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I was about to write a blog post against CS masters degrees. I'm going through a pretty ambitious gauntlet autodidact process. Some background: I already have a

by kache_ 4y ago

I was about to write a blog post against CS masters degrees. I'm going through a pretty ambitious gauntlet autodidact process. Some background: I already have a CS undergrad degree. - I've found all the online courses I would ever need, alongside high quality video courses (MIT, standford, 3b1b) + books - A masters costs money & too much time (my time is better spent than getting an application together) (Opportunity cost of not working is too great) - Arbitrary wait time (I have to apply like, 8 months in advance to starting? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics is available right now) - I already know 80% of the stuff in a CS masters from building systems and learning how they work (looking at the syllabus of various online masters degrees) - My employment history is much better for future employment opportunities than a masters ever would be. Getting a FANG job not only pays you, comparatively to a masters degree. It's also a much better signal than "cash cow online masters program" - I can publish papers at my company if I wanted to (Not being gatekept from becoming a researcher) - My workplace has a mathematics "guild" who I can outsource questions to whenever I want. Otherwise, I can go to /sci/'s math general or stack exchange. In university, I learned the computational algorithm to pass the lin alg exams, and that took eight months. Being an autodidact, I relearned the true essence of lin alg in two weeks. Now, I can derive any computation lin alg operations from first principles. I'd even argue that undergraduate degrees are a waste of time. Mandatory electives? Give me a break. After going through this autodidact process, I'm actually offended by how much time I've wasted in HS & uni. I'm basically redoing an undergraduate math degree + a CS masters + building real projects throughout it, all in the fraction of the time frame. At my current speed, I'll be finished learning all what I want to learn in ~2 years, while maintaining a pretty demanding FT SWE job. The knowledge provided in both highschool and university can be obtained in the fraction of the time, on your own. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is what you can engineer & build with your knowledge. Universities are a meme in 2022. They're largely mechanisms to filter out the "peasant non-educated" class, through a proving function that can only be passed by coming from a family with enough resources. I'm DONE being slowed down by institutions

ModernMech 4y ago
Sounds like you’re very smart and self motivated, and you’re good at figuring things out without any help. As a teacher, this describes about 1% of my students. Your post here really isn’t an indictment of higher learning institutions, so much as it reveals you aren’t the target audience for master’s programs. That it’s not for you personally doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for others.
kevin335200 4y ago
I'm still struggling to graduate from undergrad, due to Corona this is my 10th semester. I spent more than two years for mathematical analysis as well as linear algebra, because the professor in charge of the course was different every year, I had to re-identify the symbols used by the professor, otherwise I would have had a hard time understanding the questions in the assignments and exams. I also know that there are many quality online resources such as 3b1b or MIT linalg, but I don't have enough time to watch them during the semester, because I'm already tired of dealing with the deadline of my weekly assignments. In particular, I often encounter situations where I have to do the work of two people by myself, because homework partner is unreachable or withdraw from the course, and I cannot find a new partner. In a sense these are very contradictory.

by kache_ 4y ago

ModernMech 4y ago

Sounds like you’re very smart and self motivated, and you’re good at figuring things out without any help. As a teacher, this describes about 1% of my students. Your post here really isn’t an indictment of higher learning institutions, so much as it reveals you aren’t the target audience for master’s programs. That it’s not for you personally doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for others.

kevin335200 4y ago

I'm still struggling to graduate from undergrad, due to Corona this is my 10th semester. I spent more than two years for mathematical analysis as well as linear algebra, because the professor in charge of the course was different every year, I had to re-identify the symbols used by the professor, otherwise I would have had a hard time understanding the questions in the assignments and exams. I also know that there are many quality online resources such as 3b1b or MIT linalg, but I don't have enough time to watch them during the semester, because I'm already tired of dealing with the deadline of my weekly assignments. In particular, I often encounter situations where I have to do the work of two people by myself, because homework partner is unreachable or withdraw from the course, and I cannot find a new partner. In a sense these are very contradictory.