Why are we still having degree vs autodidact arguments/debates?

It's fucking 2018, who gives a flying fuck how you learn?

Stop giving a shit about how people learn and give a shit about their abilities and skills.

I'm tired of people from both sides (people with degrees and autodidacts) acting like they're better than the other. Stop being arrogant cunts.

Some people have the self control and motivation to teach themselves.

Congratulations! That's fucking awesome.

Others don't and could use a structured environment like University to motivate and encourage them.

Hey it happens. At least you're trying.

My god. Just stop with this shit already. It's annoying and unnecessary.

If you made it this far, how's your week been going?

Agree, the important thing is the skillset, doesn’t matter where it comes from.

But also have to say that more and more companies & recruiters know and understand this.

Good so far, what about yours?

@zlice Ok Alex Jones. Go put your tinfoil hat on and get on with your day.

Not saying the education system is pure and perfect, but people don't come from all over the world to go to school here for a "sham."

@just8littleBit My new monitor comes in today. I had dual screen setup in class last semester and I missed it. Had to get one for home.

@Stuxnet Still prefer government funded education.

I have been looking on a new server for $13760 (dell r440)

Hopefully it's alright 🙂

@raldo94 Government funded would work if we (US) weren't so large.

Another problem is people who go to university just to party. They exist and in large numbers. One of my neighbors last year (my first year) got so drunk they had to call an ambulance on his FIRST day at University. Id hate to know tax dollars were paying for shit like that.

@AlexDeLarge I got older and more tech to play with. Pretty great so far.

But I've tried to learn on my own. For HTML and CSS, that was no problem. Then when I took the web design class (for an IT major) and never once struggled. 90% certain I could show up on exam days and still make close to a 100. (Class basically taught me how to tidy up my code and not be quite as spaghetti as before.)

But with programming languages, I struggle a little bit when it comes to teaching myself. I'm not sure why. So the fact that I'm paying out my ass for college motivates me to work harder and learn more efficiently than when I'm on my own. I've also got access to lots of intelligent people to help me out one on one.

I wish I could learn on my own. It'd be nice to be stuck taking fucking chemistry and mythology. (General education courses make a fucking rant for a future date.)

Annoying and unnecessary? Discussing this is not unnecessary for those who are deciding how and what they will study. Bitching is annoying.

@electrineer It's been said for years now. There's enough information on the subject at this point. It's also not that complex.

Ask yourself: "Do I have the time, resources, and self control/motivation to teach myself?"

If you say yes, then give it a shot. Waiting until it's time to go to college (as in a few months before the semester starts or when it's time to apply) to try this method is not suggested. Try this like the summer before your last year in high school or whatever it's called in your country.

Once trying, if you succeed, try and grab a job in the summer after high school. If you fail, spend some of the fall semester bettering your skills and trying again. If that doesn't work, perhaps school is for you.

100% aware it's easier said than done, but it's also not rocket science. Just my thoughts on it.

I didnt read any comments, but heres my two cents.

When you got a degree, the people wanting to employ you know what courses youve been through, and know what you *should* be able to do.
Thats whats good about degrees imo.

Now, for selftaught. Employer doesnt know what you know, what youve been through. You have to prove yourself. But! Selftaught people tend to be more interested, willing to learn, explore and not just listen to some teacher because hey, you need a degree right?

Summary of my opinion: degrees are good, but selftaught is good too.
Each for their own reason.

I actually agree with @zlice
The US education system really is pretty terrible.

@Root Not really.

Big schools = appropriate funding and skilled teachers.

Small schools = get shit on and don't get shit.

Once you hit university, it's a lot better.

"ItS eXpEnSiVe ThOuGh."

False. Only tiny ass privately owned universities 90% of the population haven't heard of are expensive. (It's expensive compared to other countries, but it's really not that unreasonable.)

My tuition is like $8,000 a year (just tuition, not housing, food, and so on.) I got $9000 in grants. That means the only thing I've got left to pay for is housing and food.

Also, a lot of the people I see bitching about how expensive college is (while on campus) usually have the newest iPhone, a new MBP, a 2015 to 18 car, and almost always have a cup of Starbucks in their hand. Soooo, if you'd stop blowing so much money on your overpriced lifestyle, it'd be cheaper.

There's also community colleges. Tuition is drastically cheaper. Get your two year degree then transfer for the rest of a B.S.

Also, to add on, by "big schools" and "small schools" I mean the public ones. Elementary, middle, and high school.

@Stuxnet I thought you were not into these debates. Based on your lengthy comments, I must have misunderstood your rant.

My two cents, if you want them... My background is, that I made an appreniship and worked a few year as fullstack dev. I learned a lot while working and did most of my learning autodidactivly. Now I decided to go to university and get a degree, as I kindof felt the need to know more. I currently attend ETH in Zurich, Switzerland, which is among the top 10 universities in the world. Well so much to my background. As I kind of have seen both worlds, I'd like to state my opinion.

In my expirience you learn something like programing, while doing it. Having code reviews, using different technology, discussing stuff with colegues and so on. So in my opinion autodidacts are usually the better programers.

On the other hand, people attending university, know the conceps. They can argue about "big O" notation of an algorithm, about "NP hard" problems or MPI concepts.

So it depends on what your objective is, if you want to "just" be a programmer, I'd choose the autodidact route anytime. Programing isn't something you can just teach, but something you need to do.
If you want to reason about something on a theoretical level or develop new technologies, new concepts (and be taken serious) a degree of a university does surely help!
Both ways have their perks. Both have their downsides. There isn't one that is "better" or "worse". It just is like it is.

But as I said, that are just my two cents. Take it as you like.

@electrineer Im just giving my response to everyone's comment. I also have and habbit of feeling the need to reply to everyone's comment hahah

@zlice always love to confuse people ;)

@zlice @Wack I'll respond to you two later today. I already have a general idea of what to say

@Stuxnet looking forward to it, but don't hurry, it's night here, so I won't read it for the next 9 hours ;)

@Stuxnet College for me was a bloody waste.

Classes were $350-$800, crappy textbooks were $100-350 (often requiring two per class). All of the professors, save two, were utterly unskilled and completely useless for learning.

Prominent example: The head of the computer science department was a tenured professor who didn't speak English well enough even to converse, nor could she read or write code. All of our assignments were graded on existence only -- never even opened. The midterm was a website (in VB.NET) graded entirely on looks. The final exam was a pre-wtitten test.

My other experiences weren't much better.

It isn't much of an exaggeration to say I learned less while attending college than I did at any other time in my life.

Looking at other people's rants about school here and elsewhere online, I see that many other colleges are similar.

About the rant, it sounds more about respect than the path you choose or how you learn.

If that is the case, rather than focusing on how or what you've learned - take pride on what you've created or already achieved.

If you have nothing to show, my advice to you is:
1. Start small and in every language you are fond of.
2. Contribute as much as you can to public open source repositories that you find interesting.

Doing many projects in different programming languages/frameworks tells more about a guy than any degree.

@Root wow that really sucks. :(
I'm sorry to hear that was your experience from the education system. Please accept this hugging koala 🐨

This is a bad argument because most universities today don't teach anything hint remotely useful towards web development.

Self learning > universities and that's pretty much universally accepted nowadays, so you can't portray them as equal

@hashedram Well for starters don't be an arrogant cunt. Sentence #5.

Web dev is a sub category for IT in most cases. It's not exactly something that should require an entire fucking degree of like 15+ classes.

I can think of about 6 classes at most it should be.

@Stuxnet My point is that universities prep people for academic or research types of work, while self learning is the only viable method of learning for development types of work.

Also disagreeing with you doesn't make me an arrogant cunt you butthurt fucktwaddle.

@hashedram Instead of accepting there's two sides to this, you're being that cancerous individual that acts like "my opinion is the only correct one." You literally said "being self taught is better than university." People like you are the reason this rant fucking exists in the first place.

And if you get a PhD or Masters, then yes you're correct it prepares you for research more than anything. But a bachelor's doesn't really do shit in terms of prepare you for research.

@Stuxnet fuck off. I said in the particular case for learning development, self warning is better, while universities are better for academia. This is a pretty common opinion, because development requires knowledge that changes often and universities can't keep up.

People like you who make up false dichotomies that every argument with two sides "must" end up with both sides equal are the reason why these arguments exist.

Companies who do the hiring care.