> Peter Thiel believes smart people don’t need college, and he’s right To be honest, most of the classes I've taken in my life (not just in college but in grad

> Peter Thiel believes smart people don’t need college, and he’s right To be honest, most of the classes I've taken in my life (not just in college but in grade school as well) taught me very little that I couldn't learn by myself from a textbook. And in many cases, I did indeed end up teaching myself the material from the book (usually beforehand). This means that class time would essentially be a review session, or a time to highlight the topics that the professor wanted to focus on (useful for the exams). So the classes were definitely beneficial, but arguably unnecessary. This is partly a function of my own study habits and workflow, but I imagine that many other motivated students are in this category. And in the age of the Internet, the ability to teach yourself will become even more valuable. That said, I wouldn't say my time in school was wasted, even if I could teach myself most (though not quite all!) of the things I learned in my classes. At least in college, my favorite classes were the ones which challenged my previous beliefs or forced me to consider things in another light (yes, this can happen in CS, too!). When you're learning things on your own, following your own interests, there's a natural tendency to avoid this kind of dissonance, which provides a sort of selection bias in what you end up learning. Furthermore, college is a great time to meet other people and engage with them on an academic level. This can be your professors, who are oftentimes domain experts, or other students who share your interests. (Or even other students who don't). Yes, you meet smart people in the workforce and other aspects of life too, but it's rare to engage with them on the same type of academic level as you do when you're in an academic setting. (And even if you could simulate this through online classes... call me old-fashioned, but I still put a premium on in-person, face-to-face interaction). My formal education has been incredibly valuable - just not for the reasons one typically considers a formal education to be valuable. If that's all you're considering, then yes, online classes can simulate most of that. But for me, they would have missed the most rewarding parts of my academic experience.