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My point is not that "we should do what SV wants" (I'm not even American). My point is... where would people get the education that bootstraps them to understa

My point is not that "we should do what SV wants" (I'm not even American). My point is... where would people get the education that bootstraps them to understand the state of the art then? To me that is the University's goal. In CS that means learning lots that may not be practical for a regular job (advanced algebra/calculus, computer architecture, data structure theory, etc.). However, in the long run this should leave you better prepared for the "boring jobs" too. Now, you argue that this kind of education may not be the most efficient training process to regular job excellence? I totally agree. College as devised today is designed as the first step into eventually being able to contribute to the world's knowledge, or at least making good use of it. It is not devised as a way to prepare you for the job world, where immediate applicability trumps everything (in general). I don't know the US system enough, but here in Spain (and at least in France and Germany) there are alternatives to College tuned to that goal. However, most parents (in Spain) still want their children to go the College route. Why? Because College is socially reputable (there are non-college educated leaders, but they are the exception, not the norm), and data shows that college educated people do have a higher expected income throughout their lives. It is percieved as a ladder up the social chain.

scarface74 8y ago
When they graduate from college and don’t have the applicable skills to get a job then what? Sallie Mae (the government agency in the US that oversees the student loan program) is going to come knocking on the students door six months after they graduate looking for them to start paying back their loans. Most students are more concerned with the most practical way of putting food on their table and many parents are concerned with getting their kids out of their basements than they are with “increasing the world’s knowledge.” That’s not a luxury the middle class has.
- kilburn 8y ago
  If the issue is as clear-cut as you claim, why don't you found a company that provides this kind of education? Why aren't there more students chosing other paths? Why are bootcamps struggling lately? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bootcamps-enterprise/some-u-s-coding-boot-camps-stumble-in-a-crowded-field-idUSKBN1AP2D7 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bootcamps-enterprise/some... College is supposed to give you strong foundations so you can build on that. This means that college grads should be able to pick up "applicable skills" in short time (they certainly should be able to become productive at any company in less than 6 months), and from there they should be able to improve faster than their non-graduate peers, eventually surpassing their skills. If that wasn't your case, sorry mate, you are surrounded by exceptional non-graduate peers, or you are an exceptionally bad graduate (which may be your university's fault or your own). In any case, those parents and students coughing up loads of money for graduate education seem to disagree with you.
  - la_fayette 8y ago
    i don't think you can discuss only one direction (theory > practise). i went back to academia after several years working in the industry. i would conclude practical experience allows you to gain a deeper understanding of theoretical knowledge, also if it comes to teaching. As one can present better and more real world use cases. if you consider statistics, machine learning, etc this is absolutely the case. learning just formulas etc without real use cases is mostly a waste of time for a student. only with good examples this goes to long term memory and deep understanding...
    - kilburn 8y ago
      I think most people would agree here. Nearly all CS college courses include practical projects, precisely to try to provide these good and memorable examples. It is also true that practical projects in 12-week long courses just cannot compare to the amount of problem insight you get if you spend N years working on it from the business side. There many courses that I would enjoy (and benefit from) much more now that when I did them some ~15 years ago!
      - scarface74 8y ago
        The original post was arguing against a practical project. > So having the "let's build something" experience is useful in the real world afterwards. It is, but it’s not the job of academia to teach it. You have side-projects, internships, and your whole life to learn practice. Have you never encountered a junior Dev fresh out of college who could talk theory all day long but couldn’t write an implementation of FizzBuzz?
        kilburn 8y ago
        > The original post was arguing against a practical project. As I understand, it was arguing against business-oriented teaching (i.e.: teaching to experts in the current fashionable web framework/language/ML system/whatever) instead of teaching the basics. It hardly said anything about practical projects. > Have you never encountered a junior Dev fresh out of college who could talk theory all day long but couldn’t write an implementation of FizzBuzz? Out of college? No. I've encountered a few who couldn't write FizzBuzz, but they also couldn't talk any theory either!

scarface74 8y ago

When they graduate from college and don’t have the applicable skills to get a job then what? Sallie Mae (the government agency in the US that oversees the student loan program) is going to come knocking on the students door six months after they graduate looking for them to start paying back their loans. Most students are more concerned with the most practical way of putting food on their table and many parents are concerned with getting their kids out of their basements than they are with “increasing the world’s knowledge.” That’s not a luxury the middle class has.

kilburn 8y ago
If the issue is as clear-cut as you claim, why don't you found a company that provides this kind of education? Why aren't there more students chosing other paths? Why are bootcamps struggling lately? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bootcamps-enterprise/some-u-s-coding-boot-camps-stumble-in-a-crowded-field-idUSKBN1AP2D7 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bootcamps-enterprise/some... College is supposed to give you strong foundations so you can build on that. This means that college grads should be able to pick up "applicable skills" in short time (they certainly should be able to become productive at any company in less than 6 months), and from there they should be able to improve faster than their non-graduate peers, eventually surpassing their skills. If that wasn't your case, sorry mate, you are surrounded by exceptional non-graduate peers, or you are an exceptionally bad graduate (which may be your university's fault or your own). In any case, those parents and students coughing up loads of money for graduate education seem to disagree with you.
- la_fayette 8y ago
  i don't think you can discuss only one direction (theory > practise). i went back to academia after several years working in the industry. i would conclude practical experience allows you to gain a deeper understanding of theoretical knowledge, also if it comes to teaching. As one can present better and more real world use cases. if you consider statistics, machine learning, etc this is absolutely the case. learning just formulas etc without real use cases is mostly a waste of time for a student. only with good examples this goes to long term memory and deep understanding...
  - kilburn 8y ago
    I think most people would agree here. Nearly all CS college courses include practical projects, precisely to try to provide these good and memorable examples. It is also true that practical projects in 12-week long courses just cannot compare to the amount of problem insight you get if you spend N years working on it from the business side. There many courses that I would enjoy (and benefit from) much more now that when I did them some ~15 years ago!
    - scarface74 8y ago
      The original post was arguing against a practical project. > So having the "let's build something" experience is useful in the real world afterwards. It is, but it’s not the job of academia to teach it. You have side-projects, internships, and your whole life to learn practice. Have you never encountered a junior Dev fresh out of college who could talk theory all day long but couldn’t write an implementation of FizzBuzz?
      - kilburn 8y ago
        > The original post was arguing against a practical project. As I understand, it was arguing against business-oriented teaching (i.e.: teaching to experts in the current fashionable web framework/language/ML system/whatever) instead of teaching the basics. It hardly said anything about practical projects. > Have you never encountered a junior Dev fresh out of college who could talk theory all day long but couldn’t write an implementation of FizzBuzz? Out of college? No. I've encountered a few who couldn't write FizzBuzz, but they also couldn't talk any theory either!