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Can't agree enough. I am a autodidact, and am still learning. And really every other week I wish I had a mentor/professor. Even though good books somehow covers up for no teacher. But, you can't just read thousand of books before solving a petty problem and there's where a Professor comes. They provide you with a distillation of years of work and experience. and not to mention the resources available for you at Uni

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But your mentor can just be your coworker! That's how many professions have worked for a long time. I don't get where this idea that academia has a monopoly on difficult skills and knowledge comes from.

No CS professor I had ever helped me with a problem I had in CS. Now, as a Teaching Assistant I helped tens of other students diagnose bugs in their code, but that's a different game.

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