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Comment by lapcat | Hacker News Reader

> University classes are great.

I don't think anybody denies that, but getting into and paying for a university is very much a financial and social class issue.

> When I was self taught I would never have pushed through learning the socket API in C, doing so many projects in bash

You speak only for yourself though. I'm largely self-taught and have done these things.

> I interview a lot of self taught people, or boot camp graduates

These are often two very different types of job candidates.

> they fall apart when you ask them about academic topics that are relevant for the job

Yes, I do tend to fall apart in audition-style job interviews. But I can solve the same problems when just left on my own, with nobody standing over my shoulder.

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Your criticism of the specific details rings true, but I also liked the overall thrust of the GP which is that two common failure modes for working software engineers are either being overly academic and not efficient at practical application of that knowledge, or else being too superficial and direct about solving the immediate problem in front of them without recognizing or even being aware of the theoretical knowledge and concepts that can greatly improve their local solutions.

I think it’s fair to say those failure modes tend to disproportionately accumulate university graduates and self taught developers respectively. As long as we don’t use it as some kind of litmus test then I don’t think it hurts to call that out.

I acknowledge that theory-oriented vs. problem-oriented would be a fair characterization. But I think the language of "comfort zones" and "pushing through" was unfortunate and unfair. It suggests that somehow self-taught developers are lazy, when in fact they often have to work harder than anyone else, because nothing is handed to them by a professor or university. (Not to mention that it can be a lot harder to get a job when you don't have any academic credentials.) I would say that teaching yourself a difficult, esoteric skill, with no outside help, is inherently breaking out of your comfort zone.

College being a huge expense is an anglo-centric issue

It's important for those concerned, but most people aren't, so I don't like to include it because then the entire "value of college" debate shifts on the economics of it.

>You speak only for yourself though. I'm largely self-taught and have done these things.

I did say "often fall apart"

> College being a huge expense is an anglo-centric issue

Ok. Well, the tech industry itself is rather "anglo-centric", don't you think?

> It's important for those concerned, but most people aren't

If you just want to ignore the United States, then fine, but in general, good luck trying to ignore the United States.

>> You speak only for yourself though. I'm largely self-taught and have done these things.

> I did say "often fall apart"

I'm a bit confused here. I was referring to the first paragraph in your original post, whereas you seem to be referring to the second paragraph?

>I'm a bit confused here. I was referring to the first paragraph in your original post, whereas you seem to be referring to the second paragraph?

My point is, I think, that I would wager you are not the norm among the exclusively self-taught crowd

There's going to be a lot of people on Hackernews to debate me on this, but I'm going to go out on a limb there and say: There's already a selection bias if you're hanging on here.

Programmers who have an issue with the academic parts of CS (self taught or otherwise) probably wouldn't hang out on Hackernews to read such content as: "Writing a competitive BZip2 encoder in Ada from scratch in a few days (2024)".

It's hard being self taught and overcoming the comfort zone, it's hard to go out of your way to figure out what you should learn as you don't have the luxury of being forced to follow a curriculum drawn by experts of the field you're studying.

My thesis is that I disagree that "Self-Taught Engineers Often Outperform"

Formally trained engineers mostly outperform, with a few self-taught people that are going to stand out, but they are the visible part of the iceberg, and if you advise someone to go self-taught, most likely they'll end up underperforming compared to someone who's gone to university. And that's normal, because being self-taught is harder.

> My thesis is that I disagree that "Self-Taught Engineers Often Outperform"

They do in FAANG.

> I would wager you are not the norm among the exclusively self-taught crowd

What is the norm?

> the self-taught people I interview

That's another small and unrepresentative group, possibly much smaller than self-taught developers who visit HN. In total, how many self-taught people have you interviewed? Either way, there's selection bias.

> a few self-taught people that are going to stand out, but they are the visible part of the iceberg, and if you advise someone to go self-taught, most likely they'll end up underperforming compared to someone who's gone to university.

That's kind of the point, though. Who would advise someone to go self-taught? That would be strange advice. There's definitely survivorship bias in self-taught engineers who have managed to make it in the tech industry, which is exactly why you should pay attention to them: they've successfully overcome the odds and obstacles. The % of self-taught who get to that point is likely much smaller than the % of university-taught. As you say, "being self-taught is harder."

You are taking the average of two groups but there is no iceberg, the self-taught people who make it are the only ones in that group...the other people do other things. It is like including the people who drop out of college in your group. As you say, self-taught is harder so people who go through that are going to know more and will end up knowing more that is useful.

People who teach at university aren't the experts in the field. The situation of university is inherently artificial created to fulfill a wide range of objectives which are largely unrelated to utility for students (and certainly not, utility for employers). For most subjects, people who teach at university are going to be very far from the experts...if they were experts, they wouldn't be teaching.

> If you just want to ignore the United States, then fine, but in general, good luck trying to ignore the United States.

Sorry to disappoint you, but as a Canadian hiring mostly Canadians no I don't care about how expensive college is in the US on a day to day basis. It really is just a US problem. Canadian Universities are still expensive but not remotely in the same ballpark as the US. You can often pay the tuition by having a decent summer job.

Good luck supporting yourself as a full time student in Toronto or Vancouver if you don’t have family locally, or if your parents don’t have the money to help you out.

Most people at these schools do have family locally to be fair.

> I don't think anybody denies that, but getting into and paying for a university is very much a financial and social class issue.

I mean... Not really? I got a BS in Computer Science from a cheap, small university (plus a bunch of it at my local junior college, for even cheaper!), and the quality of the education was better than I've seen out of "excellent" schools. It was really cheap, too! Easily paid off after a few years at software engineer salaries.

Hell, with entry-level salaries at places like Google or Meta, you could probably pay the whole thing off in a year.

I think people focus far too heavily on "Ivy League" schools and the costs associated with them, and forget that things like junior colleges and small universities still exist, and are still relatively affordable.

With a "commodity" degree like CompSci, cost isn't really a problem.

Besides, no one gives a shit where you went to school after your first job in the field. That first job might be marginally harder to get, and you might have to settle for slightly lower pay, but you're going to be far from struggling with the debt unless you really overpaid for that degree

I actually do deny that university classes are great. Many are actively harmful. When I went to university, the intro level cs class was taught in c. It took me decades to unlearn.

The idea that having knowledge of C is harmful is possibly one of the most anti-intellectual things I've heard today. I guess you don't value education, so you wouldn't know, but your brain doesn't have some limit. Extra knowledge is at worst unused, but often helps in various subtle ways. Never does real knowledge "hurt."

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