Comment by const_cast
10 months ago
Those students do exist, but there are an exceedingly small minority. Of course, they won't tell you this, because everyone likes to believe they're self-motivated. Most people just aren't.
The simple question to ask is, when you go home, what do you do? If the answer is learn how to sew or work on your project car you've had for 10 months, you can probably learn on your own. If your answer is watch TV, play video games, go on a walk - then you can't, and you should go to university. Some people have told me this question is unfair. I mean, they're so tired from work, of course they want to relax. Well, guess what - your life doesn't stop if you're learning how to code on your own or whatever. If that's all it takes for you to not do it, then you don't have what it takes.
How often are people picking up new and complex skills that takes years to get the hang of? Almost never. So there you go, most people require a formal, structured education to pull that off.
There are plenty of students studying out of interest. It's very common to e.g. study excess courses. Many doing their theses can work very independently and go way beyond what's required.
Highly self-driven students are a minority, but not a rarity. People do things out of being interested and enjoying learning. It shouldn't be a surprise in a website called hacker news.
Speaking as someone who studied excess courses back in the day, I still agree with the GP. There's a big difference between being able to pursue random sparks of interest (as might someone picking up a course they find interesting) and consistently studying even when you aren't necessarily inspired by the material, or when the material is so hard it stops being fun. I spend a lot of time working on projects in my spare time even today, but I can think of only one case where I worked anywhere near as hard on one of those as I did on the projects for my university's OS course, or compilers course, or etc. Even students who do regularly go above and beyond would likely struggle without the structure to A) tell them what to learn, B) give them motivation -- because of course many students who do go the extra mile are still motivated by grades, prestige, research opportunities, etc.