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Every time I see articles like this I can only assume the writer either majored in CS or in a humanities major that doesn't involve any physical work. If you st

by knolax 6y ago

Every time I see articles like this I can only assume the writer either majored in CS or in a humanities major that doesn't involve any physical work. If you study any sort of science or engineering you will find that even the simplest equipment used in lab classes cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. Cost aside, you simply can not trust an undergrad to run a centrifuge without in-person training. People also highly over-estimate the cost and speed of self teaching. Personally, I learned more in my introductory Mechanical Engineering courses freshman year than I did in all my attempts at self-teaching. This of course doesn't even include the subjects I did not even know about before. There is an overhead cost per subject to self-teaching, and I've yet to see anyone self-teach themselves the number of subjects that a typical undergrad education involves. College is also the first time someone finds themselves in the company of enough competent people to, say, do an engineering or CS group assignment that doesn't involve major hand holding.

djsumdog 6y ago
There are also things I learned in CS (BigO notation, building algorithms from scratch, working in groups) that I don't think I would have picked up easily on my own (or know that it was important to learn). But it's still theory I use all the time when I design and build things at scale. There was a lot I didn't learn in University and that I picked up while working, because I kept my skills up. I know people who graduated from University who only knew Java and never did anything outside of the curriculum. I know other students who played with hardware, hooked up sensors, did assignments in different languages each semester (if the professor allowed it) and went out of their way to learn as much as they could. You get out of any education what you put into it. I do think in-person education is really important though, even in things like Comp Sci. I do think it should be affordable. I went to a small school in a small town and IIRC, my tuition was <$3k per semester (not including books, food and housing of course). It was the early 2000s and I had roommates who worked grocery stores and print shops, and were able to either pay for school with those jobs or pay off their loans within a year or so. During that same time, I met people from other schools with $20k in debt (and that's considered very low today!). No education should cost $100k. That's truly insane.

by knolax 6y ago

djsumdog 6y ago

There are also things I learned in CS (BigO notation, building algorithms from scratch, working in groups) that I don't think I would have picked up easily on my own (or know that it was important to learn). But it's still theory I use all the time when I design and build things at scale. There was a lot I didn't learn in University and that I picked up while working, because I kept my skills up. I know people who graduated from University who only knew Java and never did anything outside of the curriculum. I know other students who played with hardware, hooked up sensors, did assignments in different languages each semester (if the professor allowed it) and went out of their way to learn as much as they could. You get out of any education what you put into it. I do think in-person education is really important though, even in things like Comp Sci. I do think it should be affordable. I went to a small school in a small town and IIRC, my tuition was <$3k per semester (not including books, food and housing of course). It was the early 2000s and I had roommates who worked grocery stores and print shops, and were able to either pay for school with those jobs or pay off their loans within a year or so. During that same time, I met people from other schools with $20k in debt (and that's considered very low today!). No education should cost $100k. That's truly insane.