Agreed entirely, but the cost of a US college degree is often more about the credential level signaling and showing that you were tenacious enough to win the college entrance competition than it is about acquiring skills.
I don't know how I would have learned how to become an RF engineer if it weren't for a four year BSEE that focused heavily on DiffEq, Complex Math, Fields & Waves, and Discrete Systems... and access to patient and friendly (mostly) professors for help during open office hours, which were a necessity (for me, anyway).
I'm pretty sure I would not have been able to teach this to myself with YouTube videos. But maybe you've had better luck?
Some fields are exceptions to this rule. Those fields represent a small fraction of all degrees awarded per year. Yours (and mine) are part of that exception.
> RF engineer if it weren't for a four year BSEE that focused heavily on DiffEq, Complex Math, Fields & Waves, and Discrete Systems
You can learn all of this by yourself.
> I'm pretty sure I would not have been able to teach this to myself with YouTube videos.
YouTube videos suck for serious learning of non-visual activities. Written resources, particularly books, are optimal. People like to pretend that it's hard to figure out what you need to learn, but just taking a look at syllabuses and assigned readings and what the "best" books in the field are will get you plenty far.
> access to patient and friendly (mostly) professors
For many majors you can find decent help online, but often crossreferencing between different books will provide just as good results as talking to a professor.
Lectures are extremely inefficient.
The hardest part is not being able to find answer manuals, particularly with graduate-level books. Usually you can find alternatives.
No, and I know this for a fact because I'm me, and you're not. But thanks for telling me I'm wrong that I can't learn something without a tutor. That's a new twist on mansplaining. I guess I'm happy for you that you are so smart.
I agree with you. I learn by listening and collaborating. That is an environment you don't get online or learning by yourself. I learned best when I went to school and even though I totally had access to all the resources outside of school, just reading something doesn't mean you understand at it. Having an expert being able to sort of validate your way of thinking (or invalidate if you are stuck on an issue) is really valuable to me.
I really missed out by not asking for help my first year as an undergrad. With very few exceptions (maybe 2 out of 20?), every single professor was excited to explain things 1:1. My current partner is a professor and feels delighted when students don't give up and ask for help. If it weren't for freshman year I would have been a 4.0 (er, out of 4.0), so it really galls me that the arrogant commenters above insist that college is worthless or just a name game. Yes, I agree prices are out of control. That's an absolute fact. And were there boring lectures? Sure, once and a while: hell, I was 18 when I started. But overall the lectures, recitations and labs were spot on. It was like drinking from a firehose, and sometimes you need help. But to just shit on the entire institution as a scam overall is just plain sad and IMHO a political posturing of the right wing trying to demonize education. Yep, I went political.
In theory it's surely possible to do so. As you mention having professors to help you when you see having issues understanding things, etc. can be amazingly helpful, but I imagine someone sufficiently motivated could teach themselves. The difference is they will unlikely be able to find gainful employment as an RF engineer, which goes in hand to what GP suggests.
Everything I have in life is from networking effects in college, from landing my first research position in undergrad. Grades don't matter, I was an average student. Networking effect is everything in life, in any field. Maximize your ability to network.
>Networking effect is everything in life, in any field. Maximize your ability to network.
Networking isn't everything but it's definitely the lion's share. Anyone who paints the world as a meritocracy is disillusioned, but it helps to have merit to fall back on. There are many who get through life and succeed financially almost entirely through networking and situation.
I'd add some nuance to that - in my experience, networking is a multiplicative (not additive) effect to your actual skills. You can get a letter of recommendation from a Nobel Prize winner, but even then it has to say something other than "Liz Lemon numbers among my employees", you know?
Interesting. Did you go to an Ivy league, cause I went to a state school and I haven't used networking for anything ever. Granted, I've only worked at GAFAM and they hire tons of people so that could be part of it.
I went to a state school, and my entire professional career is due to the friends I made there. College was a very rough time for me, and I wasn't getting many interviews with my resume (really poor GPA, no internships, no extracurriculars, etc). A friend hooked me up with a job at a startup and landing interviews since has been no problem.
This isn't a glamorous story where my network made me a millionaire, but my life would be much worse having not made those friends back then.
Internships definitely help (GAFAM uses them like extended interviews for full time offers). I also think it helps that my gpa was ok (3.05) and the school i went to (purdue) was highly ranked enough and big enough that we had entire recruiting teams come out to our career fairs which is where I got my first internship. Some companies even sent out employees for an entire week to our campus to do interviews for internship and new grad hiring.
I went to a state school, albeit R1 which has a lot more funding and therefore opportunities, but I believe every state flagship is R1 anyway. Actually this in state school was cheaper than some other in state schools that were considered party schools/easier academically. Were you recruited at a career fair? fangs always had a big presence at our biannual fairs and people I knew seemed to have no issues finding internships coast to coast.
I went to purdue so we had absolutely massive career fairs and I got my first CS internship at GAFAM through one. After that, it hasn't been hard getting interviews at the other ones.
Agree that one should maximize networking, but college is not required to do so. Find like minded people where ever you are, always be seeking opportunities (learning, revenue generating, and all others) and avoid credentials and their associated costs. Be able to get the work done, learn how to when you can’t, and be enjoyable to work with, that’s most of what a job is.
This is my experience too. I haven't exactly avoided credentials as a principle (I have a BEng), but I totally agree with "Be able to get the work done and enjoyable to work with".
Do a good job, be secure in your abilities, have empathy for others. I'm a freelancer of 13 years with a lot of happy clients and – before I started living off-grid – I'd earn a month's rent in half a day. Now I don't have rent or mortgage.
Sure, I haven't climbed any corporate ladder, but I hope that in a decent company you can be those things and also do well.
8/9 went to law school at Harvard or Yale (the Notorious R.B.G. went to Columbia Law).
For undergrad, 3 went to Princeton, 1 to Columbia (not RBG, interestingly), 1 to Harvard, 1 to Yale, 1 to Cornell, 1 to Stanford, and 1 to Holy Cross.
That's evidence that signaling matters in a law degree, but the larger context of this discussion is of an undergraduate degree and I don't think the signalling is as strong there.
I agree regarding undergrad mattering less than law school, but as long as we're splitting hairs about RBG, let's split them correctly! =)
She and her husband both went to Harvard Law, though the husband started and graduated one year earlier. He then got a job at a New York law firm and RBG transferred to Columbia to stay near him. She completed her third year at Columbia and received their law degree.
Harvard Law actually has a rule (adopted later) where you can complete your third year elsewhere and still receive a Harvard degree. They offered this degree to RBG, who refused it[1]. So technically you're right that she's a Columbia Law grad, though it's not a stretch to call her a Harvard Law grad as well.
I think for the 99% university contacts are not a useful "network". What good are a bunch of entry level employees to you? By the time anyone you've graduated with is in a position to help you out you've already been working for at least 10 years, and your more recent professional network is where the value will be.
So unless you are in the Skull and Bones and your frat bro's uncle is an executive at Goldman Sachs, and that uncle was a frat bro with your Dad who's an executive at Morgan Stanly, no.
But, a college education is still a valuable thing for getting a job. Depending on what classes you take anyway.
> Genuine question as I haven’t been to college (yet?): is this actually a thing? I’ve also heard it doesn’t help with that.
As someone who DIDN'T network in college and compares to peers who did - it is utterly devastating. It is hugely influential.
Admittedly, your networking won't matter as much if there isn't high movement from the school to your work region... In my case, I went to a school where most of the student body had no intentions of leaving the region. I was also in an extremely anti-social department that was overly competitive.
Speaking as a UK university grad (14 years ago), this was absolutely not a thing for me. I made some friends, but went into web development at a small company rather than a large grad training scheme. I spent a year there and I have been self-employed ever since. I think precisely none of my career development has been due to my university-related network.
But perhaps it is different at US colleges (or for others in the UK). I personally couldn't wait to put academia behind me and get into the real world.
I now live off-grid in Central Portugal. I have clients I still work for, and I get referrals to new clients too. I'm also starting a wireless ISP here, which is great for networking and meeting people :-)
Yes, it's absolutely a thing. I don't know how experiences vary, but Alex Azar, the current secretary of health and human services, former president of Eli Lilly, was an alumni of my frat.
I've also hit up random alums at various companies who have given me referrals, there are a lot of friends of friends who are in pretty good positions, such as founder/CEO/partner at various companies and VCs that will be willing to chat with you if you happen to know someone they're connected to that can vouch for you. I was actually interviewing with a company, and I found out the CEO was an alum of my school, and we had a lot of fun talking about college.
You can learn almost everything you can learn in university outside of it. The true value are the people you’ll meet that share the same interests as you do. Life is hell a lot of easier if you know the right / enough people.
My connections helped me little. If I just worked during that time I think I would have been way farther up on the hard metrics of career progress.
Not to say that I didn't get anything out of college. The campus radio stations introduced me to people who have had a tremendous amount of influence on me.
Sure. Read bios to research career trajectories. For example, read the bios of billionaires of who made a lot their money via renumeration. Cheryl Sandberg, for example. Steve Ballmer. Made their connections in college.
In most cases, you participate in the world through other people. How much you use your connections is up to you, but such connections allow you to traverse quickly and deeply through the space of opportunities.
I depends on the school, but networking matter a lot. I'm not saying that it should, but it really seems to.
Outside of ambition, the people matter too.
I know a lot of marriages that started in college. I've met a lot of my best friends there too. Some of my professors changed my life, and not in a textbook way, but in a human way. I made a lot of mistakes there, and I know a lot of people did too. But it was college, you're kinda supposed to make mistakes and grow from them. Take the wrong major, kiss the wrong person, say the wrong thing, etc.
I'm not saying that you can't have those experiences elsewhere. Most people do.
But the structure of the place makes it a lot easier to meet other people your age, fall in love, fall out of love, have your opinions challenged, listen to some great/terrible music, imbibe too much of the wrong thing, get help on classwork, etc. You can still not opt into it, of course. And you can do that almost anywhere too.
But it's a lot easier.
Virtual classrooms aren't going to replace that. Honestly, until we get a vaccine, that's all kinda on hold. Sorry class of 2020 :(
> Also about networking and friendships formed during college
I've never been as lonely as I had been during my first few years of college. I had no friends basically. People always got up and left the classrooms after classes were over -- no one hung around to socialize. I was depressed and extremely lonely, and rarely talked to any human beings, and mostly spent my free time on my laptop filled with an ocean of sadness. In my later years in college, I did make some friends, a few of which (like around 3 or 4 friends) have turned into life-long friends. And I'm extremely happy about those.
But people seriously need to stop selling/touting college as some great social place. It emphatically was not during my first two years). The "social aspect" absolutely does not justify spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on college. You can find friends through events on meetup, or joining a social group (like a club that teaches to code, or a writer's group, or a music/singing group, or a church/religious group, etc). There are plenty of groups like this that are open to anyone in most major metropolises in the US. I've also made online, on Reddit and other sites. People randomly start chatting with me after seeing one of my comments.
You absolutely don't need to and shouldn't spend hundreds of thousands just for the social aspect of college.
That is extremely contrary to my experience. I could code a little bit before college but I learned more math, abstraction, theory of computation. I have never encountered anyone from my school professionally, but it was a modest state school. I did a ton of programming and that always mattered the most when I interviewed for jobs - what could I do and demonstrate right then. I have to ask, were you in engineering, where your connections mattered?
I tend to agree but online courses allows school to admit more people. Therefore the value of that limited resource should go down, along with the price. Although Harvard hasn't announced an increase in first year admittance, I suspect if this is succesful they will start to increase enrollment and therefore should bring the cost down.
Not without increasing capacity of professors, TAs, and administrators, and then the facilities to support all that new staff. Campus facilities for students is only one part of the cost structure.
Stanford's all-online CS106A ("Code in Place") in the Spring quarter was organized in about two weeks and fairly successfully scaled all aspects of instruction to ~1000 online learners.
Curious how they scaled. Just threw money/TAs at it? The limiting factor in my department with expanded online offerings is the number of people willing and able to sacrifice currently strictly limited on campus research hours to TA. There are a finite number of students that a given TA can handle, and it quickly can be an overwhelming amount of work responding to emails and grading.
I would think the majority of non-rich Harvard students don't pay much. For undergraduate studies if you want to attract the best students you have to offer very generous scholarships. Otherwise they would lose students to other top schools. This is true for all schools, but the rich schools like Harvard have the funding to actually do it. I've met a couple of students who paid full tuition at Harvard, but both came from very wealthy families so it wasn't an issue. Schools know in advance the financial situation of applicants and plan accordingly.
I'm sure no small number of people will defer next year. Looking back at college me, I would lean on the side of not signing my college town lease, deferring for the year, and living with my parents in my hometown for a year along with the rest of my local friends (many of which have in fact escaped NYC and other cities rents and returned to their parents home for this work from home period).
Maybe you could work on something on github for your resume during this gap, but I'm anticipating given the absolute chaos this pandemic has caused worldwide, employers aren't going to care if you've failed to secure an internship in a time when no one is hiring, or that you preferred to take more engaging in person coursework rather than watch live action youtube lectures for exorbitant fees.
On the other hand, if there are a lot of students deferring, there is a huge line behind them willing (and able!) to get into Harvard. Harvard and other elite institutions will not suffer for students for quite a while.
If you want to take a year off you can come right back the next year if you've already been admitted. I'm not sure what incoming freshman are thinking, but for current students, why the hell would you not take a year off?
If anything, I'd think the choice of incoming freshman is even clearer assuming they can defer--including financial arrangements. I'm sure they could find something better to do than severely compromised campus activities that might revert to full-on remote a month into the fall term.
The price isn't set on the cost to deliver, at all.
It's based on ability to pay, which is based on available credit, which is based on whatever bankers can get away with saying lifetime earnings will be.
For whom? We're going to save ~0 QALY with this decision, but we're going to derail a lot of people's life plans and probably contribute to a lot of deaths of despair.
With any knowledge worker job posting, there are hundreds of perfectly qualified candidates, maybe thousands. The knowledge taught at Harvard is already disseminated. You don't learn anything different with an undergraduate degree at Harvard than you would with a degree at directional state. The difference is now you know professor X, who lets you work on his super cool project Y, then employer Z sees you did project Y with well known professor X, who wrote a letter with nothing but high praise of your intimate accomplishments on project Y and why you are therefore extremely qualified, and you get a great job.
To break the system would be to snap your fingers and will more knowledge worker jobs into existence to meet the oversupply of qualified candidates, but given our free market society and increasing disfavor of public engineering and public research, that just isn't ever going to happen. So you try and play the game as it is the best you can, and apply to schools like Harvard with faculty who can push your life forward.
In a world of imperfect information, how do you prove to a stranger that you are knowledgable, in less than a full day of interaction?
That remains the problem, and credentials/prestige remain our best way of dealing with it. In other fields you develop portfolios (e.g. github repos) perhaps that's what education will evolve to, developing a student work portfolio to prove you are knowledgable.
As someone without a degree and making market rate or better, I agree (and I started when there weren't so many online options)
Of course the hard part is getting hired without that rubber stamp, but there are many options (many have an idealized idea of what your career will look like, but that's often disconnected from reality)
Did you leverage this approach to optimize terrain rendering/add detail on devices where hardware tessellation is not supported? Lovely algorithm in any case. [Edit: Just remembered the limitation is with WebGL itself, doh.]
