[Siira]

A badge of honor and respect is also known as a “signal.” Not that signaling is inherently bad, quite the opposite, signaling is essential. But it would be great if we could discover cheaper and more accessible ways to signal.

PS: I don’t think a CS degree is just signaling, but it could be improved an order of magnitude if the incentives of the professors and the institutions were aligned with teaching people marketable skills.

[lsalvatore]

Yes I totally understand your point of view. I spent almost a decade paying off a six figure debt for my CS degree. The funniest part? I learned almost nothing about web development in school. No marketable skills that would have really helped me when I first started my actual job! How can I argue this is a good thing?

Well, the best analogy I can think of is a black belt in karate. It takes 10 years or whatever to get that. It has no marketable purpose. Why do it? The answer is more than "to get a job". It's about Discipline. Focus. Intense research into fundamentals. Stretching your limit if what you can learn in a weekend. Writing half a page of assembly code on a piece of paper. Debugging a C program. Red black trees. These have no purpose, but when reflecting on these experiences, I would not trade them for a second for "Intro to Javascript and HTML".

[r-w]

But should most people do it primarily for that reason? At the end of my 4½ years, I think not.