Half the classes they make you take at universities are worthless anyways. They're just there to keep you 4 years and get more money. A CS major doesn't need to learn about Greek Mythology.
It's always worth being a well-rounded person. The most successful software engineers I know are not the most technically proficient. They are the ones who understand how their customers and their employees and their managers view the world, and they can use that understanding to prioritize the engineering work that will have the most impact. They are good at explaining what they are doing in terms that non-engineers understand, they can take requirements from non-engineers and turn them into realistic engineering requirements, and they can talk to corporate executives without seeming like Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons. These are all good skills to have, and none of them are taught in CS class.
There are other ways to pick up these skills, which are much more cost effective.
Boot camps are the software equivalent of vocational/trade schools and they are looked down on for a reason.
What is continuously useful are three main categories of skill: general critical thinking, analytical writing, and empathy. The first is helpful when solving any problem at all, the second when proposing solutions to new problems, and the third when understanding what problems need to be solved, both at a code level (what does the user need, what documentation do my coworkers need) and at an interpersonal level (how should I focus pairing sessions with this colleague, what projects and teams would they function well on, how can we help to ensure their professional growth).
I have to say that, on average, the humanities courses I took did a much better job of teaching these skills than the science courses.
Of course, even outside of immediate practical benefit, I learned a lot of really interesting stuff in those classes! A lot of them helped to shape the way I still see the world today.
Sure, we can try to pare down “higher” education to what has historically been called vocational school (in the US) or similar, but I think we’re potentially losing a lot along the way.
I wonder if there is a more direct way to aquire those skills.
For me personally, I'd have been much better off just following some curricula and reading the material on my own, not fussing with memorizing arbitrary details for a test and working on team reports with other disinterested students.
I think there's something to the apprenticeship thing, and would love to see this succeed. Even if it's not for everyone, I think it's good for lots of people. Six months seems a little short, for sure, but maybe 18 would be enough to learn the main algorithms, learn some project management, and push to be a productive team member. And I think working on "real work" is much more motivating than classwork for the average 18 year old, so that's going for it too.
Very few would disagree with the intangible benefits of a university education. They question is, how much is it worth, and how much debt should you take on to obtain those benefits?
Average new grad loan debt in the US is about $33k and the median is about $17k. It's not that bad.
What it would be for me if I was born in the US - no slightest idea. I could've been rich or poor. It is useless to speculate.
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/97-things-every/9780596...
But I agree that it's not obvious what's the direct immediate benefit of a Mythology class, versus Medieval History or Classical Literature. But I do believe they all share a long term indirect benefit.
The fundamental skills I expect a college grad to have are the ability to learn new concepts fast, be able to ingest and process a lot of -often unstructured- information and synthesize it clearly. That's something you'll get from studying unrelated subjects (at least, at a decent university). Often these courses forces you to read a lot of material and write about it.
That's the practical goal of humanities.
I saw this elsewhere on HN and thought it was worth bringing to this thread. https://www.zdnet.com/article/a-young-stanford-graduate-trie...