Do Geeks Need College? 359
Manuka writes
"Salon has a neat article
debating the issue of whether college is worth bothering with
for geeks." The article references
an old Slashdot thread
and throws out some interesting comments and statistics
on the subject.
My College Experience (Score:1)
Predicted Replies (Score:1)
1) I don't need college. I'm too smart for that. (Insert list of people who didn't go to college, but make "Millions of Dollars(tm)")
and
2) College is important. It helps you become well-rounded. It provides the opportunity to learn new ideas and work on your discipline. There is much more to life than just bits and bytes. (Insert description of shallow bit-oriented geeks who let life pass them by).
There, that should about cover it. Why don't you save bandwidth and post to another article that covers _new_ ground --like KDE vs. Gnome
The importance of college (Score:2)
College is useful for learning other perspectives, be they language, art, music or interior design related, as long as the student studied the process of how to create music or whatever, not just rote memorization of the traits thereof.
My College Experience (Score:1)
I personally went to college to learn more about computer stuff and I'm getting tired of the other stuff (IMO, I have to do way too much math.. I'd probably prefer being forced to take more history and whatnot..)
I guess I probably just should have gone to a tech college (but they way those ads go, they sound like they teach people that don't know anything about computers how to use them.. Besides, I'd rather be learning about UNIX at a University than NT at a tech school..)
Absolutely (Score:1)
The Hypocrisy of College (Score:1)
It doesn't seem to be happening.
Probably my greatest shock in college has been how bad the professors are. Many of them can't speak english very well at all (I wouldn't complain if the accents were slight enough so I could actually understand them, but I can't), and the Teaching Assistants are even worse! Even American Profs and TAs really teach very well -- I'd rather be back in high school!
I didn't come to college to drink, either. It's the most common form of social activity around here -- I'm sorry, I never got into that, and I probably never will. Yet, the social (drinking) part of college is one thing that people hold up on a pedestal.
College should be a place where people go to learn how to change the world, not become accustomed to the awful parts of it (drugs, bureaucracy, violence, rampant stupidity, etc.).
College has a great potential to do good, but it's not doing that (at least not where I am). Students and their families put forth good money so that the students can learn, but we're not learning.
I am still in college, but I'm definitely feeling stuck. I want to change how things are going on this campus, but I don't know how (and I'm only one person). I'm not sure how things will go for me in the near future -- maybe I'll actually manage to change something..
An 18-year-old can make $150K a year? (Score:1)
The average sysadmin salary in the United States, as mentioned in an article posted earlier today on this very site, is $62K. You're saying an 18-year-old could conceivably make more than double that -- nearly triple that -- with little to no actual experience or college education? Do you have any evidence to back up that claim?
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
You made one rather MAMMOTH assumption. (Score:1)
As to my "assumptions", the SGI admin example was just that -- it was by no means the only type of work an 18-year-old could never hope to secure.
As for the age I chose (18), that's generally the year most people in the U.S. graduate from high-school and either go to college or begin their working careers.
At any rate, I find it next to impossible to believe that the opportunity cost of going to college in lieu of working could possibly be $600K for anyone, and even less believable that someone could take this to be the status quo.
-A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
college? (Score:1)
College is Not Technical School (Score:3)
I was a finance major, and that degree helped land me my first job. So from a voc-tech perspective, college helped me wonderfully. My first employer would never have considered me without a degree. For a more pure programming role, having a "resume" that includes hacking accomplishments in high school might be enough to get your foot in the door. Once you've been in the work force any period of time, the college degree drops off the recruiting radar scope. Some employers probably care that you do have one, but few care what it is in or where it is from. Even for one that wants you to have a degree, you can save money by getting it part time at a local college instead of spending big bucks on a full time four year program at a prestigous university.
But I am not satified with the voc-tech view of school. I very much have a vision of the university providing a undergraduate with a classical liberal arts education that enriches the mind, imparts a basic body of knowledge all educated people should have, and prepares the person for a lifetime of continued learning. I wish I had been more oriented towards this when I was in school. Fortunately I am an extremely strong self learner and so today I am able to educate myself despite not getting the best general preparation for it in school. I would like to see this more emphasized than the "learn these skills and you can get a job" curriculum the Salon article seems to be talking about.
My College Experience (Score:1)
There's more to school than just an education.
Social interaction with others is one thing. Some of this interaction (SOs, drinking buddies, etc) is good and can last for many years. Other interaction is bad, but you learn how to deal with that interaction. If I didn't go to college, I would not have many of the experiences Ihave now, and I would be less prepared for what the world has to offer.
There's also things like internet connections, access to hardware and software you may not be aware of (we used AIX for a while), dealing with deadlines and timetables, and the general well-rouding of education that you can't get anywhere else. As an example, I've taken a bit of interest in the Civil War due to an elective I took. It's now a bit of a hobby for me.
Where I went cost a lot of money and I'll be paying it off at about $500/mo for the next 5 years, but no matter how much my checking account scrapes bottom to pay it, I do not regret it for a minute.
Who wants to be a drone (Score:1)
If you look at the backgrounds of German and Swiss managers, you will notice that many don't have college degrees but yet get promoted to senior positions in management and IT. The reason being is that in these countries, the university system is really more like 6 years of a BA and an MA combined learning academic topics like art, philosophy and such along the line of training future academicians.
Many people in Europe undergo apprentice programs where out of high school they work for a company and given an equivalent but focused education in what they will need to know in banking, IT, technology etc.
That's OK, but if you look at the background of senior managers and fast track techs, you will see they are adopting the US model of hiring college educated people to fill their ranks. In fact, foreigners come to the US because are colleges are so much better.
Sure as a talented engineer you can code brilliant programs or draft elegant designs but chances are you will always be a member of the drone class unless you have a management degree of some sort to show that you can work with more than code but also with people.
If you want to start your own company, banks are more willing to loan you capital if you show that you have a degree and have a plan. College also allows you to develop networks of friends, colleagues, and future contacts that might come in handy one day.
If you just want to be a tech then Devry and Chubb gives great specialized knowledge and skills. However, if you want to do bigger things than you will need the credentials as a stepping stone to be given more responsibility within a shorter span of time.
A college education doesn't guarantee success, watch Reality bites for a view of the real world, but without it you are making your life more difficult.
There's college and there's college... (Score:1)
A few other posters have gotten at some points I think are important, but there seem to be a couple others not yet addressed.
I would agree with the notion that schools come in different types; or most especially, that students come in different types. Probably more than just the two (good versus bad) that have been suggested. I would suggest at least three:
1) Schools (and students) that are devoted to sex, drugs and parties.
2) Schools (and students) that are diploma mills, and merely glorified technical training.
3) Schools (and students) that have a genuine interest in learning, thinking and understanding.
These are not discrete categories, but they *are* trends. The same schools, and the same students, can be more than one to different degrees.
The point of dividing it this way is obviously to emphasize the virtues of number 3. Learning--really learning and thinking--about art, history, philosophy, social sciences, nature and physical sciences, language, literature, and lots of other things that have little to do with programming and IT give a person a better life. That is the bottom line for me; it doesn't matter how nearly so much you get paid, or how good a programmer/designer you are.
Number 1 is not a terrible thing either, although I guess I would have found it so if not for the number 3 bit. Being mid-30's I feel positively old in this context, so I hope I can be avuncular in my advice here
There are two things I would like to add, one of which others have written, more-or-less, the other that I really have not seen mentioned.
On the first thing, I really do think that knowing about literature, linguistics, philosphy, history, and other humanistic areas makes me do a much better job in IT than most people who have been narrowly technically focussed. Not just me, but whoever is broad in her knowledge. I probably cannot pound out code, or memorize APIs as fast as a lot of technical people... but I am a lot more likely to understand organizational dynamics, collaborative processes, the real uses of software systems, how to write documents people can read, the trends that are likely to happen in IT, and a lot of more "human" aspects of IT. Again, not just me, despite the first-person tone, but anyone with broad humanist learning. I do not think the best use if a college education is learning the specific technical skills you'll need for a job, and will change in a few years anyway. The best use is learning all the stuff you WILL NOT learn, if not in college/university.
The thing I have not seen pointed out in this thread is the shocking degree to which the possibility of obtaining a humanistic education has diminished HUGELY and RAPIDLY in the last decade. (That's the whole old-fart-at-34 thing). Increasingly, universities and colleges have turned themselves into "profit-centers" that operate as degree mills, and/or extensions of corporations to provide adequately trained monkeys to perform narrow technical tasks. Humanities faculties, funding, and enrollments have shrunk enormously... except in a very few very expensive colleges aimed at the very rich.
At the start of the 1980s, when I started college, all the "University of ----" schools in the US states mostly provided decent, broadly humanistic educations (at least for those who sought them out). By now, someone starting a college/university who doesn't have enormous family wealth to spend $30k a year, will have a hell of a lot harder time finding that sort of thing. It is sad and tragic... and I really do not know what the best option for someone turning 18 today would be. "Be born rich" is always good advice... but that turns out to be too late for most people. I guess the second best is "shop around for one of the few remaining good public universities."
Yours, Lulu...
The reason for a college degree. (Score:1)
That being said, the largest reason I see anybody getting a college degree is to potentially make more money. No one gives a hoot anymore about doing a job they love as much as a job they can hopefully tolerate and get paid a good wage for. Why do you think there are so many truly unqualified people with good paying positions out there -- especially in tech-related fields?
Computer technology is the boom at the moment. It is very profitable, and every schmuck out there with enough dough to get into a college or university that offers even the barest hint of a CS/IT/[insert current acronym] program wants to cash in on it. That is very saddening as I am someone who can't really afford to attend the school I would like (there's some truth to that saying, "it takes money to make money") and who actually loves technology and science enough that I spend most, if not all, of my free time learning and absorbing everything that I can. And from some of the people I've known, I'm doing a better job at teaching myself than many colleges out there are teaching their students.
I love this stuff. I'm never going to worry about not having that piece of paper as long as I can do what I love to do because chances are, if I'm that driven by it, I'll do something with it anyway. College degree be damned; I can be successful in all the ways that matter by doing it my way.
Of course, I could just be suffering from acute over-confidence and megalomania. :)
The usefulness of college/university (Score:1)
To take this one step further (and assuming you want to go into CS), it can be important to know which college the CS department is associated with. If it is with engineering and all you want to do is program, you're probably going to end up with a bunch of classes you don't want to take. At my school, CS was part of the college of science, which made them rather independent, since CS has few practical similarities with the other sciences.
Personally, I thought school was quite worthwhile. The classes were okay....sometimes I learned something useful, and other times I didn't really learn anything at all. There were a few things (mostly computer theory) I thought I would never use, and since then have found some of these things quite useful. I would have been happy to skip some of the non-computer classes, but many of them turned out to be rather helpful as well.
But the most worthwhile part of college was the things outside of class. I think college teaches you a lot about people, and yourself, that you don't get nearly as easily from the workplace.
As somebody else already mentioned, you can't expect school to make you a good programmer. They can teach you the techniques, but they can't give you the desire or talent necessary, just like no amount of art school could possibly make me an artist. Programming is an art of its own.
You'll have (hopefully) 40 years to make big bucks in the workplace....taking 4-5 years for college won't hurt. And (if you're going to the right school, etc) it will be some of the most enjoyable years you have.
Once again, calling web desing programing (Score:2)
GET THIS STRAIGHT PEOPLE: WEB DESIGN IS NOT PROGRAMING!
I wonder if I should emphasize that a little more... Web design is a mix of art and tarditional design. (come to think of it, art is redundant, tarditional design is based on art)
I find no surprize that an interior designer made the transition to web design, since those fields have a lot more in common then web design and computer science. Designers (interior and otherwise) are trained to recignise the humon facotrs that make things both useable and nice, comptuer science people are trained in making a computer work. Web design is not a programing task. Not that interior design will give you everything you need to know about web design, but the underlying theorys are the same even if they are applied much differently, while the underliying theory of programing is not the same.
Developers or users? (Score:1)
One I think it would be sad if we lost all those bright College students that work on some of the more cutting edge projects. These are the guys that make new technolgy.
However.... I have noticed that alot of programmers coming out of college have no idea how to really write code. They seem to have a better understanding of how to use a IDE. I have a friend that is going to the same college that I sorta went too. He has told me that you don't have to take ASM, Pascal or C anymore. Those course were replaced by Microsoft Visual Basic. Seems that the course completion rate was too low with the Pascal and C classes. So instead they moved the IS dept to teach VB since Students had a better completion rate.
I have to wonder where this will take software when Students come out of school only knowing how to use one kind of product.
That piece of paper... (Score:1)
but anyone who makes that kind of money and doesnt consider themselves lucky for it might just want to take another look...
Go to a good college, not a programmer factory (Score:1)
Then I went to grad school. The place had a great computer reputation, but for undergrads it was a horrible place to try to grow into a living, feeling person. But you could get your BS or BE, and you could get "C++" on your resume even if you were an EE because that kind of buzzwordism drove the undergrad required course list. It wouldn't have been too much better than that for me as a grad student, if I hadn't taught low-level programming courses (fundamentals!) and if I hadn't done a project leading to a thesis.
It helped--and still helps--that I can write well. But spending my college years growing, and the crystalizing experience of doing that project and thesis, got me where I am.
my experience (Score:1)
I would also submit that a pure administration job doesn't demand what they'll teach you in a good CS program. Web application development (not just pages, but the stuff that gets content into a database and from the database onto the page), they can teach you useful principles for. Designing a web server from scratch, they can teach you the basics and you can research (gasp, horrors, a library!) the details you need.
Or you can just fake it, peek at the Apache source when you get frustrated, and generate an unmaintainable mound of garbage that may sort of work, but not well. There is good business value, as well as good hair preservation value, in knowing what you're doing before you do it.
Of course it's worth it (Score:1)
But that is not the only way to measure the worth of college. I think the overall experience, personal development, and *gasp* gen. eds. were overall worth every penny I paid.
And the only reasons to take Computer Science over some other (right-brained, say) major is if 1) you like the classes (like me), or 2) feel the need to convince an employer that you know computer stuff.
--Chouser
Of course it's worth it (Score:1)
But that is not the only way to measure the worth of college. I think the overall experience, personal development, and *gasp* gen. eds. were overall worth every penny I paid.
And the only reasons to take Computer Science over some other (right-brained, say) major is if 1) you like the classes (like me), or 2) feel the need to convince an employer that you know computer stuff.
--Chouser
Of course it's worth it (Score:1)
But that is not the only way to measure the worth of college. I think the overall experience, personal development, and *gasp* gen. eds. were overall worth every penny I paid.
And the only reasons to take Computer Science over some other (right-brained, say) major is if 1) you like the classes (like me), or 2) feel the need to convince an employer that you know computer stuff.
--Chouser
Depends on the college (Score:1)
--Chouser
Valuable Experience (Score:1)
I attended college for three years before being forced to drop out because of an illness in the family. I was forced to go to work full-time. Today, now five years later, I earn wages at the top of my field, being flown from city to city because my computer skills are in such high demand. Where did I get those skills? High School. I had a fantastic High School program that taught me college level programming concepts. I took my Advance Placement test and tested out of two years of college Comp Sci courses. My college degree, however, was in English Literature--not Comp Sci.
So, am I an example of succeeding without a college degree? Yes and no. I had very little "college" training, but my teachers in High School gave me excellent training that was on the level of the first two years of a Comp Sci degree. I also had to literally work my way up from the mail room to high-level consulting. It took me five years to get here without the parchment. In those five years, I had to prove myself over and over again. I read book after book, training myself in methodology and then putting it into practice in the real world.
From my perspective, I went to college--self-taught, self-motivated. It wasn't accredited, but then it didn't cost as much either. Not everyone can/should do that. But let's not exagerate college to anything more than it is--learning and limited experience in the field. Some can do without the organized environment that college provides (some actually do better). Some need the structure--not that they can't do it on their own, but that it just works better and faster for them.
From someone who hasn't finished his bachelor's degree, I'd have to acknowledge some hurt feelings on the behalf of the "uneducated" minority. Time and time again, I have had to fight my way through a gate guarded by a degree-bigot. Someone who assumed that I was an untrained underachiever riding the coat-tails of the IT shortage. That's annoying and demeaning--especially since many times my experience is equal to or better than their experience.
A college degree would have made my life a lot easier in some ways. It would have given me good experience in a diverse range of areas. But I've done that on my own now. Granted, it was probably harder this way. But I have read the same books Comp Sci students have read, and I have applied it in the workplace. So, one way or another, I received the valuable experience needed to do my job.
I just did it a little differently than most. As I do all things.
Point? Look for the experience and the training. This can come through college, college and work experience, or work experience alone. What counts is the ability to get the job done--and that ability does not solely depend on college training. There are many ways to get the training and knowledge. College is one of many, and for many, it is the easiest and best way. And that's all it is.
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs."
Perspective (with qualifiers) (Score:1)
I would again caution against over generalizations. People mature at their own rates. Many mature in college. Some mature before college. Some mature much later. A college education is not the key to becoming a diverse and well-rounded individual.
I agree that college provides many diverse opportunities for self-improvement. However, the process of becoming your true self should not stop in college, either--and therefore, college is not a requirement to personal growth. It is one of many tools/paths that help in each person's journey of growth and life.
Many people are forced through a death march of studying and test taking in college. Their only free time is often taken up with simply trying to relax and decompress. So while being exposed to so many opportunities for growth, many college students are unable to take advantage of these opportunities. They take courses on philosophy, but barely remember or comprehend them. They are asked to read some of the greatest literary works, and they can only find the time to skip around to prepare for an exam. So, some opportunities are taken advantage of. Some are only half-realized. Others are completely missed.
Let's not denounce the non-college course in an attempt to prevent others from making stupid mistakes (i.e. dropping out when college is a good thing for them at that time). For many, there have been very rewarding and paradigm-shifting experiences outside out of college. Reading the classics on your own is also a great "poor-man" method to attaining the college intellectual experience. In many ways, it can also be superior, allowing you an opportunity to think for yourself and come to your own conclusions.
College is a good "thing". But it is not a required "thing". It is a huge decision that requires careful thought and evaluation. But then life is full of huge decisions. You will make a mistake eventually. The important thing is to learn, learn, learn through everything you do.
Then again, if you want an experience that will help you grow personally and learn responsibility, you could always try marriage ;-)
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs."
Yes, we do! (Score:1)
It reminds me of how black people would tell their kids "You have to be 3 times as good as white people to get the same pay|respect|etc".
Except, without a degree, it's probably more like 5-10 times as good.
One reason against the "unlimited jobs" quotations (Score:2)
college and university (Score:3)
Now.. I enjoy university a lot, but I tend to have a different perspective towards school than my peers - many of them are in it for the paper and don't see the point of the courses that we take.
I enjoy what I'm learning because I know it *matters*.. if people in school actually remembered the concepts during a concurrency or OS course, they'd be considered expert programmers (compared to the majority).
Of course, the down side to my enjoyment of school is that I tend to get crappy marks in areas that I'm less passionate about.. CS. I love CS. I ace CS all the time... Math. I like math, but I'm not good at it, and it's pulling me down. So I'm faced with the threat every term of being bumped out of my honours degree to a general degree e... The question is: do I really need MORE CS courses, or have I learned enough that I can just take the easier degree & get out?
I really like higher education, but I think it always comes down to personal choice.. if you want to have a career doing web development, don't go to college. But don't cry if the economy turns sour and you wind up unemployed. If you want to be an expert programmer in enterprise systems, or distributed systems, or graphics, or.. etc, college will do you good, and it provides security.
Soon, having "a job" isn't going to matter as having a "career" and a way of distinguishing yourself from your peers. You have to be able to say - "THIS IS ME, This is why I'm the best at what I do, and this is why I command a high salary." Otherwise your voice will be lost in the herd, and you won't stand out. Contributing free software is uplifting, but not very much so when you're forced to settle for a poor salary because you're just "another C programmer" or another "VB programmer"....
The only way to differentiate yourself is through knowledge - and higher education is one way (not the only way) to get it. I think in future college/univeristy may become obselete because of the rampant incompetence of the majority of them, but that doesn't mean that "higher education" will die - it will just take other forms.
My College Experience (Score:1)
my degree is in mechanical engineering, which isn't terribly relevant to my job as an rdbms programmer, but the things it taught me about engineering principles, honed my problem solving skills, taught me about rigour and formal proof &c &c.
and of course, the staff and the facilities exposed me to things i'd never have been able to try otherwise.
not to mention the social aspect, and the opportunity to up sticks and move to the city...
if you're wondering whether or not to go to college, my advise is skip the big bucks for a few years (it's not long really) and just learn and enjoy yourself!
Is a Degree usefull (Score:1)
Is a Degree usefull (Score:1)
College shows your ability to make a committment (Score:1)
Geeks, go to college. (Score:5)
Go to college to learn about culture, or history, or philosophy, or literature. Go to college to sit up late nights screaming at your best friends about what an idiot Rene Descartes was. Go to college to watch your best friends do the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Go to college to find out what the hell this postmodernism thing is that Larry Wall's always on about. Go to college to refute postmodernism, and to be called postmodern for doing it. Go to college to meet people who will be impressed with your intelligence instead of thinking of it as threatening.
Don't go to an easy college, and don't go to a place that lets you get by doing nothing but technical stuff. Go to a place that makes you do a lot of heavy reading and writing. Take tough courses. Learn to write well; not only will it help when your boss asks you to document your project, but it'll also help you sound better on Slashdot and USENET. Don't scorn "well-roundedness" or "communications skills"; the stars of geek culture are no bunch of illiterates.
Study music. Music, as Pythagoras demonstrated, is a form of mathematics, and musicians, like hackers, keep pounding on their work in search of the Right Thing. Study psychology and sociology. They represent our attempts to figure out how the systems called the human mind and human society work, so that we can make them work better.
Read Nietzsche. Refute your parents' religion. Then refute your refutation.
Get into politics. Which politics don't really matter -- be a socialist, or a libertarian, or even a Republican if you have to. Go to activist events. Take politics courses. Insist on bringing up free software in the middle of your classes. Derive the Debian Free Software Guidelines from the works of John Locke.
(Damn. I'm rambling. I sound like that fake Kurt Vonnegut graduation address email forward that whoever-it-was turned into a song. Use sunscreen.)
A new way of getting educated? (Score:1)
Regardless the choice has served me well, but I also understand that my education will never be over. Without sounding too much like Frank Ogden, It's a new age (no crystals, but still, a new age) and with that there should be a new way of getting an education.
The future; picking up a formal education as you go, coupled with work experience. How could you beat that? In ten years when I'm hiring, it'll be hard to impres me with fraternity alignments, or even a full diploma. I'd want to see a combination of documented skills and past experience.
Kinda ironic though, since I was hired because my cover-letter was amusing and I suspect for no other reason.
Ok, I'm done.
Is it worth it? It depends. (Score:1)
I've been thinking about this a bit. My younger brother dropped out of college arguing that they (college) are hopelessly out of date in CS and that real work experience is more important. Below are some points that came out during our arguments.
What matters -- education or experience?
Education per se
--Artem
A better question would be... (Score:1)
Bill Gates not attending College? It shows! (Score:1)
degree we would in all probably have:
1. Windows more stable and usable.
2. Respect for the Law and other companies
Bully behavior might be successful in the US market place but it surely is not good for the society at large.
I wouldn't be using linux if it weren't for univ. (Score:1)
AFAIK, I'd still be a Microserf, seeing these CNN stories about linux, and wondering, "what a fad." I wouldn't be reading slashdot. Because I wouldn't have met a friend who was one of two linux users I knew at the time.
tim
Other Points (Score:1)
Overall, I found the article an interesting read, but it was pretty much a basic top of the surface sort of article. However, the comments about people with non-technical degrees I found especially true.
I guess I can consider myself fortunate when I look at the fact that I was one of those people who had a chance to skip college and go right into the business world two years ago, but I didn't and I think its the best choice that I've ever made. I've also been offered the chance to do a co-op for a semester at some fairly good companies but turned those down.
Why? Would be the obvious question. There is something that most geek don't notice, there is a hell of a lot more to college than simply the studies. In terms of what you learn at college, only about 10% will be from classes. The rest you learn from people.
You will never be more free than the age of 18-23 when you are in college. You have pretty much no one to answer to and its a great time to explore. By passing that up and entering the work force, geeks a missing a lot.
Need? No, but it helps... (Score:1)
Which is why I appreciate my University course so much now. Yes, it taught me Pascal, C and Unix, but it didn't concentrate on them. They were a means to an end. It could equally well have taught me FORTRAN, Ada and VMS (actually, it did...) and still have achieved the same goal -- I learned how to program. It didn't matter what language or OS were used, we learned platform neutral stuff like general OS theory, compiling techniques, algorithms, cryptography, regular expressions etc. Things that apply irrespective of the OS or language being used.
No, you don't need a University education in computing to get a good IT job. However, I believe it puts you in a much stronger position than those without...
Worth Bothering. (Score:1)
I just left a $60K/year job to go back for my CS degree and back to eating instant ramen as my only meal of the day. I think it's worth it. Please tell me it's worth it
--
My College Experience (Score:1)
Access to the Internet, and all the information it brought to me.
The only thing of use that I directly got from College and my professors was critical thinking- a couple of them were REAL teachers and taught me to think for myself and how to learn the things I need in life on my own.
ummmm women... (Score:1)
That's a joke. When I was working on my engineering degree, I thought the world was 90% men and 10% women, with 0% women taking engineering. Four years. Hell. The bright side was there were few distractions, unless you count the bell curve: all of us were focused. It made the competition brutal.
Learn to get out and experiment with 16oz physics. It made college life more bearable.
No women in tech? That's what electives are for. (Score:1)
We have a (black) woman engineering manager at our manufacturing plant who has been with us for a year. The change was dramatic as we now have someone who will tackle all problems and impliment quality solutions. Before, the engineering department was "hard of hearing" and we had rashes of "science experiments" that were creating endless loads of scrap to the huge dumpsters. If you want someone who will listen, I'd recommend hiring a sharp woman and back her all the way.
She is highly determined and works people hard, but never places blame when bugs need to be worked out. Working in an environment like this may be stressful, but very rewarding and fun.
Did I mention we have a woman plant manager? We have 450 employees and the turnover rate is low (most retire or die before they quit.)
Be receptive to a woman boss. They have vision.
Time at work vs. time in college (Score:2)
I thought the first year of college was not going to teach me much exept how to heat networks of resistors and was quite boring; however, the next few years took full use of what I thought was worthless. Building amplifiers and logic circuits turned into state machines and then 8 bit computers built and programmed from scratch. College gave me the theory and time to become an expert and specialize in the engineering area I was good.
I also worked through college. Work also gave me opportunities, but it was the novelty of my skills I gained from college that opened doors at work. The degree also adds value when things like downsizing take place and they had to score our backgrounds in different areas. Believe me, a college degree really counts!
My College Experience (Score:1)
Because it taught me an appreciation for a wide variety of things. I read books. I studied Sociology and Anthropology. I debated with others. I met people from widely varying disciplines.
College is an experience, not a means to a finite end. If you want a degree just for bottom-line $$$, you're missing the point. College should teach you to learn, and to love learning because it makes you a better human. I use my degree (chemistry) in my job in the sense that it taught me how to think analytically, and that makes me a good programmer. But I use it more often for the esoteric appreciation of the finer things in life that it gave me. That will still be there when I'm 45, and I'll appreciate even more then.
My College Experience (Score:1)
Of course, I imagine in PHB-land, this may be different. Luckily, the world of CS is vast, and you can avoid PHB-land if you want to. Anyone who hits the glass ceiling can and should give their walking papers. Too many startups out there (like us!) need good people, they can go somewhere that *will* appreciate them.
Grinding your own keys... (Score:2)
>doing it.
Whoa, that would be a tragedy. An educated public, how... revolutionary (I mean that in every sense of the word, I feel leftist today ).
*sigh* We need to change our viewpoint. The fact that people consider it a "piece of paper" is pretty sad, because that's not what it's meant to be. But it seems as if that is what it has become in a very real sense.
Why do some of us get MSCE's when we hate Windows NT and know that that cert means nothing? It doesn't make WinNT behave any nicer for us... we get it because jumping through that hoop is a neat trick that impresses some people who don't know what a stupid pet trick it is...
A degree, by itself, has no meaning. It's a tool, you get out of it what you put into it.
If you have a PhD, but you're a schmuck, don't expect me to treat you like anything but Dr. Schmuck, esq.
If you're a hippie with no shoes, but you can hack C and talk to me about Milton and Kuhn, you're a pretty cool guy in my book. I might want to work with you.
Forget about all the rest of it... just try to pursue the goal that makes you a better person. If you're two years into school and still have no idea why you're doing it, drop out. Life is too short to waste...
That piece of paper... (Score:2)
If people knew better how to open doors to the kinds of jobs they want, then your argument doesn't work. The reason why a college degree is needed is because everybody acts the same--like a herd of cattle. They send out resumes (moo!). Not to managers they know, or to managers who know them, but to some faceless HR dept (moooo). Of course a degree is handy then. How else to tell apart the Bovines?
So how to get a job then? How does RedHat hire folks? Do they put ads in local papers. No. They hire people they know. They don't scrummage through thousands of resumes looking for Linux kernel hackers. They turn to their employees, who say "Sure, that blizzard guy knows this stuff. We should hire him". The idea is that they hire people who they know can do the work.
Get good at what you do. Find companies that do what you do. Let them know who you are. Then a degree is just a piece of paper.
How to stump college graduates... (Score:1)
COBOL (Score:1)
College School Dropout... (Score:1)
I'd suggest literature with a minor in art history. Perhaps then so many Web pages won't be so ugly and so poorly written.
more than one way to skin an octal (Score:1)
There is a very clever recursive solution, but any routine that had a loop got a partial credit.
BTW, the test taker was given a Pascal (or C) manual.
But I don't wanna take calc! (Score:1)
P.S. My degree is in math.
Specialization is for Insects (Score:1)
Hmm... I majored in math, minor CS and music. Currently reading for fun: "Practice of Programming" and "War and Peace".
I suspect that you are misjudging Slashdot posters.
That's me all over! (Score:1)
What is the point of this test? (Score:1)
Another problem on the test was to write a routine to find an item to a linked list. Even more college graduates failed this one.
more than one way to skin an octal (Score:1)
The test was just a step in a process of interviewing. The ability to write such a function tells us little, but the inability to write one after having gotten a CS diploma tells a lot.
P.S. Last time I used this test about 10 years ago and at the time I was working for a bank.
Well, Do What You Want (Score:1)
But if you skip college, you probably won't be a very well-rounded individual. You probably won't have very good critical thinking skills. You probably won't understand philosophy or history much. You probably won't be able to write well.
A liberal arts education is the most important thing you can get beyond whatever specific skills you need for whatever job you happen to have. If you don't go to college to get this education, you probably won't get it at all. But if you do, then fine, you really don't have a need to go to college, beyond being able to get certain jobs that require it for no good reason.
That's me all over! (Score:1)
My College Experience (Score:1)
Secondly, it gave me free (well, very expensive free) and unlimited internet access, which put me in the way of things like Linux. *That's* where I learned the most.
Oh yeah, college also helped me build up a tolerance to stupidiy and beuracracy. That will be critical as I enter the real world.
Why it matters later in life. (Score:1)
Eventually a number of my brain cells will die, and I may have to be put into management. They like paper there
Spelling (Score:1)
The usefulness of college/university (Score:1)
It's just a personal gripe. I do have a job in the CS field and it's fine, but I believe I got it mostly on the merit of what I did as "hobbies" not as course work. The piece of paper with the official degree on it was useful to the HR dept. of where I work, but that's about it.
my opinion. (Score:1)
Another point that the article makes is that the curriculum has a hard tinme staying current with the day's technology, and I am also finding that to be true. One of the important parts of the curriculum here is COBOL programming. COBOL? While I have little real-world experience, I really don't think COBOL is one of the things that employers are searching for on a college graduate's resume.
I dunno, just my two cents.
-mike kania
yes (Score:1)
it taught me theory that made java old hat when i first saw it four years later.
it taught me practical things, so that the technical side of developing was easy.
it taught me subjects outside of cs, which sadly included ethics. (sad that it was outside, not that it was something i learned)
it exposed me to other cultures, and other people.
i suppose it would be better to say that "i learned," rather then "it taught." college provided me with access to those things, it was up to me to take them.
it might not be for everyone, but i find it interesting to note that bill gates dropped out and has spent the past 20 years reinventing the wheel badly. linus completed his degree and (due to licensing issues) recreated a well known wheel and used it to sringboard experiments in not very well known wheels: scheduling, memory management (well researched in low memory eras, but not well covered in high memory situations) and smp.
yes (Score:3)
it taught me theory that made java old hat when i first saw it four years later.
it taught me practical things, so that the technical side of developing was easy.
it taught me subjects outside of cs, which sadly included ethics. (sad that it was outside, not that it was something i learned)
it exposed me to other cultures, and other people.
i suppose it would be better to say that "i learned," rather then "it taught." college provided me with access to those things, it was up to me to take them.
it might not be for everyone, but i find it interesting to note that bill gates dropped out and has spent the past 20 years reinventing the wheel badly. linus completed his degree and (due to licensing issues) recreated a well known wheel and used it to sringboard experiments in not very well known wheels: scheduling, memory management (well researched in low memory eras, but not well covered in high memory situations) and smp.
My College Experience (Score:1)
away from your early 20's (as oppossed
to away from college for those that
didn't go...) the harder it is to
move from job to job without the piece
of paper.
I've got many friends who didn't go that
can't move to better jobs or other
companies due to the lack of paper.
That isn't to say they aren't great
engineers - just that they have a
harder time commanding decent pay at
new jobs because of the lack of a college
degree.
Your mileage may vary.
That piece of paper... (Score:1)
o College is _way_ overpriced and inefficient
o They don't understand customer service
o The most important thing I got out of it was my campus computer lab job and access to the net
I was able to grind my own keys after some time as a locksmith's apprentice, and now I can unlock some pretty sweet doors..
Yes, they do. (Score:1)
I'm very close to finishing my own degree, and I am determined to finish. It's a sign to potential employers that I have recieved formal instruction over a certain skill set, and that I can finish a big project that I started. Plus, it will open more doors for me than might have been open without the degree.
I don't understand this (Score:1)
I loved my college years and I would not trade the time spent there for any 9-5 job.
9-5 = yuck.
Secondly, most of you guys are going for tech degrees which are, frankly, boring in terms of the curriculum you can take; most of those degrees are pretty much mapped out for you with no room for philosophy, music, literature, languages. Technical folks seem to completely ignore the liberal arts curriculum, which is really what an education is all about.
Please read Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind for an excellent analysis of education today. If you hate college, or are a technical person, please read this book.
College is most definitely neccesary. Well, if you are interested in learning anything, anyway. You can certainly learn programming and computers on your own (I did; I didn't study anything computer related in school), but you'll be cheating only yourself without a liberal education.
My College Experience (Score:2)
I can't compare myself to someone who did not go to college, since there are none employed here, but I do notice that I grasp certain concepts much faster and sometimes in a different way than some of the straight EE/CS grads, mostly due to my language and Humanities background. It's not all positive, since I do need to work harder to get the initial concepts, but things like requirements, OOAD and algorithms are just clear, logical, and distinct writing -- that is to say, they do not differ drastically from good writing.
I don't think that a discipline -- be it science or humanities -- can advance or make major developments solely from within. New points of view -- wherever they come from -- need to address old problems; someone who is trained in a discipline is also trained in a certain way of looking at problems. It's only when an outsider tries to understand a problem that you get a truly new point of view. That's not to say that EE and CS grads are not useful or productive with respect to advancing CS -- far from it. I am talking more about broadbased interests and experience than education. You can be a CS major, for example, and still enjoy reading Classics, just as you can be a Classics major and enjoy programming; it is this cross-disciplinary approach that leads to revolutions.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that no matter what you major in, or even if you go to college (which I highly recommend), you need to be aware of the big picture of the world, and have interests outside of your work. The worst engineers here are some of the Electrical Engineers who are only concerned about their small component, with little or no concern about how the widget fits in with the
The facts are worthless (Score:2)
Employers want people who can learn, who are flexible, and who can gracefully handle getting dumped with a bunch of work, when machines are down and customers are screaming. Unfortunately there is no degree in this. There are, however, killer degrees which drown you in work. Employers realize that anyone who made it through this type of degree had to at least perservere in the face of a gigantic mountain of learning, lectures and labs.
Someone who never made it through one of these degrees may do just as well at a job, but it's a bit more of a crap shoot, unless you can find a parallel, concrete achievement that shows their tenacity. Employers often take the easy way out and just insist on the degree.
SysAdmin vs. Developer (Score:2)
OK - my bias: I'm a SysAdmin. Most of my friends are developers.
My overall experience is that I (and most of the good sysadmins I know) have a far larger repetoir of computer knowledge than the developers I know. The distinction here is breadth vs. depth. Sysadmins tend to be a huge repository for bits of knowledge (most admins I know are excellent at Trival Pursuit), since you never know when that little tidbit is going to be needed. Developers are by their nature more focused and tend to ignore info that isn't really germaine to their job. It's the old generalist vs. specialist argument.
I'm not saying that I'm better than the developers, or that my knowledge is somehow more valuable. It's important to do my job. Theirs is important to do theirs. We couldn't switch positions and do anywhere as well in our new places.
And yes, I can tell a good developers from a great one, and have no problem identifying a poor one (he's the one standing in front of my cube all day).
-Erik
College Has Its Uses, But... (Score:2)
In my career, I've seen plenty of people with degrees (some advanced) in the field who couldn't code their way out of a brown paper bag. I've also seen people with training in wildly divergent fields, indeed, some with no degree at all, who were and are outstanding software engineers. The only common threads I've seen is that you must have the talent for it, and that you have to love it enough to work your tail off.
In my view, most CS departments are set up to train people to be CS grad assistants instead of software engineers in industry. In my opinion, schools should offer degrees in software engineering in addition to those in computer science. It's important to face another fact as well; 5 yrs after you get your degree, if you expect to continue to glide along on your knowledge that you gained in school without continuous self education, you're going to be dead meat in the field. A degree is a START, not an end unto itself.
Also, for the previous poster that said his degree would be important when he was 45. It's a lot more important at the start of your career than when you have experience. I haven't been seriously quizzed about my educational status in at least 7 or 8 yrs.
Also, in keeping with my comment about talent, I'd also love to eventually see apprenticeship programs for coders. I'm sure there are people out there with the talent to do coding or other computer tech tasks. There are certainly opportunities for people, and I don't think a 35 yr old should be expected to quit his present job and go to school full time for 4 yrs to check them out, if they display the talent.
Just my
College Has Its Uses, But... (Score:3)
In my career, I've seen plenty of people with degrees (some advanced) in the field who couldn't code their way out of a brown paper bag. I've also seen people with training in wildly divergent fields, indeed, some with no degree at all, who were and are outstanding software engineers. The only common threads I've seen is that you must have the talent for it, and that you have to love it enough to work your tail off.
In my view, most CS departments are set up to train people to be CS grad assistants instead of software engineers in industry. In my opinion, schools should offer degrees in software engineering in addition to those in computer science. It's important to face another fact as well; 5 yrs after you get your degree, if you expect to continue to glide along on your knowledge that you gained in school without continuous self education, you're going to be dead meat in the field. A degree is a START, not an end unto itself.
Also, for the previous poster that said his degree would be important when he was 45. It's a lot more important at the start of your career than when you have experience. I haven't been seriously quizzed about my educational status in at least 7 or 8 yrs.
Also, in keeping with my comment about talent, I'd also love to eventually see apprenticeship programs for coders. I'm sure there are people out there with the talent to do coding or other computer tech tasks. There are certainly opportunities for people, and I don't think a 35 yr old should be expected to quit his present job and go to school full time for 4 yrs to check them out, if they display the talent.
Just my
The usefulness of college/university (Score:3)
Oh, I had to take non-DC circuit analysis too; transient signals are very important in integrated circuits, and integrated circuit design is a part of Comp. Eng.. However, I didn't have to take some of the hairier Elec courses, from Fields and Waves on up.
We have the good fortune of using C under Solaris on Sun workstations for most of our programming work.
What I really want to do is design an OS that will blow Microsoft out of the water. Of course learning how the CPU decodes a machine-language instruction through a microprogram has little to do with this (too low level). Neither does anything having to do with Java (too high level). Methinks I should have been a Computer Scientist, but there probably isn't a scholarship for those.
Actually, both of those are at least tangentially significant for OS design. Comp. Eng. should cover OS design, as it falls right in its area of influence (the layer where hardware and software meet). Comp. Sci. would teach you OS design, but there would be a vast amount of high-level and theoretical stuff thrown at you as well. Comp. Eng. focuses more on practical application, as opposed to the high reaches of theory (though we still get a bit of it).
For OS design, I strongly recommend the excellent textbook that we had in our OS course. Assuming it hasn't changed over the past year or so, it is:
William Stallings
Operating Systems: Internals and Design Principles, 3rd Edition
Of course, that only coveres half of the OS (the kernel). For driver programming, I'd suggest finding semi-decent documentation on Linux drivers and picking apart drivers in your own copy of Linux. BeOS is another good platform on which to learn driver development; there are a few good reference sites that cover its driver architecture.
There are a lot of aspects of OS design that I would have taken quite a while to find out about on my own. I know what a page table is now, and how several process scheduling algorithms work, and the merits and drawbacks of each. As well as a large amount of low-level detail about what's involved in implementing a microkernel, c/o the labs we had to do. I could have picked up all of this by spending a year taking apart the Linux kernel, but out in the working world, it's hard to find the time for major undertakings like that (I know, as I'm working now).
In summary, I was given useful information about this in my CE courses. My sympathies re. NT and Java
The usefulness of college/university (Score:4)
Type number one is a place where people go to drink and have sex. The professors range from mediocre to truly incompetent, and nobody really learns a whole lot even if they do pay attention in class and do all of the coursework. People who have been through one of these colleges generally say that college is a waste of time. In a college like this, I agree - it is.
Type number two is different. The professors actually know what they're talking about, and many are quite bright indeed. The coursework is actually challenging. No matter how smart you are, you'll be picking up new concepts and then working your butt off to prove that you understand them. The courses that you are taking are relevant to your chosen career and teach you things that you will use after you graduate. You also learn how to learn, as many others have pointed out. I have the good fortune to be at a university like this, and it has proven invaluable for my work in the software industry.
A complaint that I sometimes hear from people who don't like college is that none of the courses are interesting. IMO, this isn't necessarily a problem with the college (though it can be for the first type of college). I was very lucky, and chose exactly the right course stream; my courses match my interests almost perfectly. But, if I'd chosen Electrical Engineering instead of Computer Engineering, I'd be stuck doing analog circuit analysis when what I really want to do is design ICs. This would not only have presented problems after graduation, but would have made my coursework alternately difficult and boring.
My advice for those pondering college is to think carefully about what they want to learn about, and to pick a good school at which to learn. This might mean a hideously expensive school, or it might not. However, if you pick a bad college or university, your time there will be a dead loss.
Likewise, picking your field is important. If you choose incorrectly, you will be forced to work your butt off learning things that just don't interest you. Don't be afraid to change fields once you have already enrolled; it's better to lose a year than to stick with something you don't like and lose four years. It will still be worth it.
If you do find a good college or university and manage to get into a field that truly interests you, then IMO you will almost certainly find post-secondary education to be worthwhile.
Exactly what you needed to read (Score:2)
The one thing that seems to be missing from these discussions is this:
You're not there to learn useful skills. You're there to learn to think.
ASM on s 68k is BS, sure, you'll never use it. But you need the concept of assembler, and that 68k is as good a tool as any. I learned on a VAX, seen any around?
Come for a little walk with me...
But now, with my VAX ASM experience, I see the value of Hungarian notation, and I see why it's worthless in C++. I know that this is not critical knowledge, but actually it is. In the 'real world' we write more documentation than code - sad to say. If we're lucky, we get to write the docs that dictate how we write code.
Shmoe #1 writes: We should standardize on Hungarian notation because that's what M$ uses.
Shmoe #2 (me) writes: We should use human readable naming conventions, because we can write maintainable code that way, there is no learning curve required for the naming convention, the IDE will keep the data types and function return values straight for us - in short we do a better job faster.
Manager calls both Shmoes into office - Explain this difference of opinion, he says.
Shmoe #2 can talk intelligently about the value of Simonyi's notation, and why it is not applicable (but only habitual) in a high-level language like C++ and especially our language du jour Java.
Shmoe #1 can only say: It's what M$ uses.
Shmoe #2 writes draft that get's read by upper management --> name recognition.
Shmoe #2 gets to be team leader (bonus!)
All because Shmoe #2 had to learn assembler on the VAX, and knows that when you only have one data type, naming conventions matter, but when you have lots of code, readability matters.
So, even though it seems like BS now, it will prove very valuable after you earn your B.S. And those things that seem like useless drivel now, will click into place, at the most unexpected moments, and pay off in spades.
So suck it up, log off, and get your arse to class. You're missing drivel that might save your job someday.
Grinding your own keys... (Score:2)
You're right, but there's a reason for it being expensive - it keeps people out, leaving only those with the means (or excellent grades) to even contend for the degree.. It isn't fair, or right, or anything, but neither is evolution, or big rocks falling out of the sky. It just is.
And as for customer friendly... Well, FEH!
Zen buddist monks are not consumer friendly, neither are dojo masters, drill seargants or the tutors of world class pianists. They turn out champions by making them overcome adversity.
If college were cheap and fun, everyone would be doing it.
Some people lack the grades, and can't even get in - and a good thing, since the world can only support so many pointless grads.
Some can't hack the pay - for those that are able minded it's truly too bad. I've seen briliant minds flip burgers, it's a shame. Those that smoke their Pell grants deserve to dig ditches.
Those that have the grades and the money, but do not navigate the burocracy well, well, they're probably better off dropping out and becoming experts in their own right. They may bet branded as non-team-players by their managers, and as anit-social by their coworkers, but they have absolute respect as alpha geeks in the office.
In Europe (Eastern) where higher education is purely merit based, there is a true tragedy. Many Ph.D's are working as salespeople and plumbers, because anyone can get an education if they want to. Here in the US, if you can't pay, you can';t play, and this acts as a safety valve to curb Graduate overpopulatioon.
Yes, necessarily. (Score:2)
You can run a marathon in the best time ever, and stop 10 feet before the finish line. That way, you know how tough the run is, but you just don't know how that medal feels around your neck.
If you spent $60k on 3 years of school, don't ever attempt to manage money. You can go to a state school at half that amount, and have much less anxiety about walking away from it without actually finishing the job. At $10k/semester, if you quit before seeing it through, sorry to say, you changed jobs a week before deadline. You should have felt that things were not right after the first semester, rather than beating your head against the wall of the Ivory Tower.
Don't ever admit it to an employer, they'll see you as a quitter and as someone who doesn't have the guts to follow through with a committment.
If daddy had given me $60k for school, I would have had a Ph.D. to show for it, and I'd be set for life - I'd be able to pay him back in a year, and still have my bills paid.
As it is, I worked full time while taking full time semesters, and am now working on a Masters in CS. My employer knows that I'm stubborn as hell, and that education means the world to me. My signing bonus included full graduate tuition in one the country's best engineering schools. If I didn't stick it out as an undergrad, I'd never have this option.
It is not judgemental and shortsighted of an employer to look for a degree - it shows a desire to learn, and more importantly it shows fidelity to commitment.
Ooh, I like this post. (Score:2)
Unfortunatelly, I don' think the human race is quite ready for the world on the other side of that door. I know I'm not.
There's just not enough money to reward all those brilliant minds - unless you're willing to live on satisfaction alone. I'm not, I like toys.
You mention bad times. Who makes the decision which neurosurgeons should flip burgers? Do they do it for the same pay? What about the career burger flippers? Where do they go?
It's not fair, but the financially selective US system works. Well, at least it worked for me. I hope it works for everyone. But I also hope no one ever gets cancer. All I can do is care for me and my loved ones. If I can help someone I feel is especially gifted, I will, but not at the cost of my kids. I mean, even if they're stupid, they're mine, right? I need to do best by them.
I intend to make a lot of money in my lifetime. When I'm done, I intend to set aside an account to feed a scholarship for other former hasbeens that didn't quit. That's my contribution.
That piece of paper... (Score:4)
I have a little metal ring in my pocket. On it are flat little piece of metal, with teeth. Worthless and useless, right? Too thin to cut food, too thick to pick your nails. Oddly, they fit locks. I can easily get into rooms and cars that are otherwise inaccessible to me.
I can secure my house against thieves, get into my car and drive myself to my job. I can get into my office, in which lay confidential and propriatary materials. I can check my PO box for mail.
I wouldn't have any of these things without my keys. And, I wouldn't have any of them without my degree.
A college education opens doors.
It teaches structured thinking, but most geeks already have that skill. We've argued the value of a college education and the experience of University ad nauseum here on
It turns out that it's a unary argument. One can not make an informed decision about it, since you either do or do not have the experience. A comparison can not be made, since it would be like men trying to compare their experience of manhood with the experience of being a woman. We do not have the means to be objective here.
But, without a doubt, that little piece of paper opens doors. Some people without it get quite lucky, but they are a significant exception to an otherwise unnoticed majority. Most people who do not have the degree, do not get as far as those with the degree. It's not flame-bait, it's fact.
Without a degree, you start as a tech, and you need to prove yourselv constantly, to advance. With the degree, you start at a higher level, and if you continue to prove yourself to advance, you advance faster and higher.
Bill Gates' success not withstanding, a significant majority of executives, CEOs, CIOs, managers and others who make lots of money, is college educated, (sadly) with business degrees that exceed the Bachelor level.
Get your keys. You don't have to use them, you can still use a crowbar or a credit card to open those doors, but keys make it a) easier, and b) socially acceptable.
College School Dropout... (Score:2)
#1. The value of education without reference to practicality.
#2. The value of the degree as representing that education.
#3. The value of the relationships one forms in the process of getting #1 or #2
In the case of most people, the education has a value as experience but that never relates to financial benefit...
The other 2 items are where the financial value can be measured..
The top tier lawschool average salary after graduation can be $30000 dollars greater (or more) than the second tier school.
The reason for this is that when someone hires from a school based on the degree they are saying "I need predictable value based on my investment. As I see 0 job experience I need to evaluate based not on any qualification but on the statistical likelyhood that someone from a school I am familiar with as a good school will be like the majority of other people from that school.
I am a high school and college drop out who gets hired by people who are looking for things that NO ONE ELSE HAS DONE. Finding someone who is educated in doing things others have done is of no worth.
While a college education might benefit me (by giving me a broader range of experience and skills including communication, and more contacts with people who might hire me or contribute talent in my projects) it is not a good indicator of my core value, which is technical in nature and yet is not expressedly formalized as an engineer or other professional might be.
In truth college has many merits, but few are financial. I have always considered my college education a luxury that I could seek when my financial responsibilities were relatively settled. I enjoy learning and enjoy being in a group of people learning. However I don't see how my philosophy degree would help in anything beyond bio-ethics (which I dread)...
What sort of degree would you want for someone in this so called WEB industry? The ability to type? Clearly design is not primary as we can see from the high quantity of really nasty looking poorly behaved web pages. Clearly no technical skill is necessary as there is negligible difficulty in producing web pages that are no more than glorified word-processed desktop published contentless dribble.
The fact is that it isn't surprising that people are evaluating this talent as not requiring college. What is surprising is that people think that a task that will eventually be simple enough for a 5 year old to do, is also a good career choice...
As to the comp-sci degree, I was told 10 years ago that it wasn't a good criteria. I was told the masters was the lowest level one should consider as showing some merit in the field...
I thought this might have changed when I stated this recently to a number of my peers (I am modest to include anyone really as my peer... Although I hope that when I am tried for whatever they catch me at, that I will be able to have ya'll exclusively on the jury...)
The response was, are you kidding? A masters is worth garbage...
So I gather it is still the same...
As to college as a source of a free internet account... That is like saying your car came with a free radio antenna...
College? (Score:2)
I think school does different things for different people. There is no real 'universal constant' in terms of what is best. For entrepreneurial people college life will never be enough and they will know that. However, there are tons of people who don't have that drive and whose sole goal is to 'learn that computer stuff' so that they can get a good secure job with benefits. This is especially true as CS becomes more a of a business style major with people involved who have no passion for it and just want the big jobs that everyone says 'knowing computers' will give you. This was the worst things about college, dealing with the fruits who were involved in CS purely for the financial aspects.
That said, the 3 years of college I did attend really taught me a lot and got me started. It served as an introduction to how things are 'supposed' to be done. I have always written code but the concepts and styles I was introduced to in school have left a lasting impact. Its like literature and writing in a way, you have to know whats been done to do your best work and college is a great venue to learn about what others have accomplished and give you building blocks to construct the future with. It showed me a deeper level of understanding and also gave me a map of the landscape. The concepts I was introduced to are concepts that would have never shown their ugly heads to me otherwise and I have benefited greatly from them. The mind boggles at what I would have seen had I finished.
So, different strokes for different folks I think. A lot of it depends on personality type and individual drive/motivation. Me, I enjoyed college and want to finish but I know that my path to success has be driven more by my internal drive, ambition and intelligence then a document I recieved as credit for time spent.
Lastly, I bet Salon wrote this article specifically to get a Slashdot effect going
Theoretical Understanding (Score:2)
But I lacked any theoretical framework.
College changed that. It gave me the big picture. I could see not only how things worked, but why they worked that way.
Of course, I also learned a bunch of new languages, and was exposed to new OS environments, but I would have picked those up on my own eventually. I don't think I can say the same of the theoretical understanding.
College can be an excellent experience. (Score:3)
'I don't need college, I can learn anything I want to about programming in the real world'
That's true, if programming, by analogy, is a skill no higher than a technician; someone tells you what they need and when, and you do it.
There are absolutely lots of things that cannot be learned except by college, unless you are a genius along the ranks of Feynman, Newton, or Einstein. If you were that smart though, you'd probably in college with 2 or 3 degrees, right?
I'm not trying to insult people who haven't gone to college(yet), I'm making a point to those people who are considering and wavering. As mentioned in other posts, there are plenty of things you learn in college that isn't taught, ethics among them, but there are just as many things you won't be able to figure out in the real world. Predicate calculus, program correctness, and big O complexity. Or semiconductor physics, and why transistors act the way they do, and how an entrepreneurial physicist/engineer can take advantage of their quirks and unleash the next big(say a thin flat light cheap LCD) thing on the world. Or even math, and alternatives to 2d linear algebra; 3d or 4d math...
The best things one learns are from classes not related to your main interests, but from which if one makes the effort, can be applied to your main interests in new and uniquely satisfying ways...
AS
college _is_ useful (Score:2)
Am I going to become a philosopher? It's not likely -my plan is go to graduate school for IS--, but the process of studying has taught me, most how to adapt.
(on a more abstract level, I think sometimes that the entire system of undergraduate majors and Pre- tracks is a silly, stupid process which prevents many people from getting an education)
You don't go to college for a set of skills (Score:2)
You are taught programming languages in college to provide a platform for studying the deep concepts of software development; algorithms, lifecycles, teamwork, and design patterns (to name a few)
If you want to be hired out of college, then during college you should be teaching yourself current languages. The only mechanism that a college provides for gaining vocational knowledge is the coop/intern program.
I'll probably get flamed over this remark, but I haven't met a programmer who does not have any formal college CS background who is worth a damn when it comes to large application organization, the discipline is just not there.
Anybody can throw some lines of code together and accomplish a task...it takes a rigorous background in CS to start thinking in terms of design patterns.
More to College... (Score:2)
You get a CS or CE degree for more than just learning a programming language. First of all, you learn *how* to program in a way that "Sams in 21 Days" just can't teach you. You learn core skills such as designing hashes. And very importantly, you're forced to study topics that you otherwise would not. You also attain (depending on the college) a real education.
If you're skipping college to startup your own business, go for it. This will give you more education than any college ever could. But if you're skipping just so that you can start work as a developer, think again. Take that job, but take it part time while you're attending classes.
Perspective (Score:2)
Many people who leave college early to pursue high-powered technical positions argue that they can always go back to college, but that these computer oppurtunities are fleeting. Well, not to keep harping on perspective, but give me a break! First of all, most will NEVER go back to school, because they've moved to a new stage in their lives with new responsibilities that make it too difficult to be a student again, and they've lost all those oppurtunities to study outside their field, to meet other students, and have the college experience that we all know and love. Furthermore, the computer industry will ALWAYS be there. Make yourself into a better, more intelligent, more qualified person now, and oppurtunities will come banging at your door. If you want to advance through the ranks, and really make a difference in the industry, it will help not only to have that piece of paper called the diploma, but also to have so many of the skills that paper should represent for you.
Work hard and study the industry, and hold down god jobs while in school, but don't drop out. It's too good an oppurtunity to miss.
Yes, with qualifiers (Score:2)
(1) It's fun! You get to lead a (mostly) independent lifestyle, meet friends and chicks, and have free time to do interesting things.
(2) It'll improve your thinking. I tend to believe that education's value is not in acquiring information, but in training (think gym) for the mind. In college you'll be forced to think in a more-or-less organized way about more-or-less different subjects. Majors do not matter -- some of the smarter people I know took classics as majors.
(3) That piece of paper that the college gives you in the end is quite important. Other people tend to be very disimpressed when you cannot produce it.
The major qualifier: all this applies only if you go to a good, preferably a top college. Going through a top 10 college is very worthwhile experience. If you college didn't make it into top 200 or so, don't bother. Read books instead.
Kaa
Hmmm.. I've changed my mind on this one... (Score:2)
Especially if they're in a leadership position, like a team leader or manager. Programming is rarely about coding nowadays, and although I know enough people who spent their early years in their bedrooms coding, I don't know of anyone who spent them learning about software engineering paradigms.
Sure, most of the time at Uni is completely and utterly wasted.. I'm not sure any of the lectures I went to actually taught me anything. In fact, most of them 'un-taught' me. However, the process of doing coursework and team projects taught me a lot more than I thought.
Re: (Score:2)
The Importance of an education (Score:2)
Case in point: me. MIT makes us take 8 humanities classes in order to graduate (among other general requirements which are common across all majors). I got talked into taking a music history class. That class changed my life and opened a whole world of possibilities for me. I'm still a CS major, but I plan to minor (or at least concentrate) in music, all due to this one class that I took more or less because I "had to."
I'm currently taking a writing class (again, one of the core requirements), and it's really opened my eyes to a lot of literature (I highly recommend Moravec for those geeky types).
Sure, I do a lot of learning in my field as well, but if that's all I got, I'd feel a bit cheated. After 2 years here, I can say with confidence that I feel I have grown as a person, and I'm only halfway done.
Why Not Defer? (Score:2)
Missing the point (Score:2)
Well, at least I could DRAW a computer.
I ended up changing majors and eventually graduated with a Political Science degree.
Five years ago, I happened to find a course catalog for that college. I checked the CompSci program and found that C programming was a GRADUATE course. You had to pay them for four years to get a degree, then pay even more to learn how to do anything USEFUL in the real world.
IMHO, the real problem is that colleges are trying to gouge their students. They are using the prestige of being a college to overcharge people, waste their time with pointless courses, excuse horrible instructors, and generally treat students -- the people PAYING their salaries -- like dirt. Maybe it's time for them to wake up, look at the real world, and ask if what they are doing is relevant.
My College Experience (Score:3)
Many of the things I learned in college were invaluable, besides just that piece of paper. Other things were not very valuable. There were a number of classes that were basically a waste of time, but that was just preparing me for the real world.
Perhapse it depends on the college. I just interviewed a new college grad for an entry-level embedded programming job, yet the grad couldn't perform simple things. I asked about the difference between a linked list and a binary tree and how they relate to Big-O notation when searching. No answer. I asked the grad to write a C function to convert an integer to an ASCII string. Again, the grad was at a total loss.
For those who say they got nothing out of college, either you didn't want anything out of college or you were some super genious before entering. Either that or you went to some brain-damaged college.
Prior to college I had done a fair amount of programming and exploration. I knew 80x86 assembly cold and all the main data types used. In college I was able to greatly build on my experiences. Also, that piece of paper has been useful since it allows me to get a lower insurance rate.
How to stump college graduates... (Score:2)