[capote]

That's true, and I completely understand, but it's besides my point. My point is to implore people to stop looking at a CS degree as just a means to get a job. If you look at it that way, of course you're not going to find 100% value in it.

Getting a job is simply not what a CS degree is for. It was never declared to be for this purpose—nobody claims it's for this purpose (except maybe some schools for marketing purposes).

Yes, we all know that you can do a good job programming without a CS degree. Good job. Whoopdeedoo. Anyone who keeps repeating this point is a broken record. Anyone who tries to scientifically prove this is wasting their time. That's not what a CS degree tries to be. This isn't why I went to school, and it's not why many, many people go to school.

[stale2002]

Thats totally fair. But what you need to understand is that the vast vast majority of young people don't give a shit about anything other than the getting the job part of the equation.

Young people need money to buy food and pay for rent and to have fun. Thats what they care about. I went to a top tech school, but I know so many people at the school who DIDN'T go into tech and are now working as consultants doing 80 hours a week for half of my pay. But they hate their career choices.

And those are the people with the GOOD jobs, because they majored in business or something. I know others who are doing even worse than that doing part time tutoring, ect.

All of those people would have been better off just going to a coding bootcamp or something. Its ok if programming wasn't their "passion". Because its not like those people are currently following their passion working as consultants and part time tutors.

At the end of the day, getting a 6 figure salary, and working normal hours puts you way ahead of the vast majority of americans. It gives you the freedom to do what you want, when you want.

And it turns out, young people, after they have been in the workforce, failing at their dreams for a couple years, start to realized that they care a lot more about the freedom that having an awesome, high paying job offers them, and not really about anything that college supposedly delivers them.

[capote]

You're right. Which is why I have been pushing to entirely separate the concepts of university education and of a job in the minds of Hacker News readers.

If you want a job, go to dev bootcamp. Or online school. Or watch YouTube videos. Or just get a job. Or go to school then get a job.

If you want to go to school, go to school.

Let's all get along and stop trying to dismiss the other path as invalid, worthless, or dumb. It's everyone's prerogative to go to school or not. Stop comparing the two or drawing associations.

[imtringued]

Most developers already have a well paying job (likely including you) that's why they don't prioritise job education as much as a student who enrolls this year.

[catmanjan]

Most parents insist on kids going to uni specifically to get a job. If you can get the same knowledge for free (assuming you have to pay for uni), then what's the value?

[superuser2]

If college were about knowledge transfer, we'd all stay home and read.

The value is in guided discussions, meetings with your professors, comments on your papers and code, making friends as you finally begin to understand difficult material together in the library in the middle of the night, and 4 years of living in an environment with an anomalously high signal to noise ratio of smart people throwing 100% effort into their collective intellectual growth.

[malyk]

Except most colleges outside the elite (and probably a lot of students at those too) expend more like 30% of effort growing intellectually. There is also significant social growth, generally, but a lot of time at college (probably most) isn't spent on intellectual endeavors.

[catmanjan]

Yep I agree they have, but that is just a fraction of the purpose they serve today - right now they're just filling the gap until something more effective comes along, like a better version of the technical college.

Uni never should have catered to the massive demand of skilled workers, leave it to the eternal academics I say...

[capote]

I'm trying to say that I found value in it, and many people do. Like I said in other posts, I'm not going to fully describe this value, because it's up to you to find it.

Just know that it's not only for a job. Universities have been around for a long time and have served many great and noble purposes.

[capote]

How did this get down voted out of everything I posted on here :/

[catmanjan]

You said "Getting a job is simply not what a CS degree is for" and then said "Just know that it's not only for a job"

[white-flame]

While I agree that 'get a job' should not be the focus of university, that's what all of modern society focuses on, from government mandates, to parents pushing their kids, to employers screening candidates.

The dream of what academia should be is wildly removed from the reality of the modern (from an American viewpoint) university system.

[elliotec]

So what is the point then?

[capote]

If you can't see the point, then maybe university isn't for you. I'm not going to write an essay on what point I saw in school because I don't have time or interest.

The point is that I saw value in it. I liked learning about computer science. Why can't people stop shitting on this concept?

[imtringued]

Because you can learn about computer science without going to college. It's that simple.

[stale2002]

Good for you for being lucky enough to be able to follow your dreams.

But you have to understand that other people mostly just care about being able to put food on the table, pay rent, and being able to save up enough to be able to support a family and buy a house.

[ctrlalt_g]

> people mostly just care about being able to put food on the table, pay rent, and being able to save up enough to be able to support a family and buy a house.

I think that's what capote is frustrated with.

College (traditionally, at least in the U.S.) is one of the only spaces that encourages young people to have dreams at all. It provides an environment where becoming radicalized is accepted as a norm, where young people can dream of a life and of a society other than the status quo.

[dang]

Perhaps, but on a site intended for matters of intellectual substance I think it's fair to expect a bit more of ourselves.

[elliotec]

I went to university, and you're right, it wasn't for me. It also wasn't for the vast majority of people I knew that went.

It's great that you saw value in it. I do think you are in the minority. Most people don't like learning about stuff at the same time as working a job and throwing all their money at the university just to teach them stuff.

Almost every person that goes to a university is doing it for job prospects. Unquestionably. They think it's the new high school diploma, and in a lot of ways and industries they are correct.

You are an outlier, and that's why people are shitting on this concept.