Pst. Don't exclude people without college degrees. They're often far more resourceful, in my experience, and there's little that college gives you as a developer. Hire the person, not the school.
there's little that college gives you as a developer
I hear this fallacy a lot.
A lot of people seem to give it a pass and nod along with it, maybe because it makes them feel better or maybe because it seems like the politically correct thing to say in a room full of talented hackers, only some of whom went to college.
While you in no way need to go to college to be a developer, I think people should be highly skeptical of this claim.
Look at the claim this way. Given two people with equal skill and ambition:
* the first one spent four years learning computer science and software engineering in school while hacking
* the second one spent four years hacking
The claim is that those people more or less have the same skill set.
It just seems unlikely that there's "very little" that the computer science program gave to the developer. It certainly doesn't match what I've actually seen in-field.
Of course, I'm biased: I went to school for computer science. Does anyone actually have evidence to support the other side of the argument?
I have a bachelor's degree in computer science. I probably learned some topics better than I would have on my own, thanks to being forced to dig deeper for the class. But I was an avid self-studier of computer science, and I learned a whole lot on my own. For the amount of computer science knowledge I need to do my real world work so far, I'm not convinced getting the formal education made a noticeable difference.
That said, I really appreciate all of the other topics I learned in more breadth and/or depth while in college. I learned far more about psychology, linguistics, literature, history, etc., than I would have any time soon on my own. I enjoy reading, and enjoy learning a wide variety of topics, but I tend to hyperfocus on what I feel interested in at the time. I doubt I would have bothered to learn anything about Russian culture or listened to recordings of Jelly Roll Morton if I hadn't been required to for course credit... and I feel better about myself for having learned these things.
And therein lies the real advantage, I think. I may be unschooled, but I am educated. Unfortunately, it's taken me the better part of fifty years to get there. These days my own abilities are severely restricted by Lewy Body Dementia, so I spend my time and energy mentoring young folk -- and none of them will hear me say that a liberal eduction is a waste of time. (And yes -- Jelly Roll, the Cabster and even His Royal Hipness hisself are part of the program.)
Sounds like you went to a great school. Most colleges in India don't allow any flexibility in what courses you can take. You have to pass all the prescribes subjects. Liberal arts? That's unheard of back here.
Here's the thing: I got a Masters in Software engineering 10 years after getting a BSEE. I studied all the interesting topics in software development I could find in the 10 years before going back to school. During my masters coursework, however, I was exposed to a bunch of things I had absolutely no interest in or knowledge of and I was blown away by how little I knew about the field in general as opposed to my little slice of it.
The problem with most self-taught people is that the knowledge is deep, but narrow. To be an excellent, innovative, developer you need breadth in order to be able to consider alternate approaches to a problem, but with sufficient depth in certain key areas to be able to do analysis when necessary.
College provides in 4 years what could otherwise take decades of "on the job" learning.
I've seen really good AND really bad developers with and without degrees. It really does seem to be more the person than the training.
Successful people without college degrees tend to take a few more years to move up the development food chain, they're basically opting to do on-the-job training.
Successful people with college degrees tend to have a stronger foundation in theory, which is useful; whether or not people want to admit it.
I don't believe they have the same skill sets, but they both bring something to the table.
Disclosure: My highest level of education is High School. I dropped out of college in my second semester to go work as a programmer. Over the years, I've hired lots of developers for various companies, and worked with hundreds of developers as well - with and without degrees.
It's not that a CS program has no useful content, but that the content is available to anyone interested in finding it. Knuth is accessible to a mathematically-inclined person with a tenth grade (equivalent) knowledge of mathematics (and three hundred bucks in his pocket), SICP is eerily transparent, the Dragon Book is certainly not beyond the ken of mere mortals, and so it goes. Admittedly, it takes more work to move beyond naivete without a formal education, but those who care about the craft will eventually get there. Those who do not care will still bubble sort despite their degree.
No, I posted that before parent edited his post (classy).
Now if only I could become as classy as you, injecting ad hominem jabs, bitter snark, and class warfare into the argument as a replacement for actually backing up your points.
Am I tired, or was that comment nothing but ad hominem? Perhaps you should take the high road next time and assume that I am just stating my own opinions, not trying to argue with anybody.
[edit below]
However, as you're egging me on, I will rebut your flimsy argument, the crux of which is this anecdotal beaut:
"It just seems unlikely that there's 'very little' that the computer science program gave to the developer. It certainly doesn't match what I've actually seen in-field."
If that's all you have to lean on, I don't understand how your comment was upvoted so much. Absent in your analysis is a thorough inventory of what college gives you: While it provides new opportunities for learning, it also does not provide things that you get in the working world, such as
* Business sense and professionalism
* Assuming you don't live at home, a sense of independence: Knowing how to take care of yourself at 22 when everyone else is just figuring out is a huge advantage, believe it or not
* Documented experience
* References from others with working-world experience
On the other hand, there are indeed negatives of going to college. To me, the greatest one is the massive time drain: I work in the day, go home, teach myself more, read history, learn chess, and basically provide my own education. This is not by design, but rather, by my nature. It's unfortunate that so many take education to be the exclusive realm of educational institutions.
Sitting through lectures and working to verify for your professors that you are learning, to me, is a waste of time, when I know damn well if I've learned it properly. If I haven't, and it's important, it will show quickly back at work.
Oh, and college costs tens of thousands of dollars.
Am I tired, or was that comment nothing but ad hominem?
That was kind of the point. I was trying to be classy, like you.
Perhaps you should take the high road next time and assume that I am just stating my own opinions, not trying to argue with anybody.
I didn't mean to start an argument, I was just responding to your post. You said that a degree in computer science adds nothing to how someone develops software. I replied that this seems false, gave my reasons why, and asked if anyone had evidence to the contrary. You took offense and started flaming.
[yadda yadda yadda ... you insulted my argument then said a bunch of other irrelevant stuff ... yadda yadda yadda]
My argument was short because what you said is prima facie false: you more or less said that years of training in software development adds nothing to one's software development skill set. It doesn't take much to rebut that.
The rest of what you said was all well and good, but you're now attacking a strawman. We're not talking about a cost-benefit analysis of going to college, so your points aren't really germane here. We're talking about your claim that college adds nothing, which you still haven't backed up ... probably because it's a completely untenable position. Four years of anything will add something to your skill set.
If you're a person who doesn't need a university program, then you're a person who can get an incredible amount of value out of one as well. No school gives you anything, but you can take a hell of a lot out of a halfway decent program.
Absolutely, school has lots to offer, but what's often missing from the equation in discussions like these is opportunity cost.
People compare school vs "not-school" as if the alternative to school is sitting on your butt. In truth, one can accomplish a heck of a lot with that time and money.
I would say "In truth, SOME can accomplish a heck of a lot with that time and money." I think it really depends on the person, and their experiences up to the end of high school.
Give me that time and money now, and I can hopefully accomplish something useful.
Give me that time and money when I was just out of high school, and chances are very good that it would have gone to waste. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life (still don't, but a bit less so than back then), I had no idea how to work hard, and only a vague idea of how the world works. Those are things I started to learn in college.
For what it's worth, I have a PhD and was not a "rich kid" - I was fortunate enough to grow up in the UK at a time when the government gave grants to people who would not otherwise be able to afford a university education (I'm not sure if they still do this - I know a lot has changed).
At least a few years ago, when I did my undergrad, you didn't actually have to pay the fees if you were from a low income background though. Couple that with a student loan you don't have to pay off until you're earning, and it's not quite as evil as it sounds.
It still strikes me as very odd though coming from a Labour government to do away with free university for everyone. I think that's an incredibly important thing for a society to have.
The fact you can get off paying if you're from low income families I'd bet still deters a lot of people from going to university, who would have otherwise gone which is a shame.
No, I'm not. I spurned college to enter the working world after high school (programming) and did well. Took classes as well, and transferred to a reputable school. While it wasn't hell on earth, the simplicity and naivette of most students was unbearable.
I think you should check your definition of unbearable. I graduated high school in 99 and was contemplating trying to exploit the first bubble but decided to go to school instead (I was obviously a bit too young at that time). A lot of life is a game and unless you are born rich, college is a big part of that game. We can't make life any more or less fair, we have to play the game with the cards we are dealt. College is an opportunity to meet people, get your day-to-day living paid for with loans or scholarships and polish your skills. Now, maybe it is best to go into the working world right away for some people, sure. However, a lot of software engineering is based on mathematical and theoretical principles and knowing those principles should help avoid various pitfalls. I don't know why I am writing such a detailed response to such a deep comment... I guess to suggest a more cold and calculating point of view. The other students are completely irrelevant, pleasures and what is "unbearable" are not really relevant. Taking a college degree gives huge advantages to those of us who are not trust fund babies and if you have some experience about how unbearable life can really get you make decisions based on long term benefit, not whether college kids annoy you for a few hours a week for a few years.
I have a bachelor's degree and, thank God, my school was (and is) committed to need-blind admissions and gives every student a financial aid package that covers 100% of their calculated need.
Without their generosity, it would have been very difficult to pay $40k/year to go there.
I failed out of University in my last year, but I had a wonderful experience there. OTOH this was in the days when you could get an engineering degree from a top Canadian university for $2.5k a year tuition.
Me neither and there are a few instances where I regret it, but mostly during the time I "should" have been in school I was learning how to run my own company, live and provide for myself, taxes, health care and everything else. I have college educated friends who have gone back to working retail with no savings account because they don't know better. (I yell at them and teach them things from time to time, least I can do when I see friends making mistakes.)
I think in the long run it wont matter what level of education I've "completed", I'm always going to be learning and I'm always going to try to be good at what I do. Taking classes might help me one day, you never know.
You're not adding anything to the conversation. If you had said, "Yea I don't have a college degree and I've taught myself six different programming languages and I'm working on x, y and z right now," that would have been a (marginally) better response to the parent than what you wrote.
See, I think there is value in self-identification esp since not having a college degree makes you somewhat of a pariah in some circles.
Granted, it would have been better to provide some prove as to why it is notable that I personally do not have a college degree, but being here at HN counts for something.
But yeah, I have probably taught myself 6 programming languages (PHP, Ruby, Java, Python, Javascript, Perl, and some software specific programming tools like Lawson Process Flow, TSQL, etc). I have over 10 years of tech / business experience, own 2 retail clothing stores, took statzen.com to TechCrunch50 DemoPit last year, am about to launch http://gpsaAssassins.com, yada yada.
I was going to go back and finish my BS, but something better keeps coming along. Now I am at a point where it doesn't seem worth it. So I am thinking I may one day clep out of a much of stuff and go get my MBA. Of course, by the time I have the time to go back to school the MBA probably won't seem worth it either.
So, hopefully that adds a little more to the conversation. (Better late than never)
