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In your 2nd point you state "I spent more time satisfying bureaucratic obligations and navigating the needlessly complex machinery than actually learning.", I a

by avgDev 5y ago

In your 2nd point you state "I spent more time satisfying bureaucratic obligations and navigating the needlessly complex machinery than actually learning.", I also felt this way. However, now I would make an argument that it actually gets you ready for the real world. Being a programmer is a lot more than just programming skills. To be successful you need to be able to talk to business people, go through red tape and processes, it is highly unlikely you will just "code". Education shows you can work under many different individuals and satisfy their requirements and processes. You know how to jump over hoops and deal with a bureaucratic process. There is value in that.

NikolaNovak 5y ago
I would agree with your general point that communication, understanding process & procedure, etc are useful skills for IT. But that's not what I am talking about. And again, my overall problem with my university experience was inefficiency, which I can only ascribe to lack of care / focus as to actual education. It's not like admin / bureaucracy existed and were paid/incentivized to teach me how to get around them and instill valuable theoretical or practical skills :). It was school of hard knocks, slow and painful and self-guided and frankly hateful; and I don't have to PAY to obtain that self-taught experience - I can be PAID to obtain it :). Or at least, I can pay to obtain it more efficiently, intuitively, with both better understanding and practical tips. What you describe in the last sentence is a gate, and I to this day (20 years later) resent investing so much time, money and energy for a simple gate - sure "there's value in that", but it feels like Stockholm syndrome / rationalization of sunk cost trying to justify it; there are better, and let me say it again, more efficient ways to satisfy same goal. Everybody's experience differs; there are people who enjoyed university and found it a rewarding experience. For myself, much as I love learning and CompSci, as much as I've thrived in IT and still enjoy learning, inasmuch as I now guide and coach my teams on precisely how to communicate to non-IT, look at goals, understand process etc - it was ultimately an extremely inefficient experience. Nowadays, I take classes from vendors, community colleges, online, private instructors in IT and music and photography and whatever... short and long, surface and deep, and I love it all. "Here's money, give me KNOWLEDGE". Whereas, my personal university experience was far different.

by avgDev 5y ago

NikolaNovak 5y ago

I would agree with your general point that communication, understanding process & procedure, etc are useful skills for IT. But that's not what I am talking about. And again, my overall problem with my university experience was inefficiency, which I can only ascribe to lack of care / focus as to actual education. It's not like admin / bureaucracy existed and were paid/incentivized to teach me how to get around them and instill valuable theoretical or practical skills :). It was school of hard knocks, slow and painful and self-guided and frankly hateful; and I don't have to PAY to obtain that self-taught experience - I can be PAID to obtain it :). Or at least, I can pay to obtain it more efficiently, intuitively, with both better understanding and practical tips. What you describe in the last sentence is a gate, and I to this day (20 years later) resent investing so much time, money and energy for a simple gate - sure "there's value in that", but it feels like Stockholm syndrome / rationalization of sunk cost trying to justify it; there are better, and let me say it again, more efficient ways to satisfy same goal. Everybody's experience differs; there are people who enjoyed university and found it a rewarding experience. For myself, much as I love learning and CompSci, as much as I've thrived in IT and still enjoy learning, inasmuch as I now guide and coach my teams on precisely how to communicate to non-IT, look at goals, understand process etc - it was ultimately an extremely inefficient experience. Nowadays, I take classes from vendors, community colleges, online, private instructors in IT and music and photography and whatever... short and long, surface and deep, and I love it all. "Here's money, give me KNOWLEDGE". Whereas, my personal university experience was far different.