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While I agree trade schools are not considered enough for the value they can add, your comment strikes me as reinforcing the college degree path. 1. Beyond a f

by mlthoughts2018 7y ago

While I agree trade schools are not considered enough for the value they can add, your comment strikes me as reinforcing the college degree path. 1. Beyond a few general requirements, most CS programs do let you focus on what you’re interested in, and to much greater depth and pragmatic application than trade school. “Focusing on things you don’t care about” is a very minor part of college technical programs unless you make up your mind to solely care about some small niche. 2. “I never would have cut it in college” is not a free pass from needing a well-rounded education, appreciation of art, literature, business, ethics, etc., and good writing, communication and organizational skills well beyond what’s taught in trade school. This is becoming increasingly critical in business software settings, where developers are often working directly in tandem with product managers. I could see trade school working for very specific niche areas, like DBA for a single specific enterprise database system, or breadth of knowledge in devops compatibility across multiple cloud vendors. But I can’t see trade school as a reliable way to get necessary experience for general software architecture applied to business problems and fundamentals for the social coordination of multi-system software projects. You personally might have had the raw talent and gumption to parlay trade school into that sort of career skill, I’m just saying it’s not likely to work out as well for a random student in today’s job market.

BeetleB 7y ago
> Beyond a few general requirements, most CS programs do let you focus on what you’re interested in, and to much greater depth and pragmatic application than trade school. Not that few. Here's what mine has: - Writing x 2 - Discrete Mathematics (a few concepts in there are really needed - the rest is mostly not) - Public Speaking - Humanities x 4 - Calculus x 2 (I doubt even 10% of SW folks use this) - Linear Algebra (as few as calculus use this) - science course (e.g. chemisty, bio, phys - you pick) x 2 - Non tech seminars x 2 - Probability and Statistics (I'd argue one should take this, but I'd still wager less than a quarter of developers use this) What's worse: The majority of the above are in the first two years - so if you don't have the discipline to do courses you feel are irrelevant, you just want get to the fun stuff. Only 6 out of the first 20 courses are related to computers. > “I never would have cut it in college” is not a free pass from needing a well-rounded education, appreciation of art, literature, business, ethics, etc., and good writing, communication and organizational skills well beyond what’s taught in trade school. This is becoming increasingly critical in business software settings, where developers are often working directly in tandem with product managers. Look - I think I gained quite a bit from the well rounded education I got. And my general advice is that people should go for it. However, I also have the reality of experience: Most of my peers who have degrees are poor at writing, poor at communication, poor at ethics, and poor at business skills. I see nothing differentiating them from trade school folks in this regard - and these all matter in the work place. So yes, I gained quite a bit from those courses. But the reality is most grads do not.
- mlthoughts2018 7y ago
  The courses you list are mostly very necessary for well-rounded knowledge and ability to synthesize research and share knowledge (like in a team project), and doesn’t seem to be a high course load. Putting it in the first two years also suggests the later years allow you to be more specialized on CS. Linear algebra, discrete math & probability really are needed all the time.
  - BeetleB 7y ago
    > The courses you list are mostly very necessary for well-rounded knowledge and ability to synthesize research and share knowledge (like in a team project), I can only repeat what I said: Look - I think I gained quite a bit from the well rounded education I got. And my general advice is that people should go for it. However, I also have the reality of experience: Most of my peers who have degrees are poor at writing, poor at communication, poor at ethics, and poor at business skills. I see nothing differentiating them from trade school folks in this regard - and these all matter in the work place. > Linear algebra, discrete math & probability really are needed all the time. Why? One can understand O(N) enough to do over 90% of SW jobs without taking these courses. You just need a bit of dedicated instruction for it. And while linear algebra is crazy important for some disciplines, it's simply not needed for over 90% of SW careers. And I do think a good understanding of statistics and probability can really help you, I also see that most CS majors take this course and have forgotten almost everything they learn in it by the time they graduate. I think some parts of the SW industry are such where you really would benefit from it - roughly 25%. I also think that percentage will increase with time, so I would encourage everyone to learn it - degree or trade school. Don't get me wrong. I spent over a decade in university doing math heavy stuff. I love it. I can also say from my experience in industry is that very little of this differentiates good from poor performers. Or rather, the main factor is motivation and internal drive. Those who have it learn it with or without a degree. And those who get a degree (even with a good GPA) but lack the motivation forget it ridiculously quickly. I still recall my shock in my first industry job where almost everyone had graduated with a good GPA and a top school and had forgotten most of their linear algebra, discrete math and probability within 2 years of working. And more importantly, they fought hard to avoid doing such problems. If we were talking, say, electrical engineering (electronics/control theory/EM/communications), then I would heavily tout the degree. It's a ton more math heavy than a CS program, and it requires a lot more discipline to do that on your own, and I've not heard good experiences from trade school on those.
scarface74 7y ago
While I agree that the soft skills will help you break the ceiling of being just a developer in a corner somewhere (art not so much), college in my experience is only useful to get you that first job. Especially if you spend your entire career as an “enterprise developer”. You can pick up the other useful skills on the job with time.

BeetleB 7y ago

> Beyond a few general requirements, most CS programs do let you focus on what you’re interested in, and to much greater depth and pragmatic application than trade school. Not that few. Here's what mine has: - Writing x 2 - Discrete Mathematics (a few concepts in there are really needed - the rest is mostly not) - Public Speaking - Humanities x 4 - Calculus x 2 (I doubt even 10% of SW folks use this) - Linear Algebra (as few as calculus use this) - science course (e.g. chemisty, bio, phys - you pick) x 2 - Non tech seminars x 2 - Probability and Statistics (I'd argue one should take this, but I'd still wager less than a quarter of developers use this) What's worse: The majority of the above are in the first two years - so if you don't have the discipline to do courses you feel are irrelevant, you just want get to the fun stuff. Only 6 out of the first 20 courses are related to computers. > “I never would have cut it in college” is not a free pass from needing a well-rounded education, appreciation of art, literature, business, ethics, etc., and good writing, communication and organizational skills well beyond what’s taught in trade school. This is becoming increasingly critical in business software settings, where developers are often working directly in tandem with product managers. Look - I think I gained quite a bit from the well rounded education I got. And my general advice is that people should go for it. However, I also have the reality of experience: Most of my peers who have degrees are poor at writing, poor at communication, poor at ethics, and poor at business skills. I see nothing differentiating them from trade school folks in this regard - and these all matter in the work place. So yes, I gained quite a bit from those courses. But the reality is most grads do not.

mlthoughts2018 7y ago
The courses you list are mostly very necessary for well-rounded knowledge and ability to synthesize research and share knowledge (like in a team project), and doesn’t seem to be a high course load. Putting it in the first two years also suggests the later years allow you to be more specialized on CS. Linear algebra, discrete math & probability really are needed all the time.
- BeetleB 7y ago
  > The courses you list are mostly very necessary for well-rounded knowledge and ability to synthesize research and share knowledge (like in a team project), I can only repeat what I said: Look - I think I gained quite a bit from the well rounded education I got. And my general advice is that people should go for it. However, I also have the reality of experience: Most of my peers who have degrees are poor at writing, poor at communication, poor at ethics, and poor at business skills. I see nothing differentiating them from trade school folks in this regard - and these all matter in the work place. > Linear algebra, discrete math & probability really are needed all the time. Why? One can understand O(N) enough to do over 90% of SW jobs without taking these courses. You just need a bit of dedicated instruction for it. And while linear algebra is crazy important for some disciplines, it's simply not needed for over 90% of SW careers. And I do think a good understanding of statistics and probability can really help you, I also see that most CS majors take this course and have forgotten almost everything they learn in it by the time they graduate. I think some parts of the SW industry are such where you really would benefit from it - roughly 25%. I also think that percentage will increase with time, so I would encourage everyone to learn it - degree or trade school. Don't get me wrong. I spent over a decade in university doing math heavy stuff. I love it. I can also say from my experience in industry is that very little of this differentiates good from poor performers. Or rather, the main factor is motivation and internal drive. Those who have it learn it with or without a degree. And those who get a degree (even with a good GPA) but lack the motivation forget it ridiculously quickly. I still recall my shock in my first industry job where almost everyone had graduated with a good GPA and a top school and had forgotten most of their linear algebra, discrete math and probability within 2 years of working. And more importantly, they fought hard to avoid doing such problems. If we were talking, say, electrical engineering (electronics/control theory/EM/communications), then I would heavily tout the degree. It's a ton more math heavy than a CS program, and it requires a lot more discipline to do that on your own, and I've not heard good experiences from trade school on those.

scarface74 7y ago

While I agree that the soft skills will help you break the ceiling of being just a developer in a corner somewhere (art not so much), college in my experience is only useful to get you that first job. Especially if you spend your entire career as an “enterprise developer”. You can pick up the other useful skills on the job with time.