4 ms·

Why would you want to go to college, have huge debt and learn things (CS) that's avaliable on the internet for free? even courses from an actual edu institution

Why would you want to go to college, have huge debt and learn things (CS) that's avaliable on the internet for free? even courses from an actual edu institutions like mit, stanford and so on The only thing I think is knowning people from the industry and seeing what cool stuff other people do, but otherwise? I just graduated with engineering degree that I've done on weekends while working full time as SE and I'd never want to go on normal schelude (where I attend college on work days instead of 4days/month) because it'd be straight up waste of the time, but when they'd additionally require me to pay tens of thousands of usd for this, then holy shit. The difference would be when it would be top country CS like top1, top2, top3, top(1+some), but below that? What's the point of paying mad cash for basics of CS? just for the title? just for the diploma? I don't believe that not obtaining higher edu is a good choice, but there's so many things that sounds poor about it.

belorn 6y ago
> What's the point of paying mad cash for basics of CS? just for the title? just for the diploma? Mostly Yes. Free education has existed for a very long time through libraries and book shops, and yet the effect to get more women into high paying jobs was significant smaller compared to the mass of men who went into college and universities. The second major effect of getting diplomas and titles is the perception of investing into that person future. A parent who invest into their child will also push that child into getting a job. Society and culture also put down expectations that a person who studied and heavily invested into a title will also end up with such job rather than settle for less.
- antibuddy 6y ago
  I agree that actual educational institutions make a difference and that also explains some/much of the unbalance few decades ago. However women are also different than men and that is also reflected in the commitment and interests. So we still see the "gender pay gap", which does not show unfairness in the system, but that women are still fewer in higher paying jobs without the restrictions to higher education of yesteryear.
LatteLazy 6y ago
Until employers think that way, the only people getting hired don't think that way. Until the people getting hired think that way, employers won't think that way.
- etempleton 6y ago
  Hiring is hard. Graduating from college is a clear indicator that someone was able to at least commit and follow through with something and should have at minimal basic knowledge in a given area.
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    Exactly. You pretty much know what you get when you hire a grad. And if it doesn't work out, you can understandably act surprised and say "I know, and he was from MIT too! If you break the mold and it works no one cares. If you break the mold and hire some guy without a degree, and it does wrong, you built your own gallows! Freakonomics referred to the Sheepskin effect: 80% of the benefits of getting a degree come from the last semester. Someone with 90% of a degree is worth only 20% more of the gain someone with that last 10% is.
    - tester34 6y ago
      >You pretty much know what you get when you hire a grad. I don't think so, seriously, unless it was top3 school in country then I think there can be very huge gap between grads.
DC1350 6y ago
The reason college has been so useful historically is because it works as a status signal. I don’t think employers seriously believe that a BA in history teaches useful skills for a menial office job (1 semester is probably enough), but that doesn’t stop it from being a good idea for the student. It could be similar in CS. Anecdotally, the biggest benefit of a degree for me was just meeting others with similar goals. The meta knowledge about how to get a job, what skills I need, credibility when contacting recruiters, etc. along with the positive peer pressure from being around more successful students. These things are were all “unknown unknowns” before I started. My hometown has no tech industry.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  > I don’t think employers seriously believe that a BA in history teaches useful skills for a menial office job Teaches to write properly. You can't graduate from a BA in history without writing non-trivial papers and having some ability of conveying critical thinking. > Anecdotally, the biggest benefit of a degree for me was just meeting others with similar goals. The meta knowledge about how to get a job, what skills I need, credibility when contacting recruiters, etc. along with the positive peer pressure from being around more successful students. These things are were all “unknown unknowns” before I started. My hometown has no tech industry. You nailed it. These are impossible to replicate with online learning.
scsilver 6y ago
Sometimes I wonder how good Michael Phelps would be without the swimming program and the mentors he had along the way. I think there is alot of refinement that comes from difficult programs built by top educators/researchers in afield over a ling time. Now, the gap between a University of Michigan and Carnegie Mellon may not be massive, but completing either of these long 4 year marathons for a B.S. will refine you in a way that for the vast majority of people, self study will not Even then, those who can self study right out of high school, who are these people? How do they have the discipline, the study skills, the vision to complete that gauntlet alone, at 18, without a group of peers and people to learn from. These individuals likely had a great home and k-12 education. Its a monumental task even for the most brilliant of us. Those who could do it, already have incredible discipline, drive, intelligence and clarity for their age and probably should be getting a scholarship somewhere (if not for personality and learning disabilities that make conventionally structured schooling difficult for them. Then again, as someone who went through a B.S. in engineering, self taught themselves (after reaching out for mentorship of course) my next degree will focus on getting into an in person masters where creating deep networking connections with my cohort is the goal equal to the degree itself. I will say that I am struggling on when and where and how much should I be prepared to spend. Its expensive, but most of the invaluable things in life are. And its very easy to ignore the large benefits of the connections and certifications if you arent part of the communities that are leveraging those assets to great advantages for themselves and their family. Education, discipline and connections are the most valuable and risk resistant assets in life.
- etempleton 6y ago
  I like the parallel of Michael Phelps. It is relatively well known that Phelp’s unique physical proportions makes him physiologically advantaged in competitive swimming and yet to be an elite swimmer at the highest level he had coaches pointing out any minor inefficiency in his stroke mechanics. There is no doubt that many individuals can learn most everything they need on the internet or with a library card, however there is a real advantage to receiving feedback and having an expert to help guide your education. When I was in graduate school I was exposed to areas of study I would have ignored or glossed over. Areas that I thought I knew enough about and understood, but was actually woefully ignorant of.
Bakary 6y ago
By definition YMMV but the people you meet and the experience as a whole make it 100% worth it (maybe 30% for American prices depending on your social class)
908B64B197 6y ago
> even courses from an actual edu institutions like mit, stanford and so on The lectures isn't a differentiator. It's the community of like-minded folks, informal discussions, projects, hackathons.
tal8d 6y ago
My formal education isn't even close to CS, zero overlap, but I've been paid to write software for the majority of my work history. I'm an autodidact, and I wouldn't change the path I took to get where I am, but I am keenly aware of one major point of weakness: it is what Donald Rumsfeld would describe as "unknown unknowns". Yes, I initially saved a lot of time by skipping the breadth and diving right into the depth, but I'm not so sure about the time savings in the long run. I remember one conversation I had with a well lettered friend (working on his second doctorate at the time), I was bragging about a predictive algorithm I'd spent a week or two on - and its remarkable accuracy. After he listened to me describe it in detail, he asked "... so, Poisson regression?" While I was relieved to find that my implementation still outperformed the off the shell variety, simply being aware of its existence would have saved me a lot of time.
- cpp_frog 6y ago
  That is a good point. I am on the other side - excessively academic. One thing I've noticed is that understanding something does not equal having working knowledge of it (knowing how to implement it, etc.), a person with a theoretical background would often try to place a concept within a large framework and then make it owrk, an 'empiricist' or tinkerer would work the way from the bottom which would result in actual useful results. I sometimes ponder about this, and while I don't mean that one should invent the wheel, my conclusion is that In order to have an approach of knowing what would work in many different problems, a person with academic background would need to spend years delving into their discipline. The solution seems to have a combination of both approaches or as Nassim Taleb says, 'street+personal library'.

belorn 6y ago

> What's the point of paying mad cash for basics of CS? just for the title? just for the diploma? Mostly Yes. Free education has existed for a very long time through libraries and book shops, and yet the effect to get more women into high paying jobs was significant smaller compared to the mass of men who went into college and universities. The second major effect of getting diplomas and titles is the perception of investing into that person future. A parent who invest into their child will also push that child into getting a job. Society and culture also put down expectations that a person who studied and heavily invested into a title will also end up with such job rather than settle for less.

antibuddy 6y ago
I agree that actual educational institutions make a difference and that also explains some/much of the unbalance few decades ago. However women are also different than men and that is also reflected in the commitment and interests. So we still see the "gender pay gap", which does not show unfairness in the system, but that women are still fewer in higher paying jobs without the restrictions to higher education of yesteryear.

LatteLazy 6y ago

Until employers think that way, the only people getting hired don't think that way. Until the people getting hired think that way, employers won't think that way.

etempleton 6y ago
Hiring is hard. Graduating from college is a clear indicator that someone was able to at least commit and follow through with something and should have at minimal basic knowledge in a given area.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  Exactly. You pretty much know what you get when you hire a grad. And if it doesn't work out, you can understandably act surprised and say "I know, and he was from MIT too! If you break the mold and it works no one cares. If you break the mold and hire some guy without a degree, and it does wrong, you built your own gallows! Freakonomics referred to the Sheepskin effect: 80% of the benefits of getting a degree come from the last semester. Someone with 90% of a degree is worth only 20% more of the gain someone with that last 10% is.
  - tester34 6y ago
    >You pretty much know what you get when you hire a grad. I don't think so, seriously, unless it was top3 school in country then I think there can be very huge gap between grads.

DC1350 6y ago

The reason college has been so useful historically is because it works as a status signal. I don’t think employers seriously believe that a BA in history teaches useful skills for a menial office job (1 semester is probably enough), but that doesn’t stop it from being a good idea for the student. It could be similar in CS. Anecdotally, the biggest benefit of a degree for me was just meeting others with similar goals. The meta knowledge about how to get a job, what skills I need, credibility when contacting recruiters, etc. along with the positive peer pressure from being around more successful students. These things are were all “unknown unknowns” before I started. My hometown has no tech industry.

908B64B197 6y ago
> I don’t think employers seriously believe that a BA in history teaches useful skills for a menial office job Teaches to write properly. You can't graduate from a BA in history without writing non-trivial papers and having some ability of conveying critical thinking. > Anecdotally, the biggest benefit of a degree for me was just meeting others with similar goals. The meta knowledge about how to get a job, what skills I need, credibility when contacting recruiters, etc. along with the positive peer pressure from being around more successful students. These things are were all “unknown unknowns” before I started. My hometown has no tech industry. You nailed it. These are impossible to replicate with online learning.

scsilver 6y ago

Sometimes I wonder how good Michael Phelps would be without the swimming program and the mentors he had along the way. I think there is alot of refinement that comes from difficult programs built by top educators/researchers in afield over a ling time. Now, the gap between a University of Michigan and Carnegie Mellon may not be massive, but completing either of these long 4 year marathons for a B.S. will refine you in a way that for the vast majority of people, self study will not Even then, those who can self study right out of high school, who are these people? How do they have the discipline, the study skills, the vision to complete that gauntlet alone, at 18, without a group of peers and people to learn from. These individuals likely had a great home and k-12 education. Its a monumental task even for the most brilliant of us. Those who could do it, already have incredible discipline, drive, intelligence and clarity for their age and probably should be getting a scholarship somewhere (if not for personality and learning disabilities that make conventionally structured schooling difficult for them. Then again, as someone who went through a B.S. in engineering, self taught themselves (after reaching out for mentorship of course) my next degree will focus on getting into an in person masters where creating deep networking connections with my cohort is the goal equal to the degree itself. I will say that I am struggling on when and where and how much should I be prepared to spend. Its expensive, but most of the invaluable things in life are. And its very easy to ignore the large benefits of the connections and certifications if you arent part of the communities that are leveraging those assets to great advantages for themselves and their family. Education, discipline and connections are the most valuable and risk resistant assets in life.

etempleton 6y ago
I like the parallel of Michael Phelps. It is relatively well known that Phelp’s unique physical proportions makes him physiologically advantaged in competitive swimming and yet to be an elite swimmer at the highest level he had coaches pointing out any minor inefficiency in his stroke mechanics. There is no doubt that many individuals can learn most everything they need on the internet or with a library card, however there is a real advantage to receiving feedback and having an expert to help guide your education. When I was in graduate school I was exposed to areas of study I would have ignored or glossed over. Areas that I thought I knew enough about and understood, but was actually woefully ignorant of.

Bakary 6y ago

By definition YMMV but the people you meet and the experience as a whole make it 100% worth it (maybe 30% for American prices depending on your social class)

908B64B197 6y ago

> even courses from an actual edu institutions like mit, stanford and so on The lectures isn't a differentiator. It's the community of like-minded folks, informal discussions, projects, hackathons.

tal8d 6y ago

My formal education isn't even close to CS, zero overlap, but I've been paid to write software for the majority of my work history. I'm an autodidact, and I wouldn't change the path I took to get where I am, but I am keenly aware of one major point of weakness: it is what Donald Rumsfeld would describe as "unknown unknowns". Yes, I initially saved a lot of time by skipping the breadth and diving right into the depth, but I'm not so sure about the time savings in the long run. I remember one conversation I had with a well lettered friend (working on his second doctorate at the time), I was bragging about a predictive algorithm I'd spent a week or two on - and its remarkable accuracy. After he listened to me describe it in detail, he asked "... so, Poisson regression?" While I was relieved to find that my implementation still outperformed the off the shell variety, simply being aware of its existence would have saved me a lot of time.

cpp_frog 6y ago
That is a good point. I am on the other side - excessively academic. One thing I've noticed is that understanding something does not equal having working knowledge of it (knowing how to implement it, etc.), a person with a theoretical background would often try to place a concept within a large framework and then make it owrk, an 'empiricist' or tinkerer would work the way from the bottom which would result in actual useful results. I sometimes ponder about this, and while I don't mean that one should invent the wheel, my conclusion is that In order to have an approach of knowing what would work in many different problems, a person with academic background would need to spend years delving into their discipline. The solution seems to have a combination of both approaches or as Nassim Taleb says, 'street+personal library'.