Oct-06-2016, 03:40 PM
I definitely would not advocate for students dropping out. You hear stories about drop outs doing well, but that's because it's remarkable. The regular case is not remarkable. You also severely limit yourself by not getting a degree. You can very easily make money with Python doing freelance without a degree, but freelance is so much different than employment.
I used to work for a company with >1 billion in revenue, and I did >200 technical interviews while there. Lots of people from big-name schools were surprisingly bad during those interviews (the only school that reliably pumped out competent students required four four-month stints of job experience). But think about it from the perspective of the people doing the hiring - you already have a huge number of applicants, how can you trim it down and look at a pool of more qualified people? Even if degrees provide only a very small marginal benefit, it's probably worth it, even acknowledging false negatives.
Now on the education bit - there are degrees in "computer science" and "software engineering." I did CS, and it bugged me a lot. Very theoretical, academic, classical (the graphics course teaches algorithms that avoid floating point numbers, since they used to be slower, in spite of the fact that modern graphics cards only do floating point math). Software engineering tends to have some CS but also focus on more practical things. So there's that.
I did find that for my CS degree, in terms of peers especially, there were classes that required programming in spite of being theoretical, and that got a lot of people a lot more programing experience. If you're really self-motivated, they're a huge waste of time since personal projects will help you learn more, but most people just aren't like that. They need more structure. And again, when it comes to employment, there aren't enough of those self-motivated people to go around.
A little bit more about my background... neither of my parents went to college, and neither could help me pay for it. I went on scholarships and loans. Dropping out midway through would have been an incredibly risky idea, given the high probability of a well-paying job straight out of college. If your parents are paying for everything and you can just move back in with them if everything goes to hell, that's great, but it's not an option everyone has. And I'm not saying the option was entirely closed to me, but the risk was certainly higher.
If I had to interview someone who had dropped out, or who didn't even get that educated, I would not have any prejudice. I'm happy to interview them. But I'm not a recruiter, and it's for good reason tough for non-degreed folks to get that far. One of my colleagues interviewed someone without a degree once, and found it was a waste of time. Not because of prejudice, but because the candidate's experience and perspective were extremely narrow. A degree helps broaden that out for many people.
If anyone is considering leaving school (or... skipping) I highly recommend they read or listen to an audiobook for Originals by Adam Grant. Dropping out can be done surprisingly responsibly - you do a Planned Leave of Absence from your university if and only if you think there's an opportunity you'd otherwise miss out on, and leave your options for the future open. If your off-the-beaten-path plan goes well, excellent, but there's often no need for its failure to ruin everything.
I used to work for a company with >1 billion in revenue, and I did >200 technical interviews while there. Lots of people from big-name schools were surprisingly bad during those interviews (the only school that reliably pumped out competent students required four four-month stints of job experience). But think about it from the perspective of the people doing the hiring - you already have a huge number of applicants, how can you trim it down and look at a pool of more qualified people? Even if degrees provide only a very small marginal benefit, it's probably worth it, even acknowledging false negatives.
Now on the education bit - there are degrees in "computer science" and "software engineering." I did CS, and it bugged me a lot. Very theoretical, academic, classical (the graphics course teaches algorithms that avoid floating point numbers, since they used to be slower, in spite of the fact that modern graphics cards only do floating point math). Software engineering tends to have some CS but also focus on more practical things. So there's that.
I did find that for my CS degree, in terms of peers especially, there were classes that required programming in spite of being theoretical, and that got a lot of people a lot more programing experience. If you're really self-motivated, they're a huge waste of time since personal projects will help you learn more, but most people just aren't like that. They need more structure. And again, when it comes to employment, there aren't enough of those self-motivated people to go around.
A little bit more about my background... neither of my parents went to college, and neither could help me pay for it. I went on scholarships and loans. Dropping out midway through would have been an incredibly risky idea, given the high probability of a well-paying job straight out of college. If your parents are paying for everything and you can just move back in with them if everything goes to hell, that's great, but it's not an option everyone has. And I'm not saying the option was entirely closed to me, but the risk was certainly higher.
If I had to interview someone who had dropped out, or who didn't even get that educated, I would not have any prejudice. I'm happy to interview them. But I'm not a recruiter, and it's for good reason tough for non-degreed folks to get that far. One of my colleagues interviewed someone without a degree once, and found it was a waste of time. Not because of prejudice, but because the candidate's experience and perspective were extremely narrow. A degree helps broaden that out for many people.
If anyone is considering leaving school (or... skipping) I highly recommend they read or listen to an audiobook for Originals by Adam Grant. Dropping out can be done surprisingly responsibly - you do a Planned Leave of Absence from your university if and only if you think there's an opportunity you'd otherwise miss out on, and leave your options for the future open. If your off-the-beaten-path plan goes well, excellent, but there's often no need for its failure to ruin everything.