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Do I need to go to university?

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Re: Do I need to go to university?

#41

Post by heresie-dabord »

mvind wrote: post #14

I think the freedom to pursue intellectual curiosity is a thing which universities offer almost unconditional unlike jobs. This is a perk that not a lot of jobs in the real world offers. Almost nowhere else in a person's life are you given such an opportunity to invest in ones interests. But I'm biased towards going to uni, since I live in Denmark where I get paid monthly for going to university.

> I live in Denmark where I get paid monthly for going to university

You are, of course, doubly fortunate.

> the freedom to pursue intellectual curiosity is a thing which universities offer almost unconditional unlike jobs

The hypothetical awakening of a person's intelligence is a battle against much more dominant social conditioning. And then students self-select for narrowness of perspective in a programme. As you note, the job market and consumerism are fatal stages of later conformity.

There is always the chance that some discussion or chance meeting will awaken a mind. But it seems far too accidental, assuming a society with libraries and recognised need for genuine public discourse.

In many economies, university isn't unconditional. It has become so expensive in some cases that graduates carry heavy debt for decades.

Does a person need to go to university? I would say that a person is better off reading at the library and seeking serious discussion rather than seeking credential-rewards in the edu-bubble. The shoddy mess should be rebuilt to make it a better deal. On-line learning is the only way I can see this happening.

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#42

Post by sersi »

The author mention the visa question and I think that bears repeating, if you plan to live abroad, having a degree (preferably a master) will make getting a visa in any country much easier.

I'd however recommend going to a country where education is close to free to get a degree, even if it involves losing a year learning the local language...

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#43

Post by tonyedgecombe »

dijit wrote: post #20
clarry wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In many cases, does University just function as a waiting room in which young people can mature? And the opposite is true. If I were 18 now, I'd probably go to university. Back in the day, I had my reasons not to go, and when the time came to reconsider it (mid 20s), it felt much harder to justify.

I keep thinking that I wish I had a university education. It wasn't on the cards for me at the time. But now I live in relative comfort, and I would have to stop working and generating an income. I have savings that could tide me over but when the choice is a home for a future family or a university degree with questionable worth it's a tough ask. I can't imagine having dependents and going back to work. Of course ev…

I sincerely believe that university is a thing that you can only do at a certain point in your life, and I'm passed that point.

As someone who didn't graduate until they were 49 I strongly disagree. The only thing I would change now is I would have put work aside and studied full time instead of part time.

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#44

Post by wingerlang »

moksly wrote: post #26

I think it depends a lot on where you are in the world. In my country where access to education is paid for by the government, and the state pays you $850 a month to study for 5 years once reach educations beyond “High School”, work places kind of expect you to have a degree. You can’t even really be a sales person at a supermarket if you haven’t spent a few years getting a degree, or are under the age of 18 (less pa…

Scandinavia I assume?

I’m from there and I never finished my degree. The reason was that I took some time off to travel, found a job during this time and I simply have not been back since. Almost a decade now.

Only recently have I looked into finishing it off through online courses but even then it is hard to motivate myself, not once have I been asked for it. I even ask recruiters and they also say I don’t need it to be hired (at least: Singapore, UK, Thailand, Sweden) and I’m talking about major companies. I can’t speak for countries other than where I am employed but here I am not underpaid due to lack of degree.

I did go through 3 years of university and I do agree that the experience itself is useful (even though it might seem otherwise at times).

(Edit: to be clear I’m working in software development)

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#45

Post by cosmodisk »

I had a discussion about this years ago and I remember a good question being thrown into it: 'what happens if you don't do it?',as opposed to 'what happens if you do it?'. For an average person, in a lot of countries, not having a degree equals to crappy jobs for the rest of their lives. Average person+ degree= slightly better prospects and maybe some easier office job.if a person is very intelligent, motivated,and is a bit streetwise,so to speak, they'd succeeded irrespectively. The main problem is that when you 18-20 years old, the perspective on the world is kind of limited,unless you grew up in a rich family doing all sorts of businesses ventures and they show you some aspects of it. Personally, growing up in small town,where pretty much nobody was doing some very interesting things,it was an eye opener when I moved to London and because of the work and the city itself, I did realise how much money there's in the world, that people are ready to pay stupid money for the most absurd things and so on. It opens your eyes in terms of what other people do and what's possible,gives you all sorts of ideas and etc.

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#46

Post by OkayPhysicist »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #18

I had in my teams people without any college degree or college dropouts, some gave up after one year and some close to graduation. They were good developers, the only difference I saw between college graduates and the other developers was that the college graduates were less flexible and tending to apply what they learned in college to the letter, even where it did not make sense. A few days ago I was talking to one…

I've had the opposite experience working with a mix of uni-attendees and not.

Compared to their university-attended coworkers, the straight-to-industry folk were far more likely to cargo cult design patterns, languages, and frameworks.

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#47

Post by clarry »

dijit wrote: post #20
clarry wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In many cases, does University just function as a waiting room in which young people can mature? And the opposite is true. If I were 18 now, I'd probably go to university. Back in the day, I had my reasons not to go, and when the time came to reconsider it (mid 20s), it felt much harder to justify.

I keep thinking that I wish I had a university education. It wasn't on the cards for me at the time. But now I live in relative comfort, and I would have to stop working and generating an income. I have savings that could tide me over but when the choice is a home for a future family or a university degree with questionable worth it's a tough ask. I can't imagine having dependents and going back to work. Of course ev…

Yeah I mostly share those feelings. Having a degree most certainly wouldn't hurt, but as you say, it's not worth quitting over. And I certainly don't have the energy to get a degree while employed full time (I know some people who have done it!).

I'd still like to study though. At a sustainable part-time pace. Say, 1-4 courses per year, with focus on things I actually want to learn, and not so much on things that would award me a paper.

(It'd help a lot if I could work, say, 4 days a week)

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#48

Post by michaelt »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #11
person_of_color wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. And meet people outside of the tech bubble. Do you really want to be engulfed by a male-dominated IBM/Google monoculture for 4 formative years?

>a male-dominated IBM/Google monoculture I don't see why "male-dominated" should be a problem. Statistically, I would even probably have more shared interests with them.

> I don't see why "male-dominated" should be a problem.

If you feel you need a few more skill-points in talking to women in order to find a girlfriend or wife. College is a much easier and more forgiving environment to learn that sort of thing.

Of course, that's not a concern for everyone. Some people know all they need to know already, or aren't looking for a hetero relationship!

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#49

Post by CalChris »

If your own answer to your own question isn't absolutely YES then take a gap year or years. Join the Navy. See the world. When you're done with that you'll be much much more ready than if you indifferently do what you suppose you're supposed to do.

But yes, you do need to go to university, a good one. And you need to graduate.

Re: Do I need to go to university?

#50

Post by VMisTheWay »

30 year old here, I'm considering a new degree in computer science to add to my chem Engineering degree. I have 12 years casual programming experience.

My work experience has been design Engineering, which is a low 6 figure job. I also live in an area with an old industry that's getting Engineers outsourced.

I'm considering a comp sci degree so I can get into embedded, or electrical engineering, AI, or pretty much any 180k/yr job. I'm okay with taking a pay cut for a few years.

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