Oct-06-2016, 03:09 PM
I went to college (Western Michigan), and got a bachelor's degree in Computer Information Systems. That's not a CS degree despite appearances, it's a software-oriented degree through the business college, so my opinions might be... different from those who got a "real" CS degree.
I think college is completely worthless with regards to actually learning, and is only useful as a place to get a degree. And that degree is completely worthless for anything other than showing people you're capable of taking things through to completion.
Because I actually liked the subject matter (when it came to programming), I had already studied previously, which meant classes were literally naptime, or I'd read 15 chapters ahead of whatever the professor was talking about. Homework was a breeze, because it was stupidly simple (except for when they put inane requirements, such as "do this, but without using for loops!"). Group projects were hilariously easy, and the one time I spent my spring break building an ecommerce website, it was clear that our group was the only one that actually accomplished anything for the project. Most of the time, I felt like I was one of only a small handful of people that actually should have been getting a degree, as most people just typed things straight out of the book without any comprehension of what it meant.
All that said, I went to college directly after high school. My experience was that other people in my age range were the worst... students that were 30+ that had taken time off of work specifically to learn more, were the absolute best people in the class (they actually listened, asked relevant questions, and tried hard to understand what they were doing, instead of just trying to "get the homework done").
Some of the things that were actually being taught were just wrong (storing passwords in a database in plaintext?!), with no mention that people shouldn't actually ever do that in practice.
Which all lead me to my current line of thinking... college is not a place you go to learn how to program. The best way to learn, is to learn yourself, online.
I think college is completely worthless with regards to actually learning, and is only useful as a place to get a degree. And that degree is completely worthless for anything other than showing people you're capable of taking things through to completion.
Because I actually liked the subject matter (when it came to programming), I had already studied previously, which meant classes were literally naptime, or I'd read 15 chapters ahead of whatever the professor was talking about. Homework was a breeze, because it was stupidly simple (except for when they put inane requirements, such as "do this, but without using for loops!"). Group projects were hilariously easy, and the one time I spent my spring break building an ecommerce website, it was clear that our group was the only one that actually accomplished anything for the project. Most of the time, I felt like I was one of only a small handful of people that actually should have been getting a degree, as most people just typed things straight out of the book without any comprehension of what it meant.
All that said, I went to college directly after high school. My experience was that other people in my age range were the worst... students that were 30+ that had taken time off of work specifically to learn more, were the absolute best people in the class (they actually listened, asked relevant questions, and tried hard to understand what they were doing, instead of just trying to "get the homework done").
Some of the things that were actually being taught were just wrong (storing passwords in a database in plaintext?!), with no mention that people shouldn't actually ever do that in practice.
Which all lead me to my current line of thinking... college is not a place you go to learn how to program. The best way to learn, is to learn yourself, online.