I have a Certificate in GIS which is the equivalent of graduate level work but I never finished my Bachelor's (in Environmental Resource Management). I also have an AA in Humanities and a spiffy certificate my former employer paid for that entitles me to call myself a "certified life and health insurance specialist."
I also took 4 years of college level math between 8th grade and 11th grade to "prepare for college" only to be screwed by the system when they told me I now needed 2 MORE college math classes to actually get my degree, even though I already had more math than most folks with a bachelor's. I ultimately CLEP-ed college algebra many years later and took an intro to statistics, which was at least new info for me without requiring me to take math like a physics major or some nonsense.
For some people, these questions are not so cut and dried. Can I pretty please haz an "Other" button?
Thanks.
I was very motivated when I got into the university. I was hoping we'd learn compilers, functional programming, low-level stuff, I was eager to learn everything.
What I got was professors who didn't care about their subjects and last time did their actual programming twenty years ago. We did have one programming course, and the so-called “semester coursework” took me twenty minutes because it was three C functions.
Most students didn't care either because they were there “to get the diploma”.
Not every university is like Stanford, you know. I was very bitter with my experience.
Are you living in Romania, by chance? Because the situation looks EXACTLY the same here.
I got into college hoping I would get some guidance learning something I find very interesting, but instead I get a big fucking joke.
Of course I tried to learn by self-teaching, but it was hard and I didn't even cover what a decent university would cover. And, like you said, the rest of the people are there just to get the diploma.
When I talked with a friend in Austria about how things are done here, he was shocked. You can't even call it an education. More like a big waste of time.
Right now I'm stuck in third and last year, with a dozen failed exams on subjects that god knows who placed them in the curriculum. I wanted to drop out in the first year, after seeing the horrors for myself, but there was nothing I could do about it.
Sucks so hard seeing all those years passing by and barely even learning anything from what I was eager to learn.
Anyways, basically finishing CompSci would have forced me to learn some of the theories/necessary base things that I may be missing now.
I'm not sad at all I missed out on everything a CompSci student learns. If I want to learn it, a problem presents itself, and I learn it.
If you want to learn the things you mentioned, learn them! Our industry allows us immense time leverage. Work 10-20 hours a week at a high dollar amount, and spend the rest of your time learning that which you're not going to learn on the job.
Every time these kinds of questions come up people ask "Is it worth it?". I cannot answer for anyone other than myself, but I see it as years I can spend exploring different fun and interesting things.
For example I've had courses in artificial intelligence, compiler construction, statistics, number theory, algorithms and graph theory. Most of the things I've studied during my time at the university I would probably never had met if I did not attend university. Sure there is Coursera and all information is already out there, for free, but I'm absolutely sure I would never spend the effort and energy if it all was by myself.
Studying is very much what you make it. One of the biggest advantages is actually to have five years where I can just do things on my free time, without any real obligations other than passing a few courses. I can read courses on coursera, I can read a lot and I've started Taekwon-do which is awesome. And I can play games and do a bunch of other stuff and it's all okay.
Additionally, it's not like 5 years is a long time anyways. Many are rushing out to work and to get the money rolling, but maybe I'm different. I don't really think money is the one thing to strive for - as long as I have enough to live and do things I like - why need more? I will realistically work 40+ years of my life anyway, I feel no need to rush.
Studying is absolutely not for everyone, but often here on hacker news I feel the benefits are being shrugged of a bit too lightly. And I haven't even mentioned the probable benefits an actual degree might have in your career.
Of course, this whole thing is kind of silly anyway. Who's to say that one's "level of education" corresponds to what degree they earned (or not). I've graduated college three times (3 associate degrees), have about 3/4's of the work towards a B.S. degree done, and have taught myself all sorts of shit totally unrelated to my college programs, over the intervening years.
It would be both accurate and wildly inaccurate to say that my "level of education" corresponds to:
1. college dropout
2. college graduate (associate degree)
3. college graduate (bachelors degree)
4. other
Then again, I'm probably the walking, talking definition of "edge case" so probably best to just ignore me. :o)
Hopefully this poll tells somebody something, because it doesn't do much for me.
I finished my grad school and then job for 7.5 years. I quit job to startup. Also joined MBA.
Dropped off from the b-school after 2 semester. Found it too boring and too generic. Coursera is much better.
I am a lifelong programmer, since I was 8 years old. My high school had an amazing 4 year computer science program that totally spoiled me. When I got to a university it was so slow, and everything seemed outdated. Having to relearn all of it in an inferior way was excruciating.
I dropped out, worked for a few years in an unrelated field, and then decided to go back and study Motion Graphic Design, since I had a passion for it, and it seemed like something I could actually learn new information about.
I love what I do now. I work as a programmer, for the most part, at a design studio. I get a taste of the design and film production that I'm so passionate about, while also getting to program.
Even though I love what I do, not a day goes by that I don't regret quitting my CS education. If for nothing else just so that companies that are obsessed with credentials, like Google, would consider me.
My computer science teachers were like... well, the best one bragged about how he stopped studying and updating his knowledge at the time of punched cards.
Enough said.
I went back after ten years because, when the economy tanked, I wanted a piece of paper to validate my work experience. I learned an awful lot in my course of studies and it's directly applicable to my day job (directing IT for a high tech manufacturing company).
If I could go back and do it all over again, I'd at least have minored in CS.