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I actually had some very similar thoughts recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29137377 That said, it's not like getting a degree was useless in my eyes. I experienced writing low level assembler code which i otherwise would not have, as well as approached problems from a different point of view with Prolog, the paradigms of which were very different from the likes of Java or .NET. I also learnt about 4EM, COCOMO2, COBIT and other practices that are sometimes attempted to plan and execute projects as well as manage them and their risks. Plus, the brief looks at PHP, .NET, Ruby and others, even if pretty underwhelming, motivated me to learn Ruby on my own, continue with PHP and also avoid the older .NET because it's not worth it in comparison the new .NET Core releases (or .NET 6). That said, all of it was more research focused than anything, but if i had skipped out on getting a Master's degree, i also probably wouldn't know about how to run and manage projects, since you usually don't learn in depth subjects from YouTube or skill sharing sites. It's nice to be able to question the people who have a decade or more of working in the industry under their belt, as it is nice to make mistakes and fail group projects in a no stakes environment so you can do retrospectives and then actually fix them. I still maintain that the only useful degrees which would teach both theory and practice to a sufficient degree would probably take 10 years, which isn't feasible in our world. That said, i got my education for free (the country paid for it), so i can understand your frustrations, because to you it probably feels like a bigger waste. On the upside, some companies really care about the credentials, so there's that. |