
Ask HN: what can you learn at university that you can't self-teach? - keiferski
This semester, I stopped going full-time to my university and dropped to part-time status (1 class). This allows me to access most of the university resources while still giving me a ton of time to program/work on a startup.<p>I took a basic small business class, and unfortunately, it was a little too basic. I'm planning on going part-time in the fall, and I can't seem to find a worthy course this time around.<p>Seeing that it's $2500-$3000 (fees included), I'd rather not just sign up for a random class. Any suggestions? Accounting? What can I absolutely not teach myself? (Keep in mind that any course would likely have to be entry or mid-level -- I won't get into high level CS theory)
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michaelpinto
Unless you're going to a vocational school the point of an education should be
to make you more well rounded as an individual. Although you may be shocked as
you go through your career how important liberal arts can be — one thing that
amazes me is how much writing one does as an example.

If you look at the very best entrepreneurs they're curious about everything --
be it Steve Jobs and his interest in calligraphy or Bill Gate's current
interest in international medical issues. I realize that at first glance these
things seem to have nothing to do with tech, but they do as tech intersects
with many other fields from finance to law to social interactions (yes
sociology!).

In terms of what to study you should pick a subject you have a passion for and
go for that — if most teachers see that you find something to be too simple
the good ones will allow you to explore most subjects in depth. And in that
sense getting the right teacher is just as important as picking the right
course.

~~~
keiferski
I'm actually a philosophy major, so I know how important liberal arts are. :)

I'm interested in a wide, wide variety of areas, but I feel as if this thirst
is better quenched online than in a specific semester-long course. There's
more and better information online than any one introductory course will have.

~~~
michaelpinto
I may be old fashioned but I think being in the same room as a good teacher
and with good students seems to be much more valuable than online. Online
seems to be great for learning very 2d subjects or doing fact gathering, but
that stimulation tends to come from being in a room with other people (even if
it's a dinner conversation or a party). Maybe the problem is that you need to
go to a more engaging or specialized school? My gut tells me that your current
environment isn't engaging you enough -- to me the answer to that is to find a
new hood!

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asymptotic
I studied Electrical Engineering at university. I have an enduring memory of
sitting outside at a restaurant, on a beautiful day, with my roommate, who was
a political science major. At one point he started pulling out his notes and
an essay and wanted my thoughts, and we spent the next hour discussing various
minutae of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Another memory that vividly stands out is being at a friend's house party one
evening. One guy, a arts major from Argentina, for some reason made what
seemed like the best tasting beer in the world in a red bucket, and we talked
for a while about how he managed to make it. Afterwards he displayed an
unusual, tenacious, and passionate interest in alternating-current (AC) and as
I started breaking down the basic physics and EE behind it a larger and larger
group of people gathered around to pester me with questions.

I love computers man but not everything is online. That's why you should go to
university. Like jeffepp said, I state without qualification that my undergrad
was the best time of my life.

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jeffepp
The best learning you can do at a University is learning about yourself and
being on your own (for most people this is the first time they have freedom
from their parents).

It's also a chance to meet people different from your high school, which in
many areas, are rather homogeneous.

All of these things can be learned after college, however, the learning curve
is much steeper...

Finally, I don't know many people who say "I wish I dropped out of college and
started a business" although I know I would give my left arm to live as an
undergrad for another semester

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_delirium
I could see two directions:

1\. A seminar-type class where interaction with other students and a (good)
faculty member is important. I've had some good philosophy classes that I felt
were hard to replicate outside a university, and an AI class that was like
that as well. Self-teaching the material is possible, but it's relatively
difficult to find a good back-and-forth with a genuine expert outside a class
imo, because most experts, even those willing to debate on the internet and so
on, aren't that willing to spend a lot of time engaging with complete
beginners who are unfamiliar with the standard arguments in an area.

2\. Something foundational that you could self-teach but, due to the willpower
involved for something without immediate practical use, in all honesty most of
us probably won't. Something like a good statistics course, discrete
mathematics, theory of computation, computer architecture, etc.

If there's some way to get feedback from existing students on which courses
are good, that might be more important than the specific subject matter;
whether an intro-X course is a win over just reading the introductory textbook
on X varies a lot.

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hackerblues
The aspect of university which can be replicated in self study is the
aquisition of knowledge from a source. Regardless of the source, your
professor saying "Display text in Python with the 'print' command." or you
reading it in a book, you will need to put in the same mental effort to learn
it. This process is the core aspect of education.

What university provides is a number of side things which assist in this
process.

1\. An expert in the field who can advise you from experience what information
is important, where the best information sources are, and in which order to
approach things.

2\. Feedback on how well you understand the material via discussion groups,
assignments and examinations.

3\. The opportunity to ask questions about the material.

These sound cliched but they are really important. The alternative is a person
who is doing something in an inefficient way because they don't know the
better way, they don't even know that there is a better way, and the answers
they are producing are incorrect because they are blindly applying the
inefficient method when it doesn't work in this case.

University also provides access to credentials through grades and letters of
recommendation, a network of peers who will likely end up in a similar
industry to you, and various social/clubs things.

My advice would be to pick courses with these advantages in mind.

\- Do I know how I would learn this field? Maybe the topic is so large or new
that there is no standard text and you will need a guide.

\- Could I obtain easy feedback if I self-studied? You can check arithmetic on
a calculator but it's harder to look at a piece of your writing and know if
you are improving and what needs correction.

\- Do I want to build connections with this industry? Selling software to
engineers might be easier if you know something about the domain, and know
some engineers who can vouch for you and tell you what problems they have.

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abbasmehdi
Anything technical and application based can be learnt without. In my personal
experience the best courses were the ones that looked beneath the surface,
that answered "why" not "how"; so I would suggest only humanities and liberal
arts. Take philosophy, sociology, anthropology, those can be almost life
changing. Unless you're researching under a like-minded professor, studying
anything technical at the undergraduate level is a waste of time because you
can do that on your own. One exception: if you want access to the particle
accelerator you might have to be registered in the physics department.

I want to add I am quite impressed by your sensibility.

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bendmorris
There's absolutely no field of knowledge that you couldn't teach yourself
about. The benefits of a university have nothing to do with being a monopoly
on knowledge, because nowadays such a thing doesn't exist. The benefits, in my
opinion, include:

1\. _Credentialing_. I believe this is the number one reason people go to
college today. Not to learn, but to obtain a degree that proves some
indefinable quality about yourself - that you have a certain level of
competence, are persistent, etc. I've heard it described as a "social
signalling ritual."

2\. _Mentorship_. If you work closely with a good professor, you can get a lot
out of it. I'm a member of a research lab and have weekly meetings with my
advisor; these meetings usually devolve to picking his brain for career
advice. Also, when you self-teach, it's harder to know when you're wrong than
when you have someone to tell you.

3\. _Perseverance_. 4 years can be a hell of a long time.

Of course, no one actually signs up for a "random class" - you're not throwing
darts at a course catalog or anything. If you're really interested in
something, take a class in it. That's the only way to figure out which classes
are worth taking and which ones aren't. I will, however, point you to this pg
essay on which subjects are worth studying [1] that I really enjoyed. My
favorite part: "Yes, of course, you'll learn something by taking a psychology
class. The point is, you'll learn more by taking a class in another
department."

One last thing: look through the list of departments. Look at and consider
_every_ department before you decide which one you want to spend time in. As a
Biology student, looking back, I think Biological Engineering would've been a
lot cooler to study, but now I'm not in a position to switch.

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/college.html>

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iamleo
Being in accounting I can tell you that yes it would really help to have a
class in it. However, I have met quite a few programmers who hated accounting.
I do not know your point about going into university, what is the point of
doing it period? Is it worth paying $3000 for free printing or maybe the
library space?

Are you trying to be self-sufficient in everything?

~~~
keiferski
I'm not actually a programmer (I'm teaching myself how to program). I'm much
more interested in business than your average programmer, so accounting might
not be too boring.

The reasons for enrolling are Internet, printing, workspace, and to keep the
university job I currently have. I'm not entirely sure I will be taking a
course, but I'd like to investigate all the options first.

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rcon85
I'd say it's more dependent upon the faculty and students you learn from/with
than the subject you're studying. Your classes could be led by lazy,
incompetent instructors and filled with dull students who are all just looking
for "job security and decent benefits" ( _barf_ ). On the other hand, there's
a chance you could meet your future business partner while being taught by an
inspiring professor.

Every class is a gamble unless there's some reliable evaluation system
available. But if you think students are actually capable of rating teachers
in any meaningful way, think again:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Fox_effect>

Also: [http://voices.washingtonpost.com/college-
inc/2010/06/study_h...](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/college-
inc/2010/06/study_high-rated_professors_ar.html)

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mikelbring
Heres a good quora post on it, this is mostly related to programming:

[http://www.quora.com/What-skills-do-self-taught-
programmers-...](http://www.quora.com/What-skills-do-self-taught-programmers-
commonly-lack)

~~~
zellyn
If you really like philosophy, dig into it as deeply as you can. Some really
excellent programmers were philosophy majors, and benefit continually from the
training in rigorous thinking and clarity of expression that studying
philosophy teaches you as you get into it further.

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grandalf
In my experience, students who do well are the ones who learn early how to
self-teach.

A university can provide you with a lot of efficiencies (some faculty are
extremely good at explaining things) but I don't think there's any knowledge
that can't be self taught with sufficient motivation.

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troymc
I suspect it would be extremely difficult to self-teach yourself to become a
board-certified brain surgeon. University is definitely the best route if
that's your career goal.

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gcb
How to negotiate deadlines with professors.

rimshot.jpg

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thiagofm
You learn how to deal with teachers that threats you like shit(and think they
are good) and you also build a lot of hate to anything academic related, which
can prove to be good as you won't want to be a part of the system and will
give you 1000 ideas, will make you a god in execution so you will have success
for sure, to not be like them.

Oh, I forgot to tell you that they give you a diploma just in case you fail as
an entrepreneur -- and you won't.

The rest I think you can learn by yourself.

