Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by leshow 2439 days ago
> I went the traditional CS major in undergrad route and most of what I learned in school was not applicable to my day to day work.

I did a B. Eng in Software Engineering, and I found that the most important thing I learned at school wasn't any specific library or language. All of that stuff is extremely fluid and changes year to year. It was the skill of 'learning how to learn'.

Consequently, that's my main criticism of schools that teach to a certain set of 'skills' like React or Node. IMO what you should be learning are fundamentals that can apply anywhere. Data structures, algorithms, etc. Granted, I think learning those probably takes a bit longer.

2 comments

This is a common argument, but it seems like learning one computer language or library will make it easier to learn another one? Also, being familiar with some concrete examples should make it easier to learn general principles?

You're not going to get four years of work in six months, but I don't really see bootcamps as a hindrance to learning more later, either going back to school or on your own.

Your college was teaching you skills too derivatives beyond mine. All of my classes were on CS and math. I didn't have a single class on "how to learn", or the very meta class "learning how to learn".