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Not to mention that, despite CS degrees being devilishly useful, college isn’t strictly necessary full stop. These days you can get your foot in the door via co
by nyokodo 6y ago
Not to mention that, despite CS degrees being devilishly useful, college isn’t strictly necessary full stop. These days you can get your foot in the door via code schools. I worked with an excellent engineer who never went to college but apprenticed back when that was a thing, another very entrepreneurial former colleague just built up a portfolio in high school and became a contractor while his contemporaries were in college.
- _qulr 6y ago> These days you can get your foot in the door via code schools. I don't think Ivy League kids are looking to just get their foot in the door; they're looking to be at the top.
- wegs 6y agoYeah. The code school route has a pretty hard glass ceiling. I'm glad I took graduate coursework in advanced algorithms, signal processing, control systems, AI, etc. which followed on a course of differential equations, advanced linear algebra, probability, and so on. There is a difference in computer science curricula, with more than a little bit of correlation with which tier school you go to. Without a solid theoretical background, you can become a decent engineer building a database-backed web application, but there's a world of possibilities closed off to you. And those aren't skills you'll pick up on the job. If you're super-self-motivated, MOOCs and similar can do it, but I've found few adults able to invest the time to learn skills which don't have a pay-off for years. Differential equations or linear algebra aren't very helpful in isolation; it's the application which build on top of them which add value. That's a few semesters of study.