[dakiol]

I studied computer science over a decade ago. What I learnt at the university was: 1) perseverance. I wanted to learn about writing programs and OS and hardware… but I had to first pass all the mathematical lectures. It wasn’t easy. 2) How to learn. I feel like I can learn any topic nowadays, And pretty much I have been doing this over all my career. I didn’t learn about Kafka or K8s or Go in the uni, but I learnt the fundamentals and got a grasp on how to learn new things. Invaluable I would say. 3) How to deal with people I don’t like. I didn’t like many professors but I had to pass the lectures the way they want it. Same for my professional career.

I pretty much study every week to keep up with the industry, but I like it, so it feels more like a hobby. I’m not sure I would have the same strength and perseverance if I had quit uni the first year (or if I had never attended uni). This is just me, so YMMV.

If any, I feel like primary and high school are the real “scams”. I think they waste so much time over and over the same topics without going deep into nothing. I think it could be cut by 30% without any repercussions. I don’t recall anything valuable I have learnt in school (all the great lessons were due to my parents)

[thiago_fm]

Your comment about primary/high school is incorrect from my point of view. It's only evaluating that time on it being practical for your work (or CS study).

There's a lot of value on learning about Geography, History, Biology, the sciences, the social aspect of learning and going to a school and so on. It's hard to observe it after you have done it.

It can be possible you feel like you don't remember much, or don't find it useful, but in that scenario, I assume you'd easily be manipulated as you'd have very shallow knowledge about how the world works, despite perhaps having learned "30% more CS" because you just had less high school if it didn't exist.

Of course, there are improvements that could be made to the curriculum of schools, but I believe it's the most important learning lessons that set us up for life is there.

[dakiol]

Fair point. Although I wasn’t thinking about the utility of primary/high school in relation with CS. For instance, I studied (I believe) over 6 years english (probably more) in primary/high school. I couldn’t maintain a conversation with a native speaker when I finished high school. Had to study it by myself during uni (thanks Youtube!).

Same goes for chemistry for example. Can’t recall much tbh. My point is that primary/high school could be way more efficient.

[bruce511]

To be fair, the goal of school us not to be efficient. And I'd suggest that most attendees aren't all that interested in efficiency either. I certainly spent as little time on schoolwork as possible, and really didn't think much beyond the next exam.

Despite that I've found my schooling has really helped me along the way. Apart from the obvious (reading, writing, arithmetic). I took accountancy as a subject. When I started working for myself having that accounting knowledge was really helpful.

Physics slso played a role in life just after school. I spent some time in a "trade" type job (fire fighting) and high school physics (conduction, electricity etc) were all practical tools.

High school math helped with logic (that came in handy) and even algebra and formulas are good background and applicable to programing (and made it easier to learn.)

In hindsight I credit my English teachers with my communication skills- I have written text books and run training classes.

Its not like I "learned nothing since school" and its not like I was a model student at school, but I picked up skills when I wasn't looking.

As for Geography - well I don't know that that has affected my career, but it certainly gets the kids eyes rolling when I pontificate on rock types and magma intrusions. :)