A click baits or not, self-taught related posts are one of the most engagement generating posts on X!
Most of the times such posts can be divided into two main groups!
Either college hating motivation group (which I can never understand, and will address this in a future blog!), or total ignorance of what education really is and how do human beings actually acquire new information and learn!
Albert Schweitzer once said:
A good example has twice the value of good advice.
So here is my good example. I am the proud holder of a Bachelor degree and a Master’s degree in computer science! I graduated about 15 years ago!
As you all probably already know, 15 years in tech is a long time where a lot has changed!
Voice recognition technology, the internet of things, augmented reality, cloud computing and blockchain to name few, where not a thing back then! It was all just a seed or a pre-mature idea!
Just imagine this with me for a second, imagine I am the kind of software engineers who got high on my college success and the level of my degrees, and got stuck living in the past. I wouldn’t be where I am right now! I would be on the wrong side of history! The forgotten one! The unsuccessful one!
On the contrary, I am what you all call a self-taught! A self-taught with a Masters degree! My graduation day was the day I grabbed my tool box, the box I filled in college with everything I learnt, to use in my lifelong learning journey!
I want to avoid boring you with learning examples but I feel it is a must to get my thoughts across!
Student A and student B attended a JavaScript course in college. Both are, per most logic, college taught! But are they really? let’s dissect (a fancy way to say look more into…?) this a bit more!
An instructor walks in, teaches the syllabus (College taught? Not quite, you will see)!
Student A goes back home, study the material! (ALERT: SELF-TAUGHT)!
Student B goes back home and play video games until the next college day! (Please don’t do this!)
Is student B considered college-taught in your books? Definitely not in my book! College doesn’t teach!! College is a guide! Not everyone has the discipline nor the path awareness to their educational final goal and destination! This is where colleges shine (or should shine...)! To guide us down the right path! They are our accountability partner for the 2 or 4 years! College is the discipline enforcer and the tools provider for a successful learning journey!
College is the discipline enforcer and the tools provider
College isn’t magic! College is not any different than a coding bootcamp! A Python course on Udemy! Or a how to book you purchase off eBay!
What makes it or breaks it is YOU! "you" is self-taught! Or you better be self-taught!
College, bootcamps, tutorial, books... all are tools! A vehicle! A non-automated vehicle! It won’t drive itself! You have to drive it! The more you drive, the more places you get to!
I encourage you to be aware that, the minute you stop learning, is the minute you stop growing and the minute you fall behind!
Whether you go to college or not, you all are self-taught! we all should keep learning! Never Stop!
The minute you stop learning, is the minute you stop growing
Now if you reached this line, just wow! I am happy and impressed you stuck with me this far! This is my first attempt of writing my thoughts! It was not easy and It is by no means perfect! I just hope I was able to provide added value to you and not waste your time! I also hope I did that in a coherent way!
I’d love to hear from you and hear your feedback! The good and bad! You can find me on 𝕏 @citycoderus
Thanks again and good luck on your learning journey!
Top comments (5)
I agree 100%, I have an associate's degree and 1 year away from my Bachelor's. College didn't teach me React, I taught myself React. All college did was give me the fundamentals of programming and how teach myself the rest by critically & logically thinking for myself. Great article!
Thank you, Kenneth! Exactly! Learning React is a great example!
Good luck on your bachelor's degree!
Orange, we all, not bananas?
Orange we go! 😉 thanks for reading!
yep agreed 💯