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Comment by nearestneighbor | Hacker News Reader

Excellent question. For coders trying to maximize their probability of getting rich enough not to worry about money by the time they are 25 or 30, I'm sure going to college is an awful bet, especially in the US, where college education is expensive. And the more education you get, the worse of a bet it is (I have a PhD from an Ivy League school, BTW, as does pg, I think)

However, some important work and innovation absolutely requires higher education. For example, you are extremely unlikely to learn linear algebra and matrix theory "on the job", while running a startup, or even if you are just relaxing at home with nothing else to do for a few years.

    tl;dr: don't go to college, but expect to have your
    horizons limited

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> you are extremely unlikely to learn linear algebra and matrix theory "on the job"

Why? All of the information is available in books and on Wikipedia. Nowadays you can learn nearly anything for free with just an internet connection and some dedication. The biggest potential impediment is be a self-defeating attitude that prevents you from trying.

On the other hand, don't expect learning "on the job" to mean that you'll get paid to learn.

> Why?

Because of laziness. You are right that you can learn by just investing time, and the grandparent is right that almost nobody will bother when they can play videogames with that time.

> Nowadays you can learn nearly anything for free with just an internet connection and some dedication

It's no different from the situation before the internet, since books are cheap (compared to your time) and usually are still a better source of information on such structured subjects anyway.

In fact, when I was in college, I mostly read textbooks anyway instead of attending lectures (it's easier for me to learn this way).

This however is not the whole story. Even if you are motivated ("I'd like to learn math"), you are probably not motivated enough for some feats of cognition. If you know people who stayed home and studied math on their own for a few years, full-time, at college level (I don't), they are probably very rare.

No, the situation is very different now with the internet since you can now study subjects in any arbitrary order, as long as you diligently identify and follow the dependencies (i.e. prerequisites). Prescribed curricula and structured courses were much more important in the pre-internet days since it was much harder to use the dependency-order learning approach.

I've learned a decent amount of mathematical stuff on my own without traditional books, and I'm pretty sure this will become more and more common over time. I'm a member of the earliest generation (b. 1985) for which this was really possible, and I just fell into it by accident, but in the coming decades I expect we'll see a lot more people who are almost entirely self-educated through the internet. I'm sure it'll still be a relatively uncommon phenomenon, but at least the people who learn best in this way now have access to the information and tools they need.

Learning math from Wikipedia is like learning foreign languages from a dictionary. It seems that you are intent on believing what you chose to believe, though, so good luck with that.

I'd be seriously impressed by anyone who could actually learn math or physics from wikipedia. Those articles are so poorly written and jargon heavy that I rarely learn anything from them.

Happily the computer science articles tend to make at least a little sense. But then I already have a degree in the field.

The articles are in fact extremely well written, but they are encyclopedaic. They are not written as a textbook, but as a reference work. Most articles assume you're nearly there and need the details.

There are people who can learn from encyclopedias, but most people need well-paced, linearly(ish) arranged material.

Wikipedia is a great way to get introduced to topics. Like any other encyclopedia (not dictionary) it serves as a great way to get a high-level overview of a topic. There's plenty of other resources on the internet for more in-depth information -- including free PDF versions of books.

I had a friend in my University, he had spent a lot of time working and studying from what we call a "Distance Education"(They give you books and some video lectures).

He had a hard time doing that and valued a lot direct contact with the teacher. It resonates with me because I studied engineering but love psychology too and when I learn let's say NLP from video-audio made by masters I learn way more that in the same authors books.

Books are very good when you dominate the subject.

90% of the communication is not verbal. Nuances and emphasis are very important.

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