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Comment by xiaoma | Hacker News Reader

>If you plan to develop device drivers, or work with artificial intelligence or on real-time embedded systems with loads of algorithm analysis, a CS degree is a must.

This is false. John Carmack, for example, has made significant contributions in terms of real-time systems and algorithm analysis. Others without degrees have done the same in other fields. Even the chief data scientist of the data science-focused Kaggle came from a non-traditional background. An education is a must. Schooling isn't.

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Who came up with the idea that education only happens at a university? I knew significantly (by orders of magnitude) more about development (by doing it 8 hours a day for six years) before going into university than what I learnt in my five years there.

Of course, I learnt about lots of other stuff as well, but, if you want to learn something, you can just as well start doing it and learning about it yourself.

I often joke that I need to graduate so I can start working on my education. By that I mean to finish my formal education with degree and everything so I can start learning what is not provided by my program.

Second that. University is not the only source of education there is. Expert guidance is helpful, but not absolute necessity in many cases.

...and expert guidance is by no means guaranteed at a university (even the good ones).

Many good programmers I know didn't get a degree, they were just highly motivated and learned to program by themselves/through side projects (these days it's not really difficult to find good learning material and advices online).

Not this shit again. Anecdote != data. Yes Bill Gates is a drop out. Does that mean it's a good idea to drop out? No.

A single anecdote is perfectly sufficient to disqualify the claim.

Whether or not dropping out is a good idea is the real tired argument here, and does not even relate to the parent's comment. Google has studied this and released a recent report about the matter (I do not have the link handy anymore, but it was posted to HN at the time). They found that there is no relationship between educational attainment and ability/performance. The case is closed, at least until someone invalidates their study.

Given that, whether dropping out of/not attending a post-secondary institution is a good or bad idea is really a personal matter, and is highly dependant on the individual and that individual's particular situation. It might be important for you, personally, to get a degree, but projecting that onto anyone else is pointless as nobody else is in the same situation as you.

> The case is closed, at least until someone invalidates their study.

Studies don't prove anything, it's so difficult to show causation with the methodology of a study that very few of them even attempt it. The best you can get is a strong correlation.

But they found no correlation. That's the point. Until someone can at least show that, there is not much we can discuss.

If you could dig up that link to the study I would love to read it.

Logically, if someone says that swans must be white, you do not need to find more than one black swan to disprove that statement. Also, you are completely misusing the term anecdote.

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