Comment by vesche | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vesche | Hacker News Reader

Paywall bypass:

  wget -U "Mozilla/4.0" "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-02/nathan-tankus-s-newsletter-subscribers-don-t-care-about-diplomas" && firefox nathan-tankus-s-newsletter-subscribers-don-t-care-about-diplomas

I don't really like when non-formal education is highlighted as surprising in a talented individual. At least in the US, a college education will often put you in serious debt and seems to currently be teaching all sorts of non-technical inaccuracies while ill-preparing people for the real world.

With so much knowledge & resources being available for free online: why would any smart, independent young person want to go to college in the US? The only reason I can think of is to become something that you actually _need_ to go to college for like a doctor or lawyer.

It's pretty crazy when people like Jordan Peterson, who used to teach at Harvard, is suggesting that young people go to trade schools. The college system in the US needs to be restructured or die.

People are absolutely obssessed with institutions, mainly via justification of their own passage through those institutions. I have seen it at every level of education where people a notch below them or more on the educational ladder are looked down upon. People holding bachelor's or master's degrees will look down upon those with only an associate's degree or a high school certification. Those with a Ph.D. will look down upon those who don't and elevate those who do. I have both seen this and experienced it.

A book that covers this is Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt.

I definitely agree with this, and I will check out the book you suggested.

The title of the posted article is particularly relevant to me, as I'm also a 28 year old without a degree. I gained my technical skills from schools in the military, OJT, and self-teaching. When I was applying for software engineering jobs in the civilian world, my resume often wouldn't even be looked at because I didn't have a college degree.

I think one big problem with college here is that it's fairly easy to attend and get a degree while putting in only minimal effort. If you are someone who is motivated to make the best of your college experience, I think it is still possible to have experiences there that are difficult to have elsewhere.

As a personal example, I have a journalism BS, a law degree from a T20, and I then self-studied comp sci and software dev for four years before doing a career switch. I was fairly unmotivated in college and feel like my BS was a waste. The prestige of the T20 law school didn't change that; once I was admitted I was virtually guaranteed a degree and my motivation followed accordingly.

Then I had a life revelation that led me to the comp sci and a career that I am now obsessed with. My dedication to learning was able to get me significantly more educational value than I got out of my unmotivated degree work. I think I was able to get myself 90% of the way to a BS level in comp sci, but at the same time I do believe there are things I have missed out on by not getting a CS degree that I will really struggle to replicate on my own. For instance, I have tried and tried to (a) find a valuable Compilers course online (like I was able to for algs, ML, linear alg, discrete, etc.), or (b) self-study via textbooks, but neither has been very successful.

Now, would that missing 10% from my CS self-education have been worth $100,000? Since I'm someone with no interest in academia, probably not, but it's hard for me to tell.

I do think that encouraging young people to pursue other avenues than college is part of the answer, but I think we'll fail to make college a truly valuable experience for all unless we increase the challenge (on the average -- certainly there are some schools currently in existence that are highly challenging).

> I think one big problem with college here is that it's fairly easy to attend and get a degree while putting in only minimal effort.

> I think we'll fail to make college a truly valuable experience for all unless we increase the challenge

This is really interesting. I think we need to both increase the challenge of getting a degree and find other ways to make it more "exclusive". One way to accomplish this might be to make certain, non-technical majors limited somehow. That way areas of study that are over-populated like social sciences, psychology, etc are smartly minimized so they could produce fewer, more elite graduates with credentials that are more valuable. This is obviously easier said than done.

Also, if you're still looking for a book on compilers there's none better than the "Dragon Book" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compilers:_Principles,_Techniq...

I’m not sure I’d agree with the Dragon Book recommendation. I think a better starting point might be Appel’s Modern Compiler Implementation in C/Java/ML.

It’s starting to become an unspoken understanding. The same way we all know just because you got a HS Diploma doesn’t mean anything.

In America a having a HS degree won't get you very far or impress most people but not having one is a terrible thing. The amount of work required to pass through four years of public school is a joke, 'D' grades across the board will do the job.

I agree and (from a developers POV) think the education needs updated to match the opportunities. But while this article and generate healthy discussions, so much is directed towards some "either / or" debate that it's hard to add input or perspective without feeling like a preamble

I think it's to idealistic. How else can you verify someone got educated on a subject while not being educated on it your self.

Education is basically a system for vouching for someone's knowledge. It is too exhausting to individually check people, so we trust an institution instead and let them confer that trust on others.

Shouldn’t we be willing to reward his effort? It has been a long road.

Does anyone subscribe to his newsletter?

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