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The 4 years of college includes a lot of non-college time during summers, breaks, holiday vacations, etc. There is no reason why a serious student shouldn't be

The 4 years of college includes a lot of non-college time during summers, breaks, holiday vacations, etc. There is no reason why a serious student shouldn't be actively learning 50 weeks a year, minus holidays, and putting in the same work time as his peers who entered the job market after high school. In which case, 3 years is easily enough. However, 3 * 50 * 40 is only 6000 hours, which won't make you an expert. The coursework listed on github for the OSSU is likely thousands of hours if pursued diligently.

Pfhreak 7y ago
> There is no reason why a serious student shouldn't be actively learning 50 weeks a year Except... being a human? Having a family? Decompressing from the stress of studying? Earning a living? (I worked 35 hours a week in school so I could eat...)
- sharadov 7y ago
  No, you're not allowed that!
- Merrill 7y ago
  The newly graduated BS-CS is going to be expected to work at least 40 hours/week, with two weeks vacation, and to study outside work hours to get up to speed with his co-workers. And his cousin, the apprentice electrician has been working 40 hours/week, with two weeks vacation, studying to become a journeyman and doing all those other things. Why are college students given such a light schedule? (I also worked my way through college, but that seems to be less practical now, since the price of college has risen much faster that wages for jobs that students can get. Although I think it is a good idea for students to have jobs off campus to get an introduction to real work.)
  - Pfhreak 7y ago
    > The newly graduated BS-CS is going to be expected to work at least 40 hours/week, with two weeks vacation, and to study outside work hours to get up to speed with his co-workers. Wasn't my experience at any of the major or minor tech companies I've worked at. I've never been expected to study outside of work hours, and most places pretty quickly gave more than two weeks vacation. > Why are college students given such a light schedule? Presumably because they have hours of coursework every day, they should be socializing and networking, they have to work to feed themselves and pay tuition, they have a family to see to, and practicing/exploring their domain on their own? I was enrolled in 20 credit hours/semester and worked 35 hours a week. Nothing about my schedule was 'light'. I think it's wrong to assume that college students necessarily have it 'easy'.
sharadov 7y ago
That "10000 hours will make you an expert" thesis has been debunked. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121114-gladwells-10000-hour-rule-myth http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121114-gladwells-10000-hou...
- el_dev_hell 7y ago
  I find the "10,000 hour rule" odd (after reading both Ericsson and Gladwell). It's often misinterpreted as "10,000 hours of X will make you an expert in X", but that's not how I interpret the claims by Ericsson or the simpler repackaging by Gladwell. I read the article you linked and was hoping it contained new research to clarify or refute the work done by Ericsson, but it didn't. The linked article regurgitates two of the key points in The Road To Excellence by Ericsson: * You need to be engaged in deliberate practice (e.g pushing yourself outside of your current area of expertise). Not mindless work. I'm not an expert driver from my 10,000+ hours of commuting. * 10,000 hours isn't a set figure. It's an average at best. The premise is claiming that people in the top-tier (2%-5%) spent a lot of time consistently practicing their area before reaching the top-tier. The "10,000 hour rule" hasn't been debunked. It just doesn't mean what some people assume it means when first hearing it refereed to as the "10,000 hour rule".
  - sharadov 7y ago
    Yes, you might be engaged in "deliberate practice" , but that does not account for individual talent. Someone might take 5000 and another 20000. Gladwell dumbed it down.
- throwtheasd 7y ago
  Isn't it obvious? Learning how to hold a spoon takes less time than learning how to drive a car.
throwtheasd 7y ago
From a physical standpoint there are enough hours in a week to work 40 hours and pursue 40 hours of university. Except universities aren't something like an evening school that is explicitly designed around this idea. University lectures do not follow a nice time table that allows that. Lectures start at different times depending on the day of the week. Therefore your workday will start at a different hour every day, except all your colleagues still work their 9 to 5 schedule which will make you significantly less productive than them because you don't get to meet them every day. There can be gaps between lectures but you can't just go back and forth between university and work. It takes time to travel and even if you can do it in a reasonable amount of time you will end up doing multiple context switches per day. This makes working significantly more than 20 hours per week extremely hard.

Pfhreak 7y ago

> There is no reason why a serious student shouldn't be actively learning 50 weeks a year Except... being a human? Having a family? Decompressing from the stress of studying? Earning a living? (I worked 35 hours a week in school so I could eat...)

sharadov 7y ago
No, you're not allowed that!
Merrill 7y ago
The newly graduated BS-CS is going to be expected to work at least 40 hours/week, with two weeks vacation, and to study outside work hours to get up to speed with his co-workers. And his cousin, the apprentice electrician has been working 40 hours/week, with two weeks vacation, studying to become a journeyman and doing all those other things. Why are college students given such a light schedule? (I also worked my way through college, but that seems to be less practical now, since the price of college has risen much faster that wages for jobs that students can get. Although I think it is a good idea for students to have jobs off campus to get an introduction to real work.)
- Pfhreak 7y ago
  > The newly graduated BS-CS is going to be expected to work at least 40 hours/week, with two weeks vacation, and to study outside work hours to get up to speed with his co-workers. Wasn't my experience at any of the major or minor tech companies I've worked at. I've never been expected to study outside of work hours, and most places pretty quickly gave more than two weeks vacation. > Why are college students given such a light schedule? Presumably because they have hours of coursework every day, they should be socializing and networking, they have to work to feed themselves and pay tuition, they have a family to see to, and practicing/exploring their domain on their own? I was enrolled in 20 credit hours/semester and worked 35 hours a week. Nothing about my schedule was 'light'. I think it's wrong to assume that college students necessarily have it 'easy'.

sharadov 7y ago

That "10000 hours will make you an expert" thesis has been debunked. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121114-gladwells-10000-hour-rule-myth http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121114-gladwells-10000-hou...

el_dev_hell 7y ago
I find the "10,000 hour rule" odd (after reading both Ericsson and Gladwell). It's often misinterpreted as "10,000 hours of X will make you an expert in X", but that's not how I interpret the claims by Ericsson or the simpler repackaging by Gladwell. I read the article you linked and was hoping it contained new research to clarify or refute the work done by Ericsson, but it didn't. The linked article regurgitates two of the key points in The Road To Excellence by Ericsson: * You need to be engaged in deliberate practice (e.g pushing yourself outside of your current area of expertise). Not mindless work. I'm not an expert driver from my 10,000+ hours of commuting. * 10,000 hours isn't a set figure. It's an average at best. The premise is claiming that people in the top-tier (2%-5%) spent a lot of time consistently practicing their area before reaching the top-tier. The "10,000 hour rule" hasn't been debunked. It just doesn't mean what some people assume it means when first hearing it refereed to as the "10,000 hour rule".
- sharadov 7y ago
  Yes, you might be engaged in "deliberate practice" , but that does not account for individual talent. Someone might take 5000 and another 20000. Gladwell dumbed it down.
throwtheasd 7y ago
Isn't it obvious? Learning how to hold a spoon takes less time than learning how to drive a car.

throwtheasd 7y ago

From a physical standpoint there are enough hours in a week to work 40 hours and pursue 40 hours of university. Except universities aren't something like an evening school that is explicitly designed around this idea. University lectures do not follow a nice time table that allows that. Lectures start at different times depending on the day of the week. Therefore your workday will start at a different hour every day, except all your colleagues still work their 9 to 5 schedule which will make you significantly less productive than them because you don't get to meet them every day. There can be gaps between lectures but you can't just go back and forth between university and work. It takes time to travel and even if you can do it in a reasonable amount of time you will end up doing multiple context switches per day. This makes working significantly more than 20 hours per week extremely hard.