5 ms·

It's funny, because even people like Zuckerberg eventually had to pull in experts with extensive educational backgrounds to help in developing the company. And

by kyro 16y ago

It's funny, because even people like Zuckerberg eventually had to pull in experts with extensive educational backgrounds to help in developing the company. And if you look at any billion dollar company, those with degrees have played and continue to play a critical role in said company's growth and success. While I do agree that with a field like computer science, real world experience rather than educational background may be far more valuable (read: Diaspora), I hope this mentality is limited to those within that demographic. This certainly does not apply to people pursuing medicine, law, finance, etc. Some of the comments go so far as to claim that higher education is this era's biggest scam, which is an extremely ignorant view. I attend medical school currently, and am certain that the value I gain from the plethora of resources available, from discussing cases with professors to sticking my hands in a cadaver, is significantly more than that I'd get out of watching a few videos online, or taking some dissection tutorial. And these resources aren't free.

nostrademons 16y ago
"Some of the comments go so far as to claim that higher education is this era's biggest scam, which is an extremely ignorant view." There is a gigantic difference between medical school and University of Phoenix.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- lotusleaf1987 16y ago
  I don't think anyone is arguing (on HN at least) that U of P is at all a legitimate education, but surely you can appreciate that even someone who gets a degree from a state school would develop some critical thinking skills, regardless of their major. Going to college just teaches you how to learn and illustrates that you can. Some majors are definitely more valuable/productive than others, but I still think all of them are beneficial. Of course, you need to way the cost vs. benefit ratio on an individual basis because it's probably not useful to take out $130,000 in debt for say a Sociology degree.
- lzw 16y ago
  And between getting training on a job where you actually do the work involved and "watching videos online".
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- kyro 16y ago
  You're right, there is. I never said all institutions that claim to offer higher education are not scams or not free; some are in it purely for business. The University of Phoenix is pretty much 'open source' online education with a price tag, which really just supports my point in that there's still a definite need for and lots of value in the traditional hands-on sort of education.
whopa 16y ago
Out of the 3 pursuits you mentioned explicitly, I think only one of them actually truly benefits from the education system: medicine. With finance, the fundamentals are easily learned by self study, and to excel really depends more on personality type and drive than stuff that's taught in school. Law you can absolutely self study, there's plenty who've passed the bar exam without a degree in the past, though it's harder these days now that a lot of bar associations require a degree before you can sit for the test. That's likely due to favors to law schools rather than any real qualification reason. Some other fields do certainly benefit from the resources a university provide though. With many engineering and science subjects, lab work is pretty key to understanding, and you're not going to have to resources to do that on your own general. Computer science is an exception here, since computers are pretty readily available. However, with the rise of grade inflation and the general dumbing down of university curricula, for a lot of subjects your average school just doesn't confer much actual value.
- WalterBright 16y ago
  I benefited greatly from the courses I took at Caltech. What I learned was: 1. how to learn 2. organized methods of thinking about problems 3. how to separate truth from crap 4. how to break down large problems into solvable small ones I'm not sure how these can be learned effectively through self study.
  - srgseg 16y ago
    Interesting, please could you elaborate on the specific courses/experiences which helped you learn these things (esp no. 3) My experience of a CS degree was being drowned in information but not anything nearly as useful as that which you've noted.
    - WalterBright 16y ago
      None of the courses were labeled with "organized thinking" or "separating truth from crap". Learning that stuff was a side effect of probably 80% of the standard curriculum. Separating truth from crap is essentially what the scientific method is all about. If there is data that doesn't fit the theory, no matter how small, the theory is wrong and needs to be revised. A theory may explain existing facts, but it is useless unless it can make predictions that can then be tested. Stuff like that.
todayiamme 16y ago
You are making a mistake. It ultimately comes down to the drive that powers you. If you are in it to be a billionaire then you're looking at it in the wrong way. It's a testament to the quixotic nature of life that you never, ever get what you're looking for. I am in it to learn and grow as a human being, while trying to figure out what it means to be me on this ball of rock and liquid metal. I don't care if my start up makes a million dollars or a billion or a ridiculous trillion. I will work towards that goal, but my first priority is creating something beautiful and keep showing up everyday no matter what. So, where does an education come in over here? Are colleges the only way I can learn in my life? Except for a few fields where direct intervention from a teacher is required I can learn a lot of things on my own. Whenever I face any problems whatsoever there is something called the internet to collaborate on. Then again the question arises, why do people still fail? We're back to my initial point; drive. You can be an autodidact only if you are driven enough and there is a voice inside of you that tells you that you need to learn. Some people need flogging and "discipline" to do the same thing. They need to go to an institution to internalize things and get things done under a Damocles sword (exams). Most people are like that. Some aren't and this is the difference between them zuckerburgs and me.
- photon_off 16y ago
  I respect your perspective and attitude, and while it may be a perfectly functional one to operate in, it is not realistic. I'm not a fan of truisms such as "the quixotic nature of life that you never, ever get what you're looking for" and whatever it is called when you claim 1 factor of many is the culprit such as "lack of drive is the reason people fail" and "this is the difference between zuckerburgs and me". Truisms are nearly always incorrect. I am looking for my keyboard. Well, it's right beneath my fingers. That should seem to disprove your theory of innate life quixoticness. I'm not meaning to be facetious. That's just how reasoning works. It's very likely that you perceive life to be this way because you don't give credit to the times where you do get what you're looking for, and, conversely, you may attribute too much to the times where you don't get what you really, really want (despite seeking it very thoroughly). In terms of why people fail, and the difference between zuckerburgs and you, there are many, many different reasons. While you might have meant to say "the main reason" or "the main difference", it is my perspective that issues as complex as "what makes people different from one another" and "why do some people succeed, and some people fail" are pretty much unsolvable. There are just so many factors in each person's life, and the world in general, that it seems incredibly unlikely that one or two factors are behind any given characteristics of our life and world. This is also why I lend very low credibility to anything I read that says: "Want some big thing X, then do some simple thing Y" and other such link-bait articles. It is in their brevity they appealing, easy to believe, and probably wrong. That being said, of course these types of life-experience and drama-driven topics are fun to indulge in, from time to time, but it takes a lot more than a few paragraphs and minutes of thought for me to take away anything other than: "Interesting..." In specific response to "drive" being the main factor behind success, it's probably true that it is very important. There is also luck (a massive topic that encompasses anything from having your competitors succeed/fail [which recursively accounts for more luck], to whether or not you overhear a specific person say something when you're in a certain frame of mind [aka: Inception]), who you know, where you are, etc. Kyro was pointing out these attributes and their relation to the article, which I thought was insightful. And I definitely do not think he is mistaken in doing so.
byrneseyeview 16y ago
Yes, that's true. PhDs are, in the end, a commodity. People like Zuckerberg are not. You can commoditize yourself to the extent that you follow a traditional path (HS > College > Grad School > BigCo Coder > BigCo Manager > Retirement / Death). At some point, you have to start deviating from that path if you want a better-than-expected outcome, unless you happen to be really good at following whatever path has been set for you by others. Zuck and Gates started early; many people never do.
- beza1e1 16y ago
  Your better-than-expected is interesting. At the point BigCo Coder, your probably get above-average income already. Maybe we should learn a little modesty?
samatman 16y ago
While this is true, and I respect your decision to go to medical school, consider this: In Japan, which has the best life expectancy of any nation, doctors are trained for three years after high school. That's it. I believe a case can be made that the entire pre-medical curriculum is a scam, one that wastes years of life from some of our most promising young people and rakes in billions of education expenses that drive up the cost of health care.
- matwood 16y ago
  Life expectancies != a countries medical care performance. For example, no amount of medical care can overcome the US obesity problem.
  - nitrogen 16y ago
    Non sequitur. Your second statement does not follow from the first. First you state what medical care is not, then as an example, state something else medical care is not that appears unrelated to the first. More constructively, saying that medical care cannot help with obesity is unnecessarily restricting the definition of medical care. Further, obesity is a factor in life expectancy, so measuring life expectancy is a reasonable proxy for measuring obesity, and to some extent, vice versa.
    - matwood 16y ago
      I responded to someone who attempted to show the quality of medical care in a country by looking at the countries life expectancy. The problem I pointed out is that many factors play into life expectancy with medical care being one of the many[1]. From what I have read obesity leads to many early deaths and people who are obese have a much higher rate of disease. The US is one of the more obese countries and is far more obese than Japan. The difference in life expectancy could be attributed to the poor general health of the citizens and not to any difference in medical care. In fact, with how poor Americans seems to treat their bodies it's amazing that many live as long as they do. Perhaps it's through access to much better medical care than available in other countries? [1]Other life expectancy lowering factors that have little to do with the quality of medical care include murders. For example wikipedia states and [Japan] experienced 1.1 murder per 100,000 population, compared with 3.9 for West Germany, 1.03 for England and Wales, and 8.7 for the United States that same year.

by kyro 16y ago

nostrademons 16y ago

"Some of the comments go so far as to claim that higher education is this era's biggest scam, which is an extremely ignorant view." There is a gigantic difference between medical school and University of Phoenix.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
lotusleaf1987 16y ago
I don't think anyone is arguing (on HN at least) that U of P is at all a legitimate education, but surely you can appreciate that even someone who gets a degree from a state school would develop some critical thinking skills, regardless of their major. Going to college just teaches you how to learn and illustrates that you can. Some majors are definitely more valuable/productive than others, but I still think all of them are beneficial. Of course, you need to way the cost vs. benefit ratio on an individual basis because it's probably not useful to take out $130,000 in debt for say a Sociology degree.
lzw 16y ago
And between getting training on a job where you actually do the work involved and "watching videos online".
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
kyro 16y ago
You're right, there is. I never said all institutions that claim to offer higher education are not scams or not free; some are in it purely for business. The University of Phoenix is pretty much 'open source' online education with a price tag, which really just supports my point in that there's still a definite need for and lots of value in the traditional hands-on sort of education.

whopa 16y ago

Out of the 3 pursuits you mentioned explicitly, I think only one of them actually truly benefits from the education system: medicine. With finance, the fundamentals are easily learned by self study, and to excel really depends more on personality type and drive than stuff that's taught in school. Law you can absolutely self study, there's plenty who've passed the bar exam without a degree in the past, though it's harder these days now that a lot of bar associations require a degree before you can sit for the test. That's likely due to favors to law schools rather than any real qualification reason. Some other fields do certainly benefit from the resources a university provide though. With many engineering and science subjects, lab work is pretty key to understanding, and you're not going to have to resources to do that on your own general. Computer science is an exception here, since computers are pretty readily available. However, with the rise of grade inflation and the general dumbing down of university curricula, for a lot of subjects your average school just doesn't confer much actual value.

WalterBright 16y ago
I benefited greatly from the courses I took at Caltech. What I learned was: 1. how to learn 2. organized methods of thinking about problems 3. how to separate truth from crap 4. how to break down large problems into solvable small ones I'm not sure how these can be learned effectively through self study.
- srgseg 16y ago
  Interesting, please could you elaborate on the specific courses/experiences which helped you learn these things (esp no. 3) My experience of a CS degree was being drowned in information but not anything nearly as useful as that which you've noted.
  - WalterBright 16y ago
    None of the courses were labeled with "organized thinking" or "separating truth from crap". Learning that stuff was a side effect of probably 80% of the standard curriculum. Separating truth from crap is essentially what the scientific method is all about. If there is data that doesn't fit the theory, no matter how small, the theory is wrong and needs to be revised. A theory may explain existing facts, but it is useless unless it can make predictions that can then be tested. Stuff like that.

todayiamme 16y ago

You are making a mistake. It ultimately comes down to the drive that powers you. If you are in it to be a billionaire then you're looking at it in the wrong way. It's a testament to the quixotic nature of life that you never, ever get what you're looking for. I am in it to learn and grow as a human being, while trying to figure out what it means to be me on this ball of rock and liquid metal. I don't care if my start up makes a million dollars or a billion or a ridiculous trillion. I will work towards that goal, but my first priority is creating something beautiful and keep showing up everyday no matter what. So, where does an education come in over here? Are colleges the only way I can learn in my life? Except for a few fields where direct intervention from a teacher is required I can learn a lot of things on my own. Whenever I face any problems whatsoever there is something called the internet to collaborate on. Then again the question arises, why do people still fail? We're back to my initial point; drive. You can be an autodidact only if you are driven enough and there is a voice inside of you that tells you that you need to learn. Some people need flogging and "discipline" to do the same thing. They need to go to an institution to internalize things and get things done under a Damocles sword (exams). Most people are like that. Some aren't and this is the difference between them zuckerburgs and me.

photon_off 16y ago
I respect your perspective and attitude, and while it may be a perfectly functional one to operate in, it is not realistic. I'm not a fan of truisms such as "the quixotic nature of life that you never, ever get what you're looking for" and whatever it is called when you claim 1 factor of many is the culprit such as "lack of drive is the reason people fail" and "this is the difference between zuckerburgs and me". Truisms are nearly always incorrect. I am looking for my keyboard. Well, it's right beneath my fingers. That should seem to disprove your theory of innate life quixoticness. I'm not meaning to be facetious. That's just how reasoning works. It's very likely that you perceive life to be this way because you don't give credit to the times where you do get what you're looking for, and, conversely, you may attribute too much to the times where you don't get what you really, really want (despite seeking it very thoroughly). In terms of why people fail, and the difference between zuckerburgs and you, there are many, many different reasons. While you might have meant to say "the main reason" or "the main difference", it is my perspective that issues as complex as "what makes people different from one another" and "why do some people succeed, and some people fail" are pretty much unsolvable. There are just so many factors in each person's life, and the world in general, that it seems incredibly unlikely that one or two factors are behind any given characteristics of our life and world. This is also why I lend very low credibility to anything I read that says: "Want some big thing X, then do some simple thing Y" and other such link-bait articles. It is in their brevity they appealing, easy to believe, and probably wrong. That being said, of course these types of life-experience and drama-driven topics are fun to indulge in, from time to time, but it takes a lot more than a few paragraphs and minutes of thought for me to take away anything other than: "Interesting..." In specific response to "drive" being the main factor behind success, it's probably true that it is very important. There is also luck (a massive topic that encompasses anything from having your competitors succeed/fail [which recursively accounts for more luck], to whether or not you overhear a specific person say something when you're in a certain frame of mind [aka: Inception]), who you know, where you are, etc. Kyro was pointing out these attributes and their relation to the article, which I thought was insightful. And I definitely do not think he is mistaken in doing so.

byrneseyeview 16y ago

Yes, that's true. PhDs are, in the end, a commodity. People like Zuckerberg are not. You can commoditize yourself to the extent that you follow a traditional path (HS > College > Grad School > BigCo Coder > BigCo Manager > Retirement / Death). At some point, you have to start deviating from that path if you want a better-than-expected outcome, unless you happen to be really good at following whatever path has been set for you by others. Zuck and Gates started early; many people never do.

beza1e1 16y ago
Your better-than-expected is interesting. At the point BigCo Coder, your probably get above-average income already. Maybe we should learn a little modesty?

samatman 16y ago

While this is true, and I respect your decision to go to medical school, consider this: In Japan, which has the best life expectancy of any nation, doctors are trained for three years after high school. That's it. I believe a case can be made that the entire pre-medical curriculum is a scam, one that wastes years of life from some of our most promising young people and rakes in billions of education expenses that drive up the cost of health care.

matwood 16y ago
Life expectancies != a countries medical care performance. For example, no amount of medical care can overcome the US obesity problem.
- nitrogen 16y ago
  Non sequitur. Your second statement does not follow from the first. First you state what medical care is not, then as an example, state something else medical care is not that appears unrelated to the first. More constructively, saying that medical care cannot help with obesity is unnecessarily restricting the definition of medical care. Further, obesity is a factor in life expectancy, so measuring life expectancy is a reasonable proxy for measuring obesity, and to some extent, vice versa.
  - matwood 16y ago
    I responded to someone who attempted to show the quality of medical care in a country by looking at the countries life expectancy. The problem I pointed out is that many factors play into life expectancy with medical care being one of the many[1]. From what I have read obesity leads to many early deaths and people who are obese have a much higher rate of disease. The US is one of the more obese countries and is far more obese than Japan. The difference in life expectancy could be attributed to the poor general health of the citizens and not to any difference in medical care. In fact, with how poor Americans seems to treat their bodies it's amazing that many live as long as they do. Perhaps it's through access to much better medical care than available in other countries? [1]Other life expectancy lowering factors that have little to do with the quality of medical care include murders. For example wikipedia states and [Japan] experienced 1.1 murder per 100,000 population, compared with 3.9 for West Germany, 1.03 for England and Wales, and 8.7 for the United States that same year.