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 need to provide for my family"). A lot of people are super confident in what they think their life path is until they actually encounter the steps it takes to get there. Generally we do a pretty poor job of educating young people on what different careers actually look like and what it takes to get there. There are a million lawyer and doctor shows but it's a lot harder at 17 to know that you'd actually love to study library science, or be an economist.
At 17 I thought I wanted to be a sport journalist or shoot rockets into space. Turns out I had zero interest in the path to ESPN and am terrible at chemistry. Sure looking back I can totally see that computers made all the sense in the world but I didn't recognize that then. If I had bypassed college and just started working to get to one of those paths I saw for myself who knows where I'd be. This is not to say that college is the only place where you get this freedom to explore, but colleges, especially good ones certainly encourage you to explore other options.
I think ideally your last year of high school would be nothing but career exploration, but failing that I recommend most teenagers go to college even if they think they know what they want to do.
Your comment is much more than this, but: just wanted to add that in a lot of places (like India) the norm is being forced to pick your major before entering college, which unfortunately negates a lot of the self-discovery that happens in freshman year.
But besides the area of study / major I loved the college experience of being forced to be away from the sheltered environment of home (although college is sheltered and restrictive in it's own ways). Being able to recognize thought patterns and impulses that I always grew up with felt like being able to see new colours that I never knew existed.
Also being able to make friends - I don't take this for granted.When you are in an environment where you have 10x to 100x the number of people you went to high school with, it is much easier to find someone/ somoe group that you can gel with regardless of how many ever quirks you have. After all these years, my best friends are still the ones I made in college - not the ones before nor the ones that came after.
At the very least I'm grateful to my college education for making me less of an overconfident asshole who thought he knew it all, while at the same time boosting my confidence in other ways.
I understand that in many countries like the US, the exorbitant cost of uni education might make what I said look like nice-to-haves and luxuries but I'm happy for a change to be born in a place where I could afford to have this experience (while recognizing that many will not be privileged enough to experience even this :( )
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?
I'm a senior in high school and decided to.
I started a startup and got invited for a YC interview(got rejected) and am onto another startup which is raising soon.
Despite how much success/failure/I learn I endure, college name matters... a lot. I snuck into Nuro's open house last year and found they exclusively invited Harvard/Stanford/MIT students (I can say this because I was a minor at the time of signing their NDAs)
College name matters, especially when you're starting out (which can impact where you evenetually end up... whether its working for a startup or working at a cool VC firm) In fact most of the time, the people who've said: "don't go to college" are the same people who go to Cornell, UPenn, and Stanford and probably don't realize how much of a network/presitgie gives them to get them where they are now.
>In fact most of the time, the people who've said: "don't go to college" are the same people who go to Cornell, UPenn, and Stanford and probably don't realize how much of a network/presitgie gives them to get them where they are now.
Can't emphasize this enough. College is still necessary for something like 95% of the planet's population. If you are not born into wealth or have well connected parents, a college degree is your only way to a better life. You may not learn anything in college but you need that fuckin' piece of paper just for the bureaucratic formalities. A very talented friend of mine was denied the US visa probably because of lack of a bachelor degree.
If you’re already decided you’re into startups the network and prestige of Y Combinator will help more than most any college. If you want the stamp of admission to the US ruling class sure, go to where the elite send their children to find someone to marry but otherwise you could do worse than committing to what you actually want instead of chasing a network.
I went to a non-notable state school and have no trouble getting hired. I would advise people who plan to go to non-notable state schools to just go straight to industry instead.
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 of these people doing some informal code review, he found a very formally correct explanation for a constructor that had no value in that context, something like "it is a good practice to do it because in case X it can be used for y", where x and y were completely not applicable in that code.
As a recruiter I never looked too serious for credentials, knowing myself going through the college only for that piece of paper at the end, working full time and knowing a lot more from the job than what the other students learned. From my former class in college I think I am the only one practicing IT, the others too other directions, including one that was a quite successful music band leader.
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.
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 classrooms. Most I learned outside of classrooms, either through interaction with my peers or by accident while researching something unrelated in the library. Sometimes by hacking on the school computers. In high school I learned that being smart is bad. In university I learned there are people who value thinking.
2. I learned how to organize my time to complete tasks I had no personal interest in, how to force myself to work despite my dislike of team mates or organizers, and to finish by deadlines. I only wish I had learned these things before my 6th and 7th years in university, but alas.
You don't need to go to university. We will always need garbage collectors and street sweepers, and remember, anyone can write bad software. Vendors continue to try to make it easier to do so.
> You don't need to go to university. We will always need garbage collectors and street sweepers, and remember, anyone can write bad software. Vendors continue to try to make it easier to do so.
This is why so many Americans view university as an elitist institution :) I agree about high school. High school is why I decided the education system was not for me (right or wrong, it was just a horrible experience).
I learned #1 while cold calling businesses to sell phone systems. You have to talk to people, make friends, and genuinely understand why companies operate the way they do. You can learn how large the world is without sitting in a classroom.
I learned #2... well in every job I've had.
What I feel I missed by not finishing university was the time to deeply understand a single subject. But then again, I was taking classes all over the spectrum. Maybe I was never meant for a deep understanding of a single subject.
OTOH, as far as recommending non-traditional paths, I wouldn't for my kids. I am extremely self driven. I never realized that most people are not this way.
Wow. This is shamefully elitist. No, you did not need to go to university to learn those two things. There are plenty of people that have learned them from other life experiences. Also, some of the worst code I've ever had the pleasure of reading was written by people with graduate degrees.
I myself didn't graduate, because the allure of starting a company was too strong. Here I am 20 years later advising people with degrees. If you are dedicated enough and creative enough (in the hacker kind of way) you can become skilled in just about anything you want.
However without a degree there are doors that are closed to you. For example the UC system will not even consider you for an MBA if you don't have an undergraduate degree. Don't even bother applying. Other private institutions will consider you but you need to be absolutely exceptional to get in.
I use that just as one example. People with a degree (especially a good degree) can stroll into an opportunity that I have to work 10X harder to to get. That said, once I'm in I tend to outperform my peers simply because I'm used to a world set on "hard mode" at all times.
Another thing I'm lacking are the deep friendships and connections that people who have a degree seem to have. That, to me, is the biggest loss from skipping a degree. Despite significant effort I don't seem to be able to make that part up.
There are many people in this community, and undoubtedly your own professional network, who did not go to university.
The tech industry generally rewards those who can self-teach (tech is constantly changing), self-organize, and put in the effort.
A lot of people say university helps build a professional network.
Well anything you put put 4-8 years of concentrated effort into will help build a professional network. And if you go the route of internships and jr. level roles, you'll be paid while you do it.
> 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.
I don't understand this sentiment. I didn't go to university to learn "how broad knowledge is". Haven't you had 11 years of school to learn this? Haven't you had 18 years of formative relations with your parents to learn this? Learning this at college sounds like a massive waste of (1) money (2) your time (3) time of professors.
The US spends ~3.5% of GDP on non-tertiary education and ~2.5% on tertiary education. If what you are saying is representative of the general population, it means there is a massive unjustified waste of resources.
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 have fun meeting new friends, getting wasted, and meeting sexual/romantic partners.
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 becoming rarer and fewer compared to fields and professions where there are valid or better alternatives.
This is not to say education isn't needed and awesome, or even that structured, guided, formal education isn't needed and awesome. But north American universities (and I'm an alumni of a good one) have lost their way and are far from the most efficient or effective method these days.
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.
Yeah it depends on a lot of things. Maybe university isn't where your interests are, but you kinda need a degree and a job? I see lots of students whose life revolves around making it through courses and collecting ECTS points instead of really pursuing their interests..
You are not paid to go the university in Denmark. You are awarded credits by the government, and it is up to you to do something sensible with those credits. Don't waste them on needless courses! Learn that which will yield you (and the Danish government) the greatest benefits throughout the rest of your life.
I went to mediocre uni here in the UK studying Web Development. The educational value was pretty much worthless. I learnt more in a year at my first job than three years of university. But being forced to move out and become independent was invaluable.
Some education isn't all that useful. I had a computer-something-related class in college where we were talking about how computers were getting faster.
Professor: If you think computers are fast now, it'll blow your mind that back in the 60s the NSA has computers running at 1000.
The anti-university sentiment on HN is absolutely alien to me. Not only did I get a lot out of my university education, but it was a totally transformative experience for me. It also enables me to do my job, and I’ve never seen anyone without a good education do it well.
Yes, I get that you can be a react developer without a university qualification.
This may come as news to some, but most fields bear no resemblance to writing JavaScript for a living.
I think there are a few additional aspects to this than just a simple anti-university sentiment.
This site is very US-centric, which adds a huge monetary component to this decision. That makes this an entirely different question compared to a country where higher education is free.
I also think that software development is a field that is quite friendly and attractive to people switching from a different career or field. So you have the related, but still distinct discussion about whether you should have a CS degree specifically to work as a software developer.
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 classroom. Maybe there are some out there, but I haven't met them.
But it goes further. What strikes me is not only an anti-university sentiment, but also a strong anti high school sentiment. I've been surprised by the number of comments from people who are obviously smart and diligent enough to be programmers, but for whom high school was a disaster. And it occurs to me that this does reveal that education is not serving everybody equally well.
So, even though I value my university education, I'm still interested in hearing how others have experienced it. However for students, my advice is that you have to find the thing that makes college worthwhile for you. If you go in with a cynical attitude, that it's just "signaling" or "networking," then you are likely to be blinding yourself to the other kinds of opportunities that it presents.
I often hear people say that a university education teaches nothing useful, that it's just learning to take tests, that the course material is irrelevant, that it's just for networking and signalling, etc.
I suspect they both a) selected the wrong major and b) went to the wrong university.
I've worked with a guy that didn't finish his studies (started working out of university/ during 1st year and completely neglected it until they expelled him). He was surprisingly good though as in he had a solid theoretical foundation, knew the inner workings of a compiler (this was relevant for the project we worked on) etc.
Also at my former company there was a principal computer scientist who was quite proud that he didn't have a university degree; I didn't work with him much but he was obviously fairly accomplished, career-wise. So that worked fine for him.
Most people are not like that, though; even though in theory you can study everything by yourself nowadays, I find that in practice people who didn't go to university often tend to have a fairly narrow & shallow field of expertise ("narrow" = don't have experience with many different things/ often focus on one language and a few sets of related technologies; "shallow" = they often don't understand too many layers of abstraction, and get completely lost if they need to go too deep). This is perfectly fine at the start of your career, but as years go by (like, 20years in, when you're still only mid-career) I can't imagine this working too well; unless maybe you switch to management?
I think the sentiment is very U.S. specific. The US seems to have higher education system with some peculiarities. They have the best universities but also some shady ones and it can be expensive.
Obviously if you just want quick vocational-type training, you don't need university level education. But then you should not be the one having problems with procrastination or self-discipline either. Most students in universities are there because they would not study or learn difficult or uninteresting subjects if left on their own. You also need to learn to communicate verbally and in writing with your peers. Knowing stuff but not being to able to communicate and work with others leads directly to low level jobs.
From my perspective, somebody who has not attended university but still learned everything they need to do a dev job well has demonstrated something really important：the ability/motivation to learn new academic things in their own free time. So many people seem to completely stop learning once they leave university. I work in HFT, where things are constantly changing and people need to be at the top of their game to stay competitive, so the ability and willingness to keep learning new things is vital for success, as the majority of what makes a quant-dev successful will be stuff they learned on their own/on the job, not stuff they learned in uni.
In this sense the biggest value of a degree in hiring is just the crude proxy it is for IQ and conscientiousness. That being said, I've never interviewed anyone without a degree, but then I've never seen a candidate without a degree either. I have hired people whose degree is completely unrelated to the role, because they demonstrated the ability and interest to learn something outside of what they studied at uni.
So perhaps part of the opposition to university is due to the (possibly incorrect) feeling that it encourages people to think of it as "this is the period I do my learning", whereas some alternative to university might better promote people to develop a habit of lifelong learning. I.e. maybe people have been jaded by the experience of interviewing/hiring people with degrees from good universities who just spend all their spare time consuming media.
Which is not to suggest attending university is a bad idea, given its value as a signal, just that it doesn't seem ideal for developing the habit of lifelong learning.
I have two bachelors' degrees, one in Mathematics, and one in Japanese. Those two programs were night-and-day in terms of rigor.
The mandatory "general education" classes were an absolute waste of time, and accounted for over a third of the cost of my college education.
It would have been more productive to spend that money on Pokemon cards.
The reality is, for a lot of people, university is massive waste of time and money. It largely was for me. We would be better off following the German model, with tracks outside University for professional workers and artisans.
Moreover, there are some excellent self-taught programmers out there, who work in the industry, and learn the mathematics and the physics and all the rest because they are passionate about the subject.
Yes, as a Canadian attending Canadian university the most important learnings happened outside of the program stream and in many cases outside of the classroom altogether.
We were required to take a breadth of courses first year that helped create a well rounded foundation to my studies in software which I value greatly.
I can tell many people in the field have never looked past the technicals to think about how computer science connects to the world at large and it's a shame because there is a lot to learn and much wisdom to be gained by taking a holistic view.
Some of my favorite courses were sociology, anthropology, chemistry, physics, biology (I did switch majors) not to mention classics and astronomy.. They gave me a very rich insight into the philosophy of thought outside of software and I've always applied my learnings to corporacy and professionalism.
Not all universities are like this and graduates while technically proficient graduate wholly unprepared for the realities of social programming because let's face it software is a social medium in the truest sense of the word and university work with its emphasis on solo work i.e. individual performance and occasional groups (which are invariably one person pulling all the others' weight or someone bossing everyone until they give in) as well as emphasizing marks as the primary metric serves very little utility in preparing people for the real world and even co-op programs serve only to reinforce the stereotypes rather than disrupt them.
> This may come as news to some, but most fields bear no resemblance to writing JavaScript for a living.
High school dropout here, no uni degree, I can write more than just JS thanks. I know C#, Java, Perl, Python, PHP, ruby, Typescript, Go. I know DDD, SOLID, TDD, and AOP. I have forgot more about Linux than most people will learn in a lifetime and I did all of it without attending one uni course. I come from a poverty background, grew up in a trailer park, got fucked up on all sorts of drugs and didn't do well in school. Some time in my early 20's I had a revelation that I was nobody and I was going to die poor and alone if I didn't get my act together. Sadly with my piss poor grades there was no way I was going to get a scholarship to pay my way through college, my family just made enough that I couldn't get finaid easily either. So I decided to wing it. I looked in the newspaper for high paying jobs, decided I wanted to be Systems Administrator, and looked up the skills required to be one. Did I get a sysadmin job? Hell no, I worked my way up from Help Desk to PC Tech, to Network Tech, to Systems Tech, to Systems Admin, to DevOps, and then to Sr. Software Developer, I'm now a Principal Engineer.
Here's the deal, I know bright people who made it through college and I know stupid people who made it through college, but I also know bright people who have worked their way up from the bottom, like myself. I've been working my way up since 2003. My personal opinion is that Uni is not only not for everyone, but that perhaps some industries, including software engineering, may work better on the guild system than in a class room.
I grew up on a farm. Went to a school in the countryside the first eight years. Went to high school on the Standing Rock Reservation.
I can with certainty say I did not have everything I needed to go off and have the best possible career. Not all of us were born into that type of situation.
I would not have become an economist without going to college and taking an economics class to fulfill a requirement. It was so right for me that I even got a PhD. Needless to say, that would not have happened if I had stuck around to take over my dad's excavating business or the family farm. [Edit: I was a licensed sewer and water installer before I graduated high school, so I was in a better place than a lot of high school grads.]
Agreed! University enabled me to leave the trailer park in the Midwest that I grew up in and now have a comfortable life. It is possible that this could have happened without university, however learning how to think/work through hard problems and the friends/networks I made have paid large dividends.
During undergrad, I was worried about the ~40k in loans I took out to pay for it. However, I was able to pay them off fairly soon after finishing up, and would never have been able to attend without the federal loans that did not require a co-signer.
The most important things I gained from university weren't vocational knowledge or my degree. I don't use most of what I learned at university at my job and never will, and beyond putting it on my resume, and after my first grad job no employer has actually looked at my degree, it's a requirement on plenty of jobs but I could absolutely get away with lying about having a degree with no real consequences. I could definitely do my job without having gone to university and I'm not a JS dev building misc CRUD apps (not to belittle people who do that for a living).
It's hard to put into words, but university was a unique experience for me that was instrumental in helping me grow to become the person I am today. Finishing high school and then going to a coding bootcamp for a few months before joining the workforce just wouldn't have provided that space for me to "discover myself", for lack of a better term.
That's not to say that everybody should go to university, although I definitely benefited from it and don't regret it at all, I was definitely railroaded into tertiary education by my parents and teachers. And that's not to say that university is the only place where I would've experienced the kind of personal growth that I did. I have plenty of friends who went into trades and completed apprenticeships (actually more than went to university), and most of them don't regret doing that either.
It all depends on your goals. Is it to earn a decent living? I know millionaires who never went to university. They started a practical, blue collar business, and enjoyed that path. Is it to experience a broader culture? You could do the 100 Rabbits approach for a lot less money, and get something more interesting out of it. Is it to learn from one of the best minds in a particular field? University is probably the best fit.
I inherently believe that this is a U.S.-centric thing as a few commenters mentioned. Specifically a degree in the U.S. is held as a way to advance your career prospects first and it's value is often marketed as a trade off of get X dollars in debt but make Y dollars more in your career on average. So a lot of that attitude becomes I am taking this class to check boxes to get a piece of paper which says I'm worth more in the job market. I am a graduate student but understand the jadedness, especially because I had to retake virtually the same class multiple times because it wasn't "as rigorous" for this specific major as I changed majors a few times (and had to get one of those approved for a different major). But because a lot of people see it as a way for getting a better monetary outcome college in the U.S. is often treated more like a vocational school I feel so the extra "B.S." one has to go through feels like a particular waste of resources.
I enjoyed college but, I very quickly understood that its only purpose wasn't to enhance my education as I sat through multiple classes that were nearly identical to previous all because I had to check a box. And generally I felt classes moved to slow and would have been much happier studying on my own, but courses often forced my attendance. Though I am a bit unique in my ability on that admittedly.
I did a CS degree in the 1980s which I'm still very happy that I did (the fact that it didn't cost me a penny probably helps) - but I do think that CS is irrelevant to 95% of development jobs.
I am 18 year old, I'm already working as a developer, and they have offered me a very nice full time job offer. I have been thinking about whether or not to go to university for most of the past year.
In the end, I did choose to go to university. I will be working part-time to pay about 90% of it (including housing) which means I'll have practically no debt. The main reason for me to go, was that I don't want to de a developer for the rest of my life. I think that having a degree will make a eventual career switch a lot easier.
You made the right choice. I just graduated, and can feel the effects already with my offers. More importantly, I made many valuable friendships, connections, and learned a ton of theory while publishing papers - all much harder to gain in the real world. Have a great time, and good luck!
I had a conversation with my dad about the purpose of university when I wasn't really learning anything I couldn't learn myself, and I was saddled with courses I have long since forgotten. He told me that yes, times have changed and you can learn a lot more online now than you ever could in school. But he also said that a university degree proves you can commit to something for an extended period of time, and endure its highs and lows. He told me it builds character and helps teach you how to socialize with people.
Nowadays in a hiring position, I don't care too much about the degree, but I do look more for commitment to something. The interview is an indicator of socialization as well and the deciding factor of wanting to work with someone.
Stanford double dropout (undergrad + grad) reporting in - one piece of anecdata:
Middle class Taiwanese family of white collar parents.
Went to undergrad, dabbled in a few side projects and dropped out to work at a game company, a startup as an employee, and my own startup, in that order.
Learnings: found out I knew very little, and the branding/network/advice I could get from school would save me from reinventing the wheel over and over as a unvetted/newbie entrepreneur. This is hugely important and people don't assign enough value to it. For things where you need someone to hire you: you need to convince them somehow, and getting that piece of paper helps cover their butt and makes their life easier. I went back to school to have a bit of optionality.
Graduated and was planning on doing grad school. Spent first quarter basically playing D&D and League and barely scraped by academically, spent a few weekends hanging out with fellow Burners at a theme camp and collaborated on a few projects. I dropped out (for good this time) and pursued them -- all of them failed in the next 2 years, but what was useful was that I learned who were the good cofounder/advisors and how this kinda opaque process worked. Hit both a good startup as an advisor/early employee, then cofounded a cashflow business that I then bought out and proceeded to run for a decade.
Learnings: Knowledge and network are filled with plenty of opportunity costs -- and there's ways to make it both as a generalist and a specialist... ideally you can optimize for the intersect of what you want and what the world wants, and that ends up being the hard part. My own path was largely unplanned and opportunistic -- by hanging around an area of opportunity long enough and being ready I was able to access enough things to mildly succeed (didn't hit the stock jackpot, but I have a reasonable business).
Back to the question: the article answers it in the first few paragraphs - it depends on the person but is usually the "harder way". I only took the path because I had the priviledge/luxury to chase what I wanted, despite the vague expected value.
I have a degree in Theoretical Physics. During my second year I started to realise that I don't want to stay in academia, and at the same time I started to do a lot programming. I finished my Bachelors and got a job as a backend dev.
The way I see it, altough I learned a lot in uni, it's basically a "VIP" token to get yourself a job. And that's sad. Lots of companies will hire physics and math grads _just because_. They think they have "problem solving skills" - let me tell you - there are a tonne of STEM grads that do not have these skills (putting it politely) but get hired anyway.
Some universities teach formula plugging, and some teach fundamentals. I've worked with the graduates of both, and the former can't solve any problem that doesn't have a book answer, and they'll misapply that.
Telling people they don't "need" to go to university is an act of personal sabotage. The person giving you that advice is either an idiot, or wants to keep you in your place for other reasons.
This is an urgent view.
The post-hoc justifications of people who either didn't go, or people who did go but want to believe their other accomplishments are more defining - are not valuable to someone who has the means and opportunity to make the investment. The more arbitrary and meaningless having a degree seems, the more important it is to actually get one, because without one, you are subject to the even more arbitrary and meaningless barriers that it will otherwise unlock. You don't know them because you don't get to them until 10y+ after you graduate. A "degree," is in effect the degree of trajectory for the compounding rate of the value of your experience to others, where you don't see the effects until much later.
Look at the rate of occurrence of non-degreed people above a certain level of financial success, property ownership, executive management, assets, and opportunity, and then compare them to the very long tail of the hundreds-of-millions other non-degreed people you are in a labour market with. The distribution of that curve looks a lot like lottery winners. Given outcomes are exponentially distributed, should you make an investment, or just play the lottery? Get a degree, or always work for people who have one when you don't.
People who think education is mainly about skills and training don't understand what education is. Suffice it to say that a degree is a strategic investment. If you don't know what that means, I recommend investing in your education.
I don't disagree that degrees and college education are important, but I don't think pointing to wealthy people is good evidence. Many of the wealthiest billionaires dropped out of school, didn't even go, or didn't consider it important. There are also many wealthy via inheritance. So, looking at the wealthy is not the demographic cohort that reveals the value of higher education.
The reasons to attend college are more than moneymaking. Social networking, maturation, shared experience, opportunities to expand your knowledge beyond online tutorials, college offers many interesting experiences that going straight to work will not.
> You don't know them because you don't get to them until 10y+ after you graduate.
I think it's actually much quicker. A degree matters most for your first few jobs after you graduate, and your first few jobs matter a lot for your career.
Can't speak for other professions but as a dev I've got no regrets in getting a CS degree. There's nothing you'll learn there that you couldn't maybe teach yourself but that's exactly the point. Unless you're a gifted autodidact you'll face considerable difficulty and will likely end up skipping through the important stuff coming away with a very flawed understanding indeed.
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 also be the high-flyers if they went to a university).
For everyone else, getting a decent degree should almost be a no-brainer. It will be useful. HR will like it, pretty much forever. The "lost years" of work experience will rapidly converge to insignificance (a point that seems lost on the folks who think that it's only university degrees become less significant as you get older).
You can do a range of subjects - some of them, shock horror, not narrowly vocational (a lot of the discussion here seems to imply that the sum total of what we should learn after high school somehow begins and ends with "programming and computer science"). Further, you can do these subjects at a much higher level and with greater intensity than the whole "hey, I read a couple books on Philosophy or did the first level of Duolingo in Spanish" or some such.
It should be a pleasant time where you get to try some new activities, meet a lot of people - maybe including a life partner, but maybe just good friends and some "early-adult romantic" relationships (which IMO are likely to greatly increase your chance of learning what you really want and how to get along in the real grown-up world).
The whole tertiary sector is pretty messed up right now (even pre COVID), so buyer beware. Don't do a crappy degree.
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.
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 pay). Crafty professions takes you through a mix of bookish education and apprenticeship for 4 years, but they too lead to a degree.
Programming is one of the few fields, that isn’t packing boxes of frozen fish, where a career without a degree is possible here, and even on that field time is running out for people without degrees because so many young people have been getting them for the past decade.
But that is my country, here you’d be absolutely crazy (or perhaps challenged in some way) to not finish an education.
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)
I did a 2 year technical diploma program and went to work as an electronics technician. I was good, got promoted fast, started fixing a lot of mistakes the degreed engineers were making. I got pretty far without a degree but eventually hit a ceiling because credentialism was strong at the company. So I went back to college, a good private college, paid for by my employer. It was hard, because I was working longer and longer hours since I was good and they counted on me, while taking classes part time. The classes I took taught very little and did nothing for me except that finally getting my degree I could break through the credentials ceiling.
So...if you are going to work for a company that values credentials then you need the degree and I think it is better to go straight from high school to college instead of doing it the hard way like I did.
You were also lucky to have an understanding employer who was happy to invest on your growth. A lot of people can't get approval to do a one-week, job-relevant, practical training course, let alone sponsor years of higher education.
There's also a weird flip side to all these downsides. Once you establish yourself as competent there is this kind of threshold effect where not having a university degree can suddenly start causing people to actually take you more seriously. This kind of countersignalling effect seems to be common when you do non-traditional things.
I'm not sure this is a real thing unless you're, say, Richard Branson. I also can't really imagine many circumstances in which you're doing something non-traditional and you can't just pretend you don't have a degree by neglecting to mention it... and if you've already reached a level of "significance" in a non-traditional thing where someone might actually check, well, you've probably already done better than most.
Man, props for this post and the subsequent discussions. It's eye-opening to read through everything. As a current university student, the COVID situation is awful. We're paying full tuition ($15k/year) for recorded Zoom lectures. I'm seriously considering taking a gap year. I wanted to complete research during my 4th year, but it's hard to get close to professors over sporadic interactions.
For context, the author Chris Olah is a researcher at Open AI, who I think is one of the most clear and thoughtful writers in the space. He has a lot of articles on understanding ML models, and pioneers new methods of visualizations and interactivity to improve understandability of these models. If you're interested in the field I would highly recommend reading some of his articles on his blog or on distill.pub, a publication that he helped found with the express purpose of improving clarity of ML research.
Not to mention he got the Thiel Fellowship. That right there would make a good majority of undergrads drop out (I would at least). Thiel Fellowship is basically security in the valley because of the network it gives.
You should have some experiences that move you out (even if temporarily) from the bubble you live in. University is a easy choice for that. If you have more experiences you will also have more ways to think about the world and more ways to deal with life and it's problems. My university experience in terms of learning could have been a lot better, but the experience as a whole and all the people I would not have met otherwise are still very valuable more than a decade after it ended.
I'm taking the degree apprenticeship route (19 yo). From a purely educational point of view, there wasn't much University could teach me that I wasn't prepared to learn on my own, so making money and shipping real stuff is far more valuable for me. Of course, this highly depends on the individual.
There is also downsides, like the fact it is a job at the end of the day, and that comes with politics as well as technical challenges.
I'd again make the decision (over University) in a heartbeat.
If you have the option to go and you want to advance on your career, then there’s almost zero reasons to not go.
Yes, there are some exceptions but in most places and for most people a degree is what matters, not how many commits you do have in your side projects in github.
> If you have the option to go and you want to advance on your career, then there’s almost zero reasons to not go.
The entire point of the article was that if you have something better to do than university and good reason to believe you can actually do it you might at least consider it. Also, three to four years of foregone earnings are a powerful reason not to go to university if you’re already capable of earning a living in your chosen field. That is very far from zero reasons, especially when you consider the professional development you can fit into those years if that’s something you value.
> Yes, there are some exceptions but in most places and for most people a degree is what matters, not how many commits you do have in your side projects in github.
When you’re 40 no one but bureaucrats is going to give a crap what university you went to, compared to your actual accomplishments. If all you’ve got is side projects on GitHub no one will care whether you went to Oxford or University of Southern Florida or dropped out of high school. Actual accomplishments
I did a coding bootcamp in Austin TX at the age of 18, instead of going to college, and got a job right after at a startup making $40k USD/year, which became $50k USD/year in a few months after getting a raise, and then after working there for a year I switched jobs to a top tech company many of you know, and by 21 I was making $75k USD/year
I got a lot of socializing at both companies, got to hang out with guys my own age and guys older than me, got to have some fun (maybe not as much as my peers in university), got to grow up, etc.
I think university back in the day used to mean a lot more, and I would have enjoyed it, but now it's so watered down cause everyone goes, and political / cultural movements have made the university programs require much more effort and much less thought
Just my 2 cents
Edit: also, to add to this, at the same time I also learned a lot of stuff completely outside of the domain of software through books on my own. philosophy books, history books, sociology books, etc. etc. I really liked that I was able to carefully select the authors and books and topics to the ones that grabbed my eye.
edit 2: oh ya! i also got a lot of fun socializing at the bootcamp too.
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 that that before I started. Almost none of what I learned at university I've ended up using in my career. But it was good to scratch that intellectual itch, I enjoyed learning what I learned, which is why I chose software development as a career, even if it isn't knowledge I use in everyday life. It was also an opportunity for me to move to a new city and become an independent adult and grow as a person, while meeting and socialising with people I would've never met had I stayed in my home town or even moved to a different city to attend a coding bootcamp.
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-chug algebra.
There are four areas in which to benefit from going to university:
The academic side: the opportunity to study in depth a subject you love or that will be useful to you, from (hopefully) great academics of the field.
The social side: meet people who might become your friends for life, or your future spouse. Have a rich and intense social life before career and family take over.
The networking side: meet people, whether students or academics, who will be useful to you in your future career.
The extra-curricular side: student journalism, debating, politics, music, drama, sports etc. Follow your hobby like never before. It might even become your career instead of your major.
Obviously the four are not disconnected. But you can probably only go all in on one or two.
But then the cost. You need to decide whether it is worth it for what you will get out of it (that being some combination of the four areas above).
I have no regrets of not going to university. I've never been asked about my education and during the time I was an employee I've always been paid the same as people with a degree and similiar work experience. So in my personal experience a degree would have been a complete waste of time.
I personally don't really give too much weight to education credentials when I'm screening resumes. However, I'd recommend that everyone looking to be a developer go to university:
A) it's a great time to get a broad education, learn from experts in many fields
B) it will most likely affect your compensation throughout your life. Yes, you can find jobs without it. But if you limit yourself to jobs that don't care about a college degree, you will find your options limited. I may not care, but I know that the CEO of my company does, and that will likely affect your bonus and/or salary.
Yes, there are some people whose technical skills are so good that it's obvious to the world. But most people don't fall in that bucket. Whether it's true or not, a college degree will make people _think_ you are better.
What’s missing from the conversation is the nature of the university. It makes this piece uniquely applicable to, say, the top 100 universities in the world. Let me throw in an African perspective, a hand grenade depending on who you ask.
I’d argue that in the current economy where global mobility should be an intentional goal of any education, they (most African universities) pay negative dividends in both power in their name and quality of education. I’d rather spend my tuition on online courses offered by MIT and Stanford. So, should I go to the university? In order to be able to answer, we should ask, which university. The answer is a definite yes for the top 100, maybe until the 1000th, and a no after that: there are non-university institutions that can give you the higher quality signal you need.
As someone who has interviewed applicants in Africa, I would double down on this. There are certain universities that may signal quality (e.g. University of Cape Town), but a lot of universities seem to have graduates that do well in spite of them.
I have lost track of the number of candidates I interviewed (and voted to hire!) who couldn't answer questions about their completed coursework, but could give in depth rundowns of the inner workings of something like embedded system software because of their extra curricular work.
After a while, I could notice trends from universities that were actually teaching their students incorrect information, providing the negative dividends you were talking about.
It's sad and frustrating. In an African context I think you're spot on that self taught candidates have often used their time more effectively.
I just graduated (this summer). Previously I wasn't sold on university and did a year long internship with IBM in the UK. They offered me a full time 'degree-apprenticeship' in cyber security or consulting, but I instead left and studied literature at a UK University instead.
I often think the biggest difference between a graduate and non graduate is three years. As an 18 year old there is no way I would have been able to withstand the culture for another three years at IBM without it significantly affecting me (positively or negatively), but at 21 I feel much more mature and ready for a career. In many cases, does University just function as a waiting room in which young people can mature?
> 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.
Dropping out of college was the hardest and best decision I ever made. It literally never came up that I didn’t have a degree and i started my career without debt. But have a plan and don’t drop out until you are making money from something else.
I'm in my mid 20s, dropped out of college 3-4 years ago and have managed to get an average paying development job. I would go back to college and get my degree but there are two things that hold me back.
1) Dealing with college admissions is literally one of the most frustrating things I have ever done. The IRS has given me less run around than most college admissions I talk to.
2) Money. It all comes down to money. I'm having a very hard time justifying the cost at the end of the day.
With that being said, if someone comes up to me and ask me if they should go to college my answer is absolutely.
I'm in the UK. 24 years old. Programmer. Did A-levels but not Uni.
It's never been very hard to find jobs, and my pay is above average for the UK (it's £60k).
Programming is pretty easy to teach yourself and it's a super employable field right now. Programmers are in so high a demand no one seems to mind if you don't have any qualifications.
Would things have been better if I'd gone to university instead? Who knows? But it's super possible to be a programmer without going.
I think apart of what has been already said, it depends on the kind of person you are.
I see people with and without a degree in CS that thrive and some that do the opposite.
Personally, I have been working as a software developer for the last five years. And during that time I have had a couple of phases were I suffered from some kind of imposter syndrome. I have a master degree in International Business and hence lacked some fundamental CS skills (e.g. Algos, Compilers, Operating Systems).
So during the last few years I worked my ass off to learn all this stuff, because every time I read something about software engineering and it mentioned any of these things I felt less value because I knew I don't have a CS degree. I also felt intimidated by some of these topics. So, I sat down and learnt all the stuff I thought I needed to know in order to feel better.
Now, after going through this period of studying in order to get rid of this stupid imposter syndrome, I feel kind of burnt out. It's funny, because I finally have the self-confidence I was looking for during the last five years, yet I kind of lost the creativity and motivation that I need in order to enjoy what I'm doing.
So, I can only recommend to find out what kind of person you are. But tbh, even though I got a degree that is unrelated to CS, I'm glad I went to university. I would had been a very different person without that experience. And in the end of the day, you will have to work for a veeeery long time (well, at least that is the reality for the most of us). So, what are 3-5 years spent doing something that gives you the opportunity to experience stuff you won't be able to find at work (well, except for the sunk cost, but I reject to think about education in this way)?
Depends on the profession. Generally if the goal is to be a qualified medical / legal professional, it is required to get a university degree from either medical school / law school respectively. Researcher? Maybe, Maybe not. But I won't be surprised if many research positions will ask for a degree.
Software Developer? Not really. FAANMG SWE Job? I won't risk it if I'm not famous with 10K other people applying.
Lots of great resources here, but as mentioned in the essay signaling based on external validation is still crucial. (OP seems to have won a Thiel Fellowship, I’d assume that has a stronger signaling value than your typical college degree.) As much as I hate it, the world runs on limited resources and people and organizations have no choice but to rely on some sort of signaling scheme as a filtering mechanism.
I agree, but the signal can be pretty small. I contributed to Firefox and it was good enough to be hired by web browser company without a degree. After that, work experience was good enough for pretty much anything.
Disagree with the overall "do I have anything more compelling to do" notion.
You can have a perfectly good and valid life as a human on earth without having set foot in a university. When you decide to attend a university, you always do so at the expense or other perfectly valid things.
I think everyone should go if they can, and simultaneously I think three- and four- year degrees are too long for most people. We need to establish a program to get degrees in shorter installments, say 1.5 years each.
In other words, tech companies should seriously start considering hiring people with Associate's Degrees (or equivalent) where applicable, to turn this degree into a real viable option. I can take anyone with a brain from zero to working coder in 1.5 years of full-time study, including the maths.
I can't speak for other fields, but for tech I'm pretty confident this will be great.
Anyone should be able to sacrifice a year and a half and a reasonable tuition to be able to get the college experience. I think we can make it much more accessible.
As someone who is 27 yo and dropped out of school when already having a job offshore(oil) lined up, I certainly can agree with a lot of this.
I had been doing software development for 4 years and I figured I'd rather work with that than automation and electronics. I had a side project(game) that was earning some money.
Note that this was in Norway so I could have (and still can) go to university for free.
My girlfriend ended up getting a masters degree in software development and is currently working in a consultant firm. She's currently tanking another masters degree in entrepreneurship, mostly for fun.
I've always doubted my skills, but after helping her out every now and then I've realized that 10+ years of experience really can't be matched by going to school.
On the other hand I've also learned that university is a great way to kick off your learning. Some things they're learning are things I often ended up with too, on my own, with trial and error. At least I really understand why some things are what they are because of it.
I started very young and was quite successful with my first project. People has spent thousands of years(combined) actively using my first project.
But even though I have done well, I still feel like I'm taken less serious than those with a full education, cause I've just created a strange game.
I'm considering going to university now just to get cheaper insurance and the degree, but I don't expect I'd learn a lot of new things. But I do enjoy fiddling with stuff, so it might be fun.
Do I regret it? Not really. Am I worried? Slightly, if it all falls down then I need to get a normal job or come up with something else.
Would I recommend it? If you're really driven and are already seeing signs of success, sure, give it a shot.
I always read these threads and have very mixed thoughts on this argument of being for or against Universities. I believe the pros of spending four years at a college outweigh a lot of the bad (loans, bad professors, etc) but only if you know what you want to do when you're done.
A lot of people go to Universities hoping to find themselves and never do.
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...
I tell all my younger friends to go to varsity and to take as many theory heavy courses as possible.
Obviously, YMMV, but I find absorbing any theory-heavy knowledge alongside my day job extremely hard, whereas I can very easily more practical skills as a I work.
> Instead of asking “Is university good?”, ask “Do I have something more compelling to do?”
Unfortunately, the problem is harder. How to weight the possibility to reach the state of the art, and participate in moving that state of the art, against rather tangible possibilities or short- or middle-term gains in practical projects? The first option may lead to better long-term wins overall.
It's a hard choice for teenagers, who aren't always able to even formulate the problem.
I'd err on the side of getting education in all cases, while avoiding making somebody particularly rich in the process, as that's an indication of flaws in what I'm getting.
The company I work for is currently hiring. As the hiring manager I have repeatedly said I don't give a damn about college education (myself not having come from a CS background in college) and repeatedly the CTO has shot me down and told me that we need to hire someone with an undergrad CS background.
So here is my pithy statement: There are two paths - you can either have a CS degree. Or you can know someone and get the job that way (which is, how I - and others on the team who don't have CS degrees - got the job). Sometimes even if someone on the inside is rooting for you.
For me, a lot of the value in university was the experience of living independent, being thrown into a relatively unknown place with new responsibilities, and figuring out how to cope with it all. I would say that was far more valuable than the coursework itself. I went to undergrad at the typical age (18) and had the opportunity to solely focus on that. I think a lot of this question depends on your age and what you want to do. Adults going back to college won’t get this experience, and if you can self-study enough to prove you have what it takes, there are definitely diminishing returns in going to university.
I was born in post-communist country to the familly of blue collar workers, where nobody around me didn't even finished high school (fun fact, those more distant family members who actually had university degree or even hold profesorship position spent many years mining for uranus in political prison and then decades sweeping streets).
Anyway, I already had fulltime position working as software developer since the age of 17 (it was a bit of necessity, but I also like it very much) and after finishing my highschool diploma I decided to not apply and continue working.
I went to study CS at the age of 23, while still working fulltime. Being a bit older and more experienced, but also time constrained changed my perspective a bit. I was in there just to get knowledge that I decided are relevant for me, there was close to zero time to be spent on social time or taking some filler classes that might be interesting.
I spent three years in university, taking all the classes that sound interesting to me in areas of math, compilers, machine learning and computational logic. At that point I depleted the pool for both bachelor and masters classes and for the rest of the time I would have to go through fillers and decided to quit without graduating.
I am glad about both of my choices: both having break between high school and university and quiting early. I feel like spending time in university is very valuable for both professional and personal growth and everybody should probably took it if they can afford it, but I don't think that this is your only valid choice.
It should be ok to spend few years wandering around to find what you want to do with your life instead of spending rest of your life paying for debt you acquired just because you can't see any other viable path.
Unfortunately we are in the only profession where you have to see this question every other day, you'll never even think about this if you plan to become a Doctor an architect or civil engineer, but welcome to tech
For the CV - yes. For the job - depends on the uni; many are 80% java which is pointless if you already have tech skills. Having might also save you from dwelling on "what if i had?".
In France yes. We are still very much into Ivy League (Grandes Écoles) schools, they really look good on a CV in a large company.
Sure, some startup may not care but it depends where you want to work. Look at the CVs of large French companies boards and you will see a lot of the same schools.
In Germany having a higher education title is great or important. Your PhD counts.
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.
Can’t upvote this enough. I wish I had taken a gap year back then, and I will insist that my kids do it. More than a decade of schooling inevitably takes a toll, and optimizing for highschool success can mislead one’s choice for university.
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.
From reading the title, I though this had something to do with golang being used in university classes. Is there a point to the custom of capitalizing most words in headings in English? It doesn't seem to improve legibility and you can normally tell it is a heading from the size and weight of the font.
I’m guessing that Title Case in English is a logical extension of the European norm of capitalizing proper nouns; a title is the proper noun used to identify a written work.
I would abandon the whole "cram for N years and get a degree, then never again" scheme.
Imo education should be a lifelong thing: available at any time, part time or full time, on-demand; for example, new requirements come up at a job and you need new skills? grab a course. want to enter a new subfield? grab a few relevant courses. got interested in something new all of a sudden? grab a course and see if the interest doesn't wane. laid off? consider taking the chance to study full time for a few months and pick up some new skills or plug holes in prior knowledge.
It should be based more on voluntary interest ("I want to learn this thing!") or actual concrete need ("business is looking for someone with skill X and person Y looks like a good fit but they need to study a bit") and less on the idea that you sit through courses and exams and demos in exchange for points that eventually buy you a piece of paper..
University (or, rather, education in general) should be with us through the entire life.
There are open universities that sort of go in this direction, but the last time I looked at them, it felt like they're still rather structured around getting a degree and all the bs that goes with it.
I would cut half of it. The best things I learned in college (CS) were economics, finance and statistics, it helped me a lot when I got a job as IT analyst in a sales team in a big company, being able to understand the work, purpose and environment and become a valuable contributor , not that geek that was speaking a different language nobody understood.
What I would add to college curriculum today is a good project management course, up to PMP level; also for CS, an equivalent of ITIL foundation.
For CS the biggest gap I see in fresh graduates are testing and performance and a more solid foundation on RDBMS: even in the era of NO-SQL and HADOOP the starting point is still understanding RDBMS.
In case you are thinking twice about getting a degree due to education costs, please take note that many European public universities offer free education even for foreigners.
The most interesting work being done today is occurring at the interface between the academy and the public. It is not the same as it was 50 years ago to learn within universities for they are merely corporate machines fueling capitalism. Any critique of that order is unwelcome ( I know I have a graduate degree with a thesis attacking 'western thought' and the centralizing of the human. But you don't have to listen to me. Just read/watch Achille Mbembe.
University seems to just be about self-edification, but it is sometimes not about that at all, and always about a whole lot more. It is clear there are too many people going to University. It has become a status symbol, driven partly by the baby boomers who just seem to like the idea of their kids going to University, and who are wealthy enough that their kids (of which I am one) are happy to swan about getting educated for 3 - 8 years. My father's experience was very different. He was actively criticised in his family for wanting to go to University, and had to get up at 4am to haul fruit crates to pay his way. His brother who went and got a job straight out of school was considered the smart one. Nevermind that the brother later went to University and became a lecturer, which comes to my next point.
When I was in University, I didn't really appreciate that it is mainly about cachet. Yes there are great experiences, you meet great people, you can be inspired, it opens your mind, you can do great work, but the thing that gets people in the door, and the thing that Universities are primarily selling, is cachet. It's interesting seeing how Covid19 interacts with this. Lots of people must be worried that their university cachet will be tainted by pandemic restrictions if they are the in the 'class of 2020'. This could be one reason for the massive number of students deferring.
So if the cachet matters to you (and your future employers), yes you should defintiely go to University, there is no substitute. There are also some jobs you can't do, or even really comprehend, unless you go to University (medicine, dentistry, civil/mechanical/electrical/aerospace/chemical/environmental engineering). In one sense these degrees are worth paying for up to a point, because it actually takes a lot of effort, facilities and equipment to offer them.
2&3: I knew a guy, his father had sheep, plenty of them. He never bothered with Uni. He has been studying/training on seminars regarding agriculture, animal care, etc. He is set for life. He will never sit on a university theatre and keep notes. He does use technology (I remember how he was shocked when he discovered YouTube videos that exploded his mind and knowledge).
He picks up the phone and speaks to vets, he talks to agriculture specialists, he watches seminars, he gets better. He stays on top/ahead of things. He never spent 1 (pick your own currency) on University, housing, (Uni) books.
He stays in touch with his peers both in his country and abroad (he was taught English early on and how he sees the value of that investment).
I see him though being a guest lecturer in a Uni, to speak as a professional on this/his industry, speak on his part of the supply chain, what he would expect of "Education" to provide for him (his industry) in the future, what he would like to see people do for the promotion and progress of his industry. But pay for classes? Never.
At least to see what's on offer. It's ok to drop out if you have proof that you are actually smarter than most of your classmates and you are really friggin sure what you are doing.
I know incredibly smart and wise people without a degree, and I also know incredibly dumb people with a degree. A degree is not a guarantee for intelligence and wisdom, but it is most often a guarantee for vanity covering shortcomings.
Almost all knowledge (and more) can be learned for free on the internet nowadays. I'ts only for a specific category of professions where a degree is mandatory. I never expect a great professional to have a degree, because the real defining quality cannot be learned at a university. You cannot express what you are not. You cannot become an Einstein by doing 5 years of university, but they love to make you believe that shit.
I am not against higher education at all, but the term 'degree' is pretty worthless if you want to measure mastery.
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.
I don’t think you need a degree for that sort of career shift. Just get a short training course and start building stuff and applying for jobs.
University degrees are, fundamentally, a mark of status and patience: “this guy had enough money and willpower to sit through years of drudgery, so it’s safe to hire him to do the same for us”. After a few years nobody cares what the degree was actually about, particularly in IT where everything gets redone every few years.
With Chem Engineering I don't think your degree will limit you. I have a Biomedical Engineering Degree and most HR screeners will read engineering and pass you through to the hiring manager. But if you want to go back get that degree for the purpose of knowledge and education than go for it!
“Educational credentials are badges that admit one to the elite class. Expect elites to struggle mightily to justify the current system.” - Naval Ravikant
dcole2929|5 years ago
At 17 I thought I wanted to be a sport journalist or shoot rockets into space. Turns out I had zero interest in the path to ESPN and am terrible at chemistry. Sure looking back I can totally see that computers made all the sense in the world but I didn't recognize that then. If I had bypassed college and just started working to get to one of those paths I saw for myself who knows where I'd be. This is not to say that college is the only place where you get this freedom to explore, but colleges, especially good ones certainly encourage you to explore other options.
I think ideally your last year of high school would be nothing but career exploration, but failing that I recommend most teenagers go to college even if they think they know what they want to do.
flak48|5 years ago
But besides the area of study / major I loved the college experience of being forced to be away from the sheltered environment of home (although college is sheltered and restrictive in it's own ways). Being able to recognize thought patterns and impulses that I always grew up with felt like being able to see new colours that I never knew existed.
Also being able to make friends - I don't take this for granted.When you are in an environment where you have 10x to 100x the number of people you went to high school with, it is much easier to find someone/ somoe group that you can gel with regardless of how many ever quirks you have. After all these years, my best friends are still the ones I made in college - not the ones before nor the ones that came after.
At the very least I'm grateful to my college education for making me less of an overconfident asshole who thought he knew it all, while at the same time boosting my confidence in other ways.
I understand that in many countries like the US, the exorbitant cost of uni education might make what I said look like nice-to-haves and luxuries but I'm happy for a change to be born in a place where I could afford to have this experience (while recognizing that many will not be privileged enough to experience even this :( )
thrwaway69|5 years ago
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?
brianpan|5 years ago
What you say is true, but it is a real luxury to do this at university rates.
sdan|5 years ago
Despite how much success/failure/I learn I endure, college name matters... a lot. I snuck into Nuro's open house last year and found they exclusively invited Harvard/Stanford/MIT students (I can say this because I was a minor at the time of signing their NDAs)
College name matters, especially when you're starting out (which can impact where you evenetually end up... whether its working for a startup or working at a cool VC firm) In fact most of the time, the people who've said: "don't go to college" are the same people who go to Cornell, UPenn, and Stanford and probably don't realize how much of a network/presitgie gives them to get them where they are now.
inapis|5 years ago
Can't emphasize this enough. College is still necessary for something like 95% of the planet's population. If you are not born into wealth or have well connected parents, a college degree is your only way to a better life. You may not learn anything in college but you need that fuckin' piece of paper just for the bureaucratic formalities. A very talented friend of mine was denied the US visa probably because of lack of a bachelor degree.
WalterBright|5 years ago
Nobody ever asks me what college I attended. Nobody cares.
barry-cotter|5 years ago
dreen|5 years ago
Usually this is a good sign you do not want to be an employee there.
anonymoushn|5 years ago
AdrianB1|5 years ago
As a recruiter I never looked too serious for credentials, knowing myself going through the college only for that piece of paper at the end, working full time and knowing a lot more from the job than what the other students learned. From my former class in college I think I am the only one practicing IT, the others too other directions, including one that was a quite successful music band leader.
OkayPhysicist|5 years ago
Compared to their university-attended coworkers, the straight-to-industry folk were far more likely to cargo cult design patterns, languages, and frameworks.
bregma|5 years ago
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 classrooms. Most I learned outside of classrooms, either through interaction with my peers or by accident while researching something unrelated in the library. Sometimes by hacking on the school computers. In high school I learned that being smart is bad. In university I learned there are people who value thinking.
2. I learned how to organize my time to complete tasks I had no personal interest in, how to force myself to work despite my dislike of team mates or organizers, and to finish by deadlines. I only wish I had learned these things before my 6th and 7th years in university, but alas.
You don't need to go to university. We will always need garbage collectors and street sweepers, and remember, anyone can write bad software. Vendors continue to try to make it easier to do so.
throwaway9191a|5 years ago
This is why so many Americans view university as an elitist institution :) I agree about high school. High school is why I decided the education system was not for me (right or wrong, it was just a horrible experience).
I learned #1 while cold calling businesses to sell phone systems. You have to talk to people, make friends, and genuinely understand why companies operate the way they do. You can learn how large the world is without sitting in a classroom.
I learned #2... well in every job I've had.
What I feel I missed by not finishing university was the time to deeply understand a single subject. But then again, I was taking classes all over the spectrum. Maybe I was never meant for a deep understanding of a single subject.
OTOH, as far as recommending non-traditional paths, I wouldn't for my kids. I am extremely self driven. I never realized that most people are not this way.
jmvoodoo|5 years ago
I myself didn't graduate, because the allure of starting a company was too strong. Here I am 20 years later advising people with degrees. If you are dedicated enough and creative enough (in the hacker kind of way) you can become skilled in just about anything you want.
However without a degree there are doors that are closed to you. For example the UC system will not even consider you for an MBA if you don't have an undergraduate degree. Don't even bother applying. Other private institutions will consider you but you need to be absolutely exceptional to get in.
I use that just as one example. People with a degree (especially a good degree) can stroll into an opportunity that I have to work 10X harder to to get. That said, once I'm in I tend to outperform my peers simply because I'm used to a world set on "hard mode" at all times.
Another thing I'm lacking are the deep friendships and connections that people who have a degree seem to have. That, to me, is the biggest loss from skipping a degree. Despite significant effort I don't seem to be able to make that part up.
deeblering4|5 years ago
The tech industry generally rewards those who can self-teach (tech is constantly changing), self-organize, and put in the effort.
A lot of people say university helps build a professional network.
Well anything you put put 4-8 years of concentrated effort into will help build a professional network. And if you go the route of internships and jr. level roles, you'll be paid while you do it.
schwartzworld|5 years ago
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.
LudwigNagasena|5 years ago
The US spends ~3.5% of GDP on non-tertiary education and ~2.5% on tertiary education. If what you are saying is representative of the general population, it means there is a massive unjustified waste of resources.
da39a3ee|5 years ago
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 have fun meeting new friends, getting wasted, and meeting sexual/romantic partners.
NikolaNovak|5 years ago
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 becoming rarer and fewer compared to fields and professions where there are valid or better alternatives.
This is not to say education isn't needed and awesome, or even that structured, guided, formal education isn't needed and awesome. But north American universities (and I'm an alumni of a good one) have lost their way and are far from the most efficient or effective method these days.
unknown|5 years ago
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mvind|5 years ago
But I'm biased towards going to uni, since I live in Denmark where I get paid monthly for going to university.
heresie-dabord|5 years ago
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.
clarry|5 years ago
oleks|5 years ago
Vuska|5 years ago
PopeDotNinja|5 years ago
Professor: If you think computers are fast now, it'll blow your mind that back in the 60s the NSA has computers running at 1000.
Me: 1000? You mean 1000 megahertz?
Professor: No, 1000.
Me: facepalm
I'm still paying off those student loans.
laingc|5 years ago
Yes, I get that you can be a react developer without a university qualification.
This may come as news to some, but most fields bear no resemblance to writing JavaScript for a living.
fabian2k|5 years ago
This site is very US-centric, which adds a huge monetary component to this decision. That makes this an entirely different question compared to a country where higher education is free.
I also think that software development is a field that is quite friendly and attractive to people switching from a different career or field. So you have the related, but still distinct discussion about whether you should have a CS degree specifically to work as a software developer.
analog31|5 years ago
I don't know anybody who learned math or physics outside of a college classroom. Maybe there are some out there, but I haven't met them.
But it goes further. What strikes me is not only an anti-university sentiment, but also a strong anti high school sentiment. I've been surprised by the number of comments from people who are obviously smart and diligent enough to be programmers, but for whom high school was a disaster. And it occurs to me that this does reveal that education is not serving everybody equally well.
So, even though I value my university education, I'm still interested in hearing how others have experienced it. However for students, my advice is that you have to find the thing that makes college worthwhile for you. If you go in with a cynical attitude, that it's just "signaling" or "networking," then you are likely to be blinding yourself to the other kinds of opportunities that it presents.
WalterBright|5 years ago
I often hear people say that a university education teaches nothing useful, that it's just learning to take tests, that the course material is irrelevant, that it's just for networking and signalling, etc.
I suspect they both a) selected the wrong major and b) went to the wrong university.
virgilp|5 years ago
Also at my former company there was a principal computer scientist who was quite proud that he didn't have a university degree; I didn't work with him much but he was obviously fairly accomplished, career-wise. So that worked fine for him.
Most people are not like that, though; even though in theory you can study everything by yourself nowadays, I find that in practice people who didn't go to university often tend to have a fairly narrow & shallow field of expertise ("narrow" = don't have experience with many different things/ often focus on one language and a few sets of related technologies; "shallow" = they often don't understand too many layers of abstraction, and get completely lost if they need to go too deep). This is perfectly fine at the start of your career, but as years go by (like, 20years in, when you're still only mid-career) I can't imagine this working too well; unless maybe you switch to management?
nabla9|5 years ago
Obviously if you just want quick vocational-type training, you don't need university level education. But then you should not be the one having problems with procrastination or self-discipline either. Most students in universities are there because they would not study or learn difficult or uninteresting subjects if left on their own. You also need to learn to communicate verbally and in writing with your peers. Knowing stuff but not being to able to communicate and work with others leads directly to low level jobs.
logicchains|5 years ago
In this sense the biggest value of a degree in hiring is just the crude proxy it is for IQ and conscientiousness. That being said, I've never interviewed anyone without a degree, but then I've never seen a candidate without a degree either. I have hired people whose degree is completely unrelated to the role, because they demonstrated the ability and interest to learn something outside of what they studied at uni.
So perhaps part of the opposition to university is due to the (possibly incorrect) feeling that it encourages people to think of it as "this is the period I do my learning", whereas some alternative to university might better promote people to develop a habit of lifelong learning. I.e. maybe people have been jaded by the experience of interviewing/hiring people with degrees from good universities who just spend all their spare time consuming media.
Which is not to suggest attending university is a bad idea, given its value as a signal, just that it doesn't seem ideal for developing the habit of lifelong learning.
donw|5 years ago
I have two bachelors' degrees, one in Mathematics, and one in Japanese. Those two programs were night-and-day in terms of rigor.
The mandatory "general education" classes were an absolute waste of time, and accounted for over a third of the cost of my college education.
It would have been more productive to spend that money on Pokemon cards.
The reality is, for a lot of people, university is massive waste of time and money. It largely was for me. We would be better off following the German model, with tracks outside University for professional workers and artisans.
Moreover, there are some excellent self-taught programmers out there, who work in the industry, and learn the mathematics and the physics and all the rest because they are passionate about the subject.
I'll take that kind of drive any day of the week.
artsyca|5 years ago
We were required to take a breadth of courses first year that helped create a well rounded foundation to my studies in software which I value greatly.
I can tell many people in the field have never looked past the technicals to think about how computer science connects to the world at large and it's a shame because there is a lot to learn and much wisdom to be gained by taking a holistic view.
Some of my favorite courses were sociology, anthropology, chemistry, physics, biology (I did switch majors) not to mention classics and astronomy.. They gave me a very rich insight into the philosophy of thought outside of software and I've always applied my learnings to corporacy and professionalism.
Not all universities are like this and graduates while technically proficient graduate wholly unprepared for the realities of social programming because let's face it software is a social medium in the truest sense of the word and university work with its emphasis on solo work i.e. individual performance and occasional groups (which are invariably one person pulling all the others' weight or someone bossing everyone until they give in) as well as emphasizing marks as the primary metric serves very little utility in preparing people for the real world and even co-op programs serve only to reinforce the stereotypes rather than disrupt them.
stillbourne|5 years ago
High school dropout here, no uni degree, I can write more than just JS thanks. I know C#, Java, Perl, Python, PHP, ruby, Typescript, Go. I know DDD, SOLID, TDD, and AOP. I have forgot more about Linux than most people will learn in a lifetime and I did all of it without attending one uni course. I come from a poverty background, grew up in a trailer park, got fucked up on all sorts of drugs and didn't do well in school. Some time in my early 20's I had a revelation that I was nobody and I was going to die poor and alone if I didn't get my act together. Sadly with my piss poor grades there was no way I was going to get a scholarship to pay my way through college, my family just made enough that I couldn't get finaid easily either. So I decided to wing it. I looked in the newspaper for high paying jobs, decided I wanted to be Systems Administrator, and looked up the skills required to be one. Did I get a sysadmin job? Hell no, I worked my way up from Help Desk to PC Tech, to Network Tech, to Systems Tech, to Systems Admin, to DevOps, and then to Sr. Software Developer, I'm now a Principal Engineer.
Here's the deal, I know bright people who made it through college and I know stupid people who made it through college, but I also know bright people who have worked their way up from the bottom, like myself. I've been working my way up since 2003. My personal opinion is that Uni is not only not for everyone, but that perhaps some industries, including software engineering, may work better on the guild system than in a class room.
bachmeier|5 years ago
I can with certainty say I did not have everything I needed to go off and have the best possible career. Not all of us were born into that type of situation.
I would not have become an economist without going to college and taking an economics class to fulfill a requirement. It was so right for me that I even got a PhD. Needless to say, that would not have happened if I had stuck around to take over my dad's excavating business or the family farm. [Edit: I was a licensed sewer and water installer before I graduated high school, so I was in a better place than a lot of high school grads.]
pxhb|5 years ago
During undergrad, I was worried about the ~40k in loans I took out to pay for it. However, I was able to pay them off fairly soon after finishing up, and would never have been able to attend without the federal loans that did not require a co-signer.
toomanybeersies|5 years ago
It's hard to put into words, but university was a unique experience for me that was instrumental in helping me grow to become the person I am today. Finishing high school and then going to a coding bootcamp for a few months before joining the workforce just wouldn't have provided that space for me to "discover myself", for lack of a better term.
That's not to say that everybody should go to university, although I definitely benefited from it and don't regret it at all, I was definitely railroaded into tertiary education by my parents and teachers. And that's not to say that university is the only place where I would've experienced the kind of personal growth that I did. I have plenty of friends who went into trades and completed apprenticeships (actually more than went to university), and most of them don't regret doing that either.
christophilus|5 years ago
siver_john|5 years ago
I enjoyed college but, I very quickly understood that its only purpose wasn't to enhance my education as I sat through multiple classes that were nearly identical to previous all because I had to check a box. And generally I felt classes moved to slow and would have been much happier studying on my own, but courses often forced my attendance. Though I am a bit unique in my ability on that admittedly.
empath75|5 years ago
arethuza|5 years ago
mam2|5 years ago
sanxiyn|5 years ago
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zvxczvxz|5 years ago
You apparently didn't learn to have a better look at those things at the university, it might surprise you some time.
fr2null|5 years ago
In the end, I did choose to go to university. I will be working part-time to pay about 90% of it (including housing) which means I'll have practically no debt. The main reason for me to go, was that I don't want to de a developer for the rest of my life. I think that having a degree will make a eventual career switch a lot easier.
crittendenlane|5 years ago
sdan|5 years ago
tersers|5 years ago
Nowadays in a hiring position, I don't care too much about the degree, but I do look more for commitment to something. The interview is an indicator of socialization as well and the deciding factor of wanting to work with someone.
binarysolo|5 years ago
Middle class Taiwanese family of white collar parents. Went to undergrad, dabbled in a few side projects and dropped out to work at a game company, a startup as an employee, and my own startup, in that order.
Learnings: found out I knew very little, and the branding/network/advice I could get from school would save me from reinventing the wheel over and over as a unvetted/newbie entrepreneur. This is hugely important and people don't assign enough value to it. For things where you need someone to hire you: you need to convince them somehow, and getting that piece of paper helps cover their butt and makes their life easier. I went back to school to have a bit of optionality.
Graduated and was planning on doing grad school. Spent first quarter basically playing D&D and League and barely scraped by academically, spent a few weekends hanging out with fellow Burners at a theme camp and collaborated on a few projects. I dropped out (for good this time) and pursued them -- all of them failed in the next 2 years, but what was useful was that I learned who were the good cofounder/advisors and how this kinda opaque process worked. Hit both a good startup as an advisor/early employee, then cofounded a cashflow business that I then bought out and proceeded to run for a decade.
Learnings: Knowledge and network are filled with plenty of opportunity costs -- and there's ways to make it both as a generalist and a specialist... ideally you can optimize for the intersect of what you want and what the world wants, and that ends up being the hard part. My own path was largely unplanned and opportunistic -- by hanging around an area of opportunity long enough and being ready I was able to access enough things to mildly succeed (didn't hit the stock jackpot, but I have a reasonable business).
Back to the question: the article answers it in the first few paragraphs - it depends on the person but is usually the "harder way". I only took the path because I had the priviledge/luxury to chase what I wanted, despite the vague expected value.
petargyurov|5 years ago
The way I see it, altough I learned a lot in uni, it's basically a "VIP" token to get yourself a job. And that's sad. Lots of companies will hire physics and math grads _just because_. They think they have "problem solving skills" - let me tell you - there are a tonne of STEM grads that do not have these skills (putting it politely) but get hired anyway.
WalterBright|5 years ago
motohagiography|5 years ago
This is an urgent view.
The post-hoc justifications of people who either didn't go, or people who did go but want to believe their other accomplishments are more defining - are not valuable to someone who has the means and opportunity to make the investment. The more arbitrary and meaningless having a degree seems, the more important it is to actually get one, because without one, you are subject to the even more arbitrary and meaningless barriers that it will otherwise unlock. You don't know them because you don't get to them until 10y+ after you graduate. A "degree," is in effect the degree of trajectory for the compounding rate of the value of your experience to others, where you don't see the effects until much later.
Look at the rate of occurrence of non-degreed people above a certain level of financial success, property ownership, executive management, assets, and opportunity, and then compare them to the very long tail of the hundreds-of-millions other non-degreed people you are in a labour market with. The distribution of that curve looks a lot like lottery winners. Given outcomes are exponentially distributed, should you make an investment, or just play the lottery? Get a degree, or always work for people who have one when you don't.
People who think education is mainly about skills and training don't understand what education is. Suffice it to say that a degree is a strategic investment. If you don't know what that means, I recommend investing in your education.
Dumblydorr|5 years ago
The reasons to attend college are more than moneymaking. Social networking, maturation, shared experience, opportunities to expand your knowledge beyond online tutorials, college offers many interesting experiences that going straight to work will not.
chadash|5 years ago
> You don't know them because you don't get to them until 10y+ after you graduate.
I think it's actually much quicker. A degree matters most for your first few jobs after you graduate, and your first few jobs matter a lot for your career.
tjpnz|5 years ago
clarry|5 years ago
glangdale|5 years ago
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 also be the high-flyers if they went to a university).
For everyone else, getting a decent degree should almost be a no-brainer. It will be useful. HR will like it, pretty much forever. The "lost years" of work experience will rapidly converge to insignificance (a point that seems lost on the folks who think that it's only university degrees become less significant as you get older).
You can do a range of subjects - some of them, shock horror, not narrowly vocational (a lot of the discussion here seems to imply that the sum total of what we should learn after high school somehow begins and ends with "programming and computer science"). Further, you can do these subjects at a much higher level and with greater intensity than the whole "hey, I read a couple books on Philosophy or did the first level of Duolingo in Spanish" or some such.
It should be a pleasant time where you get to try some new activities, meet a lot of people - maybe including a life partner, but maybe just good friends and some "early-adult romantic" relationships (which IMO are likely to greatly increase your chance of learning what you really want and how to get along in the real grown-up world).
The whole tertiary sector is pretty messed up right now (even pre COVID), so buyer beware. Don't do a crappy degree.
non-entity|5 years ago
moksly|5 years ago
Programming is one of the few fields, that isn’t packing boxes of frozen fish, where a career without a degree is possible here, and even on that field time is running out for people without degrees because so many young people have been getting them for the past decade.
But that is my country, here you’d be absolutely crazy (or perhaps challenged in some way) to not finish an education.
wingerlang|5 years ago
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)
geomark|5 years ago
I did a 2 year technical diploma program and went to work as an electronics technician. I was good, got promoted fast, started fixing a lot of mistakes the degreed engineers were making. I got pretty far without a degree but eventually hit a ceiling because credentialism was strong at the company. So I went back to college, a good private college, paid for by my employer. It was hard, because I was working longer and longer hours since I was good and they counted on me, while taking classes part time. The classes I took taught very little and did nothing for me except that finally getting my degree I could break through the credentials ceiling.
So...if you are going to work for a company that values credentials then you need the degree and I think it is better to go straight from high school to college instead of doing it the hard way like I did.
toyg|5 years ago
bshimmin|5 years ago
I'm not sure this is a real thing unless you're, say, Richard Branson. I also can't really imagine many circumstances in which you're doing something non-traditional and you can't just pretend you don't have a degree by neglecting to mention it... and if you've already reached a level of "significance" in a non-traditional thing where someone might actually check, well, you've probably already done better than most.
ryanmjacobs|5 years ago
arijun|5 years ago
sdan|5 years ago
fimdomeio|5 years ago
cameronbrown|5 years ago
There is also downsides, like the fact it is a job at the end of the day, and that comes with politics as well as technical challenges.
I'd again make the decision (over University) in a heartbeat.
asutekku|5 years ago
Yes, there are some exceptions but in most places and for most people a degree is what matters, not how many commits you do have in your side projects in github.
barry-cotter|5 years ago
The entire point of the article was that if you have something better to do than university and good reason to believe you can actually do it you might at least consider it. Also, three to four years of foregone earnings are a powerful reason not to go to university if you’re already capable of earning a living in your chosen field. That is very far from zero reasons, especially when you consider the professional development you can fit into those years if that’s something you value.
> Yes, there are some exceptions but in most places and for most people a degree is what matters, not how many commits you do have in your side projects in github.
When you’re 40 no one but bureaucrats is going to give a crap what university you went to, compared to your actual accomplishments. If all you’ve got is side projects on GitHub no one will care whether you went to Oxford or University of Southern Florida or dropped out of high school. Actual accomplishments
throwaway391003|5 years ago
I got a lot of socializing at both companies, got to hang out with guys my own age and guys older than me, got to have some fun (maybe not as much as my peers in university), got to grow up, etc.
I think university back in the day used to mean a lot more, and I would have enjoyed it, but now it's so watered down cause everyone goes, and political / cultural movements have made the university programs require much more effort and much less thought
Just my 2 cents
Edit: also, to add to this, at the same time I also learned a lot of stuff completely outside of the domain of software through books on my own. philosophy books, history books, sociology books, etc. etc. I really liked that I was able to carefully select the authors and books and topics to the ones that grabbed my eye.
edit 2: oh ya! i also got a lot of fun socializing at the bootcamp too.
toomanybeersies|5 years ago
University was so much more than learning how to program a computer so that I could get a job, I knew how to that that before I started. Almost none of what I learned at university I've ended up using in my career. But it was good to scratch that intellectual itch, I enjoyed learning what I learned, which is why I chose software development as a career, even if it isn't knowledge I use in everyday life. It was also an opportunity for me to move to a new city and become an independent adult and grow as a person, while meeting and socialising with people I would've never met had I stayed in my home town or even moved to a different city to attend a coding bootcamp.
mywittyname|5 years ago
parenthesis|5 years ago
The academic side: the opportunity to study in depth a subject you love or that will be useful to you, from (hopefully) great academics of the field.
The social side: meet people who might become your friends for life, or your future spouse. Have a rich and intense social life before career and family take over.
The networking side: meet people, whether students or academics, who will be useful to you in your future career.
The extra-curricular side: student journalism, debating, politics, music, drama, sports etc. Follow your hobby like never before. It might even become your career instead of your major.
Obviously the four are not disconnected. But you can probably only go all in on one or two.
But then the cost. You need to decide whether it is worth it for what you will get out of it (that being some combination of the four areas above).
bashwizard|5 years ago
chadash|5 years ago
A) it's a great time to get a broad education, learn from experts in many fields
B) it will most likely affect your compensation throughout your life. Yes, you can find jobs without it. But if you limit yourself to jobs that don't care about a college degree, you will find your options limited. I may not care, but I know that the CEO of my company does, and that will likely affect your bonus and/or salary.
Yes, there are some people whose technical skills are so good that it's obvious to the world. But most people don't fall in that bucket. Whether it's true or not, a college degree will make people _think_ you are better.
yawboakye|5 years ago
I’d argue that in the current economy where global mobility should be an intentional goal of any education, they (most African universities) pay negative dividends in both power in their name and quality of education. I’d rather spend my tuition on online courses offered by MIT and Stanford. So, should I go to the university? In order to be able to answer, we should ask, which university. The answer is a definite yes for the top 100, maybe until the 1000th, and a no after that: there are non-university institutions that can give you the higher quality signal you need.
nostrebored|5 years ago
I have lost track of the number of candidates I interviewed (and voted to hire!) who couldn't answer questions about their completed coursework, but could give in depth rundowns of the inner workings of something like embedded system software because of their extra curricular work.
After a while, I could notice trends from universities that were actually teaching their students incorrect information, providing the negative dividends you were talking about.
It's sad and frustrating. In an African context I think you're spot on that self taught candidates have often used their time more effectively.
raviisoccupied|5 years ago
I often think the biggest difference between a graduate and non graduate is three years. As an 18 year old there is no way I would have been able to withstand the culture for another three years at IBM without it significantly affecting me (positively or negatively), but at 21 I feel much more mature and ready for a career. In many cases, does University just function as a waiting room in which young people can mature?
clarry|5 years ago
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.
person_of_color|5 years ago
Do you really want to be engulfed by a male-dominated IBM/Google monoculture for 4 formative years?
lspears|5 years ago
BoysenberryPi|5 years ago
1) Dealing with college admissions is literally one of the most frustrating things I have ever done. The IRS has given me less run around than most college admissions I talk to.
2) Money. It all comes down to money. I'm having a very hard time justifying the cost at the end of the day.
With that being said, if someone comes up to me and ask me if they should go to college my answer is absolutely.
Ellipsis753|5 years ago
It's never been very hard to find jobs, and my pay is above average for the UK (it's £60k).
Programming is pretty easy to teach yourself and it's a super employable field right now. Programmers are in so high a demand no one seems to mind if you don't have any qualifications.
Would things have been better if I'd gone to university instead? Who knows? But it's super possible to be a programmer without going.
spinlock_|5 years ago
So, I can only recommend to find out what kind of person you are. But tbh, even though I got a degree that is unrelated to CS, I'm glad I went to university. I would had been a very different person without that experience. And in the end of the day, you will have to work for a veeeery long time (well, at least that is the reality for the most of us). So, what are 3-5 years spent doing something that gives you the opportunity to experience stuff you won't be able to find at work (well, except for the sunk cost, but I reject to think about education in this way)?
rvz|5 years ago
Software Developer? Not really. FAANMG SWE Job? I won't risk it if I'm not famous with 10K other people applying.
scottishcow|5 years ago
sanxiyn|5 years ago
unknown|5 years ago
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idoby|5 years ago
You can have a perfectly good and valid life as a human on earth without having set foot in a university. When you decide to attend a university, you always do so at the expense or other perfectly valid things.
I think everyone should go if they can, and simultaneously I think three- and four- year degrees are too long for most people. We need to establish a program to get degrees in shorter installments, say 1.5 years each.
In other words, tech companies should seriously start considering hiring people with Associate's Degrees (or equivalent) where applicable, to turn this degree into a real viable option. I can take anyone with a brain from zero to working coder in 1.5 years of full-time study, including the maths.
I can't speak for other fields, but for tech I'm pretty confident this will be great.
Anyone should be able to sacrifice a year and a half and a reasonable tuition to be able to get the college experience. I think we can make it much more accessible.
NightlyDev|5 years ago
I had been doing software development for 4 years and I figured I'd rather work with that than automation and electronics. I had a side project(game) that was earning some money.
Note that this was in Norway so I could have (and still can) go to university for free.
My girlfriend ended up getting a masters degree in software development and is currently working in a consultant firm. She's currently tanking another masters degree in entrepreneurship, mostly for fun.
I've always doubted my skills, but after helping her out every now and then I've realized that 10+ years of experience really can't be matched by going to school.
On the other hand I've also learned that university is a great way to kick off your learning. Some things they're learning are things I often ended up with too, on my own, with trial and error. At least I really understand why some things are what they are because of it.
I started very young and was quite successful with my first project. People has spent thousands of years(combined) actively using my first project.
But even though I have done well, I still feel like I'm taken less serious than those with a full education, cause I've just created a strange game.
I'm considering going to university now just to get cheaper insurance and the degree, but I don't expect I'd learn a lot of new things. But I do enjoy fiddling with stuff, so it might be fun.
Do I regret it? Not really. Am I worried? Slightly, if it all falls down then I need to get a normal job or come up with something else.
Would I recommend it? If you're really driven and are already seeing signs of success, sure, give it a shot.
jusmakingapost|5 years ago
A lot of people go to Universities hoping to find themselves and never do.
sersi|5 years ago
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...
grandinj|5 years ago
Obviously, YMMV, but I find absorbing any theory-heavy knowledge alongside my day job extremely hard, whereas I can very easily more practical skills as a I work.
avmich|5 years ago
Unfortunately, the problem is harder. How to weight the possibility to reach the state of the art, and participate in moving that state of the art, against rather tangible possibilities or short- or middle-term gains in practical projects? The first option may lead to better long-term wins overall.
It's a hard choice for teenagers, who aren't always able to even formulate the problem.
I'd err on the side of getting education in all cases, while avoiding making somebody particularly rich in the process, as that's an indication of flaws in what I'm getting.
dnautics|5 years ago
The company I work for is currently hiring. As the hiring manager I have repeatedly said I don't give a damn about college education (myself not having come from a CS background in college) and repeatedly the CTO has shot me down and told me that we need to hire someone with an undergrad CS background.
So here is my pithy statement: There are two paths - you can either have a CS degree. Or you can know someone and get the job that way (which is, how I - and others on the team who don't have CS degrees - got the job). Sometimes even if someone on the inside is rooting for you.
j0hnml|5 years ago
dejv|5 years ago
Anyway, I already had fulltime position working as software developer since the age of 17 (it was a bit of necessity, but I also like it very much) and after finishing my highschool diploma I decided to not apply and continue working.
I went to study CS at the age of 23, while still working fulltime. Being a bit older and more experienced, but also time constrained changed my perspective a bit. I was in there just to get knowledge that I decided are relevant for me, there was close to zero time to be spent on social time or taking some filler classes that might be interesting.
I spent three years in university, taking all the classes that sound interesting to me in areas of math, compilers, machine learning and computational logic. At that point I depleted the pool for both bachelor and masters classes and for the rest of the time I would have to go through fillers and decided to quit without graduating.
I am glad about both of my choices: both having break between high school and university and quiting early. I feel like spending time in university is very valuable for both professional and personal growth and everybody should probably took it if they can afford it, but I don't think that this is your only valid choice.
It should be ok to spend few years wandering around to find what you want to do with your life instead of spending rest of your life paying for debt you acquired just because you can't see any other viable path.
zerubeus|5 years ago
Daub|5 years ago
That being said, a PhD is probably only required if you wish to go into teaching.
unknown|5 years ago
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rezeroed|5 years ago
unknown|5 years ago
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BrandoElFollito|5 years ago
In France yes. We are still very much into Ivy League (Grandes Écoles) schools, they really look good on a CV in a large company.
Sure, some startup may not care but it depends where you want to work. Look at the CVs of large French companies boards and you will see a lot of the same schools.
In Germany having a higher education title is great or important. Your PhD counts.
CalChris|5 years ago
But yes, you do need to go to university, a good one. And you need to graduate.
toyg|5 years ago
cosmodisk|5 years ago
farnerup|5 years ago
sradman|5 years ago
bluedino|5 years ago
imtringued|5 years ago
thereyougo|5 years ago
If you could change the way the university tech you, what you would do?
clarry|5 years ago
Imo education should be a lifelong thing: available at any time, part time or full time, on-demand; for example, new requirements come up at a job and you need new skills? grab a course. want to enter a new subfield? grab a few relevant courses. got interested in something new all of a sudden? grab a course and see if the interest doesn't wane. laid off? consider taking the chance to study full time for a few months and pick up some new skills or plug holes in prior knowledge.
It should be based more on voluntary interest ("I want to learn this thing!") or actual concrete need ("business is looking for someone with skill X and person Y looks like a good fit but they need to study a bit") and less on the idea that you sit through courses and exams and demos in exchange for points that eventually buy you a piece of paper..
University (or, rather, education in general) should be with us through the entire life.
There are open universities that sort of go in this direction, but the last time I looked at them, it felt like they're still rather structured around getting a degree and all the bs that goes with it.
AdrianB1|5 years ago
What I would add to college curriculum today is a good project management course, up to PMP level; also for CS, an equivalent of ITIL foundation.
For CS the biggest gap I see in fresh graduates are testing and performance and a more solid foundation on RDBMS: even in the era of NO-SQL and HADOOP the starting point is still understanding RDBMS.
xyzal|5 years ago
curation|5 years ago
Gatsky|5 years ago
When I was in University, I didn't really appreciate that it is mainly about cachet. Yes there are great experiences, you meet great people, you can be inspired, it opens your mind, you can do great work, but the thing that gets people in the door, and the thing that Universities are primarily selling, is cachet. It's interesting seeing how Covid19 interacts with this. Lots of people must be worried that their university cachet will be tainted by pandemic restrictions if they are the in the 'class of 2020'. This could be one reason for the massive number of students deferring.
So if the cachet matters to you (and your future employers), yes you should defintiely go to University, there is no substitute. There are also some jobs you can't do, or even really comprehend, unless you go to University (medicine, dentistry, civil/mechanical/electrical/aerospace/chemical/environmental engineering). In one sense these degrees are worth paying for up to a point, because it actually takes a lot of effort, facilities and equipment to offer them.
hypertexthero|5 years ago
tempodox|5 years ago
HenryBemis|5 years ago
2&3: I knew a guy, his father had sheep, plenty of them. He never bothered with Uni. He has been studying/training on seminars regarding agriculture, animal care, etc. He is set for life. He will never sit on a university theatre and keep notes. He does use technology (I remember how he was shocked when he discovered YouTube videos that exploded his mind and knowledge).
He picks up the phone and speaks to vets, he talks to agriculture specialists, he watches seminars, he gets better. He stays on top/ahead of things. He never spent 1 (pick your own currency) on University, housing, (Uni) books.
He stays in touch with his peers both in his country and abroad (he was taught English early on and how he sees the value of that investment).
I see him though being a guest lecturer in a Uni, to speak as a professional on this/his industry, speak on his part of the supply chain, what he would expect of "Education" to provide for him (his industry) in the future, what he would like to see people do for the promotion and progress of his industry. But pay for classes? Never.
So.. 2 & 3 :)
Edit: typos
fsloth|5 years ago
zvxczvxz|5 years ago
Almost all knowledge (and more) can be learned for free on the internet nowadays. I'ts only for a specific category of professions where a degree is mandatory. I never expect a great professional to have a degree, because the real defining quality cannot be learned at a university. You cannot express what you are not. You cannot become an Einstein by doing 5 years of university, but they love to make you believe that shit.
I am not against higher education at all, but the term 'degree' is pretty worthless if you want to measure mastery.
unknown|5 years ago
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VMisTheWay|5 years ago
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.
toyg|5 years ago
University degrees are, fundamentally, a mark of status and patience: “this guy had enough money and willpower to sit through years of drudgery, so it’s safe to hire him to do the same for us”. After a few years nobody cares what the degree was actually about, particularly in IT where everything gets redone every few years.
frockington1|5 years ago
knolax|5 years ago
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ycombonator|5 years ago
mrkramer|5 years ago
Either you are an employer or an employee, make your choice.