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How One High School Grad Studied Computer Science Debt-Free and Nabbed a $90k Job

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Re: How One High School Grad Studied Computer Science Debt-Free and Nabbed a $90k Job

#51

Post by duaneb »

Kalium wrote: post #35
duaneb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is crap. Yes, CS has important theory you won't learn about in "hacker school", but it's not like the (ridiculously expensive) education itself is necessary. Everything you need is on wikipedia and stackoverflow.

In theory, you don't need college to learn much of anything. In practice, few people are going to correctly teach themselves discrete mathematics within a reasonable timeframe.

I disagree. I'm not sure what the added value of college is aside from graded evaluation.

Re: How One High School Grad Studied Computer Science Debt-Free and Nabbed a $90k Job

#52

Post by atmosx »

I know more about computers than most guys I know with a CS degree. Then again I know physicists (Google has a huge number of them) that know more about computers than I will ever learn.

I don't think that a CS degree is all that important. It's the self-drive that makes the difference IMHO. Then of course, having a background helps a lot, but in todays world there is little that you can't learn by yourself given the right amount of (free) time and effort.

Re: How One High School Grad Studied Computer Science Debt-Free and Nabbed a $90k Job

#53

Post by toomuchtodo »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #50
woah wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, CS degrees have little to do with programming skill. I work with hacker school graduates that write cleaner more maintainable code faster than others with CS degrees and 20 years of experience. EDIT: Actually, the fact that you mention "large scale engineered systems" is interesting. Generally, I have found large, monolithic, tightly coupled systems to be very unmaintainable. "Building a small app" (or a bu…

I've met these hacker school/self taught types. One of them worked as a programmer for 20 years and didn't know what was recursion until about a year ago. He gets away with it because in programming there are many ways to solve a problem. Usually you only need to solve the problem rather then find the best way to do it. A CS graduate will know about a 50 ways to solve a problem and will have the ability to find the m…

> He gets away with it because in programming there are many ways to solve a problem. Usually you only need to solve the problem rather then find the best way to do it.

"Getting away with it" == using another solution.

> A CS graduate will know about a 50 ways to solve a problem and will have the ability to find the most optimal way to do it. He'd probably take twice as long as the hacker school graduate who'd solve the problem using the one canned method he was taught in hacker school.

Disagree. I rarely find someone with a degree to be substantially better than someone self-taught on the job. I've even seen developers with degrees do far worse.

Re: How One High School Grad Studied Computer Science Debt-Free and Nabbed a $90k Job

#54

Post by afutd »

USNetizen wrote: post #22

People confuse entry level programming with true computer science. I'm sorry, but there is no way a few months at some "hacker school" will replace a four year degree heavy in mathematics, theory and design. Schools like these are producing mediocre coders, at best. Which is fine if you just want to write a few small apps. But you REALLY need that CS experience and education to effectively work on large scale enginee…

> I served my country to get it.

Served the intersts of the military industrial complex maybe. Killing random people on the other side is not of any use to the rest of us.

Re: How One High School Grad Studied Computer Science Debt-Free and Nabbed a $90k Job

#55

Post by toomuchtodo »

nostrademons wrote: post #41
USNetizen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is your social proof. Try passing one of these hacker school grads off in an engineered environment at Google scale - they fall apart quickly. You proved my point, though. Programming is only one small aspect of computer science. Engineering, mathematics and theory is the biggest part which you can't get at a 6 week school.

I worked at Google, in Search. Some of my best co-workers studied Film Studies, Philosophy, never went to college, or toured with a punk rock band in their early 20s. A CS degree is one way to learn about algorithms and core CS concepts. It is not the only way.

> A CS degree is one way to learn about algorithms and core CS concepts. It is not the only way.

This is a dangerous idea to those who spent 4-6 years of their life in school before they started receiving real life experience.

Re: How One High School Grad Studied Computer Science Debt-Free and Nabbed a $90k Job

#56

Post by Kalium »

duaneb wrote: post #51
Kalium wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory, you don't need college to learn much of anything. In practice, few people are going to correctly teach themselves discrete mathematics within a reasonable timeframe.

I disagree. I'm not sure what the added value of college is aside from graded evaluation.

A graded evaluation is valuable, agreed. I submit that instructors, peers, and an instructional environment are also of value in aiding the learning process.

Re: How One High School Grad Studied Computer Science Debt-Free and Nabbed a $90k Job

#57

Post by cma »

jim_greco wrote: post #11
chriogenix wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say it depends on what the costs are. If he has to rack up a TON of student loan debt it may not make much sense. You can make friends and social connections outside of school if you create the environment to do that. Its a lot easier in school but to avoid the traps of student loan debt its probably better to continue making/creating software if thats the end goal.

You don't have to rack up student loan debt at MIT or any of the other elite colleges in America. If your family can't afford it then you'll get a ton of grants from their endowments (and work study to supplement). It's the next level down in colleges, especially at liberal arts schools, where students get stuck with the bills.

For obvious reasons, schools don't make a distinction between family can't afford it and family won't afford it.

Re: How One High School Grad Studied Computer Science Debt-Free and Nabbed a $90k Job

#58

Post by duaneb »

Kalium wrote: post #56
duaneb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I'm not sure what the added value of college is aside from graded evaluation.

A graded evaluation is valuable, agreed. I submit that instructors, peers, and an instructional environment are also of value in aiding the learning process.

And yet, people do not go to college for an education, they go for a degree. Which is useless for determining education.

Re: How One High School Grad Studied Computer Science Debt-Free and Nabbed a $90k Job

#59

Post by Kalium »

duaneb wrote: post #58
Kalium wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A graded evaluation is valuable, agreed. I submit that instructors, peers, and an instructional environment are also of value in aiding the learning process.

And yet, people do not go to college for an education, they go for a degree. Which is useless for determining education.

The degree is evidence of a graded evaluation, which is a proxy for education. Despite some propaganda to the contrary, it is not a zero-correlation proxy.

Also, I don't know about you, but I went to college for an education. Which I received.

Re: How One High School Grad Studied Computer Science Debt-Free and Nabbed a $90k Job

#60

Post by nostrademons »

USNetizen wrote: post #49
patio11 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I'd self-assess at top 20% of my CS class (WashU), and I can say without reservation that as of graduation day it would have been rank insanity to have me coding on a production system. There are occasional times when the book learning comes in handy, but CS degrees are, in my experience, neither necessary nor sufficient to develop ability to ship working software.

Yes, to ship working software you need nothing - high schoolers do it. But to MAINTAIN and ENGINEER an efficient, secure software system (especially for enterprise environments), you need CS fundamentals. These CAN be learned on the job over several years of work, but no 6 week school can teach you them overnight.

I might be misreading this, but I read patio11's comment as "Even if you have CS fundamentals, you are still woefully unqualified to be working on production software. The ability to MAINTAIN and ENGINEER an efficient, secure system HAS TO BE learned on the job over several years of work."

This squares with my experience as well. I have a CS degree from a good school, but switched into it in my last semester after self-teaching myself much of the content while avoiding my physics homework. My first job out of college had many coworkers who had graduated from MIT; none of us knew what we were doing, as far as creating robust maintainable systems, and we needed senior engineers who had actually built stuff (regardless of where they went to school) for that. I've since worked at Google, founded a couple startups, written about a dozen programs from scratch (some of which got used by millions of people)...and found that while I use my CS fundamentals occasionally, the bulk of the know-how on how to engineer a maintainable system comes from actually doing it, over and over again, and dealing with the consequences of my missteps.

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