
Is University Necessary? A professor debates a student. - rjvir
http://consideronline.org/2013/01/22/is-university-necessary
======
IvyMike
If you are a sophomore or junior in college right now, and you get a job offer
doing (for example) Ruby on Rails, you will likely learn nothing in your final
years of college that will help you with doing Ruby on Rails in that job.

But maybe the job will involve more than just a web frontend to a database.
Maybe you will will need to optimize a solution somewhere, and you'll think,
"Hey, I bet I could use simulated annealing for that". Or you'll think, "Hey,
I could write a simple grammar to solve this just like the first problem in my
compilers class". Or "I can simulate the system variance by convolving the
individual component variances" and thus you'll be able to provision your
system better. Or whatever.

Sure, you could have figured out how to do all of these by carefully reading
wikipedia. But how would you have even known the right questions without
having been exposed to the material?

And then, of course, there's that next job ten years from now, that isn't Ruby
on Rails. It's something else, maybe even in a different problem domain
altogether, where the Ruby on Rails expertise doesn't give you any advantage.
Wouldn't it be nice to have a good solid grounding in a wider base of
material?

Several times in my career, I've been brought in to tackle a problem that has
been vexing other (and maybe even better) programmers, and I've said, "Well, I
don't know much about it, but I think we could solve that problem using X",
where X is algorithm or technique I learned in graduate school. It is great to
be able to have those moments, and I know had I not gone to school (and gotten
my MS) I would not have those insights.

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saraid216
It's really not that hard. The branching logic is simple.

If you have a better, _actual_ alternative to university, do that. Else, do
university, which is an established default for those who can afford it.

If you can't afford it, the debate isn't even relevant.

~~~
drivebyacct2
1\. Look at current job market.

2\. Look at unemployed graduates.

3\. Define "established default", or better "establish _good_ default".

~~~
saraid216
That almost seems to say something, but I can't tell. Would you care to make
your point for those who don't have access to divine revelation?

------
jasonlingx
An education is necessary. Some schools are good at delivering that. Some are
crap and you are wasting your time and money. And of course, lots of
opportunity outside of school to learn as well.

~~~
obviouslygreen
I think "necessary" needs clarification here. What you intend or expect to be
able to do or understand dictates what's necessary or sufficient. There is no
necessity for an education when your goal is simply to feed yourself; many
menial jobs that are entirely within the grasp of people who have no formal
training or education will satisfy this need.

In more of an HN demographic context... I'm in the "socialization" camp.
College/university can serve a similar purpose as attending primary and
secondary schooling, i.e. to further develop your social skills with other
people as you age. While this can be found in other places, I'm not sure how
effective it can be for those of us who wouldn't otherwise go out of their way
to interact with others.

In the vein of preparing you to _do specific, non-obvious things_ , I would
agree with you that education is necessary; I do think we should get out of
the "high school -> college -> job" idea that seems to have turned into a
fallacy over the last decade or two.

Trade schools can be a good example of this; in my opinion, apprenticeship is
also a great alternative, though in the US those are -- as far as I know --
almost nonexistent.

------
jtdaugh
What about a CS student who gets a full-time job offer as a sophomore? Why
stick around and pay for school if you can instead be paid to get more
valuable real world experience.

~~~
lsc
Meh, maybe it's because I came of age during the first bubble... but I see
life as a series of opportunities that open and close; they open and close in
part based on your own attributes (e.g. you need to meet the minimum
qualifications for the job, and you need to apply or otherwise make yourself
available,) but also based on time, chance, and other things you don't
control.

I got out of high school and got my first programmer/sysadmin job in '97 or
so. (I had a few years of cable monkey and hardware/windows work in high
school.) - But that was almost entirely timing; The minimum requirements in
'97 were really low, due to the dot-com bubble; Pure luck, really. But then I
was able to learn enough that I made the cut when the minimum requirements
went way up after the crash. (There is no way I would have made that cut right
out of highschool.)

If I had gone to college... well, it was really, really hard to find a job in
my field with no experience, four years after '97. Maybe I would have learned
enough in school to make the cut, maybe not. Maybe I would have been able to
convince an employer that I was that good without paid work experience, maybe
not[1].

Also, if someone else is paying for school? that's a big opportunity there,
too, and it's possible that opportunity might not be there in a few years. (Is
it a bigger opportunity than a job in the field you want? I don't know.)

But that's how I'd look at it.

[1] As a sidenote... if you are badass enough to go to school and have a
job/internship in your field at the same time? that's best of all. Many of the
best people I know did that. It's really difficult to pull off, though. I
don't think I have what it takes to pull that off, not without stretching the
school over 8+ years.

------
lwhalen
I'm recycling a comment I made two weeks ago because it's relevant here, and
it saves me the typing and thought-bandwidth of retyping the exact same thing
in a slightly different way.

The absolute worst thing I've ever done for myself was to go to college. I had
a 50% scholarship towards one of THE top electrical engineering schools in the
country (not MIT, but you'd be in the right state if you were guessing), and I
toughed it out for four years. Due to financial aid f&ckery, I made the choice
to drop out with around half a year of credits left to complete my BS. I had
my own IT consulting business at the time, and I made a pretty decent run of
it for about a year at which point I realized I was a MUCH better 'technology
person' than 'business person'. I made the jump to full-time sysadmin for
other companies at that time, and haven't looked back since. NONE of the
skills I use today (either in my 'day job' as a nix sysadmin or 'real job' as
a musician/bandleader) came from my college experience. I had over $100k worth
of debt (slightly less now, almost 10 years later) and no degree. If I had to
do it all over again, I would've skipped college entirely, gone straight into
the 'failed' consulting business, and taken the extra four years of earnings
instead of the staggering amount of debt. I have never once felt limited due
to my lack of degree. The fact that I don't have one is easily eclipsed by
what I've achieved professionally, and companies have had no problem bringing
me on at top dollar (according to the various sysadmin salary surveys I read)
to do my thing.

I'm not saying my path is for everyone, and as always Your Mileage May Vary.
However, if I had a time machine I'd go back and slap my younger self around
until he decided to forgo college entirely :-) In my experience, it wasn't
worth it - from the 'you NEEEEEED a degree to get a good job!' perspective AND
the 'crushing amounts of debt' perspective.

------
rjvir
As a college student, I'm always torn about whether or not it is worth it to
get my CS degree. Sometimes, my classes seem really useless, but at other
times, I feel like I'm learning a lot socially at college.

~~~
rogerchucker
Unless you have a revolutionary and marketable idea and are 110% confident
about executing it with the utmost discipline that will guarantee something
that you can call "success", please stay in school. Sorry if my tone is dick-
ish - I'm just sick and tired of these debates about the value of college.

~~~
gailees
You'll never have that level idea unless you make it happen, and staying in
school is not the way to do that.

~~~
jamesaguilar
Which is why most successful startup founders are college dropouts. Wait.

(Btw, if you are being sarcastic and referring ironically to the last line of
the counterpoint, my apologies for misreading you.)

I would be interested to know whether there are any cohort studies on dropout
success. I know overall dropouts tend to make much less money and perform much
worse on many other metrics. However, that may simply be because the weak drop
out.

But overall, I guess it is an unsafe bet. If you can't seem to pursue your
passion with a few hours of classwork a day in your way, you're going to have
a hell of a time doing it while also working ten hour shifts as a waiter
because you couldn't get a more lucrative, easier job thanks to your lack of
higher education.

College is easy. If you can't pursue your passions while also doing college,
you're gonna have a problem either way.

~~~
jckt
I believe most drop-outs didn't drop out because they wanted to - ie family
problems, lack of funding, etc.

That's probably why the statistics favour the students.

------
saraid216
Since gailees's counterpoint is pretty lackluster, let me offer a different
one:

University was never meant to be a system of general education. But because of
the prestige garnered by graduates, it slowly began to be a status symbol.
Instead of being a system of truly advanced knowledge, it has become an extra
pipe on the education system, bringing to the table little intrinsic value.
The concept of the university, in short, has been eroded by its growing
recognition of the incapacity of its students. And because the university has
access to funding that the public school system does not, it was able to
expand itself to attempt to meet these needs; the price it paid was a loss of
vision.

Entire swaths of the university curriculum should be torn out and moved into
high schools, which in turn need to be re-conceived to produce fully-grown
adults who find the choice between going to college and going to work to be a
real choice. In such a world, the university is not at all necessary: it is
where you go for that above-and-beyond level of intellectual rigor, but that
is not a requirement for all people. Professor Holloway talks about the
discipline and structure a university provides, but I ask why this is absent
in the halls _before_ one reaches university. For it _must_ be, else these
particular characteristics would not define the common student's need.

The university is necessary only because it is our latest patchwork fix on a
system that is a conglomeration of patchwork fixes itself. If only Professor
Holloway had advocated his ideas for secondary education, and considered the
implications of such reform on the university due to the consequent changes in
the nature of the applicant, I would have agreed with him fully.

------
brandonhsiao
I think it's important to note that "is university necessary?" is not the same
as "should a person go to university?" The second question is largely
pointless because whether or not the university, as an institution, is
necessary is determined only by the mean benefit it provides to society.
Individually, everyone is different. College is for some people and not for
others.

------
Apocryphon
I would love to see the Onion's take on this point/counterpoint.

------
gailees
I wrote the counterpoint, and although I really respect Professor Holloway's
point, I really think his argument is stuck too much in the past.

~~~
chriwend
I think you're young and ignorant, you should stay and school and gain
perspective before moving to the real world.

~~~
stephengillie
I think you made an _ad hominem_ attack and your concept of the real world is
aged and out-of-touch.

~~~
corporalagumbo
I think it's an _ad hominem_ attack only when the character assertions bear no
relation to the argument at hand. In this case, for him to call the OP young
and ignorant is perfectly relevant, the implication being that he only
dismisses higher education because he is not experienced enough to realise the
value of it.

~~~
akiselev
It's not relevant to the argument if there is only a weak implication that
going to University would change the ignorant part, not to mention that he
provides no backing to the idea that if you go to college you will "grow up"
and become less ignorant. This smacks of a circular argument without actually
evidence.

~~~
corporalagumbo
His criticism isn't about the OP's lack of time at University, it's about his
lack of life experience. I mean, the guy's a sophomore at college, after all.
It's not outrageous to suggest that he's a bit naive and/or idealistic.

He doesn't need to provide a "backing for the idea" - Holloway's point did
that adequately. And for me, personally, reading the counterpoint just
convinced me of the validity of Holloway's argument further.

------
nickzoic
Even though I'm actually overall pretty positive on the value of higher
education, the argument lost me at:

> "The question is, “Can you be successful in truly meaningful ways without
> going to college?” The answer for most of you is “No.”"

... because it sets up two simultaneous No True Scotsmen: any given
counterexample can either be dismissed as not "truly meaningful success" or
not by "most people".

------
gailees
Higher education is important. College is optional.

------
jupiterjaz
Education is necessary. Schooling may not be.

------
praecipula
No, it's clear: university is not necessary. From a business perspective,
universities have been a bubble for some time now: as Americans, we're
expected to think and produce at the highest level of global citizens, to make
our people thought workers... and yet we bitterly lament the exporting of our
wealth to China to support manufacturing that we as the general public are too
holy to embrace. We sent those jobs over there and inflated unemployment by
expecting that everyone in the country become scholarly. It's unbalanced and
degrading to our people. Have you ever eaten artisanal food? Real Parmigiano-
Reggiano instead of shaky Kraft cheese? Real Boeuf Bourguignon instead of
Campbell's Chunky Cow Nuggets? Then you understand the value of tradesmanship,
of learning a craft. If we want to take back manufacturing, to reduce
unemployment, and to keep American products the pre-eminent craft in the
world, we need to get over ourselves. Americans are smart regardless of our
level of education. Let's stop degrading the working man, the trade skill
worker, the apprenticeship: the things that make us human are the things that
require a lifetime to master, not the ones that are learned from a book.
College is not always the answer. Not being haughty better-than-thous is the
answer. We should appreciate American craftsmanship. Meanwhile, I'll eat the
real Italian cheese while you eat the American cheez product. -From a college
graduate and Silicon Valley entrepreneur. And foodie, if it's not obvious.

