Do you think this might be tied to a person’s financial situation?

Grow up with a safety net, you’ll enjoy the process.

Grow up poor and/or with people depending on you and you focus on the end state?

I would argue the opposite.

Grow up with a safety net and you don't take it seriously.

Group poor and/or with people depending on you, you understand the task at hand.

I goofed off a lot in college until I was tired of partying and realized I was going nowhere; about end of Sophomore year. All the older folks who paid their own way sure took it seriously. For reference, I'm also GenX.

I'm sure motivations range from what I suggested to what you suggested.

Both viewpoints can be true at the same time.

I think it plays a part. Just like personality does. And the college itself does. And the professors you get, and so on.

But really the insight is internal. And it's just insight, it doesn't dictate your response.

In other words I'm not saying this insight suddenly means you change career path. Most of us will go out and get jobs in an office, most will progress on similar lines.

The difference is in how you approach things. For example; if you see programming as vocational training then the language they teach you matters. If they taught you Java then you apply for a job doing Java.

If you see it as I did, then you see programming, not language. Language is easy to learn, and I've done serious work in at least 4 in my career. My first job was in a language I'd never seen before. Today I spend a lot of time in one that wasn't even invented.

If I had to go out and find work tomorrow I'm confident I can handle whatever language they prefer. I don't say that with arrogance- it'll take effort - but rather I'm confident I know how to learn.

Thus I'm not scared of AI. It's a tool, and I'm happy to learn it and use it. It won't replace me because I don't "write code", I program (and I understand the difference. )

So ultimately I'm not sure that financial status or whatever make a big difference. Ultimately it comes down to the person.

I'm confused with your comment, because you start here:

> If you're lucky (and I was) at some point you understand that it's not about the material, it's about the process.

> Research, assimilate, question, formulate, communicate.

But then follow that with:

> Alas a large number of folks will leave college and never grasp the real value of why they were there. That's OK. The world needs workers.

Like... I guess it depends what precisely you mean by "workers" but in my mind at least, if we're thinking similarly, that would be white-collar office workers. And what you describe in the previous quoted section is, IMHO, a perfectly reasonable breakdown of what college is preparing them to do. But then the subsequent line feels like a criticism of the output of that.

Not sure why you're being downvoted. It's a legit question.

So, I think college can be different things to different people. Most will treat it as vocational training. And yes they'll end up being good office workers and we need those.

I refer to luck only because I perceive the other to be in the minority. Also because you can't make someone see it. Even if I tell you it's there (it's not a secret) doesn't mean you'll get it.

And again, my perception is that "getting it" leads to a better life. (For some definition of "better", usually not financial. )

Which doesn't make office workers bad. That's objectively a good life.

The process underneath is busy work to make some learning criteria milestone for accreditation

I agree that that is how many people see it. Possibly even your professors.

Fortunately I went to a place where the professors understood the real goals and made decisions as such.

For example (and this is my history, not advice) I took a couple electives for pure interest sake (I didn't need them to graduate. ) I went to all the lectures. I wrote all the exams and tests.

But I skipped all the prac work. I didn't do any of the weekly assignments. Nominally that meant I couldn't write the final exam. (They don't like people writing and failing, and prac work is correlated to that.)

But I went to see both professors. Both knew me (at least by sight, not name.) I explained why the prac work was not important to me (it covered the same process as I'd learned in other courses and the minutiae of the material was irrelevant to me.) My test scores showed I would pass. Both gave me an exemption snd let me write (and I passed.)

I don't recommend this. YMMV. But I hindsight I think maybe they understood I was there to learn process, not material. I was there to add to my big picture, not because I was going to be an oceanographer or astronomer.

I can't even say that I used anything from those courses in my career, although I did write a system for a marine company once, so maybe :)

> Research, assimilate, question, formulate, communicate.

I really love this. I'll try and bear this in mind over the next few years.

I'm a mature-aged student going for their second degree (CS the first time, science this time). I am loving the subject but it's hard at the beginning because the amount of new stuff I have to absorb is overwhelming. At the times when I have a bit of a breather -- either when I'm "getting it" or during mid-semester break -- I find the subject (biology) wonderful.

Congratulations on going back. I've considered it from time to time, but honestly it just seems like too much work :)

And yes, especially the first couple years there's a lot of work. Especially if you "have a life" outside as well.

It helps that you enjoy it - indeed I suggest it's necessary to succeed. Well done.

Yep. I gave a similar speech on the first day of every English 101 class I ever taught. (Though, damn, I wish I'd had as concise a formulation as your list of skills. Nicely done.) In my case I largely hoped to head off the resentment that STEM majors frequently expressed about how come they were required to take something so irrelevant to their eventual careers as writing. It sometimes worked.

I didn't get to take English at college, but I've spent a lot of my career writing and training. I've written a couple text books, and more documentation than I care to remember.

Writing well is definitely a skill worth learning. Communication is the single most important thing to career advancement.

You and I both know that! Try explaining it to 18-year olds who hate writing° and think coding / maths / lab-work is all they'll ever need. It doesn't go well.

°The real problem was that they didn't read. Sadly, I could pretty much predict the grade-distribution on the first day of class with one question: "have you ever read anything for fun?"

The students who regularly read books and magazines (hell, even comic books) were going to get As, once they figured out how to put an argument together. The kids who'd maybe read Harry Potter a few years back (this was ten years ago) would end up with Bs, or Cs if they slacked off. The STEM folks who read technical manuals were solid Cs, and Bs if they worked at it. The at least half who'd literally never read anything outside the classroom were going to struggle to pass. I taught my ass off, and spent unlimited office hours with anyone who'd come to them, but there's only so much that class-work can do.

This article makes it sound like it's only got worse since.

I hear you. I can write docs, but I can't make you read them :)

I'd abstract this and say that communication is key, but the form of communication can vary. People who don't read don't value that form, and don't write. They may prefer the video approach (ie show and tell.) They consume video and these days with Zoom create video as well.

Of course video isn't always a good way to communicate. It lacks searchability unless well chaptered (and transcribed). AI is helping with that.

Writing is also easier to store, and consume, non digitally. So it's more "permanent".

Your insight though is useful. People who don't read don't value writing as important. And maybe in the future it won't matter. And yeah, you're getting them too young, before they've really come to grips with the real world and it's requirements.

If it's any consolation I read voraciously as a child, didn't take English at college, and got (my only) C for English in high school. So you never know what seeds you are planting or how they'll grow.

Agreed. I always felt my computer engineering degree taught me how to approach a problem and logically solve it, weigh the pros and cons, etc. As well as introducing me to the hardware side of things - I already knew by high school that I could learn any programming language given enough time (already had Basic, C, SQL, a couple of DSLs and knew at least in part, 3 different human languages). I wanted to force myself to get a similar "baseline" for hardware.

Of course, it has impacted all parts of my life - I think differently than I did before studying engineering, and I sometimes try to apply this problem solving in non-technical parts of life with.. mixed results.