

The Anti-Dropout - quintendf
https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/ef84c505b511

======
Zweihander
"But what if I want to learn about the physics that drive hardware
performance? The materials science behind the next generation of wearable
computing? Or what about how to bring electronics manufacturing back to the
United States? "

1 and 2 you can ascertain through intensive reading and finding the right
courses (which could cost money) - you have to be a pretty good autodidact but
if you are, they're certainly possible. If you're not, then college will
probably be a preferable path for learning most things - even stuff that's
easily digestible online.

3 certainly isn't locked in academia; whether you can 'obtain' the knowledge
from the field either is the interesting question. I'd guess the best way
would be to just fail fast/iterate and hope you get the key pieces quickly.

------
michaelochurch
He's making the right decision-- not having the college degree will hurt him
in the future, and for quite a long time-- but I think some of what he's
saying is wrong.

 _The most interesting technical problems of the next decade won’t be solved
in areas of knowledge that can be self-taught, and most technical knowledge
remains locked up in traditional academia._

Disagree strongly with "can't be self taught". Graduate school is mostly
teaching yourself; guided self-study.

It's just hard to do that when you also have bills to pay. Perhaps a new
startup idea: how to make MOOCs look like work (as in what you're paid to do).
There's often too much motion in those videos, while you miss out on some
detail if it's audio-only.

 _The next generation of innovation will come from larger organizations, where
traditional credentials are more highly valued than in degree-agnostic web
tech startups._

Half-true. It'll come from small elite consulting firms that serve larger
companies. In-house innovation at large companies is a political rat's nest.
Either the program gets ruined by "they have to follow the same rules as
everyone else" policies or the R&D center becomes a true CoE (Center of
Excellence) and then everyone capable wants to work in it. Either way, I don't
many large companies will succeed at this.

It was somewhat different in the age of the paternalistic corporation. You
could talk to your boss and say, "I want to be working in PARC/Google-X/Bell
Labs in 5 years" and start the discussion about how to get there. Now, you let
it be known that you have higher aspirations and your ass gets fired.

 _Want to work on the self driving car? That Ivy league engineering credential
is your ticket onto that sort of team._

No undergraduate degree accomplishes that. The MIT and Harvard grads face
closed-allocation bullshit like everyone else. A PhD might get you halfway
there. Still, I think it comes down to politics in most of these
organizations.

If I'm being unduly critical, I still believe OP is making the right decision
(of going back and getting his college degree) but I don't buy into his
particular reasoning. I don't think anyone knows where The Future is coming
from, but established organizations are not it.

~~~
FD3SA
"It's just hard to do that when you also have bills to pay. Perhaps a new
startup idea: how to make MOOCs look like work (as in what you're paid to
do)."

This is the crux of the matter. With the current employment climate for new
grads, education is an expense, not an investment. Employment in the tech
sector is highly experience based, such that a college degree is only useful
for entry level positions.

The problem we have to solve is how to allow for structured learning to occur
in a system where learning is prohibitively expensive. This is independent of
college costs, as even MOOCs require costs of living to be covered.

I wholeheartedly believe that we have quickly saturated the low hanging fruits
of web and mobile app development. Future breakthroughs are sure to be in
traditional high tech areas such as machine learning, material science, and
advanced engineering. How we go about allowing people who are currently
working with a salary the opportunity to upgrade their skills without massive
debt is the trillion dollar question of the next decade.

~~~
michaelochurch
_How we go about allowing people who are currently working with a salary the
opportunity to upgrade their skills without massive debt is the trillion
dollar question of the next decade._

I agree. Trillion dollars is not an underestimate, even though we sound insane
when we use those numbers:
[http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/programmer-
au...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/programmer-autonomy-
is-a-1-trillion-issue/)

------
hi2usir
tl;dr: I'm going back to school.

~~~
prezjordan
You left out the most important part - "why" - which merits representation in
this tl;dr.

The author claims tomorrow's problems cannot be self-taught (listing the
physics of hard drives, wearable computing). I'm honestly not sure if I agree
with this. What about Coursera, Udacity, edX? The courses on these platforms
are maturing at an alarming rate.

Disclosure: I'm a full-time student.

~~~
michaelochurch
Yeah, he's wrong about "cannot be self-taught".

He's right about the prestige-whoring of large corporations. You won't get a
fair shake at most of them without a PhD. However, he's also wrong about where
The Future is coming from. Most likely, it'll be small elite consultancies
that work for larger companies. Right now, these are the guys (and gals)
supporting the top open source projects.

