[thecupisblue]

>Lao-tzu said colleges may not give you the fish directly but it teaches you how to fish for yourself.

And I say fuck Lao-Tzu and what he said.

Someone living in 500 BC should not direct your life's direction. You have something called the Internet now, which he didn't. You have nearly unlimited access to knowledge that you can't possibly consume in all your lifetime. You have courses from top tier colleges free. You can learn anything.

Yeah some stuff requires a degree to work in if you're not at the top of the field and want to join a good company (ML, Neurotech and stuff like that). Most of it doesn't. College isn't just expensive. It's passive and it has a terrible system of teaching people stuff that doesn't interest them just because someone thought it would be useful to them. And it's boring as fuck.

[jimmies]

>You have something called the Internet now

The Internet hasn't changed fundamentally the way we think and study many subjects. There are no internet forums or MOOCs that are able to deliver many aspects of what you'll be able to learn in an art class or in a lab. Going to college by learning from MOOCs on the Internet is the new learning to paint from Bob Ross.

>And it's boring as fuck.

Of course, college courses are boring. Bob Ross painting sessions are more fun than taking a painting course in college.

>You have courses from top tier colleges free. You can learn anything.

I don't dispute the fact that we have very good courses online. But then, if they actually solve the knowledge and skill gap, then you have to ask yourself why the pay gaps between people in many industries get bigger, not smaller?

Please don't get me wrong, I think MOOCs are a very good thing. I was among the first people to have received a course completion certificate from one of the first MOOCs (if not the first MOOC ever) back in 2012 called MITx 6002x. As a person who took MOOCs and advocated for them, I would say the idea that the average person can learn just as well from MOOCs/Youtube/Hacker News/"The Internet" and skip college shows a shallow understanding of the matter.

[thecupisblue]

Sorry if it came out a bit harsh, I had one of those days and vented it out on you.

I feel like you have a narrow view of college since you seem to be from the US and your system is widely different from ours here. What it offers here is a narrow approach that teaches you bland theory, with professors being mostly people who weren't competent in their fields so remained in academia (before someone goes it isn't true, I said mostly. There are ones that are amazing and I'd love to be a part of their classes any time). You can't explore outside of your curriculum - you can't take an art class, a philosophy class, a sociology class if you're in CS. You're fixed into a course that rarely changes and they are usually outdated and provide as much info as a week of googling would. No textbooks also, so no material to reference too.

College (in this format we have here) stepped on one-too-many toes for me and I despise it, so I tend to overreact.

[tudelo]

I think part of the ability to succeed is even rooted in how invested you actually are in school. I don't think its great, but people definitely put more effort in when they have some skin in the game...

[tudelo]

> And I say fuck Lao-Tzu and what he said

Is this because you don't like him? Don't like that quote? Or do you not like what is being stated? I don't see what is so incendiary from the supplied quote. I actually believe it has quite a bit of merit and did not know who it was attributed to previous to this post. You can learn anything, sure. Maybe university sucks for learning (I don't entirely agree). But do you not think that there are many cases where you don't know how much you don't know about a given topic? In my experience, it is extremely common in this field... just my 2 cents.