Comment by notastartup | Hacker News Reader

Comment by notastartup | Hacker News Reader

I think Dr. Nassim Taleb, author of Fooled By Randomness put it the best. Real knowledge is gained from tinkering, trial and error. A degree from a recognized academic institution is largely a social credit that is earned through memorization and the ability to recall and recite those references.

I studied Economics, so I had to figure out how to code (still at it) by relying on the internet and experimenting. Doing things that seemed interesting. I didn't study CS because at the time it seemed impossibly hard, so instead I focused on learning by reading books, experimenting.

I have friends with computing science degree yet they cannot code or have shipped software. Ironic that they cannot work as a software developer but it's the same reason I feel about my Economics degree (not working as an investment banker as I'd dreamed but thank god). Rather their theoretical knowledge in computing science degree seemed to limit their true potential to realize coding involves a different part of the brain then the ones used to pass final exams.

I often find the computing science questions in job interviews puzzling. How does the ability to recite an algorithm from the textbook translate into being able to ship code? How does one learn how to play a concerto by simply reading a book listing instructions and being asked to recite specific pages? It's my belief that coding (in terms of shipping software) is a highly organized and rational form of art. You are writing words but it's strictly limited to what the creators of the programming language have selected. How you form the sentences that the computer can understand really comes from trial and error until you've become familiar with it.

> I have friends with computing science degree yet they cannot code or have shipped software.

So do I, but CS degrees are not about memorization. At least not in North America or Europe. For my CS degree, I had to follow the math and deliver code. Toy code of course, but its a long way from "recalling and reciting references." If it had been about memorization I would probably have failed.

I also know people who say they got CS degrees through memorization and the ability to recall and recite references. They are Indian and Chinese. And they can code (even if they believe their degrees do not help.)

How the hell does this lead to stereotyping an entire race? Just so you know India and China have produced a large bulk of academics in computing science, across various educational institutions in North America and Europe. So I find your statement very arrogant and condescending.

Of course you can't memorize your way through a CS course requiring you to write code, but my point is exactly that, school doesn't teach you to actually be able to ship code or write something. It's something one must discover on own terms.

> How the hell does this lead to stereotyping an entire race?

It does not. It is just an anecdote, from three people I know, who were required to memorize stuff, and found their coding ability did not contribute much.

> Just so you know India and China have produced a large bulk of academics in computing science, across various educational institutions in North America and Europe.

Yes, I did.

"Real knowledge is gained from tinkering, trial and error. A degree from a recognized academic institution is largely a social credit that is earned through memorization and the ability to recall and recite those references."

I find that quite insulting. This may be true if you go to some shoddy university that teaches things by rote and memorisation. I did an engineering degree where we had practical laboratory sessions that required you to build experience to get a good mark and the exams were not about remembering formula, you had to apply the knowledge that had been taught.

Experience cannot be taught. However, a good teacher will teach you a lot of useful skills that help you acquire experience quickly. I have learnt foreign languages where I have done a lot of studying at home but with much less opportunity to practice using those languages. When I visited the countries where they spoke those languages I struggled at first but it didn't take long to recognise the differences between my self practice and the real pronunciation/way of using a phrase.

Frequently we see these posts that say you don't need a degree to code. It's true, but if you have a good degree in programming then it's so much easier and probably your code will be much better because you know why things are done a certain way and you do them properly.

I understand that you might feel insulted at the thought that you're degree might have been all in vain, your experience at your school might have been special but as you've said it yourself, experience simply cannot be taught. School may hold lab sessions where you complete assignments "applying" which in some shape or form require you to recall facts transferred to you either through your faculty staff or books, and are told to understand, but with constraints set in place to evaluate you on a quantitative model among with the rest of your peers so that they may decide who is the top 10% vs the 90%.

The real world does not work like this, and often I find that academia prepares you for a world that doesn't behave or exist like the ones described through courses and lectures which are only aimed at grading and evaluating on some set of criteria. It's not necessarily an accurate meter of how you will adapt your knowledge and skills in the real world, I belive Nassim Taleb mentions the concept of 'empty suits', or so called experts who focus entirely on a constructed model of the world they are absolutely convinced will not change with lack of accounting for black swan events (an event that is unexpected and debunks a widely accepted belief, for example swans were thought to be white until the discover of black swans in Oceania) and basically the society attributes an irrational amount of trust and credit in those that have gone to the best of the schools in the best of what they do, not necessarily based on the inevitable nature of change (earth was flat, now it's round) upon random discovery that challenges what we've accepted as "facts".

It's a question of realizing you are being taught how to think and what to think by the institution that measures efficiency on a normal curve, instead of discovering the process and the target yourself.

Now of course, university life is much bigger than just lectures and learning, you meet so many interesting people, you learn that there are more questions than answers, and I think that is the best part. Maybe if you've gone to an Ivy League, you will find yourself surrounded with individuals of influential and powerful families which you can expand your social circle for future business and collaboration and that is all the more reason to go to one, but then I question the ability of someone with middle or lower class status to be genuinely accepted amongst those that have it all already.

I don't feel that my degree was in vain at all, you're trying to put words into my mouth. Lab sessions in which you must apply knowledge yourself give you the chance to investigate, experiment and see for yourself if what you were taught has any truth to it. The method of examining your success in a taught course does not necessarily determine what was learnt; some of us actually thought for ourselves.

What's with putting scare quotes on my use of the word applying ? I think you've got some issues here because you've deliberately written your reply to twist what I've said to fit your viewpoint. I feel sorry for you that you cannot see the difference to studying at university to learn and being brainwashed. Maybe that's what you did when you studied and now regret you didn't see the big picture ?

I'm not saying Nassim Taleb is wrong or that I am correct but you really should think for yourself a bit more and read around the subject rather than taking one particular view or the popular view as being the only view.

Come on, I mean in the real world who gives a damn about whether you went to an Ivy League or not if you really know your stuff.

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