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Someone1234

(1) Learn something.

(2) Develop a portfolio (e.g. Github) leveraging #1

(3) Apply for jobs leveraging #1 & #2

(4) Apply for your next job leveraging #1, #2, and #3.

(5) Repeat

Honestly the route of a traditional college education is exactly the same, except replace #2 with "a magical piece of paper which asserts I know #1." People sometimes struggle because they jump from #1 to #3, and have no way of showing they can apply the knowledge obtained in #1.

But it really depends what you're learning. If you took a bunch of mechanical engineering self-taught courses, it is unlikely anyone is going to let you design a bridge. Whereas technology related fields are a little bit more flexible.

Going this route will always exclude you from some jobs, since they have hard requirements for a college degree. But there's plenty of small-medium businesses that only want to see you can do the work they want doing and will accept their low[er] initial salary.

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This really sums it up. I hope for more low cost, regionally accredited online universities in the near future. I'm particularly fond of University of the People's tuition free model (in which student's pay only for proctoring and assessment), and hope to see more developments similar to this but on a regional level. Or, alternatively, accreditation being awarded by universities if mastery of material is adequately and reasonably proven.

I find it sad that my favorite lecturers have all been online, yet I must pay the premium for services I don't necessarily want (namely physical, real time lectures in a geographically fixed location, and all the overhead associated with it) if I want 'real' accreditation.

> But it really depends what you're learning. If you took a bunch of mechanical engineering self-taught courses, it is unlikely anyone is going to let you design a bridge.

And yet Elon Musk, who studied aerospace on his own, is building rockets. John Carmack, who holds no degree at all, has done the same on a smaller scale.

Who let them?

selection bias?

Yes, but not in the way you think. They selected themselves.

Of course people know more of fantastic successes than those who end up in the middle or at the bottom of the heap. Many both with and without credentials fail. More of those with credentials succeed, but it is an extremely tenuous argument to claim that schooling caused its recipients to succeed rather than the more straightforward explanation that schools select those who would succeed even without them.

Selection bias is a factor (along multiple dimensions) and it isn't at all clear whether universities make a net positive or net negative contribution to their pupils. One thing is clear, however. It's better to force gatekeepers to filter you out rather than do the task for them.

Statistically, Elon Musk and John Carmack are "outliers".

Also... Would you let a self-though doctor put his hand on you? Yeah he/she did not go to a "formal university" and he did not do practice in a "real hospital" but hey, HE READ A BUNCH OF MEDICINE BOOKS!

Capitalizing entire words doesn't strengthen your case.

To answer your question, yes I would in cases where they are more educated than their schooled counterparts in the specific help I need. This is less common in medicine than in art, business or science, but it is not unheard of. In those cases, I would, and I have.

You should realize that with the exception of surgeons, most doctors lose skill throughout their careers. After medical school, doctors tend to slowly get worse in diagnostics and often ossify whatever was the best practice when they graduated. This is particularly clear in nutrition. Surgeons are an exception, due to the rapid feedback their work offers.

People who educate themselves are outliers already.

> Would you let a self-though doctor put his hand on you?

There are consequences here beyond time and money so it isn't nearly as much of an apt comparison.

> did not do practice in a "real hospital"

Medical doctors already go through many years of residency as well as continually take standardized tests to keep their medical licenses.

Also lawyers in California and Louisiana can skip law school by passing their boards (and undergoing a type of apprenticeship I believe).

AFAICT, neither of them have designed anything. Elon Musk has an executive role. Carmack's role is unclear. Happy to go through any information you've come across..

Carmack invented modern VR

"Modern VR" has a lineage dating all the way back to the 1950s and has seen progressive advancement (in step with technology) since. No single person invented modern VR, and certainly not someone who wasn't even involved until five-seven years ago that's absurd.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality#History

This will no doubt boil down to some warped definition of what the term "modern" means.

Modern VR as in sticking a phone screen 50mm from your eyeballs. Carmack did a lot of the work tackling the latency and tracking issues.

That maybe correct, and I have huge respect for John (I've watched and re-watched all of his keynotes and lectures), but we're talking about rockets here.

>Elon Musk, who studied aerospace on his own, is building rockets. John Carmack, who holds no degree at all, has done the same on a smaller scale.

Do you dispute that Carmack built rockets?

Have you read Masters of Doom or even Googled the question?

http://bfy.tw/H8Z5

Indeed, he was part of a team that built rockets. I even said his role was unclear to me. Can you link to any document detailing his involvement?

Edit: Please don't take this as a diss on his work. Just because one didn't play a role in designing the rockets, doesn't mean they were not crucial to the project.

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