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While I have no doubt this paid dividends for you, I'm not convinced that the cost/benefit is greater on the whole than alternatively spending those 4 years doi

While I have no doubt this paid dividends for you, I'm not convinced that the cost/benefit is greater on the whole than alternatively spending those 4 years doing real-world development. Subjective, sure, but from my perspective there are too many amazing self-taught developers and too many subpar ones with degrees to automatically justify the 4 year time and money cost for the average person (concerning skill, career prospects have their own reasoning w/ degrees of course). One of the biggest things one learns is the ability to self-teach. Unfortunately college charges a lot of time and money to learn via their chosen methodology which doesn't fit many people. At worst it can build a dependence on teacher-pupil classroom settings to learn new approaches, hence so many training sessions and stagnation in their absence. As a tautology, it's not that one approach is necessarily better than another, but we must remember that one approach is not necessarily better than another.

Salgat 8y ago
It ultimately boils down to whether you have the discipline on your own to learn all the "right" ways to do something and understand how it works. Unfortunately we also have an issue where schools are pumping out CS degrees that aren't exactly high quality.
kluck 8y ago
Studying does involve a big chunk of practial work, so you get both theory and practise. If you don't know the basics it would be very hard to do any "real-world development". So why do you think, 4 years are better spent trying desperately to coble some scripts together with a boss behind you than spending those 4 years surrounded by experienced teachers and like-minded students in an environment that focuses on learning?
- kodablah 8y ago
  I'm going to try to comment like this, here goes... Why do you think 4 years are better spent paying to cobble together scripts for unnecessary assignments the way a can't-hack-it-outside-academia teacher wants who is not incentivized to do the best and is out of touch with real-world development instead of spending those years surrounded by experienced and like-minded peers in an environment that focuses on making tangible accomplishments and making money? I hope it's clear how ridiculous discussing things this way is. There are benefits on both sides, and a reasonable person would respect that.
  - danaris 8y ago
    Except that what's being talked about here is a Computer Science degree, not a Programming or even Software Engineer degree. While the former does generally involve learning some programming, its focus is more about understanding the way computers and programming languages work from the fundamental theory on up. So if you're going to criticize it, at least get it right: it's not 4 years cobbling scripts together for <insert tired "those-who-can't-do-teach" stereotype here>, it's 4 years learning theory and fundamentals when you could be practicing the marketable skills you'll be using more directly. Personally, though, I've found that while nearly none of the specific programming techniques I learned in my Computer Science degree have been applicable to my job since, the fundamental understandings of the underpinnings of the field have made it vastly easier for me to pick up new languages and techniques as I need to.
    - kluck 8y ago
      Thank you for stepping in and trying to clarify. English is not my native language - that is why I sometimes struggle to explain myself better. The most valuable stuff you learn in CS study is the theory and that is exactly the stuff you miss out in an actual job (exceptions are possible of course).
sam0x17 8y ago
It also depends on whether your indicator for success is writing CRUD endpoints in the latest web framework vs inventing new data structures, algorithms, and AI systems.
niklasd 8y ago
I agree that self-teaching is a very important skill, but it is a skill that I learned in my university time. It itself is a self taught skill, of course. At least in Germany, lectures are not compulsory, and if I find I don't learn enough, I go home and try to understand it on my own. Second, I dispute that spending those 4 years doing real-world development would have yielded greater benefit. The thing is, he'll be doing his whole life real-world development, so the longer he is in the profession, the smaller the benefit of the additional amount of experience will be. On the other hand, in the four years of college, he has the chance to learn some other stuff deep in a way that he won't have the chance while he's working.
- kodablah 8y ago
  > I dispute that spending those 4 years doing real-world development would have yielded greater benefit Didn't say that, just saying that's not the case for many
pq0ak2nnd 8y ago
Having hired programmers since the 90's, OP is correct. Think of it with this analogy: a hacker with no comp-sci foundation is to hacker with comp-sci foundation the way a car mechanic is to an automotive engineer
- kodablah 8y ago
  It's not a binary correct vs incorrect and it's unfortunate that so many that hire see it that way. I don't when I hire and I understand that different approaches work best for different people. You should take that into account instead of thinking that one approach is flatly "correct".
  - pq0ak2nnd 8y ago
    You are correct: I didn't specify what I was hiring for. I didn't have a need for plug-and-chug hackers to knock out one-off fixes, i had a need for talented programmers to groom into software and system architects that would maintain complex systems for many years. First I went for the Farady over Maxwell approach the first 5 years i hired and that was a 50% fail. The next round of going for degrees + hacking worked much better after 3 years. Granted, hackers might be different today than they were in the mid-90's early 2000's
    - sh87 8y ago
      I have a com-sci degree from a non-reputed college from a country that's considered the 'body shop' of the software development world, so my perspective is fairly skewed. That degree cost me virtually nothing as compred to what prestigious colleges cost, took me a year less to complete and I stood first in my graduating class. I graduated at the worst point of the 08 recession. I still remember being kicked out for not being 'qualified' enough without even a chance to interview. Was it worth it? Sure, taught me to figure out whats important and whats not, identify decision makers, optimise my habits to maximize output, work with idiots and geniuses at the same time and i was now 'certified' to code and get paid for it. Would I be able to make do without it? maybe, but I'd rather take this route.
GaryNumanVevo 8y ago
Ironically, going to a state school for Computer Engineering with large class sizes and under funded professors made me learn how to learn very quickly. The lectures were initially very simple, and supplemented with hard projects and labs where we would really learn how to do something

Salgat 8y ago

It ultimately boils down to whether you have the discipline on your own to learn all the "right" ways to do something and understand how it works. Unfortunately we also have an issue where schools are pumping out CS degrees that aren't exactly high quality.

kluck 8y ago

Studying does involve a big chunk of practial work, so you get both theory and practise. If you don't know the basics it would be very hard to do any "real-world development". So why do you think, 4 years are better spent trying desperately to coble some scripts together with a boss behind you than spending those 4 years surrounded by experienced teachers and like-minded students in an environment that focuses on learning?

kodablah 8y ago
I'm going to try to comment like this, here goes... Why do you think 4 years are better spent paying to cobble together scripts for unnecessary assignments the way a can't-hack-it-outside-academia teacher wants who is not incentivized to do the best and is out of touch with real-world development instead of spending those years surrounded by experienced and like-minded peers in an environment that focuses on making tangible accomplishments and making money? I hope it's clear how ridiculous discussing things this way is. There are benefits on both sides, and a reasonable person would respect that.
- danaris 8y ago
  Except that what's being talked about here is a Computer Science degree, not a Programming or even Software Engineer degree. While the former does generally involve learning some programming, its focus is more about understanding the way computers and programming languages work from the fundamental theory on up. So if you're going to criticize it, at least get it right: it's not 4 years cobbling scripts together for <insert tired "those-who-can't-do-teach" stereotype here>, it's 4 years learning theory and fundamentals when you could be practicing the marketable skills you'll be using more directly. Personally, though, I've found that while nearly none of the specific programming techniques I learned in my Computer Science degree have been applicable to my job since, the fundamental understandings of the underpinnings of the field have made it vastly easier for me to pick up new languages and techniques as I need to.
  - kluck 8y ago
    Thank you for stepping in and trying to clarify. English is not my native language - that is why I sometimes struggle to explain myself better. The most valuable stuff you learn in CS study is the theory and that is exactly the stuff you miss out in an actual job (exceptions are possible of course).

sam0x17 8y ago

It also depends on whether your indicator for success is writing CRUD endpoints in the latest web framework vs inventing new data structures, algorithms, and AI systems.

niklasd 8y ago

I agree that self-teaching is a very important skill, but it is a skill that I learned in my university time. It itself is a self taught skill, of course. At least in Germany, lectures are not compulsory, and if I find I don't learn enough, I go home and try to understand it on my own. Second, I dispute that spending those 4 years doing real-world development would have yielded greater benefit. The thing is, he'll be doing his whole life real-world development, so the longer he is in the profession, the smaller the benefit of the additional amount of experience will be. On the other hand, in the four years of college, he has the chance to learn some other stuff deep in a way that he won't have the chance while he's working.

kodablah 8y ago
> I dispute that spending those 4 years doing real-world development would have yielded greater benefit Didn't say that, just saying that's not the case for many

pq0ak2nnd 8y ago

Having hired programmers since the 90's, OP is correct. Think of it with this analogy: a hacker with no comp-sci foundation is to hacker with comp-sci foundation the way a car mechanic is to an automotive engineer

kodablah 8y ago
It's not a binary correct vs incorrect and it's unfortunate that so many that hire see it that way. I don't when I hire and I understand that different approaches work best for different people. You should take that into account instead of thinking that one approach is flatly "correct".
- pq0ak2nnd 8y ago
  You are correct: I didn't specify what I was hiring for. I didn't have a need for plug-and-chug hackers to knock out one-off fixes, i had a need for talented programmers to groom into software and system architects that would maintain complex systems for many years. First I went for the Farady over Maxwell approach the first 5 years i hired and that was a 50% fail. The next round of going for degrees + hacking worked much better after 3 years. Granted, hackers might be different today than they were in the mid-90's early 2000's
  - sh87 8y ago
    I have a com-sci degree from a non-reputed college from a country that's considered the 'body shop' of the software development world, so my perspective is fairly skewed. That degree cost me virtually nothing as compred to what prestigious colleges cost, took me a year less to complete and I stood first in my graduating class. I graduated at the worst point of the 08 recession. I still remember being kicked out for not being 'qualified' enough without even a chance to interview. Was it worth it? Sure, taught me to figure out whats important and whats not, identify decision makers, optimise my habits to maximize output, work with idiots and geniuses at the same time and i was now 'certified' to code and get paid for it. Would I be able to make do without it? maybe, but I'd rather take this route.

GaryNumanVevo 8y ago

Ironically, going to a state school for Computer Engineering with large class sizes and under funded professors made me learn how to learn very quickly. The lectures were initially very simple, and supplemented with hard projects and labs where we would really learn how to do something