It's quite a heated topic, I know. But I've personally struggled to keep up my motivation to go to class and I'm guilty of charge of thinking that college can be a total waste of money and time.
I know some jobs require a candidate to have a degree or it may prevent someone from getting a promotion in some companies, but at the same time, I also agree with the following opinion:
"If a company cares more about a degree than your skills, maybe you shouldn't be there at all".
I would love to read your thoughts on this 🤓
Oldest comments (25)
I quite enjoyed college and wouldn't take it back.
There is a but though.
BUT, you cannot expect it to fix how employable you are. When I was in high school, going to an expensive school was advertised with prestige about the jobs you'll get after college. Most places do not care where you went to school (at least in our field), and the amount of debt students have taken on for this "guaranteed" good job is really toxic IMHO. :(
I think college is worth it. I don't think it's worth going into massive amounts of debt for.
I completely agree with you on this point. You can attend a prestigious learning institution and still be an airhead if you don't put any effort in.
Exactly. Especially in our industry how hirable you only marginally (if at all) dependent on your education. I got a Public Relations degree and it's quite beneficial to me as a writer and I don't regret it. But I don't use it at all in my coding job!
Define worth.
As I see it, in the modern world we have come to a point where there are two contrasting visions of education's primary goal:
Though not necessarily opposed to each other, these two visions are often at odds when considering what one gets out of College, how much it costs, if it should be for everyone, should primary education prepare you for it or should it mainly take care of the civic aspects, etc.
I am firmly in the second camp. Doing a job is best learned by doing a job. While I would not argue for the removal of professional skill development from higher education, I definitely think that its main role should be the instillment of civility over the passing down of marketable knowledge, and, to the extend that it does, the way in which the University interacts with the professional world should be by providing critical observation, not by agreeing to prepare candidates in whichever way business finds more profitable at the current moment.
Unfortunately, the way it is currently setup, paying for college without a job prospect is a ticket to bankruptcy, so that puts a very real pressure in the ways a student is allowed to consider their own education.
Here in India? No. A complete waste of time and money.
The biggest problem I see is the sheer incompetence of the professors. Their knowledge is laughable. I've had professors tell me that the Web runs on UDP and that C++ does not support multi-threading. They haven't the slightest idea of how to teach, making every lecture excruciatingly boring and a total waste of time since I have to come home and (again) spend time on the Internet learning the same stuff on my own which is far, far more effective and fun.
We don't even have the liberty to just bunk and learn on our own because these professors will force you to attend their sleep-inducing cringe-fest in the name of compulsory 75% attendance. Some of them even go as far as to say something like "If you don't attend my lecture today, you'll never understand this concept!". Ever heard of the Internet? Well, I have a million different sources to choose from to learn the same there.
The entire focus is on getting good grades and any kind of paying job. Ugghh.
I could go on forever but I hope you get the idea.
I hated college and regretted going for the time I did, but I picked the completely wrong college for me and had the luxury of going to a public school during the great recession. I think for college to be worth it you should probably know what you want out of it and to know enough about the college to really know if it is for you.
I simply went to the best school on my list and it was huge with many many students and giant lectures and sections. The lines to get help from the professor were hours long wait due to budget cuts. In fact most classes I took were not even taught by professors but by graduate students.
I would go to college again, but I would of found a small specialized school that better suited my introverted personality.
Hi Christian,
I wrote 'Is a Four Year Degree Worth It' a few weeks ago which addresses this question.
dev.to/cheetah100/is-a-four-year-d...
The question of whether it is a waste of time and money depends on what you study. Some things require a four year degree, such as engineering. But software development in my view is not the same.
The main argument for a degree is that it proves you 'can think'. But does it? Actual code and geek credentials are far more valuable. If when you come to apply for a coding job you can point to real systems which you have developed, and show the source, you will have far better evidence of competence.
Of course large organisations with HR departments that are in principle incapable of evaluating such things might specify a degree. Their loss.
I'm not quite saying a degree has no value, only that it is not the golden path to riches that it once was, and there is a divergence in payoff between various majors. Don't make the call on what is easy because no path is easy.
Hey Chris,
I'll start off my throwing some light on the subject of knowledge.
Knowledge are facts, information and skills acquired through experience or education.
Now, let's pay attention to the word 'Education' it simply means acquiring knowledge or skills. Coming back to your question, "Is College worth it?". The answer lies in the definition of "College", as I said before We (Human Beings) need knowledge which we acquire via education (that's what college provides) and there's no limit to from where we can acquire education, if we associate education with college then we are just narrowing down the possible ways of acquiring it, in this age we can 'educate' ourselves from almost anywhere, examples can range from watching a youtube tutorial or reading an E-Book, etc.
I've seen most of the people "using" education to "succeed" in this world (i.e. get wealthy by getting a good job by getting more degrees), that logic is fundamentally flawed at it's core, because that's not what the purpose of Knowledge or Education is, education is required so that we understand the world better which enables us to contribute to the Human Race in general.
So you should ask yourself the reason why you would want to attend college, if it's for education and simple acquisition of knowledge and if you like to sit in a classroom and gain information from books, then I'll say it's worth it.
However if you want to go to college to get a good job then I'll say it's a waste of time. One can make more money by educating them self (resulting in savings of time) reading books, articles, just digging knowledge from the world, that will cost less time than college and also result in overall development of a person.
Sorry for the long answer.
I Hope I helped.
Thanks!
The only thing that is keeping me in varsity is the fact that I haven't came up with the best startup idea. Other than that, getting a job without a degree is tough around here
Hey Chris hope you are doing well,
Like many others here, I agree that it really depends on what you study, but for a software engineer as long as you have internet , a decent pc and determination I dont see the worth on it. College has it's pros, you get to know people, you are able to participate in some community events, you are able to set your very own conference ( wink wink ;) ) and I would add teamwork but as for my experience with teamwork in college is, leaving all the work to a single person is not exactly teamwork. And that's not even mention the debts you might end up having.
I went to a small liberal arts school in Canada. The equivalent type of school in the US would have cost ~8x as much and I think the education would have been quite comparable.
I still graduated with debt, but it was manageable and I paid it off quickly.
I was never the most studious student, but college is where I got into entrepreneurship, and it’s hard to say what would have happened otherwise.
So for me, it seems like it was worth it. It depends on the situation you put yourself in.
Well, Chris, you personally know my stance on college, specifically when it comes to Computer Science: I hate it. It's the bane of my existence, and I can't wait to finish my degree and leave. I'd never look back. In fact, I'm purposely lowering down my GPA so I don't have to be the one to give a speech in the graduation ceremony, because I'm sure I won't be able to hold back the urge to describe how I've wasted my time and money for just a piece of paper.
Why? Because for as low as free, you can take the same programming course you would be taking in college, and here in DR, you would be learning more than in a college class that would cost you $70 and watch the professor sit in a chair, and tell you to watch videos on Youtube about how to learn a programming language, or what I consider even worse, tell you to give a presentation to the rest of the class while he "takes it easy" (This literally happened a few weeks ago).
I've experienced it personally in more than one class, and not only in programming, but also when taking classes about Operating Systems, Algorithms, System Analysis & Design, etc. Due to mediocre teachers wanting to make a quick buck, I've lost hope in learning anything but Math and Physics.
There are a few more reasons, but this is mainly why I wouldn't recommend college to anyone interested in pursuing Computer Science here in DR.