I went back to school after a decade of web development, and learned a ton. I think I’m a much better developer than I would have been had I learned only what I thought I needed for my job (could be wrong about that, but I don’t think I am). I’ve also worked with plenty of people without degrees who were better developers than me, but to a person, I think they would have greatly benefited from a broader theoretical foundation than what they built through self directed learning.
One thing you should think about is that rationalization likely applies to you just as much as it does to the college educated people you’re talking about.
I was in the college is useless boat before I went back and most of it was rationalizing my choices—plus a bit of feeling inferior.
It’s one thing to decide that college wasn’t the right decision for you (and maybe it wasn’t). It’s another entirely to write off everyone who went as suckers.
Yes, having dedicated time to focus on learning was great. But I was effective at that because I'd already learned to, well, learn, on my own, by homeschooling the latter half of high school (where I'd study, take CLEP tests).
College isn't for suckers, but the scholastic benefits of it can be gotten through other means (and should probably be done because a job you're interested in requires it, ideally in the confines of that job, like an apprenticeship in the trades). Many of the other purported benefits (social, etc) are BS.
The main benefit I can think of outside of that dedicated study time is being forced into more of a cultural milieu than I had experienced prior. I think that is important, but I also think that entirely depends on the school, just as it depends on the job, so I'm not sure that's entirely a college benefit so much as a "get into the city if you're living somewhere suburban or rural" benefit.
Where else will you get the direct access to expertise in all those fields, guiding you in what works/experiments/skills/etc to read/learn/acquire, answering questions personally, the massive labs and libraries, the students to study with.
As someone who has tried to study on my own at a serious level, I would say the opposite: Studying on my own is nothing like it. I am very jealous of those in college. I don't know which books and papers to read, how to contextualize them, what they have and lack; I have nobody to ask (Reddit and Stack Exchange being very poor substitutes); I lack access to resources that are far too expensive, JSTOR being a simple example, making much study very time-consuming or impossible. I regularly run into things, years later, that would have been introduced in the first day of class by an expert - I have an unknown but large quantity of blind spots.
That's kind of my point - the nature of "study on my own" is different than "can I find the resources I need to solve a particular problem". College is creating a problem of "pass this test" or "complete this assignment"; studying on your own, yes, you don't know where your blind spots are or where to begin, because you don't have a problem you're trying to solve. College provides you some, but they aren't fundamentally different than work problems. And while some classes may attempt to 'teach' the material, the ones where that was an effective use of my time (rather than just read the textbook, or those where class time was unrelated to the projects we were graded on) were definitely in the minority. YMMV.
You can ask a professor, or multiple ones. If the classes are within your major, the school will guide you. This part is a non-problem. You can also take several classes for a week or two, depending on the school, and see which ones suit your priorities.
> College provides you some, but they aren't fundamentally different than work problems.
Usually the opposite is said, that college problems are not at all like what you encounter in work, that students are unprepared for work problems and that professors don't understand them. College problems are crafted carefully for you to acquire knowledge and skills; work problems are crafted to avoid having you learn, because that takes extra time.
> And while some classes may attempt to 'teach' the material, the ones where that was an effective use of my time (rather than just read the textbook, or those where class time was unrelated to the projects we were graded on) were definitely in the minority. YMMV.
I think this is not realistic for most people. It's also possible you missed a lot without the professor's context and expertise. In anything, would you rather just read a book or have access to an expert mentor? There's no question IME.
Maybe it depends on the courses, which I'm starting to suspect explains a lot of the response at HN: Were you in a STEM field, particularly T or E?
Conversely I learned functional programming, multiple languages and new CS concepts, fault tolerant system design, and system architecture skills, all in the context of a short period of work.
Of course it’s possible, but the number of people who have the discipline/inclination to get through a degree’s worth (or even a significant fraction of a degree’s worth) of education on their own is very small. Small enough that if the reason you’re skipping college is because you think you can/will learn everything they can teach you on your own, you’re most likely kidding yourself.
With self directed learning it’s also shockingly easy to develop huge blind spots that you have no idea you have.
> and should probably be done because a job you're interested in requires it
I’ve personally benefited a good deal from taking the year of physics I was forced to take, despite no job having ever required it.
The same goes for all the papers I had to write in non CS classes.
Regarding the assertions: Of course, one anecdoctal experience says nothing about a population, and in the population, career and other outcomes are far better for college graduates.
We are all by not knowing what we missed and, as you say about others, to rationalize our choices. Framing the question - always the most powerful mode of argument - by saying someone meets the standard (i.e., you are happy in your life), so why do something else, makes any possible alternative useless. What good is a winning lottery ticket either? But the question is, what are the different sets of outcomes from each alternative choice? Each alternative, such as college, makes us better off in some ways, worse off in others - and that includes impacting things that the other alternatives don't touch.
You're defining the question as if college benefits are social life and speed of acquiring adult life skills and responsibilities. If those are someone's aims, I'd agree - don't go! College is about critical thinking skills, knowledge, and learning skills, which last a lifetime. Are your thinking skills so good that they can't be improved? Do you have nothing to learn? Not me. How do improve those things? Imagine studying with an expert who not only guides you in what to study, but explains the works based many other works, context, etc.; answers your questions regularly, person-to-person, in their office and via computer; pushes you to see dimensions and angles that you didn't know about, and to do it at a high level; and reviews your understanding and gives you feedback. And then it would be great to do that with others studying the same thing. And if the study needs it, if they provided other resources: A huge library of other works and every reseach paper ever written (along with experts in each field that help you discover excellent, relevant materials); labs with specialized equipment; etc. etc.
If college didn't exist for learning, it would be too good to be invented.
Also, don't you want to learn about yourself, the world, etc.? What you read on the Internet is so far removed from the quality of knowledge, it's laughable, and it's tragic.
> I know some that are terrified of “growing up”
> sheltered and honestly, kind of bizarre world of academia
These are well-worn stereotypes. People inside and outside school have trouble growing up; handling a college workload is no joke - much harder than early jobs, which often are 40 hours and not challenging (many service jobs). And academia is no more bizarre than other industries. You should see what goes on in SV or on Wall Street if you want bizarre.
I’ve heard of others talk up the college experience, but I fail to see what’s so special about it. What exactly did I miss in my development? How exactly am I different (besides having a 4-6 year head-start in the working world)?
Parties and friends are also made outside of campus, in the adult world. Working a job at a young age and having to be responsible for yourself builds life skills early. Some of which, my college-educated friends are still having trouble building well into their 30’s. I know some that are terrified of “growing up”: they keep earning degrees or still in their 2nd masters program, accumulating debt that is clearly unsustainable. Many are in fields that inside the sheltered and honestly, kind of bizarre world of academia look nothing like what actually happens in the real world, and they are in for a very rude awakening when that house of cards comes tumbling down.
Every time I meet someone who went to college, if you’re in the same job as them without having a degree, the default response is “but I got the experience”. Part of me thinks this is some kind of rationalization so they don’t have to accept the fact that they might have just been swindled and could have just as easily did what I did and get the same outcome.