Ha.

[misterpengo]

Continuing that long-running blogger/LJ-user trend of posting articles just because they confirm their own beliefs, I give you this:

For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

Some choice quotes.

Outside a handful of majors -- engineering and some of the sciences -- a bachelor's degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a

Comments

[frogbot]

I've learned more about programming on the job and in my own spare time than I did in two years of college supposedly toward a computer science degree. Maybe some people need High School The Sequel, but I seem to do better if I can focus my own learning.

Absolutely.

[misterpengo]

I think learning on the job is one thing that nothing can replace, but there's a tremendous amount to be said for teaching yourself as well. It's one reason I love the concept of certification over degrees - you know what you need to know for a given job. And if you pass certification, your employer has a greater (certainly not perfect) confidence that you actually know something pertinent to the job.

I get a bit creeped out by this insistence that not only is self-learning just too hard, but it should be discouraged because colleges are always the better option.

[sensei256]

I learned far more in college, and I still use the concepts I learned that that I probably would not have easily picked up elsewhere.

It boils down to "why go to university?" If it is to pick up a specific set of skills (i.e. I already have a field and major selected), sure, a degree is worthwhile.

If the goal boils down to "I can follow directions from people higher up", well, say hello to your liberal arts degree?

This is essentially the quoted paragraphs, and I'm not disputing that.
I still think the solution is in "better degrees", though.

[misterpengo]

See, there's this mental jump there that I just can't get into. "If you want a specific set of skills, get a degree."

To me that's like saying, if you want a banana, get a Sam's Club membership. I mean, they have bananas there, right? And if they're the only place in town where you can get a banana, that's that. But they're not the only place to get a banana - in fact, I can go to places that are more appropriate if that's what I'm aiming for. In the context of an education, if you can educate yourself - especially considering you can typically do so for vastly less money and time than a college will ask of you - you should do that.

Now, I know you'll fire back 'Not everyone can learn on their own'. For the hell of it, let's say I grant that. Would you agree that any person who can learn on their own, should? And that if people who can't learn on their own can become a person who CAN learn on their own, they should be encouraged to do so?

[sensei256]

> "If you want a specific set of skills, get a degree."

I didn't say this. The banana analogy is stupid, because it's not an argument I was actually making, and I'll skip it.

Even so, the article treats universities as an investment of time and money. This is not unreasonable.
If your goal is "To get a job that I want" and those jobs require a bachelor's or a master's, then one may consider college a good investment. If your goal is something else, or if your goals aren't set, then maybe different options are better. I concede that "college is not automatically the best option for 100% people", but I don't think that was in any major dispute.

(Whether certain jobs should require a degree is a topic I don't feel like getting into in this comment box.)

If you want to argue the merits of self-study, fine. But I'm not going to spatter a bunch of random arguments on either direction until I see an actual topic emerge.

[misterpengo]

You: It boils down to "why go to university?" If it is to pick up a specific set of skills (i.e. I already have a field and major selected), sure, a degree is worthwhile.

Me, paraphrasing you: If you want a specific set of skills, get a degree.

Lighten up, Francis. You're getting too snippy, too fast over what is a pretty meager topic.