nja4

HONK!-style bands - street/brass bands - you don't need to be good - you can learn an instrument and just hang out and play fun music. Through mine, we've played at Mardi Gras (Chewbacchus), Timber!, Burning Man events, Comicons, birthdays, weddings, etc.

The Seattle festival is this weekend, see: https://honkfestwest.org/

To me, this reads as so much Chinese nationalism. Feels super consistent with Communist propaganda of an indolent West. Also, seems very suspect to criticize a lack of intellectual freedom by comparing it to a system without freedom of information. I also thought that Western education was widely considered much less about rote memorization and more about intellectual creativity and freedom, even to the detriment of western folks' technical skills. Even just the concept of a "liberal education" or a "liberal arts school" is a western concept AFAIK; I do think there is a lot of rote memorization, but I would think this would only be exacerbated in a Chinese institution.

So, after this, my skylake xps 13 will be a better candidate for Ubuntu?

How is the battery life? I have this exact model, but I heard skylake had strange sleep or power saving problems under Linux. You have the 3200x1800 display too, and I am curious about scaling too. The drivers are terrible for Windows too. Been on support since November about the failing DPTF drivers.

I just meant that despite the exceptions like you that are doing awesome, the typical high school educated person makes less than a college educated person.

Hahah sorry, I'm not crazy smart or exceptional! I work really hard, and that's it. I mean to say that for most people, they aren't like you. They can't succeed like you. I got incensed over the article and wanted to tear it down because I'm so disenfranchised with European "dream education" and see anything against conventional us education similar. Anyway, I think you made the right choice presented with what I have. You seem to have had the skills to make it without a degree, and that's amazing. I'm not sure I would have made it without having UW get me noticed by companies and tell me what I need to know. I feel like most students are more like me. Anyway, I don't want to tear you down in a fit of passion. You seem like a cool, successful, guy, and best luck with your court case and even more with drumming (I'm in marching band at my uni hahah).

"If you really can't see the value in a scientific degree, I think you either didn't work hard enough, pay attention, or go to the right institution." from another comment would apply here. I am learning so much better than I ever could from hacking together solutions from tutorials, reference docs, and examples. At least for me, this is how I learn.

Anecdotal evidence doesn't work though. The majority of "good" software jobs don't just want anyone. The average person can't do all the things you just listed. The average person can't market his/herself without a degree effectively.

I feel like we all know success stories, but I would say I have worked with a lot more phds than I have people without a degree. Does that mean that everyone needs to get a phd? No. You can be successful with any level of education, but it's unwise to advise any student to go for this without being exceptional.

EDIT: I have worked/am working at 3 companies, a non-profit, Tableau, and Intentional Software. I'm 21. I'm a student. Across the ~100-200 engineers I've met, I've been the least educated.

This is so true. Thanks for pointing this out.

This. This. This. So many people also lack fundamental skills that you learn formally, with structure, in a formal education system. I would also argue that the learning process in school helps you develop your process for learning later on, which you need to be good at to survive.

I am a junior at a target CS school in the US. I'm currently studying in Europe at Sweden's KTH, reputed as one of the top engineering schools in Europe/Scand. I loathe all the "EUROPE IS SO MUCH BETTER!111!!!!!" posts everyone makes because I always feel like it's out of touch and hip to say to. The culture here in Sweden is way more relaxed. This is definitely NOT a catchall, but a catch-some, sort of statement, even if I do interact with mostly Masters students from across Europe, probably >50% of my classmates. It's not as rigorous here, and it's not as if the students are still "killin' it!" because I have been in exclusively project classes, and the projects presented have been pretty mediocre. Most students aim to pass. Few students in my MASTERS LEVEL classes (bear in mind it's 4/5 year students unlike in the US) have NEARLY the chops of any kid in my undergrad CSE program, and I've been in 4 groups now with around 30 students and obviously talk to many more. I'm frustrated because everyone hates on this system, but it's allowed me to perform so much better technically than any of my classmates here that I've interacted with. Also, His comment that "you may need to reinvent the wheel sometimes" applies to so few. I am going to be designing REST APIs or similar for years, I bet. I am going to need to know reasonable HCI for years, I bet. So many people don't learn the right idioms. The right design patterns. Every internship I've had has "man, sucks that we taught ourselves this technology instead of learned formally" or "man, this stack was built by non-engineers and is an un-maintainable monolith." I can't take these statements seriously. You can learn programming by yourself. You can be way better than I'll ever be through self teaching, but I feel like this is similar (but to a much less extent) logic to, "Bill Gates dropped out of college!!!11!!!!", and it's just NOT true for MOST people. The comments before me are SO right that it's career jeopardizing.