
Elon Musk says college is 'basically for fun and not for learning' - hhs
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/10/elon-musk-college-for-fun-not-learning
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yovagoyu
First, Elon Musk has an incredibly skewed version of the world.

Second, for people without educated parents (which most people who go to
college can't comprehend because most people going to college had parents who
also went to college), I believe a STEM education has way more value and you
do in fact learn valuable things in programming, electronics, biology,
chemistry, etc. from experienced people very very rapidly. It's hard finding
good intro books on your own, and even harder finding people with expertise
who can answer questions (if you look at a circuit and wonder what one
particular capacitor is doing, it can be a rabbit hole).

Third, software, is (perhaps an unpopular opinion), not that hard to pick up.
You can basically Google everything. Using Google you can even solve problems
in languages you don't know. A ton of people do this. That's also part of why
you see so many people programming who don't have a C.S. degree. I personally
don't have a C.S. degree and feel like a lot of the projects I work on I would
have been capable of learning back on middle school. You don't need years of
scaffolding like you do in in physics, where each year they layer on more math
and theory until they finally build up to the ability to grasp the concept
you're interested in.

I think if you want to be a chemical engineer and you don't go to college,
you're going to have a bad time. Same for physics. Same for electrical
engineering.

For the humanities (and I'm lumping in software, because for Christ's sake, we
even call them languages), I'm not really certain college provides much
education. The real value is getting hired by a tech company that requires a
degree (for the actual humanities... not even that I imagine).

~~~
abc_lisper
>> For the humanities , I'm not really certain college provides much education

I am not sure about that; like you said, you can't google your way out of
those problems when they arise.

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Ancalagon
At the expense of playing devil's advocate for most responses in this thread,
I really disagree with this statement. I went to a reasonably good (top 25)
state school. I studied a lot of hard science: physics, astronomy, CS, math. I
can wholeheartedly say that without the structure and rigor of college I would
not have learned as much as I did. Sure, I might not use all that knowledge in
my personal day-to-day, but it is a lot more complete than if I had tried to
teach it to myself.

On top of that, colleges really were the place to find information prior to
the internet. Maybe Musk's statement is more relevant today, but in previous
generations you needed something like a university to do research (try looking
for physics journals that are up to date at your local library).

Last, Musk's actions speak louder than his words: most of his companies' jobs
currently require degrees, they mostly recruit from tier 1 universities, and
Musk himself _completed_ 2 degrees, and started a third. Obviously he values
the signalling a degree grants.

All of this to say that despite that, some of the best developers I know have
little or no formal education. So the caveat is true: you don't necessarily
need a degree to learn and be successful in the modern day for at least some
(or maybe many) things, I just personally find a lot of value in a formal
education.

(Sorry for any poor grammar, just had LASIK done and its a little hard to see)

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folkhack
Warning: I'm a salty dropout from an incredibly bad Computer Science program
at a private Iowa school.

> The main value of college, he said, is to be found in proving discipline by
> completing “annoying homework assignments” and in hanging around with people
> of the same age before entering the workforce.

In my anecdotal experience, I find this statement to be _incredibly_ true.
Effectively it was party and do the busywork it takes to get by in your
classes from professors who have lived the majority of their professional life
in academia. They berated me for learning web dev because, "web software just
won't be a thing" \- this is in 2005-6ish where it absolutely _was already_.

I worked in-industry at the time as a rookie sysadmin and web developer. It
was a _huge_ waste of my time to go to school vs. spending time learning on my
own through my career and personal projects. I know this doesn't apply to all
trades - I've always been focused on web development, automation, and
ecommerce. Those were/are incredibly easy to self-learn if you enjoy it (even
in 2005ish when I was in school)!

I resent my schooling because I had a FT job with real responsibilities,
living at home helping to support my cancer patient mother (bio dad died years
prior), and trying to keep my head above water socially/academically. As
someone saddled with responsibility I felt I was in a playground for children
riddled with booze, partying, and sex while professors demeaned my career
telling me to "not to write software for the internet". It was bad.

~~~
xhkkffbf
I have to agree. Some of the full professors I know are real embarrassments.
They refer to teaching web development as something a "trade school" would do.
Then they fill up the classes with inane type theory that's obsessed with
weirdo contrived cases that never occur in real life. Then to top it off, they
trot out some nihilistic proof that "proves" the type systems can never be
complete. What a bunch of maroons.

~~~
burntoutfire
> They refer to teaching web development as something a "trade school" would
> do.

I kinda agree. I think that you could learn all you need to know to be able to
work in a FAANG junior web role (i.e. programming, algorithms, distributed
computing, UNIX, databases etc.) in a focused 2-year trade school program.

~~~
folkhack
Absolutely... I've been wondering why the FAANGs don't just take education
into their own hands and do this.

The problem is when people talk down about it, which trust me is real. Wanting
to make software that works great for people and is incredibly accessible
utilizing the internet as a distribution/communications platform makes me less
of an engineer than other more "traditional" ones... but the truth is I can
add _a lot_ of value to a company just by "getting things done" whereas I see
a lot of the more academic-focused engineers pigeon-holing themselves into a
one-dimensional career.

Even though I think you could teach the basics of what I do professionally in
a 2-year program I don't think it should be devalued by 4-year
institutions/people due to market value alone.

~~~
lacker
The large tech companies do basically take practical education into their own
hands. When you are an engineering manager and you get new graduates in your
team, you have tools like code review and mentorship from tech leads to teach
your new hires practical skills. It’s wise to expect a new grad new hire to
spend some time just getting up to speed on practical programming methods, and
not necessarily be super productive day 1.

Startups are different, but Facebook or Google love to hire new grad engineers
who don’t contribute much for six months as they learn from coworkers, then
slowly develop into a top-tier contributor over the next year or two, then
perform at a very high level consistently for the rest of their career. They
prefer that to someone who can write medium-low quality code right now, let’s
say enough to be a consistent 25th percentile performer at Oracle, and will
continue to write that quality of code for the rest of their career.

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jjeaff
College was valuable for me, even though I didn't study CS. And I suspect it
is valuable for many, for the same reasons.

It forced me to study and practice many things that I would not have done on
my own: mostly writing, tons of writing.

And there are a lot of other subjects that, had I not been forced, I would
mostly have never been exposed to.

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iamcasen
I agree with Musk's point, but I think he should have been more clear: most
people treat college as 'basically for fun and not learning.'

I personally got a hell of a lot out of my degree, but I was working my ass
off, and studying with focused interest. I was working in the field I was
studying full time as well.

For me, college was a way to be forced to study topics I would not have chosen
to study on my own. I think most people are like that, and that's why forced
curriculums can be beneficial in some way. Do I think college as it is today
is the best way to achieve this? No I do not.

I think so much about university is just a waste, and the cost just keeps
skyrocketing. Most people are not serious academics, and that's honestly what
it takes to do well in university. Are you a person who is deeply, seriously,
curious and will just read book after book after book? Good, go to college. If
you are not, then you'll be better off learning some other way (catch, there
is no other way right now, but there should be!)

~~~
folkhack
> catch, there is no other way right now, but there should be!

Depends on your field... I've self-learned myself into a 6-figure career
because programming, web, automation, Linux/UNIX, etc. resources have always
been freely available for me to find on the internet.

Also it helps to be able to _show_ your work vs. relying on the piece of
paper. Killing it in the interview, being competent with basic algos/problem
solving, and a solid portfolio will take you _far_.

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smt88
If you extend this to its logical conclusion, then he’s claiming that there is
no value in teaching. Put another way: learning by yourself is equally
effective and efficient as learning from an expert.

I think anyone with a trade (like plumbing) or an engineering degree would
wholeheartedly disagree. At some point, you don’t know what you don’t know,
and your own biases will blind you to the full breadth of any topic.

Perhaps with lots of wealth, we’d all have enough time to teach ourselves
advanced skills, try them out, and learn from mistakes, but most people don’t
have that luxury. College gives that framework to everyone who can attend.

~~~
alexbanks
I'm not sure your "logical conclusion" is accurate, nor do I think that's what
Elon Musk is saying at all. Also, I'm not sure your background, but I would
definitely raise a red flag at the idea that all college professors are
"experts" in the field they're teaching.

I would argue this post is more in favor of online schooling, MOOCs, etc. And
against the traditional college experience.

~~~
folkhack
> I would definitely raise a red flag at the idea that all college professors
> are "experts" in the field they're teaching

Real-world: they're often not... or at least in my anecdotal experience.

I had professors who were shoving Pascal my throat in 2005-6 saying "it will
come back because it's such a good language"... they told me that "writing
software for the internet is a waste of time" when it was obvious that was the
direction of the industry... they told me "MS Access is just as good if not
better than other SQL solutions because it's accessible to the office worker".

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
I broadly agree with what you're saying, but it wasn't obvious to most people
in 2005 that web apps were the direction of the industry. Visionaries were
predicting it, and I think they did know what they were talking about and
weren't just making lucky guesses, but the vast majority of software users
still had the attitude that a serious program was something you bought at the
store and installed.

~~~
folkhack
I _sorta_ disagree here - it's neigh impossible to argue but I definitely feel
like it didn't take a visionary in 2005 to predict that the web would be the
next transport/distribution layer for software.

My argument: I was in HS from 2001-2005 and when I started it was the end of
the Win98/IE era with highspeed internet being one of those things few people
had (middle class Iowa). When I got out of HS nearly everyone lower-middle-
class and above had a broadband internet connection, online gaming was
booming, we were seeing offerings like Gmail, Google Docs happened, online
courses were starting to be a thing, blah blah...

If you were an educator of the era trying to prepare people for a real-world
career in CS you ABSOLUTELY shoulda had your fingers on that pulse noticing
that the internet use was growing exponentially for everything from business,
to socialization, to entertainment.

If anything, they shouldn't have been discriminatory against a student's
choice to specialize in it saying "software on the internet isn't a thing"
when it clearly already $#@%ing was with an obvious growth trajectory.

TLDR: "Software users" \- totally agree don't expect them to have seen the
wave coming in 2005. Collegiate computer science educator claiming to prepare
students for real-world careers should have seen it coming from a mile away if
they weren't tone-deaf to the industry (they were).

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Farbodkhz
Well, yes for the most part you can self learn anything they teach you in
college and even universities and yoir information would be even much more to
date. But the problem is not just with the material you have to learn. But the
discipline. Not many people posses the discipline needed to self study and
college provide the framework for people to at least have a schedule. Albeit
an expensive disciplinary measure.

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lacker
For me the most valuable part of college was discovering how much I liked
computer science. If I had picked a career when I was 17 it would not have
been software engineer. Once I was in college, it was pretty simple to take a
computer science class to see if I liked it, and I really did like it, even
more than I had enjoyed teaching myself to program during my k-12 years. When
I got bored with my original choice of major, it then seemed like a good idea
to switch into computer science, and I’ve been happy with that choice ever
since.

It is a shame that college is so expensive, but to me the real problem is
people taking out loans to go through degree programs that don’t give you a
high expected income. If you take on a lot of loans to get a CS degree from
MIT, it’s probably going to be a worthwhile investment. If you take on those
same loans to get a philosophy degree from Tulane, it’s a bad idea.

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downerending
This seems to be far more true now. Thirty or forty years ago, there was no
other easy way to get access to a professional-level computer and software
that one could write programs with. These days, of course, one can pretty much
have it for free, along with a wealth of educational material.

In addition, for people that had motivation problems, a University is a nice
framework for forcing yourself into working through a lot of not-always-
interesting material.

That said, if I was graduating high school today, I'd probably already have
five or ten years of solid learning and programming experience, and just join
a startup directly rather than trudging through a BS.

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eric234223
In India it is to fulfill the ego of professors nothing more. Unlike America
professors are paid lower than the industry and those who can't get jobs in
Industry become professors and treat students like slaves. I did not
understood while in college but now i get it, it is a coping mechanism for
incompetence. One good thing about Corono is that it forces online education
like the recent MIT online classes, hope this will set a chain reaction and
take the monopoly on education from traditional colleges.

~~~
JCharante
I'm pretty sure that in the U.S. professors are paid way lower than what they
could get in industry. They probably get at least six figures but so does
anyone in the industry, especially with as much experience as a professor
would.

~~~
downerending
Depends on the field and on the individual. In many fields, the professors
would be all but unemployable. And even in hot fields like CS, some professors
would not be very useful. It's hard to remember now, but back in the 80s, a
PhD in CS was almost a strike on your resume rather than a plus.

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ptah
not so sure. the way of thinking i got from university professors has been
invaluable. it is the meta-skills that count

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nickik
For those that are interested in the intellectual version of this argument,
its basically this book:

> Case against Education: Why Our Education System Is a Waste of Time and
> Money

It is basically a deep dive on the point 'you get a stamp on your head' rather
then 'you learned these skills'.

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myself248
I feel that. I've had no trouble learning the skills I've needed to succeed in
the workplace, but I wish I'd gone to college for the social environment and
the girls and the connections. The stuff I'm NOT good at on my own, basically.

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LeoTinnitus
Of course it is. But you go for the checkbox item for interviews. That's why
you save as much and penny pinch. Also don't fall into the trap that schools
have your best individual interests in mind. They just want your money and
nickle and dime you at EVERY corner.

~~~
folkhack
> Also don't fall into the trap that schools have your best individual
> interests in mind.

But can ya blame 18yr old kids/their families who are idealist believing that
they do? I mean I say this having FELL for the trap!

I mean - I worked with the school I dropped out of doing their .edu as a web
developer. When I went from being a "student" at the school to being part of
the marketing effort it was a night-and-day difference on what the narrative
was.

All I'm saying is that the marketing, the admissions counselors, the academic
advisers, etc. all are devoid from telling you "HEY! We're a business FIRST
and an educational institution SECOND." Perhaps projection, but I feel like
lots of people learn this the hard way just like I did.

~~~
LeoTinnitus
I sort of learned it after running the gauntlet the first time, however I went
to a technical college and my family was low enough income that grants
basically paid for it all through financial aid.

Going back, I had a plan in place, prepped for over a year, asked like ten
million questions to them making sure I knew exactly how everything was gonna
play out. The saddest part wasn't even coming back to college, but that I
realized my college is so lacking it sort of makes me wish I could've somehow
knew that for this program beforehand.

