That said, I really appreciate all of the other topics I learned in more breadth and/or depth while in college. I learned far more about psychology, linguistics, literature, history, etc., than I would have any time soon on my own. I enjoy reading, and enjoy learning a wide variety of topics, but I tend to hyperfocus on what I feel interested in at the time. I doubt I would have bothered to learn anything about Russian culture or listened to recordings of Jelly Roll Morton if I hadn't been required to for course credit... and I feel better about myself for having learned these things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts
edit:link added
The problem with most self-taught people is that the knowledge is deep, but narrow. To be an excellent, innovative, developer you need breadth in order to be able to consider alternate approaches to a problem, but with sufficient depth in certain key areas to be able to do analysis when necessary.
College provides in 4 years what could otherwise take decades of "on the job" learning.
Successful people without college degrees tend to take a few more years to move up the development food chain, they're basically opting to do on-the-job training.
Successful people with college degrees tend to have a stronger foundation in theory, which is useful; whether or not people want to admit it.
I don't believe they have the same skill sets, but they both bring something to the table.
Disclosure: My highest level of education is High School. I dropped out of college in my second semester to go work as a programmer. Over the years, I've hired lots of developers for various companies, and worked with hundreds of developers as well - with and without degrees.
Or is your argument that all people who go to college are "rich and naive kids" as you implied earlier in the thread?
You're exposing a pretty huge chip on your shoulder.
Now if only I could become as classy as you, injecting ad hominem jabs, bitter snark, and class warfare into the argument as a replacement for actually backing up your points.
[edited for wit]
[edit below]
However, as you're egging me on, I will rebut your flimsy argument, the crux of which is this anecdotal beaut:
"It just seems unlikely that there's 'very little' that the computer science program gave to the developer. It certainly doesn't match what I've actually seen in-field."
If that's all you have to lean on, I don't understand how your comment was upvoted so much. Absent in your analysis is a thorough inventory of what college gives you: While it provides new opportunities for learning, it also does not provide things that you get in the working world, such as
* Business sense and professionalism
* Assuming you don't live at home, a sense of independence: Knowing how to take care of yourself at 22 when everyone else is just figuring out is a huge advantage, believe it or not
* Documented experience
* References from others with working-world experience
On the other hand, there are indeed negatives of going to college. To me, the greatest one is the massive time drain: I work in the day, go home, teach myself more, read history, learn chess, and basically provide my own education. This is not by design, but rather, by my nature. It's unfortunate that so many take education to be the exclusive realm of educational institutions.
Sitting through lectures and working to verify for your professors that you are learning, to me, is a waste of time, when I know damn well if I've learned it properly. If I haven't, and it's important, it will show quickly back at work.
Oh, and college costs tens of thousands of dollars.
That was kind of the point. I was trying to be classy, like you.
Perhaps you should take the high road next time and assume that I am just stating my own opinions, not trying to argue with anybody.
I didn't mean to start an argument, I was just responding to your post. You said that a degree in computer science adds nothing to how someone develops software. I replied that this seems false, gave my reasons why, and asked if anyone had evidence to the contrary. You took offense and started flaming.
[yadda yadda yadda ... you insulted my argument then said a bunch of other irrelevant stuff ... yadda yadda yadda]
My argument was short because what you said is prima facie false: you more or less said that years of training in software development adds nothing to one's software development skill set. It doesn't take much to rebut that.
The rest of what you said was all well and good, but you're now attacking a strawman. We're not talking about a cost-benefit analysis of going to college, so your points aren't really germane here. We're talking about your claim that college adds nothing, which you still haven't backed up ... probably because it's a completely untenable position. Four years of anything will add something to your skill set.
But flame on ... I'm done with the thread.
I hear this fallacy a lot.
A lot of people seem to give it a pass and nod along with it, maybe because it makes them feel better or maybe because it seems like the politically correct thing to say in a room full of talented hackers, only some of whom went to college.
While you in no way need to go to college to be a developer, I think people should be highly skeptical of this claim.
Look at the claim this way. Given two people with equal skill and ambition:
* the first one spent four years learning computer science and software engineering in school while hacking
* the second one spent four years hacking
The claim is that those people more or less have the same skill set.
It just seems unlikely that there's "very little" that the computer science program gave to the developer. It certainly doesn't match what I've actually seen in-field.
Of course, I'm biased: I went to school for computer science. Does anyone actually have evidence to support the other side of the argument?