Comment by epolanski | Hacker News Reader

Comment by epolanski | Hacker News Reader

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I really disagree with your point of getting a degree.

Don't get me wrong, I don't personally think that a CS degree is useless (or an engineering one). I hold a masters in chemistry and if I could go back and make it a cs one it would've been better all things considered.

But I think the following:

- getting a degree says very little about how much a person learned or absorbed. So much depends both on the quality of teaching (often low even in ivy league colleges where you're taught by assistants, ugh) and the learner. I've met many engineers with a degree obtained cum laude and they just didn't have fundamentals. They would know everything the day of the exam and have no clue about the topics just few months later. They got the degree to find a job, not because they cared. On the other hand some of the most impressive devs I know where self taught. Even among core Linux contributors plenty do not have any degree.

- internet has nowadays an endless amount of resources, nothing can stop a motivated and disciplined person from getting good at non-natural sciences such as maths and cs.

This wasn't about evaluating whether others are good at something, but about what you should do if you want to become good at systems programming.

For most people, the university is a unique opportunity. You get to spend a few years learning all kinds of interesting things, in an environment designed to support that, without the social pressure to do something that is more productive in the short term. How do you choose to use that opportunity tells a lot about you as a person.

A motivated and disciplined can learn a lot on their own. In most cases, they can learn even more in a university. But not always. Some people are not a good fit to a particular university, and some people are a poor fit to any institutional environment. The latter tend to become an entrepreneurs, as their personalities are not a good fit to being an employee.

> if I could go back and make it a cs one it would've been better all things considered.

I wish there was a better way to go about this. It sucks I wasnt mature enough to take advantage of college or have the foresight to know what I wanted to do with my entire life when I was 17 and started.

Now to get credentials, Im looking at 2-3 years of 30 hours a week of work and thousands of more dollars.

> Now to get credentials, Im looking at 2-3 years of 30 hours a week of work and thousands of more dollars.

Yeah this is my problem. I could get so much more out of education than I probably would have when I was 17, but It’s impossible to work a decent full time job and go back to school. The schedules simply won’t allow it. Part time work pays shit, and I somehow have to afford not only tuition, books, fees, etc., but a cost of living that only gets more and more expensive.

You can trade money for time (or really spread money with time) in this case, but I have no interest in spending 10+ years just to have wasted what left of my “youth” in exchange for an undergraduate degree. Time IMO is more valuable than money, because there’s no chance in hell you can ever get it back.

I’m also not interested in getting a degree just for the sale of having a degree, or even as an economic mobility vehicle. Technically if that’s all you want there are programs out there, but tend to come with too many stipulations for my taste.

I wouldn't say impossible. In my late 20's I pursued a CS degree from a tough school by utilizing online courses, and taking jobs that had enough flexibility to work around my school schedule. Not easy, but I am at least a counterexample why it isn't impossible. It took me about 1 year longer than I think it would have taken someone who wasn't working, though.

> and taking jobs that had enough flexibility to work around my school schedule.

Where? Most jobs I can think of offhand that offer that sort of flexibility pay a pittance, like barely enough to live, let alone pay for large education expenses on top of that. I suppose you can also find work at night, while doing schooling for the day, but I wonder how the sort of sleep schedule imposed by that will effect you work in both.

I can't really say without exposing my identity in a way I'm not comfortable with, but I took a lot of work at night if I could, and if not, I took flexible jobs like Uber/Lyft that allowed me to make my own hours. My main gig allowed me to reschedule and move stuff around if I had to, which was critical.

I'm not saying it's easy, but especially in today's age with the popularity of online degrees, it's not impossible.

> not interested in getting a degree just for the sale of having a degree

This thread is about learning stuff that is helpful for the systems programmer. One way to go about getting a degree is to learn as little as you can get away with, but you get the certificate. Another way is to take the opportunity to learn stuff, and a degree course provides structure and resources to help that. The certificate is gravy, knowledge is the protein. The value for money of the second way can be very good. Was for me.

I understand it can be tough, but I didn't start my cs degree until I was 31. I'm now 34 and well over half way through. Go to a community college, then transfer to a state university, they are both cheaper and usually offer evening classes. I was able to work as a full time dev while going to school part time in the evenings, and that's as a (active and involved) single parent. Wfh and virtual classes helps a lot though. Not the fastest way to a degree, but it will get you there.

'Was' because I was laid off in Dec last year and have had a hard time in todays market with only 1.5 years of professional experience. But when I am not working, I just take more classes. Admittedly, I am staying with family, but with that extra support, this is all possible for me. Working full time and taking summer classes, you could finish in 5-6 years.

And yeah, because I truly love cs, and I've certainly learned alot about myself as an adult, I definitely feel like I'm getting more out of this education than I would have if I started out of high school. I'm not just here for the paper, I'm here to learn, but a degree is a nice prospect for a high school drop out. It wasn't the best path to get here, but I have no regrets. Coming from a decade plus of food service work, me and my kiddos prospects are drastically improved, and I feel like I've found my calling.

Getting a degree might not say much but it sure as hell says more than just “self-studied CS for X months”

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