Comment by 9rx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 9rx | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> Linus Torvalds given as an example of self-taught engineers yet he has a masters degree in CS.

The example was Torvalds building Linux. Linux was written before he attained a CS degree.

> Higher education isn’t just about what you learn, it’s about learning how to study and learn.

You'd have to have screwed up your life pretty bad to not have already learned to study and learn before reaching the point of going to a place of higher learning. But that wasn't a problem for Torvalds anyway. It is well known that he was writing software since he was around 11 years old. He is unquestionably self-taught, as the term is normally used.

Higher education is about gaining access to machinery that mere mortals can't afford on their own. Linus' university story is significant because that was where he was first able to use Unix. It is unlikely that Linux would have come to be without that experience.

But that is also the contention around a modern CS degree. What is the "Unix" of our time that you can't reasonably access without going to university?

Sure, but with that argument I think you could say most people in software engineering are self taught. If you want to get a job as a SWE you probably need to learn a lot outside of the classes for a typical CS degree.

But I don’t think that’s as much of a black mark on formal higher education as the article suggests. Since the reality is, the vast majority of people aren’t organized, driven, and bright enough to learn all of the fundamentals taught in a CS degree on their own. That’s why I don’t think it’s smart advice to recommend spurning a CS degree in favor of being wholly self-taught.

To your last point, what can access at a university that you can’t get elsewhere? People. Namely, a community of like-minded peers, and personal relationships to experts in the field. Those relationships and mentorship opportunities are far more valuable than the content of the syllabus. For that, I agree it’s all available online.

> but with that argument I think you could say most people in software engineering are self taught.

When you get right down to it, I expect few, if any, people in software engineering are actually self-taught. You could theoretically pull it off, I'm sure, but people are pretty lazy and it in this day of age it is much easier to read a book/website or watch a YouTube video prepared by a teacher. That's not self-teaching by any stretch of the imagination.

> To your last point, what can access at a university that you can’t get elsewhere? People.

Deeming people to be the "Unix" of our time comes across as being quite bizarre. It is not like universities were void of people 35 years ago, so the fit you are trying to make is unclear. What is your thought process here?

> Namely, a community of like-minded peers, and personal relationships to experts in the field.

Did you, uh, not notice where you were when you said this? The like-minded peers and experts in the field are unquestionably present and here to mingle. If you are failing to build relationships with them — which I guess is what you are trying to say? — what makes you think you are going to fare better in university?

Maybe what you are trying to say is that you personally already established the connections that you want to have in university, and thus personally don't find need to do the same here? But what does that have to do with the next guy?

Or maybe what you are trying to say, which seems to be supported by the data, that as you get older, you become more closed off to new relationships and have somehow mistakenly conflated youth and university? Still, even if you are now old, what does that have to do with the next (young) guy?

I don't know. I gave my best to try and salvage your comment, but whatever it was that you were trying to get across in suggesting that people are modern day Unix analogs didn't make it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com