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I'm not saying universities are perfect. I'm just saying a university education is useful, or at least that it was to me and I think it will be to anyone who pu

by sfn42 3y ago

I'm not saying universities are perfect. I'm just saying a university education is useful, or at least that it was to me and I think it will be to anyone who puts effort into it. I have actually remarked to colleagues about this exact topic, I think it's strange that debugging was a topic I had to learn on my own and teach to struggling students when I was a TA. The flip side of that is that debugging is easy. It is definitely a skill that you can develop over time but learning the basics and getting started debugging your code is something you can do in less than an hour. This is a minor criticism, not a justification for declaring universities useless. I learned tons of other useful stuff. I learned multiple programming languages, math, DSA, databases, networking, all kinds of things I use on a frequent basis. Whenever I hear people say they didn't learn anything useful in university i think that says a lot more about them than it does about the university.

randomdata 3y ago
> I'm just saying a university education is useful Sure. I expect there is no activity you can do in life that isn't useful. But the specific claim was that universities officially vouch for a baseline knowledge for the sake of corporate hiring interest. But the larger discussion is about how universities by and large do not vouch for such things. And why would they? That is decidedly not the business they are in. In fact, if you found yourself hiring someone out of an esteem institution who still lacks those baseline skills and you tried suing the institution for false representation I expect you would be laughed out of the courts as there is no such promise actually made. > It is definitely a skill that you can develop over time but learning the basics and getting started debugging your code is something you can do in less than an hour. Sure. There is no programming-related skill that you can't start with in less than an hour. The only thing that really separates a great developer and a beginner is practice, practice, practice. Same with everything in life, really. You can learn what you need know to play baseball in less than an hour, but it is still a long road to the major leagues. However, an expectation of baseline knowledge already being present would expect that the hours were already put in. If we accept "it is easy to get started" as good enough, then who cares about the baseline knowledge? > Whenever I hear people say they didn't learn anything useful in university i think that says a lot more about them than it does about the university. From my vantage point it says most about neither, but about the one who has not accurately read between the lines. But anyway...
- sfn42 3y ago
  They vouch that a person has attended the university and passed the required exams with the listed results.

by sfn42 3y ago

randomdata 3y ago

> I'm just saying a university education is useful Sure. I expect there is no activity you can do in life that isn't useful. But the specific claim was that universities officially vouch for a baseline knowledge for the sake of corporate hiring interest. But the larger discussion is about how universities by and large do not vouch for such things. And why would they? That is decidedly not the business they are in. In fact, if you found yourself hiring someone out of an esteem institution who still lacks those baseline skills and you tried suing the institution for false representation I expect you would be laughed out of the courts as there is no such promise actually made. > It is definitely a skill that you can develop over time but learning the basics and getting started debugging your code is something you can do in less than an hour. Sure. There is no programming-related skill that you can't start with in less than an hour. The only thing that really separates a great developer and a beginner is practice, practice, practice. Same with everything in life, really. You can learn what you need know to play baseball in less than an hour, but it is still a long road to the major leagues. However, an expectation of baseline knowledge already being present would expect that the hours were already put in. If we accept "it is easy to get started" as good enough, then who cares about the baseline knowledge? > Whenever I hear people say they didn't learn anything useful in university i think that says a lot more about them than it does about the university. From my vantage point it says most about neither, but about the one who has not accurately read between the lines. But anyway...

sfn42 3y ago
They vouch that a person has attended the university and passed the required exams with the listed results.