and pragmatic application than trade school. “Focusing on things you don’t care about” is a very minor part of college technical programs unless y…
> Beyond a few general requirements, most CS programs do let you focus on what you’re interested in, and to much greater depth and pragmatic application than trade school. Not that few. Here's what mine has: - Writing x 2 - Discrete Mathematics (a few concepts in there are really needed - the rest is mostly not) - Public Speaking - Humanities x 4 - Calculus x 2 (I doubt even 10% of SW folks use this) - Linear Algebra…
Well, one needs calculus por statistics.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is exactly me. In 1984, when the Mac came out, I was a starving artist in Denver. I had a lot of college at that point, but no degree. I had foolishly wanted to learn everything interesting, so I had a year of art school and three years of coursework in biology, physics, and mathematics, but I was working in labs and retail by day, and by night as part of a songwriting partnership that ultimately went nowhere. I…
Any knowledge of whether Apple still cultivates and encourages personal curiosity and self-started learning in the same way these days? That sounds idyllic.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To add, as much as I love university... it was mostly a waste of time for me. Paradoxically, the humanities are now more interesting because I am older and seeking to understand what the fuck is reality. I'm of the opinion we need to split school in a way where young people focus first on how to be useful, then be useful for a period of time. From here, humanities are more relevant once one has enough wealth and time…
Focusing exclusively on how to be useful to corporations or governments will cost society too much. We have to also focus on how to be useful to effect change, exemplify upstanding moral and ethical behavior, question authorities, etc. How to be good friends, good parents, good civic participants. How to express sympathy, how to understand cultures and ways of life different from our own, and we need to start this le…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From blogs, conferences, meetups or on the job. Also, universities have traditionally been terrible at teaching those concepts. I haven't worked with CS graduates for a few years, but usually they were terrible at designing anything, totally misunderstood OOP, etc. Because lecturers were terrible at teaching it, often because lecturers had no experience actually programming professionally. Maybe it's changed now. For…
"For example lecturers loved talking about polymorphism, even though you almost never should use it." Well, that makes me feel better after having a terrible time making heads or tails of a codebase with many, many levels of inheritance. I think I am getting there but my head hurts trying to unravel it to do things.
Quick anecdote from my personal experience, learning to code as a hobbyist and then later getting a hybrid Software Engineering and Computer Science degree (it was mostly CS with some SE topics and projects): you can totally learn without a degree, but my code, reasoning about data structures, algorithms and performance and general software architecture definitely improved sharply by getting the degree. I think partl…
> These skills are often gained through completing an undergraduate degree. Disagree. An apprentice or even a bootcamp grad can learn these skills in their current job or in a online MOOC course without a degree. What the author fails to mention is the amount of student debt that comes with the CS degree. In some cases a CS degree isn't worth the debt if the curriculum doesn't align with the market or if the universi…