4 ms·

Thanks for your reply it makes sense. This fellow student also said something along this lines:"Next year I'm dropping out, I can learn 10 times more on my own

by ponyous 13y ago

Thanks for your reply it makes sense. This fellow student also said something along this lines:"Next year I'm dropping out, I can learn 10 times more on my own than here...". What Do you think of this? Is this good decision? Few of you mentioned "The point of college is to teach you how to learn", which seems interesting but it doesn't seem useful for me anymore since I already know a lot of stuff/tech, should I also drop out? What is your suggestion for a student who is amongst the best in college? (I already had a few job offers from start-ups in my country, I have good references, I'm researching on my own, won a few Computer science competitions...). Currently I'm working for a startup and completing first year of college, but replies here got me thinking - I might drop out next year. I wrote PHP just as an example I actually had Node written there but then I changed my mind and wrote PHP instead of Node, because its more popular. You can replace PHP with anything more popular/new/trendy/useful there.

danpalmer 13y ago
I could learn 10 times more in my own time, about Node.js and MongoDB. It would take me 10 times longer, if I ever got around to it, to learn about theories of computation, languages/grammars/parsers, operating systems, discrete mathematics, evolutionary algorithms, cryptography... There's more depth to the subject than the technologies that are popular right now.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
meric 13y ago
I've been programming before I got into university, and for me, there would have been a lot of stuff I wouldn't have gone to learn on my own if I hadn't heard about it in university. Going to university exposed me to new ideas I could further explore deeply in my own time. It also help formalised some of my knowledge, for example the language theory behind regular expressions, as well as what OOP means exactly. More ways to describe concepts in my head, I think, has helped me compose bigger ideas. Today I'm working as a web developer using Django in Python. I'd imagine if it wasn't for having watched my professor demonstrate a cgi C program web server, I wouldn't have gone on to dig up rabbit holes in php, rails, app-engine, and finally django in my own time, and I suppose rather than working as a web developer (and doing "real engineering" using version control, unit testing, integration testing, etc... all of which I first heard about in university and then further explored in my own time) I'd be slaving away in a company which works without version control and wouldn't know any better. And yes, don't laugh, I have indeed worked in a company part time without version control, before I learnt about it in university; when I did learn about it I introduced it to the company, and then quit. Let me tell you they were very grateful I told them about it. Nowadays they no longer merge code by hand. "Next year I'm dropping out, I can learn 10 times more on my own than here..." I have found that to be generally true, i.e. I learn 10 times faster, on my own time, than attending lectures and doing tutorials and doing assignments, all of which were dumbed down for the average student, but in spite of that, university has still been worth it for me.
- ponyous 13y ago
  This seems to be good perspective on college, but I still don't think college have more upsides than downsides for me or anyone else who follow sources where latest tech is exposed (HN, reddit, ...). All the things you have mentioned (Version control, unit/integration testing, ...) I have already heard of or I already know - I'm not saying there isn't something else but I think I will get to know more and more things as I learn on work or by developing side-projects or just reading somewhere about it. Damn I'm desperate, wasting my time with folks who are totally uninterested in learning something on their own, learning something that probably wont help me in future...
- notduncansmith 13y ago
  > More ways to describe concepts in my head, I think, has helped me compose bigger ideas. This is the most valuable thing you will get out of any learning you do (in college or otherwise). To quote Joel Spolsky [1], "... the best programmers all have an easy aptitude for dealing with multiple levels of abstraction simultaneously." [1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing...
smoyer 13y ago
I think dropping out would be a mistake and I can tell you from experience that I discounted all the "Basic Degree Requirement" and "GenEd" classes I was required to take. My advice is going to sound quite strange but ... I'd work extra hard on Sociology, Psychology and the Humanities. The topics I hated most in college are those that I now find so very useful in understanding my fellow human beings. And as a software architect/developer, I've found that most projects fail because they don't understand their users, the problems their users are facing and why the existing solutions may have evolved. Work on classes that will help you understand the human factors (I suspect you have no problems with the technology). On the other hand, I never recommend getting degrees in those disciplines (with the exception of perhaps a minor to go along with your STEM degree). Another useful area of study is business process modeling and business logistics as you'll understand a lot more about what problems software solves in the commercial markets.
- nirkalimi 13y ago
  My main dilemma in school: I loved the humanities, but I also wanted something a little more practical. For this very reason I majored in Cognitive Science at UCLA (with a focus on AI). I was required to take the CS courses and I also was given a chance to take courses under the realm of bio, philosophy, psychology, etc. I think education should require a balance. A well rounded individual doesn't necessarily make the best programmer, but does make the best member of society.
  - smoyer 13y ago
    I agree with you now ... but you're much smarter than I was as a 17 year-old! (or perhaps the right word is wiser)
shadesandcolour 13y ago
Asking "Should I drop out?" is a dangerous question in this field. You're going to get both answers, the college grads will tell you that you absolutely should stay in school, and the non-grads will tell you that they never went to college and they turned out just fine. Coming from the former camp I'll tell you what I personally thought was most important based my very very limited few months in industry. In addition to teaching you how to learn, college, especially a CS degree, teaches you how to think. I'm not using the things that I learned in college at my job. We use different languages and different technologies. I'm not writing up search algorithms and I'm not doing math problems to figure out if my code is fast enough. But all the learning that I did in college prepared me to learn all the things on the job that I needed to learn. Your friend is saying that he can learn 10 times on his(her) own. Great. They should do that. And so should you. Teach yourself as much as you can. You're going to learn older, more stable things in college, because those languages/technologies make it easier to get the underlying concepts across. But if you have the drive to teach yourself things on your own, then you'll be better off when you graduate. It shows initiative to future employers and you'll develop great skills while you're at it.
notduncansmith 13y ago
I didn't go to college, and am gainfully employed as a UI/UX designer and full-stack developer. I've heard mixed reviews on whether college gives you enough "real world" value. From what I gather, it sounds like in college you'll learn more traditional "computer science" stuff, which is great if that's not your background. You'll learn classical patterns, some stuff about how to construct algorithms, memory management, big O time complexity, data structures, etc. I had the benefit of learning most of that in high school (they offered C and C++ courses and I had a wonderful teacher), and filled in the gaps by teaching myself (most of that can be learned in a few days if you have access to the internet). There's a lot of practical knowledge that you'll need if you want to do web development somewhere that requires you to be good at your job. Things like source control (I've never heard of a university that teaches Git), quoting/estimating tasks (something that can only be learned with experience, no way around it), balancing business/tech needs, tooling/workflow optimization, how to choose an appropriate technology stack, and anything on the front-end more advanced than basic CSS, just for starters. In short, college will NOT prepare you for the web industry. Expect to spend at least a year getting up to the level where you can have a development-oriented conversation with a real web developer. I can't speak to the rest of the industry, since my experience is pretty exclusive to the web. It sounds like you're doing well just learning on your own, and thankfully we work in an industry where universities can't hoard all the knowledge: anything they can teach you can be found online. They just offer a structured environment in which to consume that knowledge, for those that need some extra hand-holding (probably because the high school education system is an absolute travesty, but that's a rant for another day). One caveat: if your schooling is paid for (scholarship, parents, etc) then by all means take full advantage of the free ride. I was lucky enough to have a fiance that supported me while I spent about 6 months learning everything I needed to gain employment at a web development agency (and now I support her with that job while she's going to cosmetology school); I can't imagine how hard it would have been to learn all that while having to worry about bills. So, blow off your classes as much as you can without getting kicked out, learn everything you can about real web development, and once you have a job lined up, decide whether you really want to jump ship. Maybe start with contracting or part-time work at a dev shop somewhere.

by ponyous 13y ago

danpalmer 13y ago

I could learn 10 times more in my own time, about Node.js and MongoDB. It would take me 10 times longer, if I ever got around to it, to learn about theories of computation, languages/grammars/parsers, operating systems, discrete mathematics, evolutionary algorithms, cryptography... There's more depth to the subject than the technologies that are popular right now.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

meric 13y ago

I've been programming before I got into university, and for me, there would have been a lot of stuff I wouldn't have gone to learn on my own if I hadn't heard about it in university. Going to university exposed me to new ideas I could further explore deeply in my own time. It also help formalised some of my knowledge, for example the language theory behind regular expressions, as well as what OOP means exactly. More ways to describe concepts in my head, I think, has helped me compose bigger ideas. Today I'm working as a web developer using Django in Python. I'd imagine if it wasn't for having watched my professor demonstrate a cgi C program web server, I wouldn't have gone on to dig up rabbit holes in php, rails, app-engine, and finally django in my own time, and I suppose rather than working as a web developer (and doing "real engineering" using version control, unit testing, integration testing, etc... all of which I first heard about in university and then further explored in my own time) I'd be slaving away in a company which works without version control and wouldn't know any better. And yes, don't laugh, I have indeed worked in a company part time without version control, before I learnt about it in university; when I did learn about it I introduced it to the company, and then quit. Let me tell you they were very grateful I told them about it. Nowadays they no longer merge code by hand. "Next year I'm dropping out, I can learn 10 times more on my own than here..." I have found that to be generally true, i.e. I learn 10 times faster, on my own time, than attending lectures and doing tutorials and doing assignments, all of which were dumbed down for the average student, but in spite of that, university has still been worth it for me.

ponyous 13y ago
This seems to be good perspective on college, but I still don't think college have more upsides than downsides for me or anyone else who follow sources where latest tech is exposed (HN, reddit, ...). All the things you have mentioned (Version control, unit/integration testing, ...) I have already heard of or I already know - I'm not saying there isn't something else but I think I will get to know more and more things as I learn on work or by developing side-projects or just reading somewhere about it. Damn I'm desperate, wasting my time with folks who are totally uninterested in learning something on their own, learning something that probably wont help me in future...
notduncansmith 13y ago
> More ways to describe concepts in my head, I think, has helped me compose bigger ideas. This is the most valuable thing you will get out of any learning you do (in college or otherwise). To quote Joel Spolsky [1], "... the best programmers all have an easy aptitude for dealing with multiple levels of abstraction simultaneously." [1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing...

smoyer 13y ago

I think dropping out would be a mistake and I can tell you from experience that I discounted all the "Basic Degree Requirement" and "GenEd" classes I was required to take. My advice is going to sound quite strange but ... I'd work extra hard on Sociology, Psychology and the Humanities. The topics I hated most in college are those that I now find so very useful in understanding my fellow human beings. And as a software architect/developer, I've found that most projects fail because they don't understand their users, the problems their users are facing and why the existing solutions may have evolved. Work on classes that will help you understand the human factors (I suspect you have no problems with the technology). On the other hand, I never recommend getting degrees in those disciplines (with the exception of perhaps a minor to go along with your STEM degree). Another useful area of study is business process modeling and business logistics as you'll understand a lot more about what problems software solves in the commercial markets.

nirkalimi 13y ago
My main dilemma in school: I loved the humanities, but I also wanted something a little more practical. For this very reason I majored in Cognitive Science at UCLA (with a focus on AI). I was required to take the CS courses and I also was given a chance to take courses under the realm of bio, philosophy, psychology, etc. I think education should require a balance. A well rounded individual doesn't necessarily make the best programmer, but does make the best member of society.
- smoyer 13y ago
  I agree with you now ... but you're much smarter than I was as a 17 year-old! (or perhaps the right word is wiser)

shadesandcolour 13y ago

Asking "Should I drop out?" is a dangerous question in this field. You're going to get both answers, the college grads will tell you that you absolutely should stay in school, and the non-grads will tell you that they never went to college and they turned out just fine. Coming from the former camp I'll tell you what I personally thought was most important based my very very limited few months in industry. In addition to teaching you how to learn, college, especially a CS degree, teaches you how to think. I'm not using the things that I learned in college at my job. We use different languages and different technologies. I'm not writing up search algorithms and I'm not doing math problems to figure out if my code is fast enough. But all the learning that I did in college prepared me to learn all the things on the job that I needed to learn. Your friend is saying that he can learn 10 times on his(her) own. Great. They should do that. And so should you. Teach yourself as much as you can. You're going to learn older, more stable things in college, because those languages/technologies make it easier to get the underlying concepts across. But if you have the drive to teach yourself things on your own, then you'll be better off when you graduate. It shows initiative to future employers and you'll develop great skills while you're at it.

notduncansmith 13y ago

I didn't go to college, and am gainfully employed as a UI/UX designer and full-stack developer. I've heard mixed reviews on whether college gives you enough "real world" value. From what I gather, it sounds like in college you'll learn more traditional "computer science" stuff, which is great if that's not your background. You'll learn classical patterns, some stuff about how to construct algorithms, memory management, big O time complexity, data structures, etc. I had the benefit of learning most of that in high school (they offered C and C++ courses and I had a wonderful teacher), and filled in the gaps by teaching myself (most of that can be learned in a few days if you have access to the internet). There's a lot of practical knowledge that you'll need if you want to do web development somewhere that requires you to be good at your job. Things like source control (I've never heard of a university that teaches Git), quoting/estimating tasks (something that can only be learned with experience, no way around it), balancing business/tech needs, tooling/workflow optimization, how to choose an appropriate technology stack, and anything on the front-end more advanced than basic CSS, just for starters. In short, college will NOT prepare you for the web industry. Expect to spend at least a year getting up to the level where you can have a development-oriented conversation with a real web developer. I can't speak to the rest of the industry, since my experience is pretty exclusive to the web. It sounds like you're doing well just learning on your own, and thankfully we work in an industry where universities can't hoard all the knowledge: anything they can teach you can be found online. They just offer a structured environment in which to consume that knowledge, for those that need some extra hand-holding (probably because the high school education system is an absolute travesty, but that's a rant for another day). One caveat: if your schooling is paid for (scholarship, parents, etc) then by all means take full advantage of the free ride. I was lucky enough to have a fiance that supported me while I spent about 6 months learning everything I needed to gain employment at a web development agency (and now I support her with that job while she's going to cosmetology school); I can't imagine how hard it would have been to learn all that while having to worry about bills. So, blow off your classes as much as you can without getting kicked out, learn everything you can about real web development, and once you have a job lined up, decide whether you really want to jump ship. Maybe start with contracting or part-time work at a dev shop somewhere.