Hacker News Reader

Comment by randomdata | Hacker News Reader

What is the importance of a CS education?

I honestly don't feel like my exposure to CS has changed my life in any way outside of my career. If I imagine some future where I am retired, it is not obvious to me where I will use anything I have learned or how it will shape me into being a better person.

It certainly has been useful to me in finding gainful employment, but if that is the only thing it brings to the table, one could argue that Google is only doing this in their self-serving interests. It is clear to see what benefits they would gain in having a larger labour pool available.

View on HN

"...outside of my career"

Ummm... isn't that a pretty major effect? Doesn't that have some impressive side effects?

I watch my so many of my non-CS friends cycle through jobs (and debt) with limited ability to add long-term stability. If information sciences are having an impact on every industry, and encouraging students to explore those options gives them better access to jobs, and thus improve their life, that seems like a noble goal.

My career has been significant in my life. I was fortunate enough to take an interest in CS before we started pushing it on every man, woman, and child. Since there have been few of us with the necessary skills up to this point, job stability and compensation has been fairly great, relatively speaking.

But success is rarely duplicated! The cure for high prices, after all, is high prices. With the push for more and more to get into CS, there will undoubtedly be more and more looking for careers in CS-based professions in the future. The added competition will leave these jobs in the same state that your friends have found themselves dealing with in mature careers who have already gone through the same dilution of people. If I'm wrong and these people do not pursue careers that are related to CS, what have they really gained?

To put simply: Value lies in scarcity. If CS is no longer scarce, it will no longer be valuable.

Really? I find myself touching on some part of my CS education almost every day, and I'm not currently employed. But then, I got into CS because I enjoyed it, back when it wasn't the hot new job skill.

It's as much part of who I am as bitter cynicism and an inordinate love of fried rice.

As they say, it is difficult to appreciate something until it is gone. It may be that I fail to recognize the value it has brought to my life simply because I do not know a life without it. And it has been a part of almost my entire life, as I too enjoy it, and started my journey into the topic of CS when I was very young.

How are you touching on some part of your CS education each day in an important way? I may not even realize how I use it in my own situation, outside of the obvious practical application of writing software.

I look to my family and friends, many of whom know nothing about CS, and they have quite meaningful and fulfilling lives. It still doesn't seem all that important in the grand scheme of things.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com