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I'm surprised to hear about comp sci students who feel their experience was low value, especially on this website, where you presumably work in the industry.

While I picked up very few resume bullet point skills from college, I tend to find that having a comp sci background raises my game. Training in algorithms, complexity, plt and networking has given me a solid footing through my career that lets me tackle the hardest parts of the job. Stack overflow and youtube mostly help with the easy stuff.

Not sure if "ComSci" refers to "Computer Science" or "Communication Science".

yeah I'm very thankful I got to be in college for CS. I can't imagine learning all the deep weeds in algo, network and security in a bootcamp or youtube - way too shallow and unstructured. like how could you possibly learn all the things I learned but in 10% of the time

My take here is that it is too easy to look back on what was learned in college and what you use today in comparison to it's source and conclude you've picked up way more on the job and use comparatively little from the formal education. Therefore the value is low.

Could you likely have learned everything that you got from your degree on your own while cutting out some of the less practical parts? Almost definitely. Would the person who isn't looking back with 20/20 hindsight know what to cut? I think that is less likely. Would a person without the formal structure of a degree actually gone out and learned all those same things with the same commitment? Some might be able to, but I suspect most would lose interest.

Sure your career might have ended up never touching a single networking component that you learned about in school. But maybe you loved that part and if left to your own devices would have forsaken other parts of the education to just deep dive on it. Would that be fine? Maybe. Or maybe you quite like working in the role that you find yourself in. A role that you might have shut the door to very early on without some structure.

So I think a mix of hindsight and overestimating a person's ability to just stick with a rigorous learning process that can take months and months (or years) without the benefits of peers, teachers, structure, and accountability leads to this belief.

I should mention though that as we are speaking about "value", the ROI on college in America is pretty rough. Even with all those benefits laid out, it is hard to make it too rosey in the face of a hundred thousand dollars of potential debt. Extra so due to the fact that you can acquire a portion of that debt and not even come out the other side with a degree.

I took classes in CompSci, Math, and Linguistics; the first two being major, and the latter being a minor.

Most of the CompSci classes I took were completly useless. The only exceptions being Operating Systems and Compilers. Most of the CS classes I took were complete jokes.

In contrast, every Math and Ling class I took was very educational.

Can you share some examples of classes you found useless?

I'm not OP but I am 16 years post graduation and here's the classes I found useless over the last 16 years:

It had a different title but was "provide helpdesk support for Excel 2003 to businesspeople". What are the exact keystrokes required to change a background color of a cell or create a pivot table in Excel 2003, such that you could explain it over the phone to a non-technical person. Yeah... I get it... some of us grads would end up on a help desk and learning how to read a manual and explain parts of it to completely untrained people is a skill, and why not Excel? But I found it quite useless.

We had some intro to programming classes that presumed to teach non-programmers how to program in the sense of decompose and arrange a problem then re-encode it using an alternative language (assembly, C++, lisp/scheme...). By increasing the workload it operated as a filter not a learning experience. If you already had the knack and had been screwing around with BASIC and home computers since you were 6, it was an easy 'A' low labor class and if you entered the program without programming experience you would drown in the workload and flunk. Pointless. If you want an English degree they do not start the curriculum assuming someone who has never seen written language could get a degree, much like if you enter the math degree path they assume you can already count from 1 to 10 and do not falsely advertise that someone who can not count to ten at entry can later graduate the program. Just put in a pre-req that to enter the CS degree path you must already have written at least one successful piece of code and skip the "how to program" intro class.

Hey cobol programmers made bank on the Y2K thing, lets offer two semesters of cobol. Yeah, I took that because I already knew C++ and thought it would be fun to learn cobol. It was fun and interesting to poke around on an AS/400, but it was quite useless.

Assembly programming on a motorola 68hc11 microcontroller... The teacher didn't seem to know if he was teaching "lets learn how to program" or "assembly techniques and strategies in general" or "lets just memorize the programmers model of the 68hc11 processor so at least you know one typical machine model and learning your second will be easier". The first part was useless to me, the second was shortchanged and not enough, and the latter part was useless both then and now.

This definitely helps me understand people such as you who say so much of their education was useless, as those classes do sound bad. I can also understand how other people can disagree with the general statement "a lot of education of useless" without seeing this explanation, as none of my CS classes came even close to being that bad (Though I have taken a few useless gen ed / other classes).

For reference, I graduated very recently. Could be an important factor or it could just be a difference in schools.

>>I'm surprised to hear about comp sci students who feel their experience was low value

I guess I could be more explicit; I meant to say that, for 5 years of my life invested, for X amount of money invested, for the effort and work and given my inherent and specific desire to learn, it was an extremely inefficient method of learning. All throughout my years, I always had the feeling that learning was not the primary priority for most of the students, teaching was not the primary priority for most of the professors, and instilling knowledge was not the primary priority for most of the staff.

They tell me that this changes post-grad; I cannot speak for that. But I've attended University of Manitoba and University of Toronto, and that was my personal experience. It is shared by several of my best friends who are also in the IT industry (I was a sysadmin, one is Java developer, one is a VMWare architect - all boring Enterprise Stuff compared to HN interests, but still a good cross section)

I enjoyed all the learning and knowledge that I gained in university and put high value on it! I think we agree on that 100%.

But I guess what I'm calling for is a reform (which I think is very much happening:) to increase the efficiency and focus on that learning and knowledge.

>I spent more time satisfying bureaucratic obligations and navigating the needlessly complex machinery

Arguably this was the most valuable learning I did as it's the most applicable to my current job. :)

It’s also one of the most transferable skills you can have. Most everywhere you work will have a bureaucracy to navigate and checkboxes to figure out how to check.

The Computer Science experience in university is just so different compared to the other engineering disciplines. The incoming students have such widely different starting points in terms of skill, ability, and familiarity. In my class I had people who could basically program as a full time job. A security guru who embodied the 'hackerman' stereotype. And of course, people who had literally only made "hello world" websites in Netscape Composer. I personally had done some programming in BASIC and Java but was by no means comfortable with OOP.

It is so difficult to design a curriculum that accommodates such a wide range of experience. One of my professors told me that he shares the same challenges as some of the Arts teachers. Because, they too, get students who run the gamut from amateur to masters-level. And some of those painters or musicians are better than the professors themselves.

One of the ways to accommodate this is to teach a lot more about theory. Things you would not learn if you had taught yourself. The upside is that you are more likely to teach all the students something new. The downside is some of the students think the theoretical stuff is not valuable because they won't get to apply it very often. I for instance, know about Big-O but in practical terms I know I shouldn't nest loops and let some standard library implement a nlog(n) sort for me.

In your 2nd point you state "I spent more time satisfying bureaucratic obligations and navigating the needlessly complex machinery than actually learning.", I also felt this way. However, now I would make an argument that it actually gets you ready for the real world. Being a programmer is a lot more than just programming skills. To be successful you need to be able to talk to business people, go through red tape and processes, it is highly unlikely you will just "code".

Education shows you can work under many different individuals and satisfy their requirements and processes. You know how to jump over hoops and deal with a bureaucratic process. There is value in that.

I would agree with your general point that communication, understanding process & procedure, etc are useful skills for IT.

But that's not what I am talking about. And again, my overall problem with my university experience was inefficiency, which I can only ascribe to lack of care / focus as to actual education.

It's not like admin / bureaucracy existed and were paid/incentivized to teach me how to get around them and instill valuable theoretical or practical skills :). It was school of hard knocks, slow and painful and self-guided and frankly hateful; and I don't have to PAY to obtain that self-taught experience - I can be PAID to obtain it :). Or at least, I can pay to obtain it more efficiently, intuitively, with both better understanding and practical tips.

What you describe in the last sentence is a gate, and I to this day (20 years later) resent investing so much time, money and energy for a simple gate - sure "there's value in that", but it feels like Stockholm syndrome / rationalization of sunk cost trying to justify it; there are better, and let me say it again, more efficient ways to satisfy same goal.

Everybody's experience differs; there are people who enjoyed university and found it a rewarding experience. For myself, much as I love learning and CompSci, as much as I've thrived in IT and still enjoy learning, inasmuch as I now guide and coach my teams on precisely how to communicate to non-IT, look at goals, understand process etc - it was ultimately an extremely inefficient experience.

Nowadays, I take classes from vendors, community colleges, online, private instructors in IT and music and photography and whatever... short and long, surface and deep, and I love it all. "Here's money, give me KNOWLEDGE". Whereas, my personal university experience was far different.

> I spent more time satisfying bureaucratic obligations and navigating the needlessly complex machinery than actually learning.

You'd be surprised how much more valuable the skillset of navigating bureaucracy is to the skillset that a million websites are trying to teach you for free.

Oh I agree; but see my sibling comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28543015

In short: it's not like university sets out to TEACH you how to navigate bureaucracy, and it's not like they necessarily succeed.

I'd argue it's still worthwhile for degrees like Computer Science if only because HR like candidates to have a degree. (Although this is slowly eroding and may change in the next decade or so)

But the value of less directly applicable degrees like the humanities, social sciences and arts has decreased a lot.

I think in the past simply having been to University, irrespective of the major, was a strong signal. Nowadays graduates are a dime-a-dozen so you'd better have a major that brings real value to your employer.

Plus a lot of the younger generations may have older family members who graduated from college yet have little to show for it.

I’m torn on CS degrees, because while a vast majority of what makes up the curriculum is made accessible to anyone with access to modern technology, but there are some bits of field that seem to require either a real world scenario or academic setting to learn.

But yeah, I don’t think most degrees don’t provide much value in terms of employment. Even a large chunk of the oh so coveted STEM (notably the S) are probably a crapshoot.

I did Physics and turned out okay (I work in Data Science now) but a lot of that seemed like good fortune.

I think the future for CS education could definitely be online courses - the Nand2Tetris course has stuck with me more than anything I did at University, for example. And Prof. Roughgarden's Algorithms courses were similarly high quality.

Really I think once online courses work out how to solve the credential problem and actually get taken seriously by employers, the college bubble could burst.

One of my personal questions around CS education is topics like HPC.

Lets say I want to learn how to work on HPC problems. There's only really two ways tats going to happen. Working in an industry role on those sort of problems (which won't happen unless you already have that sort of background) or learning in in an academic setting (i.e. a University program)

I don't think self teaching via online courses or otherwise are realistic in this scenario because I as an individual don't have access to either the infrastructure or problem-sets at the sort of scale to work on this thing.

> I spent more time satisfying bureaucratic obligations and navigating the needlessly complex machinery

I tried going back to school recently, hitting a complete brick wall at every step as a “non-traditional non traditional” applicant. Based on my experience with that I’m convinced out higher education system in the US is nothing except those two things.

to me, universities havve to be very very cheap to be worth it, since most of bachelor level knowledge is now free on the internet. universities will still have value as children's first serious research institution, and personally I see that as a very good reason to send my future kids there. if they dont like it, no problem the financial hit should be minor; not to mention they will get to grow as a person in a somewhat professional setting.

universities can't keep charing exorbitant fees to give out a piece of irrelevant paper

> since most of bachelor level knowledge is now free on the internet.

Most of the knowledge is out there sure, but the knowledge is hardly what’s important here.

Most well-paid white collar professions still require that credentials (and even poorly laid white-collar professions on that note)

I could spend a lifetime reading about engineering and following program curriculum to a point, but it’s unlikely I’d ever be hired in most engineering fields.

> universities can't keep charing exorbitant fees to give out a piece of irrelevant paper

You've completely misunderstood the point of university and the piece of paper. The reasons to go to University ranked:

1. To signal to employers that you are the type of person who can solve difficult challenges with minimal oversight

2. To build your network

3. To learn

4. Social events

The piece of paper is far from irrelevant, it's your signal to employers that you're a successful person. MOOCs and bootcamps can't replace that. Employers don't like apprenticeships because once they're over the employees leave for greener pastures. Even if they confirm you're self trained via leetcode or whatever they still can't be sure that you're able to do the other stuff that a job entails.

The problem is that there are a lot more "successful people" with a degree nowadays, but not that much more demand. Thus the value of nearly all degrees is lower now than decades ago. Only ones with difficult entry (like medicine) really hold their value. Even CS degree is fairly useless without hobby projects or working experience.

Many university programs exist simply to make money, or in European publicly funded institutions because of arbitrary government targets for raising education level in general population. Nothing to do with actual demand or applicable skills in workforce.

> Many university programs exist simply to make money

Absolutely agree, but that doesn't change the fact that employers demand diplomas. It's exceedingly difficult to break into a white collar industry without one. Employers largely don't care about what universities teach, or why they exist, they just want to be sure that the candidate has experience overcoming adversity.

> You've completely misunderstood the point of university and the piece of paper

no I didn't. I have a degree and a nice job; my point was more and more will reject university because that'd do nothing for them - they wouldn't get hired just because they've done their degree, or they can't bear the cost. universities do provide a good environment as you (and me) pointed out, but I don't think that is acceptable for most people with the price tag currently going in the US

> universities havve to be very very cheap to be worth it, since most of bachelor level knowledge is now free on the internet

Gaining knowledge is not the point of going to university. Getting the diploma is. Sure, having the diploma doesn't automatically mean you'll get a job, but not having a diploma does pretty much mean you'll automatically not get certain jobs.

> irrelevant paper

Their only purpose is authoritarian filtering.

Will this applicant unquestioningly jump thru arbitrary crazy and irrelevant hoops with no talking back about about the local dogma and complete subservience to their masters opinions? Do they owe a lot of school loans so they'll unquestioningly do anything for money? In some bad corporate environments, that is strongly desired for the individual contributors.