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I really wouldn't compare learning a very specific technology with college. The idea with college level education is that you get the foundations of what you st

I really wouldn't compare learning a very specific technology with college. The idea with college level education is that you get the foundations of what you study and a learning method, so that you can adapt to changes (eg new technologies) faster and better. Of course you can learn the foundations without college and not learn them with college, but on average it's much easier to do so with that.

johnminter 8y ago
Yes. Technology and business environments change. Students will only succeed if they become self-motivated, life-long learners who can identify the key problems/technology that their employers need solved/developed and rapidly build upon their skill-set to solve those problems and implement the solutions. Ideas/technology are like Legos - the point is to know how to assemble the pieces you have to build what you need. When I started my career as a scientist in a corporate analytical lab 36 years ago, corporate funding for travel and continuing education was plentiful. When budgets got tight, that was the first to go. Those of us who were self-directed learners survived the downsizing and cost-cutting much longer than those who didn't.
pnw_hazor 8y ago
In my experience undergrad programs can fail hard in this too because of the limited time to cover the subject matter. 14 chapters of Digital Signal Processing in 12 weeks w00t! For many of my engineering courses at a top tier public university it was in-one-ear-out-the-other. Though, the most of stuff I learned at community college (pre-engineering) did stick.
- rifung 8y ago
  Even if it does stick unless you use it you will likely forget.. but I think it's still useful to have learned since you hopefully retain enough that you know things exist and can look them up
scarface74 8y ago
I really wouldn't compare learning a very specific technology with college. The idea with college level education is that you get the foundations of what you study and a learning method, so that you can adapt to changes (eg new technologies) faster and better. That’s all well and good until they find themselves competing with people from other countries who are being trained to hit the ground running and are willing to work for less....

johnminter 8y ago

Yes. Technology and business environments change. Students will only succeed if they become self-motivated, life-long learners who can identify the key problems/technology that their employers need solved/developed and rapidly build upon their skill-set to solve those problems and implement the solutions. Ideas/technology are like Legos - the point is to know how to assemble the pieces you have to build what you need. When I started my career as a scientist in a corporate analytical lab 36 years ago, corporate funding for travel and continuing education was plentiful. When budgets got tight, that was the first to go. Those of us who were self-directed learners survived the downsizing and cost-cutting much longer than those who didn't.

pnw_hazor 8y ago

In my experience undergrad programs can fail hard in this too because of the limited time to cover the subject matter. 14 chapters of Digital Signal Processing in 12 weeks w00t! For many of my engineering courses at a top tier public university it was in-one-ear-out-the-other. Though, the most of stuff I learned at community college (pre-engineering) did stick.

rifung 8y ago
Even if it does stick unless you use it you will likely forget.. but I think it's still useful to have learned since you hopefully retain enough that you know things exist and can look them up

scarface74 8y ago

I really wouldn't compare learning a very specific technology with college. The idea with college level education is that you get the foundations of what you study and a learning method, so that you can adapt to changes (eg new technologies) faster and better. That’s all well and good until they find themselves competing with people from other countries who are being trained to hit the ground running and are willing to work for less....