91–100 of 211 posts
In the academic world, you invariably run into people who not only have explicit control over your success, but are possibly unreasonable and malicious. The fact that someone has a degree proves that he had enough dedication to stick with it and conquer (or at least fare) the propagators of bullshit.
Anyone intelligent can sit in the library and learn to code; not everyone intelligent can code AND deal with adversity.
>For all the company knows, I (and countless others) could be the best developers they'd ever meet. And yet we're automatically excluded from even applying. The game is about probability, not possibility. The assumption is: P(qualified | degree) > P(qualified | no degree) That's probably reasonable, since schools do filter out at least some idiots. To find a candidate, one must interview roughly 1/P candidates. If in…
That assumption will only allow you to pick based on a relative standard not an absolute one. Also, a degree being an eligibility criteria makes no sense. If you want to hire well then you should be willing to meet any relevant candidate. So in effect, with a degree being a REQUIREMENT you are actually lowering the pool of people who will apply and hence reducing your probability not increasing it.
But the cost of searching my lower drastically.
And as another poster pointed out it is the total of (quality of candidate - search cost) that you want to maximize.
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they'll turn to books and self teaching long before school unless they're extremely young and still think of school as life. On the contrary, many people take classes and attend conferences, workshops and seminars at many different ages. You could learn cooking by self study, but cooking classes continue to be popular, despite being more expensive. The only thing school has to offer over self directed learning is ver…
I didn't say adults don't go to school, only that it's usually not the first option. You second point just echo's what I already said, smart people to learn from, that includes your teachers and peers.
My second point was not just that you can learn from your peers, but that there is a social environment at a school that is important, and not readily replicated in self-study. You don't learn much from your peers at a typical cooking class, but they still contribute to why many people choose to take classes rather than self-study.
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For those following along at home, the unpretentious word for "autodidact" is "self-taught"
Is autodidact such an unusual word in English? (I would find a perfectly acceptable - but I am not a native speaker though. That's why I am asking.)
In my experience hiring software engineers, possession of an undergrad CS degree was not a helpful filter for resumes. I did find that candidates with advanced degrees or undergrad EECS degrees tended to be a little bit stronger than the average candidate. So did candidates with unrelated undergrad degrees, and a few years of job experience. I never figured out how to look at a resume and meaningfully select for extr…
Almost all ground-breaking mathematics was done at a very young age.
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I "caught the bug" when I was 14 and messing around with mirc scripting with some IRC buddies. I scripted a bunch of stuff for controlling mp3's, and a few socket bots to protect from channel takeovers. Then I wanted a mp3 player more like itunes is today, and so I set about making one in VB. From there I progressed to games, in VB and Java, such as space invaders etc, dabbled a bit with 3d programming. Moved to the…
And what is the reason you did not want to study? Just trying to understand... Obviously, it is a money issue (earning 3 years vs paying 3 years). But if you enjoy the stuff, wouldn't it be natural to study it? For example, personally I am bored by now by web programming, and university really wasn't so much about practical programming. I liked the theory, complexity of algorithms and so on. in your self-taught curri…
During that 5 years, I've lived in 3 completely different locations within England, and lived in another country for a few years too. I've worked for big companies, small companies, startup companies and now myself.
It was a personal decision, that I took, and I don't regret it one bit. I'm not even in the market to get a job, I just had an old annoyance come back when I noticed a few startups requiring degree's for their jobs on here, I thought startups would be different to the usual useless HR departments in that they should be able to tell good developers to bad, without filtering on whether they have a degree or not..
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I didn't say adults don't go to school, only that it's usually not the first option. You second point just echo's what I already said, smart people to learn from, that includes your teachers and peers.
Well, you said that "normal people" would read a book "long before" going to school, which I think is not true in many domains. My second point was not just that you can learn from your peers, but that there is a social environment at a school that is important, and not readily replicated in self-study. You don't learn much from your peers at a typical cooking class, but they still contribute to why many people choos…
Yes, school is a social environment for learning, that has value, but it's hardly the only way to obtain that. Outside of school, there are local clubs and hobbie groups, forums and blogs such as this on the Internet, alternate paths such as the military, etc. There are all kinds of ways to be around people who enjoy the same things you do, or are trying to learn the same things you are without going to school.
By saying thats a benefit of school you're implying that it's not obtainable elsewhere. School just isn't that important if you really want to learn, it's more valuable for those that lack motivation and need someone to make them learn.
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Is autodidact such an unusual word in English? (I would find a perfectly acceptable - but I am not a native speaker though. That's why I am asking.)
Its the first time i've ever seen autodidact(ic). I assumed it meant self-taught based on context, probably like most of the others.
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Its the first time i've ever seen autodidact(ic). I assumed it meant self-taught based on context, probably like most of the others.
OK, probably I only know all the weird words you never actually use.