
MakeGamesWithUs (YC W12) is now MakeSchool, building an alternative CS degree - DesaiAshu
https://www.makeschool.com/article/introducing-makeschool
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josephwegner
What a bummer that the tuition for this is still $30k for a year. I just can't
imagine that $30k/year is a sustainable economic model for higher education.
Especially in the technical arena, you can become proficient enough to get a
junior-level engineering job pretty easily. Definitely for a lot cheaper than
$30k.

I say this as a self-taught engineer - never went to college, and I've now got
a pretty great software engineering job. Dropping $30k for a year of training
(or, even worse, $30k/year for 4 years!) would have been a huge waste.

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jsnk
$30k seems unreasonable. You can go to Canada, receive CS education from
University of Waterloo for 22k/year international student tuition + 500/month
rent * 12 months + 500/month living expense * 12 months = 32k / year. Granted
admission will be far more difficult, but why would you pay $30k to an
institution that is charging as much as a reputable university? I hope they
reevaluate the price for the program.

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mgirdley
CS creates computer scientists. It doesn't necessarily make good programmers.
You can't compare this to CS.

The model in a year-long bootcamp (which is what this is) is vastly more
expensive to operate than classic CS education. Being in this business, I
think you'd be surprised by the numbers. They're probably barely breaking even
at that tuition amount.

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WhitneyLand
>>CS creates computer scientists. It doesn't necessarily make good
programmers.

This is making the line between theory and practice too bright, there's
actually quite a bit of overlap.

By 19 I was already working as a dev at a game studio you would know well and
made a difficult decision to leave and do a CS degree.

It was incredibly worthwhile in my case, and I rely on theory and foundations
learned all the time in the real world.

The point is yes you can get a job without a degree but in some cases you will
never be quite as strong without investing in that foundation.

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peferron
You make it sound like what matters most is not actually _studying CS_ but
_getting a CS degree_. Is there something special about getting a degree that
would cause a programmer to "never be quite as strong" if they studied CS but
not for a degree, for example outside of the traditional college system? Most
of the science seems to be freely available, if one is willing to put in the
effort needed to learn it without the assistance of a professor.

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clay_to_n
Yes, there is great quality content available free and online. But it is
incredibly rare for some to get a CS level education from it, because it's not
something you can easily do part time. Even if you just try to learn the
materials from core CS classes I've taken, that's a few textbooks, a few large
projects, and a LOT of hours of studying and work. College lets you get that
done all at once - if I tried to give myself a "CS education" while having a
full time job, I am pretty confident I would have failed. It certainly
couldn't come in just a few years.

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larssorenson
I'm rather frustrated with this huge push to create a "new" CS degree, which
is basically saying "Let's abandon half of CS and focus on just programming."
Computer Science is, obviously enough, the science of Computers and
computation. Coincidentally, programming happens to be a tool for computer
scientists to interact with computers and demonstrate computational theory.
While I understand and appreciate the necessity for good
programmers/developers, people seem to miss the point of what a Computer
Scientist actually is. It includes a whole lot of theory and knowledge of how
computers function and operate, from the fundamental logic up to the
application layer. Programming is learned as a Computer Scientist not
necessarily for the purpose of a career, but rather as a means of implementing
and testing theories and ideas. Much the same as Mathematics where theories
are abundant, many of which are necessary to become a mathematician. You don't
see anyone trying to create a Math degree that skips a lot of theory and just
teaches you Applied Mathematics for a career. While the analogy breaks down
when you move into industry, the concept is the same. If you are pursuing a
Computer Science degree, you must become a Computer Scientist. If you want a
more objective approach, see the definition of Computer Science as put forth
by wikipedia:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_science](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_science)
. You'll notice that Software Engineering is but a subset of the field of
Applied Computer Science, which is itself a subset of Computer Science. Before
I continue ranting I'll just summarize: You cannot forgo or severely reduce
the extensive amount of theory behind Computer Science and churn out Computer
Scientists. It does not match up. If your goal is instead to produce more
software engineers / programmers / developers who are not real Computer
Scientists, then you should re-name your degree and your program. You might
find CIT/CNIT/IT more appropriate.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology)

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pikachu_is_cool
Yea, the culture basically is Computer Science == Software Engineering. As
much as I hate it, most people get degrees nowadays not for research or
education, but to land a job. However by using that association I'd say that
it helps a bit to pick out the people who make that incorrect association (and
are getting a CS degree for work instead of for research) that otherwise
wouldn't take it seriously if it just said software engineering. It leaves
more room in the universities for people that actually want to learn CS and
the people who didn't know the difference between the terms learns what they
need to get a job (since I'm sure true computer scientists would understand
that the term is butchered). It's a win-win IMO.

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larssorenson
I understand what you're saying, but I think that my point is still valid: If
you want to offer a degree to become a Software Engineer, it should be a
Software Engineering degree program not a Computer Science degree. Someone
else mentioned that the direct path to Applied Mathematics takes form of say
an Engineering degree. They are two separate degrees/programs yet clearly
Engineering is just the fast path to a career in Math in an industry
environment. So too should a Software Engineering degree be a fast path to a
career in Computer Science in an industry environment.

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programmarchy
We've been using the SpriteBuilder tutorials on makegameswith.us as a resource
for teaching a group of high school students how to program games. It's been
extremely valuable for helping them get up and running, and saved us a ton of
time.

Happy to hear they are leveling up with MakeSchool.

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CalRobert
I gotta say, I hope they've improved. I participated in makegameswith.us and
found the experienced to be very disorganized. There was no clear indication
of which week you were supposed to be in in regards to the course schedule,
and the pods, groups, etc. devolved into a wasteland pretty quickly. Of
course, there's also the fact that it would be far preferable to use Swift at
this point (or develop for Android) but I may be biased because I loath ObjC.

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ajaymehta
Congrats MakeSchool! The summer program students I met were very bright and
loved the program, look forward to following the gap year program.

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califield
This is an exciting space right now. I'm gearing up to launch RPG Classroom
this Spring. The name is sort of a combination of their old and new names
(gaming and mentoring).

I think their price is a little high, but I guess they have an obligation to
charge what people are willing to pay. Instead of charging $30,000, my idea is
to accept Bitcoin donations if people are happy with their education.

Besides teaching computer science, I think gamification is a natural next step
for primary education (K-12) in this era of attention challenged kids and I
hope MakeSchool isn't back-peddling on that. For example, instead of making
proof of concept games, I want to put out an RPG that teaches Biology 101 (or
build a platform that enables someone else to do it).

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blergh123
Where is Zed Shaw's follow up article to '[http://zedshaw.com/2014/10/19/the-
coming-code-bootcamp-destr...](http://zedshaw.com/2014/10/19/the-coming-code-
bootcamp-destruction/') ?

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londonymous
>The MakeSchool Gap Year is designed to accelerate the careers of the
brightest computer science majors.

I'm confused about what this is offering. If it's for existing CS majors,
surely by definition if you're among "brightest", you wouldn't forgo the
$5-10k/mo internships available [1] or generous starting salaries you can get
right out the door, and instead _pay_ $30k.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/tzhongg/status/536565474041937921/photo/...](https://twitter.com/tzhongg/status/536565474041937921/photo/1)

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yefim
Congrats Jeremy and Ashu! Hope the new Gap Year program does extremely well.

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lakesta
FYI: Title tag on
[https://www.makeschool.com/home/](https://www.makeschool.com/home/) is
MakeGamesWithUs | Home

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mhartl
Looks awesome. Are there any regulatory issues associated with starting a
formal school with a physical location?

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HillRat
Well, they aren't an accredited program, so they're pretty much eliding the
regulatory aspects. The flip side is, its students are paying private-college
prices (and over _three times_ average resident tuition for state schools) for
an unaccredited program. So, is the program significantly better than an AS,
BS, or MS when factoring in time and price? Not sure about that. (It appears
to be an accelerated and relatively superficial tour of CS, plus a lot of
hanging out with startup types. Compare with an undergrad at Stanford or
Berkeley plus regular Caltrain or BART trips for coffee in SoMa.)

Having said that, MakeSchool isn't trying to be a replacement for a
traditional uni education -- hence the "gap year" terminology -- but for the
price, I'd hope they're working with ABET to get some kind of seal of approval
of their curriculum. Alternatively, they can do what some colleagues of mine
did back in the late '90s, with a similar concept (a "web talent incubator"
named Populi) -- they worked with accredited institutions like Pratt to build
and monitor their curricula, giving them the imprimatur of a prestigious
institution without the regulatory handcuffs.

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dyeje
Cmd+F on 'journey'. Was not disappointed.

