>Of course, it is possible that you will learn from the professor, but that you would learn _more_ by doing other things with four years of your life. University has no monopoly on knowledge.
Lao-tzu said that you don't know what you don't know. I think staying in college is among the best ways to fill the holes that I am not aware that I have. I wouldn't have learned compilers, music, arts, game theory, automata, microecon, macroecon, accounting, matrix, physics, biology if I never had to take them/have them offered to me. I think everyone could absolutely learn everything on their own faster and more effectively. I think I would much less likely to be aware of them, and even less likely to endure the pain to go through them, that's for sure. But that's my pro-liberal arts view.
In the case of OP, they said they wanted to learn "brainwave sensors, VR, and that jawbone thing from MIT that was posted a few weeks back..." Maybe a few weeks more he/she will jump ship to another thing that MIT got on the news and the brainwave VR jawbone thing doesn't get on the news anymore. That's the tragedy of many "independent researchers," myself included sometimes. Having the patience to study something really well is really, really hard. Colleges are good at making you do that. At the very least, they guarantee whoever got out of it can spend at least one semester studying various subjects well, and many semeseters studying one subject they have the degree on very well. Whom do you trust more when you read their resume given you know nothing more about them: A person who claims to know AI/ML on their resume, or a person who has a degree in AI/ML?
>Also it's disturbing what starting life with a gigantic, crushing pile of debt can do. (It doesn't have to be this way, but I've seen plenty of even quite intelligent individuals go this route and regret it).
>If you can, take advantage of things like junior colleges. They're amazing.
Agreed. I attended a cheap college too. It was amazing.
>I owe my career not to my degree (pointless, though people at least tend to say "well you can't be an idiot" when they see a physics degree), but rather to what I learned taking a few night classes at Santa Monica College (including assembly, which was good fun) while working a day job and doing some projects for fun.
I totally agree with you. I didn't think that I owe what I became today to exactly what I learned in college. But I still think that I am capable of what I do today thanks to years being in college. Lao-tzu said colleges may not give you the fish directly but it teaches you how to fish for yourself.
>Lao-tzu said colleges may not give you the fish directly but it teaches you how to fish for yourself.
And I say fuck Lao-Tzu and what he said.
Someone living in 500 BC should not direct your life's direction. You have something called the Internet now, which he didn't. You have nearly unlimited access to knowledge that you can't possibly consume in all your lifetime. You have courses from top tier colleges free. You can learn anything.
Yeah some stuff requires a degree to work in if you're not at the top of the field and want to join a good company (ML, Neurotech and stuff like that). Most of it doesn't. College isn't just expensive. It's passive and it has a terrible system of teaching people stuff that doesn't interest them just because someone thought it would be useful to them. And it's boring as fuck.
The Internet hasn't changed fundamentally the way we think and study many subjects. There are no internet forums or MOOCs that are able to deliver many aspects of what you'll be able to learn in an art class or in a lab. Going to college by learning from MOOCs on the Internet is the new learning to paint from Bob Ross.
>And it's boring as fuck.
Of course, college courses are boring. Bob Ross painting sessions are more fun than taking a painting course in college.
>You have courses from top tier colleges free. You can learn anything.
I don't dispute the fact that we have very good courses online. But then, if they actually solve the knowledge and skill gap, then you have to ask yourself why the pay gaps between people in many industries get bigger, not smaller?
Please don't get me wrong, I think MOOCs are a very good thing. I was among the first people to have received a course completion certificate from one of the first MOOCs (if not the first MOOC ever) back in 2012 called MITx 6002x. As a person who took MOOCs and advocated for them, I would say the idea that the average person can learn just as well from MOOCs/Youtube/Hacker News/"The Internet" and skip college shows a shallow understanding of the matter.
Sorry if it came out a bit harsh, I had one of those days and vented it out on you.
I feel like you have a narrow view of college since you seem to be from the US and your system is widely different from ours here. What it offers here is a narrow approach that teaches you bland theory, with professors being mostly people who weren't competent in their fields so remained in academia (before someone goes it isn't true, I said mostly. There are ones that are amazing and I'd love to be a part of their classes any time). You can't explore outside of your curriculum - you can't take an art class, a philosophy class,
a sociology class if you're in CS. You're fixed into a course that rarely changes and they are usually outdated and provide as much info as a week of googling would. No textbooks also, so no material to reference too.
College (in this format we have here) stepped on one-too-many toes for me and I despise it, so I tend to overreact.
I think part of the ability to succeed is even rooted in how invested you actually are in school. I don't think its great, but people definitely put more effort in when they have some skin in the game...
Is this because you don't like him? Don't like that quote? Or do you not like what is being stated? I don't see what is so incendiary from the supplied quote. I actually believe it has quite a bit of merit and did not know who it was attributed to previous to this post. You can learn anything, sure. Maybe university sucks for learning (I don't entirely agree). But do you not think that there are many cases where you don't know how much you don't know about a given topic? In my experience, it is extremely common in this field... just my 2 cents.
Lao-tzu said that you don't know what you don't know. I think staying in college is among the best ways to fill the holes that I am not aware that I have. I wouldn't have learned compilers, music, arts, game theory, automata, microecon, macroecon, accounting, matrix, physics, biology if I never had to take them/have them offered to me. I think everyone could absolutely learn everything on their own faster and more effectively. I think I would much less likely to be aware of them, and even less likely to endure the pain to go through them, that's for sure. But that's my pro-liberal arts view.
In the case of OP, they said they wanted to learn "brainwave sensors, VR, and that jawbone thing from MIT that was posted a few weeks back..." Maybe a few weeks more he/she will jump ship to another thing that MIT got on the news and the brainwave VR jawbone thing doesn't get on the news anymore. That's the tragedy of many "independent researchers," myself included sometimes. Having the patience to study something really well is really, really hard. Colleges are good at making you do that. At the very least, they guarantee whoever got out of it can spend at least one semester studying various subjects well, and many semeseters studying one subject they have the degree on very well. Whom do you trust more when you read their resume given you know nothing more about them: A person who claims to know AI/ML on their resume, or a person who has a degree in AI/ML?
>Also it's disturbing what starting life with a gigantic, crushing pile of debt can do. (It doesn't have to be this way, but I've seen plenty of even quite intelligent individuals go this route and regret it).
>If you can, take advantage of things like junior colleges. They're amazing.
Agreed. I attended a cheap college too. It was amazing.
>I owe my career not to my degree (pointless, though people at least tend to say "well you can't be an idiot" when they see a physics degree), but rather to what I learned taking a few night classes at Santa Monica College (including assembly, which was good fun) while working a day job and doing some projects for fun.
I totally agree with you. I didn't think that I owe what I became today to exactly what I learned in college. But I still think that I am capable of what I do today thanks to years being in college. Lao-tzu said colleges may not give you the fish directly but it teaches you how to fish for yourself.