Why I canceled my college subscription
joshstrange.com
joshstrange.com
I'm in no way making the claim that someone can't be a very very good programmer without college, the best programmer I've ever met left college after 1.5 years, but there's a very real risk of having holes. Some of these holes, despite what people might like to believe, simply aren't going to be filled in the future.
A few holes I've seen in the awesome unschooled programmers I've worked with:
1) Inability to finish. This is a biggy.
2) Deficiency in the "science" part of Computer Science (Algorithms and Theory)
3) A lack of knowledge where the "Liberal Arts" are concerned.
(And Others)
Maybe all of these things aren't important and maybe some of them can be learned later. However, I think people who skip college will be less likely to spend the time and energy necessary to learn these things (In the same way people who put off school for a job are less likely to attend school).
It also seems that the Theory needs to be paired with the Liberal Arts and the competent programmer in order to make a really exceptional programmer.
All that said, I think this backlash is really just the front end of a massive paradigm shift in the way the western world views / does education so we'll just have to wait and see.
EDIT: It seem that leaving college early could be indicative of either a) Already getting everything you could out of it or b) an inability to finish.
It's no different than the general anti-intellectual sentiment growing in the US. The feeling that you can learn it all on your own without anyone telling or anyone's help is what is driving so many peoples thought processes recently.
That people looked at and treat higher education as just job training and nothing more doesn't help either.
I've read a few op-eds and they mention that vocational schools in the US do provide the training employers are looking for but their status is looked down upon within society since historically this has been for "blue-collar" jobs. Well those blue-collar jobs are paying upwards of $50k which is much higher than being unemployed.
So now it's on the student. Get the degree with its pros and cons, get just the skills with its pros and cons, or do both. It's going to be harder but college is an investment, not just of money but also time and energy. If it's done properly (maybe not in the most traditional way), it will pay off for the rest of your life.
How is the idea that you can use your own intellect and educate yourself anti-intellectual?
The anti-intellectual movement is the belief that everyone is biased, and since everyone is biased their scientific position is no more correct than mine.
This started more than a decade ago, and I used to joke that one day people would say, "Science and Nature are left wing rags". About three months ago I actually had a debate where someone said almost exactly that -- "All those papers published in science journals are by Democrats!"
I love self-education (although I'm of the camp that believes all education is self-education, even when you go to college) -- but the anti-intellectual movement is taking a fringe left-wing pursuit from the 60s (relativism) and making it mainstream for the right-wing in this century.
Insofar as it pertains to this conversation, that isn't the belief. The belief regarding college is "I can learn just as well by reading books written by the top experts as I can from listening to third rate experts talk about the topic in person."
With respect to the article directly, it's really not about reading books written by top experts vs lectures from third rate experts -- unless he's reading CLR or Papadimitriou or Ullman.
Really the article is about vocational education vs a liberal arts education. The complaint isn't, "My harmonic analysis professor clearly doesn't have the understanding of a Terrence Tao". The argument is more like, "In school I'm learning about organic chemistry and b-trees, but what I really want to learn is how to use this new framework to talk to this NoSQL store to display data in this web view. Where's that class?"
Just because you've studied something your entire life doesn't make you right 100% of the time.
"All those papers published in science journals are by Democrats!"
The problem? Many scientific studies are also political in nature and slant to one way, which is why I start to question many of them. I can see the bias 10 miles away and most people just read it as fact.
You make it sound almost like a religion: I'm not to question the supreme leader (people who are smarter than I am because they've studied a topic their entire lives), I just need to follow it. I will never think this way. Sorry.
I am in no way anti-intellectual. I just refuse to be force-fed things by people claiming to be smarter than me.
I don't know if Wiles did or did not prove FLT. I've seen the proof, don't understand it. Do I believe it -- I believe that a good faith convincing effort has been made. For most things I know in life that is also what I believe. I haven't confirmed really anything about the periodic table or much about quantum physics our sun or even more basic things like the gravitational pull of things not as large as the Earth. I do generally believe what others have told me (and the fact that they "say" they've done experiments), especially if they have a history of telling me things that are consistent with other things in my life.
And to be clear it's not about people claiming to be smarter than you. It's about people who have consistently shown that they know more than you do about a specific topic. Of course if you must prove using standard levels of scientific proof everything all over again then I'd love to see your lab where you've done this work. It must be huge.
See. you're biased. You are talking about the left and the right. Not anti-intellectualism (which described above is actually anti-elitism). The left will never admit Rush is correct, even when he as scientific proof/facts to back it up.
"It's about people who have consistently shown that they know more than you do about a specific topic. Of course if you must prove using standard levels of scientific proof everything all over again then I'd love to see your lab where you've done this work. It must be huge."
You need to look at who is funding the study/research/scientist to really give you an idea if you can really believe it without further research.
Global warming is a good example of this. There is so much government money wrapped up in it (billions of dollars), I seriously doubt we will never know if it's truly man-caused or not (why would anyone go against it when their funding/tax dollars in many European countries gets cut).
A friend of mine has his phd in epidemiology. She really opened my eyes up to the biased nature of research studies.
No. The beauty of science is that it doesn't matter who funds it. So long as they're releasing all the papers[1] and the data[2] you can check the results yourself.
[1] unethical scientists will do many studies and only release the ones that confirm the results they want to find.
[2] often data is hidden somewhere and not available.
Anti-intellectualism is not that. Anti-intellectuals will say things like "I don't need to read the research, that scientist gets money from $CORPORATION and thus nothing they say can be trusted. That's why climate change is bogus." or they say "So what if that research has proven a link between $FOODSTUFF and $DISEASE? So called studies come out all the time saying this or that are dangerous. That's why cigarettes are not as bad as everyone makes them out to be."
People know very little about the scientific method ("Yeah, but that's just like a "theory"" they say, scornfully.) and scientific research is often mangled by journalists or politicians. (Also, unfortunately, by scientists needing a bit more funding.) But, worse, many people don't want to know anything about science, preferring to regard it all as too complicated or for boffins or dangerous. ("I don't want chemicals in my food!")
Anti-intellectualism appeals to fringe "science", to quack "medicine", to wishy-washy pseudo-religious idiocy, and to religious fundamentalism.
And it's not new, either. People have been railing against it for years. See, for example, "The Underground Grammarian" and this essay "Hunger in America". (scroll down a bit.)
(http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/newslettersv08/8.5.htm)
However, as someone pointed out below; Many people do just want job training. Perhaps, the solution is to offer traditional college and job training along side each other at the same institutions and let students pick which "track" they need / prefer.
Actually this might be the main reason why college enrollments have gone through the roof recently, prompting the anti-college sentiment in the first place. If all you want to do is learn programming, you can do it at home too. But dorm life, liberal arts etc. might be something that you will only do when in college
In the UK the idea is that you do all of your academic exploration in the 16-18 bracket and once you start college you already know what you want to do.
If you take a CS degree you will get the chance to do maybe 2 outside-of-CS modules in year 3 and most likely these will be something about IT management from the business school.
FWIW, I did Physics, but I definitely regretted not picking Psychology or Economics..
That said, every once in a while I'll say something and we either ended up having different terms for it or something they missed in their studies.
Another thing to note, while they may be able to get an entry level job now. The places I have worked required a CS degree. We tried relaxing that requirement one time with horrible results (inability to finish played into it). I'm not saying you can't be good without a degree, just saying from a company's perspective you may be a safer bet.
This usually isn't readily noticeable to a student who thinks they aren't learning anything, but in a few years, this will be among the foundations of your skills as you move up the software value chain. Short of starting your own software company, where you'd better hire someone (or have co-founder) who does know this, its very important to have a solid understanding of algorithms and theory. Reading one or two books isn't going to give you (unless truly exceptional) the foundation that several well planned CS courses can.
Personal anecdote: In college, I distinctly remember feeling like all the time that was spent on drilling automata theory into our heads seemed like senseless busywork. Fast forward a decade into my career, and I've come to suspect that there are two kinds of programmer: Those who choke on state machines, and those who don't.
You'll be surrounded with peers that are your age. You'll enjoy a very equal male/female ratio (at least in your living quarters and some courses), and you get to study a broad diverse set of topics constantly. And for the most part you get to select what you study.
To steal a famous quote -- college is wasted on the young. ;-) I think if you were to ask most 30-50 year olds if they could drop most of their current responsibilities (with impunity) and go to college full time, the vast majority would.
As someone who has started start-ups, joined start ups, consulted, and worked for F100 companies -- you have your whole life to work. I wouldn't start into it a day earlier than necessary.
With that said, there may be things you love that you can do as a job and things you can do to become very rich very young. I think those opportunities are fewer and rarer than most here believe, but they do exist.
No. Especially not in the "Information Age". This from someone who continues to learn every day, to steal a quote "a day without learning is like a day without sunshine". When you ignore the social-club elements of college and focus on academia, there is never a moment I would drop everything and go back to college full time (or any level of time).
It's not that I don't learn every single day now, because I do and I love that. But I can't focus single-mindedly on learning stuff because it's either cool or a stepping stone to learning cool stuff. That's what I miss.
Again, this is the "Information Age", dedicated knowledge acquisition no longer requires college. For many, traditional academia is not the most efficient means of learning anyway.
Compare and contrast RIAA/MPAA & Music/Movies with College/University & intellectualism and learning. When the former criticizes the anti-SOPA movement, we laugh and shake our heads at their absurd cries. When the later criticizes "anti-intellectualism" (which really means anti-academia), many respond as desired, by shaking their heads at the image of ignorant peasants at the gates of intellectualism with pitch forks and torches. In both cases we have old, established, and powerful institutions trying to maintain their power. While one is starting to succumb (or perhaps adapt) to a changing and innovating market, the other continues to further entrench itself while raising its prices ever skyward.
It is an interesting comparison to consider. I'll end with a pertinent quote.
"Never let formal education get in the way of your learning." -Mark Twain
University gives you a few years to do that.
Now if you're independently wealthy and a non-degree-seeker, you really could learn whatever you wanted at whatever rate was most optimal. That's not the usual college experience. That does seem closer to a "college subscription" though.
I honestly don't think you can ever escape the need for credentials. It's simply a shortcut to help filter a vast pool of people. Even YC itself is a credential (ask those VCs who will "no questions asked" fund YC companies).
While you should continue to learn things in life, the ability to get a credential will always also be valued (working at Facebook, or being part of YC, or doing design under Jon Ives, etc...). At least until someone creates a brain app that can simply scan your brain to determine what you know.
I'd argue that college's biggest problems are (1) the credential isn't as valued as it could be due to lack of rigor. And (2) it's cost. But fundamentally the institution isn't deeply flawed, like say music distribution is.
Where do I sign?
It's "Why I am unsubscribing" which is different from "Boo! College is bad!"
> Don't get me wrong, if people find good jobs and educate themselves without going to college, more power to them.
Isn't the article exactly about that?
> However, I dislike the tendency of some(/many) of these posts to present college as a waste of time. It's not.
Whether college is a waste of time or not depends on the college, teachers, peers, if you can afford it, what you want to get out of it, how much work you are willing to put, and a variety of other factors. Saying that "college isn't waste of time" is as meaningless as "college is a waste of time". Also, the article wasn't arguing either ways - "what didn't work for me" isn't the same as "it doesn't work."
> And that's from someone who dropped out the first time around. ;)
I am pretty sure for every "I quit my job and started my company" there are many "Don't quit your job. That's from someone who quit his job". Different people, different strokes - there isn't any universal rule of thumb.
However be careful when dropping out if you'll ever want to work outside the country. Most countries require a 4 year degree for work visas, and this can sometimes be onerous to get around. This is especially important for those who don't have US citizenship.
The post makes reference to the author enjoying being part of a fraternity. Indeed, his blog subtitle is "the musings of an undergrad fraternity man". This is part of his identity for the moment, and now he wants to walk away from it because it's not helping him careerwise.
TL;DR: if you think education is just about your career, then you missed the point somewhere along the way.
I agree, and you've touched on something about the changes in how college is viewed in general. College used to be about education, and laying a foundation for a lifetime of learning. Nowadays it seems to have shifted to be more about sports and partying.
I think going to college is in general a good thing, but it's up to the student to make the most out of the experience. That includes picking the right college, and not going into lots of debt just to go a party school. Perhaps most eighteen year old kids are simply not ready to make those sorts of life changing decisions.
I say this not to discourage people from dropping out of college and shooting for the moon but at the same time I think its a huge disservice for people to look at Steve Jobs and say well he did ok.
Again I support this guy - everyone has their individual path but I think in discussion we should also be considering that pursuing higher education tends to generally correlate to better success rates in business.
That is basically the reason why I find these discussions too sweeping and generalizing to be valid. What works for one person or field, might not apply to another.
In addition, for those who can afford it, college provides a tremendous general education and exploration opportunity.
The blogger clearly has a grasp of English composition, but how's his history or other broad academic topics that should be more pervasive in society? Wouldn't it be wonderful if Leno announce that they stopped doing the JayWalk segment because they couldn't stump anyone.
College should be and can be intellectually wonderful....a place to play with all kinds of deep computer science theories and really push yourself beyond the latest technology fad and stack. What are you diving into beyond your classes? Have you raided the library and net for books on information theory, parallel computing, machine learning, linear algebra, digital signal processing, etc, etc, etc? Have you found a set of fellow geeks who are doing the same - who'll push you to the very limit of your abilities?
As you develop and grow as a programmer (I'm still doing that after 20 years) you'll find again and again that really top-notch programming and problem solving is far more than the technology. That's where the real fun programming problems are - and companies will pay you a LOT to solve those problems.
BTW I did pretty much drop out of college and eventually go back. I was the classic undergrad geek who grew up hacking and programming way before college. Like you, I was bored with the course material and making good money in my part-time programming job. Now I've a computer science PhD and I've been a research scientist in world class universities.
Or putting it much shorter: You've got brains, invest your time in college to push yourself beyond just the course material. You'll make much more money in the longer term and you'll have a far more satisfying and intellectually rewarding software development job.
BTW as an alternative to dropping out, if you can (and its what I did for my undergrad) I suggest finishing your degree by night or part-time. Its hard though.
I wonder one thing, would he as the boss of the company be more liable if he hired someone without certificate/degrees and there's a breach of data? Does the law side against the employee with the degrees and thus can be judged as having known better, or does it not matter?
I find it disconcerting to hear the anti-college sentiment coming directly from an about-to-drop-out college student. I suppose it is possible to find yourself, suddenly and without a degree, launching or exiting or doing something amazing, but it seems far more likely that the lack thereof (for those that decide to drop-out or never go at all,) may at some point hold you back (regardless of talent.)
I am speaking from the perspective of a drop-out. I didn't have help paying for college, but I tried to do it anyway. The demands of working full time (to pay for classes) made actually going to classes too difficult, and I failed. I was left with a tremendous amount of debt I was not able to capitalize upon, and for the next several years I paid back that debt while working from the ground up in my career field.
I hit the ceiling much faster than I anticipated - If I wanted to advance, regardless of my natural talent, I would have to go back to school. I was still paying back loans from the first go, and had to try, yet again, to manage the demands of a career and school as well. I eventually did graduate, and found that once I could check the box for that piece of paper, my opportunities for advancement evolved into true tests of my talent, not just my ability to prove I could finish something I started.
YMMV; it's easier to ask myself now: 'what did I really gain from this?' A deeper understaning of how to navigate beurocracy, a small fortune in debt, few (if any) of the skills I use on a daily basis... but the point is I can ask the question from the financially secure and comfortable seat I couldn't have gotten into any other way.
I understand that every person's path is different, and that my situation may not be the situation that Josh will find himself in. In fact, I hope that for him. Because the thought of leaving college a) so close to completion and b) that is subsidized partially by his family (leaving very little to pay off) for anything less than a six-figure exit just doesn't make sense to me.
A university gives you opportunities for research, a decent guarantee to employers that you know what you need to know (for this reason, GPA is important). It is so much more than what people here seem to think. You can buy textbooks online, but that's it. If that's all you consider to be "college," then you're missing the big picture.
Much like I never urge anyone to vote who doesn't want to, I will never tell people to stay in school if they don't want to. For those that do go to college the experience is far better if your peers want to be there as much as you. People who go 'because that's what you are supposed to do' drag down the class.
I dropped out of college when I was halfway through my second year to take a full-time job in tech. I left that job less than a year later and started my own tech company. I ended up selling that business for $1.1 million when I was 26--when most of the people who graduated high school when I did were still in school!
Running your own business, especially a tech company (when you're already geeky), is some of the best education you can get. My parents cut me off financially when I dropped out of school. My mom told me it was "the worst decision I'd ever made."
But something strange happens: When you are forced to succeed, you often do. You make ends meet. I consulted building shopping carts and CMSes for customers in this new language called PHP (4.0 had just come out!) for the first couple years of running my business. Those clients became my first hosting customers, and then my tiny little hosting company beat the odds to become a Silicon Valley success story.
Now I'm doing it all over again with another startup. We have 4 full-time people here in Austin, TX. Three of us have no college degrees. But I'm pretty confident things will work out even better this time.
So avoid the naysayers, find your role models, and be driven to succeed. Start your own business, learn sales and marketing, and then hire the guys right out of college and have them work for you. (They're good folks.) And never look back.
(Here's my full story [written as of 2009]): http://www.erica.biz/2009/the-end-of-an-era/
Udemy and Udacity can give you all you need for free!