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I'm not sure I'm ready to get on the Anti-College bandwagon. There's been a rash of Anti-College sentiment around this place lately and while part of me agrees

I'm not sure I'm ready to get on the Anti-College bandwagon. There's been a rash of Anti-College sentiment around this place lately and while part of me agrees another part of me mourns for all of these students leaving college. I know it may be an unpopular opinion but I doubt most people can get the tools they need for success in many fields (Even software) without a college degree. I'm in no way making the claim that someone can't be a very very good programmer without college, the best programmer I've ever met left college after 1.5 years, but there's a very real risk of having holes. Some of these holes, despite what people might like to believe, simply aren't going to be filled in the future. A few holes I've seen in the awesome unschooled programmers I've worked with: 1) Inability to finish. This is a biggy. 2) Deficiency in the "science" part of Computer Science (Algorithms and Theory) 3) A lack of knowledge where the "Liberal Arts" are concerned. (And Others) Maybe all of these things aren't important and maybe some of them can be learned later. However, I think people who skip college will be less likely to spend the time and energy necessary to learn these things (In the same way people who put off school for a job are less likely to attend school). It also seems that the Theory needs to be paired with the Liberal Arts and the competent programmer in order to make a really exceptional programmer. All that said, I think this backlash is really just the front end of a massive paradigm shift in the way the western world views / does education so we'll just have to wait and see. EDIT: It seem that leaving college early could be indicative of either a) Already getting everything you could out of it or b) an inability to finish.

mhurron 15y ago
>There's been a rash of Anti-College sentiment around this place lately It's no different than the general anti-intellectual sentiment growing in the US. The feeling that you can learn it all on your own without anyone telling or anyone's help is what is driving so many peoples thought processes recently. That people looked at and treat higher education as just job training and nothing more doesn't help either.
- orky56 15y ago
  The problem is when college doesn't even provide that job training. Students put their whole effort into college and then graduate without any skills employers are looking for. With massive debt from four years of loans and no one wanting to hire you, students find it harder to stomach this traditional path to a job and the American dream. I've read a few op-eds and they mention that vocational schools in the US do provide the training employers are looking for but their status is looked down upon within society since historically this has been for "blue-collar" jobs. Well those blue-collar jobs are paying upwards of $50k which is much higher than being unemployed. So now it's on the student. Get the degree with its pros and cons, get just the skills with its pros and cons, or do both. It's going to be harder but college is an investment, not just of money but also time and energy. If it's done properly (maybe not in the most traditional way), it will pay off for the rest of your life.
- MaxGabriel 15y ago
  Higher education isn't just job training, but that's what many people want, especially for the cost.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  ...anti-intellectual sentiment growing in the US. The feeling that you can learn it all on your own without anyone telling or anyone's help... How is the idea that you can use your own intellect and educate yourself anti-intellectual?
  - kenjackson 15y ago
    I think the anti-intellectual sentiment is a bit broader. I'd define it as, "Those people who studied this their whole lives and have degrees and papers in journals don't know more about this topic than I do." The anti-intellectual movement is the belief that everyone is biased, and since everyone is biased their scientific position is no more correct than mine. This started more than a decade ago, and I used to joke that one day people would say, "Science and Nature are left wing rags". About three months ago I actually had a debate where someone said almost exactly that -- "All those papers published in science journals are by Democrats!" I love self-education (although I'm of the camp that believes all education is self-education, even when you go to college) -- but the anti-intellectual movement is taking a fringe left-wing pursuit from the 60s (relativism) and making it mainstream for the right-wing in this century.
    - yummyfajitas 15y ago
      "Those people who studied this their whole lives and have degrees and papers in journals don't know more about this topic than I do." Insofar as it pertains to this conversation, that isn't the belief. The belief regarding college is "I can learn just as well by reading books written by the top experts as I can from listening to third rate experts talk about the topic in person."
      - kenjackson 15y ago
        I'm not really sure what you mean. The person who posted the anti-intellectual comment was speaking about the growing tide in the US, which is very much about what I posted. With respect to the article directly, it's really not about reading books written by top experts vs lectures from third rate experts -- unless he's reading CLR or Papadimitriou or Ullman. Really the article is about vocational education vs a liberal arts education. The complaint isn't, "My harmonic analysis professor clearly doesn't have the understanding of a Terrence Tao". The argument is more like, "In school I'm learning about organic chemistry and b-trees, but what I really want to learn is how to use this new framework to talk to this NoSQL store to display data in this web view. Where's that class?"
- tseabrooks 15y ago
  I was going to mention what I see as a growing Anti-Intellectualism in America but felt it may have veered to far off course. I think the higher-ed as job training is a real problem. I would never dream of trying to find a job in the humanities but I cherish my exposure and learning in those areas. However, as someone pointed out below; Many people do just want job training. Perhaps, the solution is to offer traditional college and job training along side each other at the same institutions and let students pick which "track" they need / prefer.
  - rsanchez1 15y ago
    There's no need to do that when vocational colleges already exist. As others have stated here, there's a stigma against vocational colleges. Because they're not as prestigious as universities, people have the misconception that the education or training they receive at vocational colleges is somehow inferior, when in reality they serve different functions. You also have community college for when you want a more traditional college experience, but also want job training.
- pm90 15y ago
  That people looked at and treat higher education as just job training and nothing more doesn't help either. Actually this might be the main reason why college enrollments have gone through the roof recently, prompting the anti-college sentiment in the first place. If all you want to do is learn programming, you can do it at home too. But dorm life, liberal arts etc. might be something that you will only do when in college
jiggy2011 15y ago
Thing is, outside of the US how many computer science people will get a chance to study "the liberal arts" at college? In the UK the idea is that you do all of your academic exploration in the 16-18 bracket and once you start college you already know what you want to do. If you take a CS degree you will get the chance to do maybe 2 outside-of-CS modules in year 3 and most likely these will be something about IT management from the business school.
- njs12345 15y ago
  At my uni (Cambridge) you do your first year of CS in conjunction with another subject, for exactly this reason. FWIW, I did Physics, but I definitely regretted not picking Psychology or Economics..
- rsanchez1 15y ago
  From what I've heard, it's the same in France and Germany as well.
qbproger 15y ago
I agree with you. I went through Computer Science in college. While I've never worked with someone who didn't finish college, even working with people with different degrees you see where a computer science degree helps. I have friends with computer engineering degrees that had to teach themselves algorithms and algorithm analysis. Of course they did a good job at this because they were disciplined about it. That said, every once in a while I'll say something and we either ended up having different terms for it or something they missed in their studies. Another thing to note, while they may be able to get an entry level job now. The places I have worked required a CS degree. We tried relaxing that requirement one time with horrible results (inability to finish played into it). I'm not saying you can't be good without a degree, just saying from a company's perspective you may be a safer bet.
pumblechook 15y ago
I think this point is a lot more salient for CS majors than other liberal arts majors. After pursuing a 4 year liberal arts degree in undergrad and now pursuing a CS graduate degree (after working in the industry some years), I can safely say from experience that I would NEVER have been exposed to a majority of the important concepts without higher education, and I think I'm much better off for it. Besides forcing a solid work ethic (science and math at the higher ed level is considerably harder than the equivalent liberal arts), the things you learn will actually be used.
nekojima 15y ago
2) Deficiency in the "science" part of Computer Science (Algorithms and Theory) This usually isn't readily noticeable to a student who thinks they aren't learning anything, but in a few years, this will be among the foundations of your skills as you move up the software value chain. Short of starting your own software company, where you'd better hire someone (or have co-founder) who does know this, its very important to have a solid understanding of algorithms and theory. Reading one or two books isn't going to give you (unless truly exceptional) the foundation that several well planned CS courses can.
- bunderbunder 15y ago
  Too true. Personal anecdote: In college, I distinctly remember feeling like all the time that was spent on drilling automata theory into our heads seemed like senseless busywork. Fast forward a decade into my career, and I've come to suspect that there are two kinds of programmer: Those who choke on state machines, and those who don't.

mhurron 15y ago

>There's been a rash of Anti-College sentiment around this place lately It's no different than the general anti-intellectual sentiment growing in the US. The feeling that you can learn it all on your own without anyone telling or anyone's help is what is driving so many peoples thought processes recently. That people looked at and treat higher education as just job training and nothing more doesn't help either.

orky56 15y ago
The problem is when college doesn't even provide that job training. Students put their whole effort into college and then graduate without any skills employers are looking for. With massive debt from four years of loans and no one wanting to hire you, students find it harder to stomach this traditional path to a job and the American dream. I've read a few op-eds and they mention that vocational schools in the US do provide the training employers are looking for but their status is looked down upon within society since historically this has been for "blue-collar" jobs. Well those blue-collar jobs are paying upwards of $50k which is much higher than being unemployed. So now it's on the student. Get the degree with its pros and cons, get just the skills with its pros and cons, or do both. It's going to be harder but college is an investment, not just of money but also time and energy. If it's done properly (maybe not in the most traditional way), it will pay off for the rest of your life.
MaxGabriel 15y ago
Higher education isn't just job training, but that's what many people want, especially for the cost.
yummyfajitas 15y ago
...anti-intellectual sentiment growing in the US. The feeling that you can learn it all on your own without anyone telling or anyone's help... How is the idea that you can use your own intellect and educate yourself anti-intellectual?
- kenjackson 15y ago
  I think the anti-intellectual sentiment is a bit broader. I'd define it as, "Those people who studied this their whole lives and have degrees and papers in journals don't know more about this topic than I do." The anti-intellectual movement is the belief that everyone is biased, and since everyone is biased their scientific position is no more correct than mine. This started more than a decade ago, and I used to joke that one day people would say, "Science and Nature are left wing rags". About three months ago I actually had a debate where someone said almost exactly that -- "All those papers published in science journals are by Democrats!" I love self-education (although I'm of the camp that believes all education is self-education, even when you go to college) -- but the anti-intellectual movement is taking a fringe left-wing pursuit from the 60s (relativism) and making it mainstream for the right-wing in this century.
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    "Those people who studied this their whole lives and have degrees and papers in journals don't know more about this topic than I do." Insofar as it pertains to this conversation, that isn't the belief. The belief regarding college is "I can learn just as well by reading books written by the top experts as I can from listening to third rate experts talk about the topic in person."
    - kenjackson 15y ago
      I'm not really sure what you mean. The person who posted the anti-intellectual comment was speaking about the growing tide in the US, which is very much about what I posted. With respect to the article directly, it's really not about reading books written by top experts vs lectures from third rate experts -- unless he's reading CLR or Papadimitriou or Ullman. Really the article is about vocational education vs a liberal arts education. The complaint isn't, "My harmonic analysis professor clearly doesn't have the understanding of a Terrence Tao". The argument is more like, "In school I'm learning about organic chemistry and b-trees, but what I really want to learn is how to use this new framework to talk to this NoSQL store to display data in this web view. Where's that class?"
tseabrooks 15y ago
I was going to mention what I see as a growing Anti-Intellectualism in America but felt it may have veered to far off course. I think the higher-ed as job training is a real problem. I would never dream of trying to find a job in the humanities but I cherish my exposure and learning in those areas. However, as someone pointed out below; Many people do just want job training. Perhaps, the solution is to offer traditional college and job training along side each other at the same institutions and let students pick which "track" they need / prefer.
- rsanchez1 15y ago
  There's no need to do that when vocational colleges already exist. As others have stated here, there's a stigma against vocational colleges. Because they're not as prestigious as universities, people have the misconception that the education or training they receive at vocational colleges is somehow inferior, when in reality they serve different functions. You also have community college for when you want a more traditional college experience, but also want job training.
pm90 15y ago
That people looked at and treat higher education as just job training and nothing more doesn't help either. Actually this might be the main reason why college enrollments have gone through the roof recently, prompting the anti-college sentiment in the first place. If all you want to do is learn programming, you can do it at home too. But dorm life, liberal arts etc. might be something that you will only do when in college

jiggy2011 15y ago

Thing is, outside of the US how many computer science people will get a chance to study "the liberal arts" at college? In the UK the idea is that you do all of your academic exploration in the 16-18 bracket and once you start college you already know what you want to do. If you take a CS degree you will get the chance to do maybe 2 outside-of-CS modules in year 3 and most likely these will be something about IT management from the business school.

njs12345 15y ago
At my uni (Cambridge) you do your first year of CS in conjunction with another subject, for exactly this reason. FWIW, I did Physics, but I definitely regretted not picking Psychology or Economics..
rsanchez1 15y ago
From what I've heard, it's the same in France and Germany as well.

qbproger 15y ago

I agree with you. I went through Computer Science in college. While I've never worked with someone who didn't finish college, even working with people with different degrees you see where a computer science degree helps. I have friends with computer engineering degrees that had to teach themselves algorithms and algorithm analysis. Of course they did a good job at this because they were disciplined about it. That said, every once in a while I'll say something and we either ended up having different terms for it or something they missed in their studies. Another thing to note, while they may be able to get an entry level job now. The places I have worked required a CS degree. We tried relaxing that requirement one time with horrible results (inability to finish played into it). I'm not saying you can't be good without a degree, just saying from a company's perspective you may be a safer bet.

pumblechook 15y ago

I think this point is a lot more salient for CS majors than other liberal arts majors. After pursuing a 4 year liberal arts degree in undergrad and now pursuing a CS graduate degree (after working in the industry some years), I can safely say from experience that I would NEVER have been exposed to a majority of the important concepts without higher education, and I think I'm much better off for it. Besides forcing a solid work ethic (science and math at the higher ed level is considerably harder than the equivalent liberal arts), the things you learn will actually be used.

nekojima 15y ago

2) Deficiency in the "science" part of Computer Science (Algorithms and Theory) This usually isn't readily noticeable to a student who thinks they aren't learning anything, but in a few years, this will be among the foundations of your skills as you move up the software value chain. Short of starting your own software company, where you'd better hire someone (or have co-founder) who does know this, its very important to have a solid understanding of algorithms and theory. Reading one or two books isn't going to give you (unless truly exceptional) the foundation that several well planned CS courses can.

bunderbunder 15y ago
Too true. Personal anecdote: In college, I distinctly remember feeling like all the time that was spent on drilling automata theory into our heads seemed like senseless busywork. Fast forward a decade into my career, and I've come to suspect that there are two kinds of programmer: Those who choke on state machines, and those who don't.