4 ms·

Is University Necessary? A professor debates a student.

33 points by rjvir 14y ago

brandonhsiao 14y ago
I think it's important to note that "is university necessary?" is not the same as "should a person go to university?" The second question is largely pointless because whether or not the university, as an institution, is necessary is determined only by the mean benefit it provides to society. Individually, everyone is different. College is for some people and not for others.
praecipula 14y ago
No, it's clear: university is not necessary. From a business perspective, universities have been a bubble for some time now: as Americans, we're expected to think and produce at the highest level of global citizens, to make our people thought workers... and yet we bitterly lament the exporting of our wealth to China to support manufacturing that we as the general public are too holy to embrace. We sent those jobs over there and inflated unemployment by expecting that everyone in the country become scholarly. It's unbalanced and degrading to our people. Have you ever eaten artisanal food? Real Parmigiano-Reggiano instead of shaky Kraft cheese? Real Boeuf Bourguignon instead of Campbell's Chunky Cow Nuggets? Then you understand the value of tradesmanship, of learning a craft. If we want to take back manufacturing, to reduce unemployment, and to keep American products the pre-eminent craft in the world, we need to get over ourselves. Americans are smart regardless of our level of education. Let's stop degrading the working man, the trade skill worker, the apprenticeship: the things that make us human are the things that require a lifetime to master, not the ones that are learned from a book. College is not always the answer. Not being haughty better-than-thous is the answer. We should appreciate American craftsmanship. Meanwhile, I'll eat the real Italian cheese while you eat the American cheez product. -From a college graduate and Silicon Valley entrepreneur. And foodie, if it's not obvious.
jupiterjaz 14y ago
Education is necessary. Schooling may not be.
gailees 14y ago
I wrote the counterpoint, and although I really respect Professor Holloway's point, I really think his argument is stuck too much in the past.
- chriwend 14y ago
  I think you're young and ignorant, you should stay and school and gain perspective before moving to the real world.
  - stephengillie 14y ago
    I think you made an ad hominem attack and your concept of the real world is aged and out-of-touch.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - corporalagumbo 14y ago
      I think it's an ad hominem attack only when the character assertions bear no relation to the argument at hand. In this case, for him to call the OP young and ignorant is perfectly relevant, the implication being that he only dismisses higher education because he is not experienced enough to realise the value of it.
      - akiselev 14y ago
        It's not relevant to the argument if there is only a weak implication that going to University would change the ignorant part, not to mention that he provides no backing to the idea that if you go to college you will "grow up" and become less ignorant. This smacks of a circular argument without actually evidence.
        corporalagumbo 14y ago
        His criticism isn't about the OP's lack of time at University, it's about his lack of life experience. I mean, the guy's a sophomore at college, after all. It's not outrageous to suggest that he's a bit naive and/or idealistic. He doesn't need to provide a "backing for the idea" - Holloway's point did that adequately. And for me, personally, reading the counterpoint just convinced me of the validity of Holloway's argument further.
rjvir 14y ago
As a college student, I'm always torn about whether or not it is worth it to get my CS degree. Sometimes, my classes seem really useless, but at other times, I feel like I'm learning a lot socially at college.
- stephengillie 14y ago
  I felt the same way during my business undergrad -- everything I was learning, from CAPM to Deming's management ideas to queue theory and operations management, has a wiki page and at least a dozen very good blog posts. Essentially all we're paying for is someone with domain experience to tell us what's relevant to learn, and help us learn it. How expensive is college if we take away tuition? Is a college really more than just an employment agency for professors, an agency that provides its own classrooms and spaces?
  - rjvir 14y ago
    ~10k/year in housing
    - chii 14y ago
      but you'd have to pay that whether you did college or not - unless you are saying you can live on the streets if you decide to not to go to college?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- bobcattr 14y ago
  It all depends on how good of a HS education you got. It also depends on the fun and relationships you are having outside of your school work. For me that was the best part
- rogerchucker 14y ago
  Unless you have a revolutionary and marketable idea and are 110% confident about executing it with the utmost discipline that will guarantee something that you can call "success", please stay in school. Sorry if my tone is dick-ish - I'm just sick and tired of these debates about the value of college.
Apocryphon 14y ago
I would love to see the Onion's take on this point/counterpoint.
jtdaugh 14y ago
What about a CS student who gets a full-time job offer as a sophomore? Why stick around and pay for school if you can instead be paid to get more valuable real world experience.
- chriwend 14y ago
  That happened to me buy my girlfriend wouldn't let me leave.
- rayiner 14y ago
  I had this opportunity about 10 years ago. I passed, and in retrospect I'm incredibly glad I did. Couple of years after graduation, I realized I had interests beyond software engineering, and while the lack of a bachelors can play in Silicon Valley, it doesn't pretty much anywhere else. Also, if one day you decide to go into the management route and want an MBA, the lack of a bachelors is going to be a deal breaker.
- lsc 14y ago
  Meh, maybe it's because I came of age during the first bubble... but I see life as a series of opportunities that open and close; they open and close in part based on your own attributes (e.g. you need to meet the minimum qualifications for the job, and you need to apply or otherwise make yourself available,) but also based on time, chance, and other things you don't control. I got out of high school and got my first programmer/sysadmin job in '97 or so. (I had a few years of cable monkey and hardware/windows work in high school.) - But that was almost entirely timing; The minimum requirements in '97 were really low, due to the dot-com bubble; Pure luck, really. But then I was able to learn enough that I made the cut when the minimum requirements went way up after the crash. (There is no way I would have made that cut right out of highschool.) If I had gone to college... well, it was really, really hard to find a job in my field with no experience, four years after '97. Maybe I would have learned enough in school to make the cut, maybe not. Maybe I would have been able to convince an employer that I was that good without paid work experience, maybe not[1]. Also, if someone else is paying for school? that's a big opportunity there, too, and it's possible that opportunity might not be there in a few years. (Is it a bigger opportunity than a job in the field you want? I don't know.) But that's how I'd look at it. [1] As a sidenote... if you are badass enough to go to school and have a job/internship in your field at the same time? that's best of all. Many of the best people I know did that. It's really difficult to pull off, though. I don't think I have what it takes to pull that off, not without stretching the school over 8+ years.
jasonlingx 14y ago
An education is necessary. Some schools are good at delivering that. Some are crap and you are wasting your time and money. And of course, lots of opportunity outside of school to learn as well.
- gailees 14y ago
  Exactly what I'm saying.
- chii 14y ago
  an education is necessary. Some people conflate education with credentials (or certification). WHile one is a proxy for the other, some people don't see it as so and insist that you must have the credentials - for example, HR departments in large corporations. Hence, to cover your bases, you need the credentials, as well as a good education.
- obviouslygreen 14y ago
  I think "necessary" needs clarification here. What you intend or expect to be able to do or understand dictates what's necessary or sufficient. There is no necessity for an education when your goal is simply to feed yourself; many menial jobs that are entirely within the grasp of people who have no formal training or education will satisfy this need. In more of an HN demographic context... I'm in the "socialization" camp. College/university can serve a similar purpose as attending primary and secondary schooling, i.e. to further develop your social skills with other people as you age. While this can be found in other places, I'm not sure how effective it can be for those of us who wouldn't otherwise go out of their way to interact with others. In the vein of preparing you to do specific, non-obvious things, I would agree with you that education is necessary; I do think we should get out of the "high school -> college -> job" idea that seems to have turned into a fallacy over the last decade or two. Trade schools can be a good example of this; in my opinion, apprenticeship is also a great alternative, though in the US those are -- as far as I know -- almost nonexistent.
gailees 14y ago
Higher education is important. College is optional.
saraid216 14y ago
It's really not that hard. The branching logic is simple. If you have a better, actual alternative to university, do that. Else, do university, which is an established default for those who can afford it. If you can't afford it, the debate isn't even relevant.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  1. Look at current job market. 2. Look at unemployed graduates. 3. Define "established default", or better "establish good default".
  - saraid216 14y ago
    That almost seems to say something, but I can't tell. Would you care to make your point for those who don't have access to divine revelation?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- sswezey 14y ago
  Original comment by natural219: Dear people who think you should just "shut up and go to college": You are wrong. We respect you, and we're not denying your experience, and you can be right about nearly everything else. On this subject, you are wrong, and please, for the love of God, please stop talking about this issue when you have no skin in the game and you don't know what the modern education system is like. It's been decades since you've been in school -- you have no idea what goes on in a modern classroom. Please quit commenting on it. One of the reasons older people get more respect is because they have more experience. They've been around the block. They know the score. But I'm sorry -- if you're more than 10 years out of college (or ~5 years for a CS degree), your experience with the system is so far removed from what it is like today that your experience is worthless. You literally know less about this subject than a college freshmen. I'm more than a little pissed about this. >90% of writers I read about education are already through the system. Their pain is in the past. Furthermore, I doubt that any education writer was receiving multiple 6-figure offers halfway through their schooling. They haven't had to make the decision to consciously throw away tens of thousands of dollars and multiple years of their lives simply because society is slow to change, and people are too lazy to think about it -- "shut up and go to college" is certainly much less cognitive work for a parent hoping to guide their children to a better future. I'm sick of it. This isn't a game, this isn't a fun political issue, this is a generation's goddamn lives and hopes and dreams we are talking about. Every day I waste in class could be a day I spend learning a new programming language, building my software business, or doing one of any millions of activities which would better myself and make me a more well-rounded, competent employee. Reply: I graduated college < 1 year ago, and I definitely say it's worth it. You ever think there is more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good at coding? I got a CS degree from a well-repudiated state school, and maybe half of what you learn is programming. You learn things such as writing, a foreign language, social skills, how to argue and to be more than just a hacker who knows 10 programming language, but can't explain his thoughts. Yea, maybe you are great and have the 'next big idea', but sorry, chances are you are not. Most startups fail, it is a fact - deal with it. Some classes may be a waste, but if a significant portion are, you are at a bad school. Plus those days 'you waste in class' are actually helping to 'make you a more well-rounded, competent employee'. You are more than a little pissed about this? You don't seem to have finished school - so you are arguing about something you don't know. Most people are getting 6-figure offers for dropping out of school, they are the exception - not the rule. And if you want to go on and be more than just a 'hacker' and do some serious research and expand the field rather than exploit it, you'll probably have to finish your degree and then get another one. You think taking critical writing sucks when you haven't done it in 3 years, try taking it after 13 years - it'll be worse. No one is saying this is a game. Yes, college is very helpful. No, you don't have to go to MIT or Harvard (neither of which is that great for real-world CS, search WSJ recruiter rankings). Those schools are known for research and business. Go to a cheap local school for a few years and transfer in to a big name school if that's what you want; when you graduate, your piece of paper looks the same. But in the end, go to a school, meet people, learn new things, travel abroad and do the things that are not what you are studying, because those things you can't read about in a book or some blog.
IvyMike 14y ago
If you are a sophomore or junior in college right now, and you get a job offer doing (for example) Ruby on Rails, you will likely learn nothing in your final years of college that will help you with doing Ruby on Rails in that job. But maybe the job will involve more than just a web frontend to a database. Maybe you will will need to optimize a solution somewhere, and you'll think, "Hey, I bet I could use simulated annealing for that". Or you'll think, "Hey, I could write a simple grammar to solve this just like the first problem in my compilers class". Or "I can simulate the system variance by convolving the individual component variances" and thus you'll be able to provision your system better. Or whatever. Sure, you could have figured out how to do all of these by carefully reading wikipedia. But how would you have even known the right questions without having been exposed to the material? And then, of course, there's that next job ten years from now, that isn't Ruby on Rails. It's something else, maybe even in a different problem domain altogether, where the Ruby on Rails expertise doesn't give you any advantage. Wouldn't it be nice to have a good solid grounding in a wider base of material? Several times in my career, I've been brought in to tackle a problem that has been vexing other (and maybe even better) programmers, and I've said, "Well, I don't know much about it, but I think we could solve that problem using X", where X is algorithm or technique I learned in graduate school. It is great to be able to have those moments, and I know had I not gone to school (and gotten my MS) I would not have those insights.
nickzoic 14y ago
Even though I'm actually overall pretty positive on the value of higher education, the argument lost me at: > "The question is, “Can you be successful in truly meaningful ways without going to college?” The answer for most of you is “No.”" ... because it sets up two simultaneous No True Scotsmen: any given counterexample can either be dismissed as not "truly meaningful success" or not by "most people".
saraid216 14y ago
Since gailees's counterpoint is pretty lackluster, let me offer a different one: University was never meant to be a system of general education. But because of the prestige garnered by graduates, it slowly began to be a status symbol. Instead of being a system of truly advanced knowledge, it has become an extra pipe on the education system, bringing to the table little intrinsic value. The concept of the university, in short, has been eroded by its growing recognition of the incapacity of its students. And because the university has access to funding that the public school system does not, it was able to expand itself to attempt to meet these needs; the price it paid was a loss of vision. Entire swaths of the university curriculum should be torn out and moved into high schools, which in turn need to be re-conceived to produce fully-grown adults who find the choice between going to college and going to work to be a real choice. In such a world, the university is not at all necessary: it is where you go for that above-and-beyond level of intellectual rigor, but that is not a requirement for all people. Professor Holloway talks about the discipline and structure a university provides, but I ask why this is absent in the halls before one reaches university. For it must be, else these particular characteristics would not define the common student's need. The university is necessary only because it is our latest patchwork fix on a system that is a conglomeration of patchwork fixes itself. If only Professor Holloway had advocated his ideas for secondary education, and considered the implications of such reform on the university due to the consequent changes in the nature of the applicant, I would have agreed with him fully.
lwhalen 14y ago
I'm recycling a comment I made two weeks ago because it's relevant here, and it saves me the typing and thought-bandwidth of retyping the exact same thing in a slightly different way. The absolute worst thing I've ever done for myself was to go to college. I had a 50% scholarship towards one of THE top electrical engineering schools in the country (not MIT, but you'd be in the right state if you were guessing), and I toughed it out for four years. Due to financial aid f&ckery, I made the choice to drop out with around half a year of credits left to complete my BS. I had my own IT consulting business at the time, and I made a pretty decent run of it for about a year at which point I realized I was a MUCH better 'technology person' than 'business person'. I made the jump to full-time sysadmin for other companies at that time, and haven't looked back since. NONE of the skills I use today (either in my 'day job' as a nix sysadmin or 'real job' as a musician/bandleader) came from my college experience. I had over $100k worth of debt (slightly less now, almost 10 years later) and no degree. If I had to do it all over again, I would've skipped college entirely, gone straight into the 'failed' consulting business, and taken the extra four years of earnings instead of the staggering amount of debt. I have never once felt limited due to my lack of degree. The fact that I don't have one is easily eclipsed by what I've achieved professionally, and companies have had no problem bringing me on at top dollar (according to the various sysadmin salary surveys I read) to do my thing. I'm not saying my path is for everyone, and as always Your Mileage May Vary. However, if I had a time machine I'd go back and slap my younger self around until he decided to forgo college entirely :-) In my experience, it wasn't worth it - from the 'you NEEEEEED a degree to get a good job!' perspective AND the 'crushing amounts of debt' perspective.

33 points by rjvir 14y ago

I think it's important to note that "is university necessary?" is not the same as "should a person go to university?" The second question is largely pointless because whether or not the university, as an institution, is necessary is determined only by the mean benefit it provides to society. Individually, everyone is different. College is for some people and not for others.

praecipula 14y ago

No, it's clear: university is not necessary. From a business perspective, universities have been a bubble for some time now: as Americans, we're expected to think and produce at the highest level of global citizens, to make our people thought workers... and yet we bitterly lament the exporting of our wealth to China to support manufacturing that we as the general public are too holy to embrace. We sent those jobs over there and inflated unemployment by expecting that everyone in the country become scholarly. It's unbalanced and degrading to our people. Have you ever eaten artisanal food? Real Parmigiano-Reggiano instead of shaky Kraft cheese? Real Boeuf Bourguignon instead of Campbell's Chunky Cow Nuggets? Then you understand the value of tradesmanship, of learning a craft. If we want to take back manufacturing, to reduce unemployment, and to keep American products the pre-eminent craft in the world, we need to get over ourselves. Americans are smart regardless of our level of education. Let's stop degrading the working man, the trade skill worker, the apprenticeship: the things that make us human are the things that require a lifetime to master, not the ones that are learned from a book. College is not always the answer. Not being haughty better-than-thous is the answer. We should appreciate American craftsmanship. Meanwhile, I'll eat the real Italian cheese while you eat the American cheez product. -From a college graduate and Silicon Valley entrepreneur. And foodie, if it's not obvious.

jupiterjaz 14y ago

Education is necessary. Schooling may not be.

gailees 14y ago

I wrote the counterpoint, and although I really respect Professor Holloway's point, I really think his argument is stuck too much in the past.

chriwend 14y ago
I think you're young and ignorant, you should stay and school and gain perspective before moving to the real world.
- stephengillie 14y ago
  I think you made an ad hominem attack and your concept of the real world is aged and out-of-touch.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - corporalagumbo 14y ago
    I think it's an ad hominem attack only when the character assertions bear no relation to the argument at hand. In this case, for him to call the OP young and ignorant is perfectly relevant, the implication being that he only dismisses higher education because he is not experienced enough to realise the value of it.
    - akiselev 14y ago
      It's not relevant to the argument if there is only a weak implication that going to University would change the ignorant part, not to mention that he provides no backing to the idea that if you go to college you will "grow up" and become less ignorant. This smacks of a circular argument without actually evidence.
      - corporalagumbo 14y ago
        His criticism isn't about the OP's lack of time at University, it's about his lack of life experience. I mean, the guy's a sophomore at college, after all. It's not outrageous to suggest that he's a bit naive and/or idealistic. He doesn't need to provide a "backing for the idea" - Holloway's point did that adequately. And for me, personally, reading the counterpoint just convinced me of the validity of Holloway's argument further.

rjvir 14y ago

As a college student, I'm always torn about whether or not it is worth it to get my CS degree. Sometimes, my classes seem really useless, but at other times, I feel like I'm learning a lot socially at college.

stephengillie 14y ago
I felt the same way during my business undergrad -- everything I was learning, from CAPM to Deming's management ideas to queue theory and operations management, has a wiki page and at least a dozen very good blog posts. Essentially all we're paying for is someone with domain experience to tell us what's relevant to learn, and help us learn it. How expensive is college if we take away tuition? Is a college really more than just an employment agency for professors, an agency that provides its own classrooms and spaces?
- rjvir 14y ago
  ~10k/year in housing
  - chii 14y ago
    but you'd have to pay that whether you did college or not - unless you are saying you can live on the streets if you decide to not to go to college?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
bobcattr 14y ago
It all depends on how good of a HS education you got. It also depends on the fun and relationships you are having outside of your school work. For me that was the best part
rogerchucker 14y ago
Unless you have a revolutionary and marketable idea and are 110% confident about executing it with the utmost discipline that will guarantee something that you can call "success", please stay in school. Sorry if my tone is dick-ish - I'm just sick and tired of these debates about the value of college.

Apocryphon 14y ago

I would love to see the Onion's take on this point/counterpoint.

jtdaugh 14y ago

What about a CS student who gets a full-time job offer as a sophomore? Why stick around and pay for school if you can instead be paid to get more valuable real world experience.

chriwend 14y ago
That happened to me buy my girlfriend wouldn't let me leave.
rayiner 14y ago
I had this opportunity about 10 years ago. I passed, and in retrospect I'm incredibly glad I did. Couple of years after graduation, I realized I had interests beyond software engineering, and while the lack of a bachelors can play in Silicon Valley, it doesn't pretty much anywhere else. Also, if one day you decide to go into the management route and want an MBA, the lack of a bachelors is going to be a deal breaker.
lsc 14y ago
Meh, maybe it's because I came of age during the first bubble... but I see life as a series of opportunities that open and close; they open and close in part based on your own attributes (e.g. you need to meet the minimum qualifications for the job, and you need to apply or otherwise make yourself available,) but also based on time, chance, and other things you don't control. I got out of high school and got my first programmer/sysadmin job in '97 or so. (I had a few years of cable monkey and hardware/windows work in high school.) - But that was almost entirely timing; The minimum requirements in '97 were really low, due to the dot-com bubble; Pure luck, really. But then I was able to learn enough that I made the cut when the minimum requirements went way up after the crash. (There is no way I would have made that cut right out of highschool.) If I had gone to college... well, it was really, really hard to find a job in my field with no experience, four years after '97. Maybe I would have learned enough in school to make the cut, maybe not. Maybe I would have been able to convince an employer that I was that good without paid work experience, maybe not[1]. Also, if someone else is paying for school? that's a big opportunity there, too, and it's possible that opportunity might not be there in a few years. (Is it a bigger opportunity than a job in the field you want? I don't know.) But that's how I'd look at it. [1] As a sidenote... if you are badass enough to go to school and have a job/internship in your field at the same time? that's best of all. Many of the best people I know did that. It's really difficult to pull off, though. I don't think I have what it takes to pull that off, not without stretching the school over 8+ years.

jasonlingx 14y ago

An education is necessary. Some schools are good at delivering that. Some are crap and you are wasting your time and money. And of course, lots of opportunity outside of school to learn as well.

gailees 14y ago
Exactly what I'm saying.
chii 14y ago
an education is necessary. Some people conflate education with credentials (or certification). WHile one is a proxy for the other, some people don't see it as so and insist that you must have the credentials - for example, HR departments in large corporations. Hence, to cover your bases, you need the credentials, as well as a good education.
obviouslygreen 14y ago
I think "necessary" needs clarification here. What you intend or expect to be able to do or understand dictates what's necessary or sufficient. There is no necessity for an education when your goal is simply to feed yourself; many menial jobs that are entirely within the grasp of people who have no formal training or education will satisfy this need. In more of an HN demographic context... I'm in the "socialization" camp. College/university can serve a similar purpose as attending primary and secondary schooling, i.e. to further develop your social skills with other people as you age. While this can be found in other places, I'm not sure how effective it can be for those of us who wouldn't otherwise go out of their way to interact with others. In the vein of preparing you to do specific, non-obvious things, I would agree with you that education is necessary; I do think we should get out of the "high school -> college -> job" idea that seems to have turned into a fallacy over the last decade or two. Trade schools can be a good example of this; in my opinion, apprenticeship is also a great alternative, though in the US those are -- as far as I know -- almost nonexistent.

gailees 14y ago

Higher education is important. College is optional.

saraid216 14y ago

It's really not that hard. The branching logic is simple. If you have a better, actual alternative to university, do that. Else, do university, which is an established default for those who can afford it. If you can't afford it, the debate isn't even relevant.

drivebyacct2 14y ago
1. Look at current job market. 2. Look at unemployed graduates. 3. Define "established default", or better "establish good default".
- saraid216 14y ago
  That almost seems to say something, but I can't tell. Would you care to make your point for those who don't have access to divine revelation?

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

sswezey 14y ago
Original comment by natural219: Dear people who think you should just "shut up and go to college": You are wrong. We respect you, and we're not denying your experience, and you can be right about nearly everything else. On this subject, you are wrong, and please, for the love of God, please stop talking about this issue when you have no skin in the game and you don't know what the modern education system is like. It's been decades since you've been in school -- you have no idea what goes on in a modern classroom. Please quit commenting on it. One of the reasons older people get more respect is because they have more experience. They've been around the block. They know the score. But I'm sorry -- if you're more than 10 years out of college (or ~5 years for a CS degree), your experience with the system is so far removed from what it is like today that your experience is worthless. You literally know less about this subject than a college freshmen. I'm more than a little pissed about this. >90% of writers I read about education are already through the system. Their pain is in the past. Furthermore, I doubt that any education writer was receiving multiple 6-figure offers halfway through their schooling. They haven't had to make the decision to consciously throw away tens of thousands of dollars and multiple years of their lives simply because society is slow to change, and people are too lazy to think about it -- "shut up and go to college" is certainly much less cognitive work for a parent hoping to guide their children to a better future. I'm sick of it. This isn't a game, this isn't a fun political issue, this is a generation's goddamn lives and hopes and dreams we are talking about. Every day I waste in class could be a day I spend learning a new programming language, building my software business, or doing one of any millions of activities which would better myself and make me a more well-rounded, competent employee. Reply: I graduated college < 1 year ago, and I definitely say it's worth it. You ever think there is more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good at coding? I got a CS degree from a well-repudiated state school, and maybe half of what you learn is programming. You learn things such as writing, a foreign language, social skills, how to argue and to be more than just a hacker who knows 10 programming language, but can't explain his thoughts. Yea, maybe you are great and have the 'next big idea', but sorry, chances are you are not. Most startups fail, it is a fact - deal with it. Some classes may be a waste, but if a significant portion are, you are at a bad school. Plus those days 'you waste in class' are actually helping to 'make you a more well-rounded, competent employee'. You are more than a little pissed about this? You don't seem to have finished school - so you are arguing about something you don't know. Most people are getting 6-figure offers for dropping out of school, they are the exception - not the rule. And if you want to go on and be more than just a 'hacker' and do some serious research and expand the field rather than exploit it, you'll probably have to finish your degree and then get another one. You think taking critical writing sucks when you haven't done it in 3 years, try taking it after 13 years - it'll be worse. No one is saying this is a game. Yes, college is very helpful. No, you don't have to go to MIT or Harvard (neither of which is that great for real-world CS, search WSJ recruiter rankings). Those schools are known for research and business. Go to a cheap local school for a few years and transfer in to a big name school if that's what you want; when you graduate, your piece of paper looks the same. But in the end, go to a school, meet people, learn new things, travel abroad and do the things that are not what you are studying, because those things you can't read about in a book or some blog.

IvyMike 14y ago

If you are a sophomore or junior in college right now, and you get a job offer doing (for example) Ruby on Rails, you will likely learn nothing in your final years of college that will help you with doing Ruby on Rails in that job. But maybe the job will involve more than just a web frontend to a database. Maybe you will will need to optimize a solution somewhere, and you'll think, "Hey, I bet I could use simulated annealing for that". Or you'll think, "Hey, I could write a simple grammar to solve this just like the first problem in my compilers class". Or "I can simulate the system variance by convolving the individual component variances" and thus you'll be able to provision your system better. Or whatever. Sure, you could have figured out how to do all of these by carefully reading wikipedia. But how would you have even known the right questions without having been exposed to the material? And then, of course, there's that next job ten years from now, that isn't Ruby on Rails. It's something else, maybe even in a different problem domain altogether, where the Ruby on Rails expertise doesn't give you any advantage. Wouldn't it be nice to have a good solid grounding in a wider base of material? Several times in my career, I've been brought in to tackle a problem that has been vexing other (and maybe even better) programmers, and I've said, "Well, I don't know much about it, but I think we could solve that problem using X", where X is algorithm or technique I learned in graduate school. It is great to be able to have those moments, and I know had I not gone to school (and gotten my MS) I would not have those insights.

nickzoic 14y ago

Even though I'm actually overall pretty positive on the value of higher education, the argument lost me at: > "The question is, “Can you be successful in truly meaningful ways without going to college?” The answer for most of you is “No.”" ... because it sets up two simultaneous No True Scotsmen: any given counterexample can either be dismissed as not "truly meaningful success" or not by "most people".

saraid216 14y ago

Since gailees's counterpoint is pretty lackluster, let me offer a different one: University was never meant to be a system of general education. But because of the prestige garnered by graduates, it slowly began to be a status symbol. Instead of being a system of truly advanced knowledge, it has become an extra pipe on the education system, bringing to the table little intrinsic value. The concept of the university, in short, has been eroded by its growing recognition of the incapacity of its students. And because the university has access to funding that the public school system does not, it was able to expand itself to attempt to meet these needs; the price it paid was a loss of vision. Entire swaths of the university curriculum should be torn out and moved into high schools, which in turn need to be re-conceived to produce fully-grown adults who find the choice between going to college and going to work to be a real choice. In such a world, the university is not at all necessary: it is where you go for that above-and-beyond level of intellectual rigor, but that is not a requirement for all people. Professor Holloway talks about the discipline and structure a university provides, but I ask why this is absent in the halls before one reaches university. For it must be, else these particular characteristics would not define the common student's need. The university is necessary only because it is our latest patchwork fix on a system that is a conglomeration of patchwork fixes itself. If only Professor Holloway had advocated his ideas for secondary education, and considered the implications of such reform on the university due to the consequent changes in the nature of the applicant, I would have agreed with him fully.

lwhalen 14y ago

I'm recycling a comment I made two weeks ago because it's relevant here, and it saves me the typing and thought-bandwidth of retyping the exact same thing in a slightly different way. The absolute worst thing I've ever done for myself was to go to college. I had a 50% scholarship towards one of THE top electrical engineering schools in the country (not MIT, but you'd be in the right state if you were guessing), and I toughed it out for four years. Due to financial aid f&ckery, I made the choice to drop out with around half a year of credits left to complete my BS. I had my own IT consulting business at the time, and I made a pretty decent run of it for about a year at which point I realized I was a MUCH better 'technology person' than 'business person'. I made the jump to full-time sysadmin for other companies at that time, and haven't looked back since. NONE of the skills I use today (either in my 'day job' as a nix sysadmin or 'real job' as a musician/bandleader) came from my college experience. I had over $100k worth of debt (slightly less now, almost 10 years later) and no degree. If I had to do it all over again, I would've skipped college entirely, gone straight into the 'failed' consulting business, and taken the extra four years of earnings instead of the staggering amount of debt. I have never once felt limited due to my lack of degree. The fact that I don't have one is easily eclipsed by what I've achieved professionally, and companies have had no problem bringing me on at top dollar (according to the various sysadmin salary surveys I read) to do my thing. I'm not saying my path is for everyone, and as always Your Mileage May Vary. However, if I had a time machine I'd go back and slap my younger self around until he decided to forgo college entirely :-) In my experience, it wasn't worth it - from the 'you NEEEEEED a degree to get a good job!' perspective AND the 'crushing amounts of debt' perspective.