Comment by viccis
14 days ago
It doesn't help that a lot of the graduates I've talked to or interviewed seemed to treat a compsci degree as nothing more than a piece of paper they needed to get to be handed a high paying tech job. If you're motivated enough to learn enough job skills to be useful on your own then I guess you can treat your degree that way. But if you got through 4 years through cheating and minmaxing the easiest route possible and wound up with no retained skills to show for it? Congrats, you played yourself and fell for the "college is useless" meme. Coulda just skipped the student loans and bombed interviews without the 4 year degree.
> Coulda just skipped the student loans and bombed interviews without the 4 year degree.
I think college is useless for the ones out there whom already know how to code, collaborate and other skills the industry is looking for. Many out there are developing high level projects on GitHub and other places without having any degree.
Also, most of the stuff you learn in college has absolutely no relation to what you will do in the industry.
Personally, I disagree. Software engineering encompasses a lot more than frontend dev work. In previous engineering positions, I’ve used linear regression, evolutionary computation, dynamic algorithms, calculus, image processing, linear algebra, circuit design, etc. almost all of which I originally learned as part of my computer science degree.
Just because you won't use it doesn't mean it's not useful. Lots of programmers use math. Lots of programmers use DSA knowledge on a daily basis - and if you aren't you're probably writing bad code. I see a lot of O(n^2) code or worse making apps slow for no reason. Pretty basic stuff that most people don't understand despite taking a whole class on it.
Sure I learned lots of stuff I've never used. Like relational algebra. But I also learned lots of stuff I use a lot, and it's unlikely I'd have studied most of that stuff on my own. During my degree I also had time and opportunity to pursue lots of other topics outside the mandated course material, you're not limited to what they force you to learn.
So sure if you have the motivation, discipline and resourcefulness to learn all that stuff on your own go right ahead. Most people aren't even close. Most people are much better off with a degree.
> Lots of programmers use DSA knowledge on a daily basis - and if you aren't you're probably writing bad code. I see a lot of O(n^2) code or worse making apps slow for no reason
I don't think one can seriously argue that. This as much a meme as anything. I know it's popular to rag on devs writing inefficient software, but there's plenty of apps with functions where a user couldn't possibly notice the difference between O(n^2) and O(1). You wouldn't take the time to make everything O(1) for no speedup because someone told you that's what good code is, that's just wasting dev time.
In fact, one of the first things you learn is that O(1) can be slower. Constant time is not good if the constant is big and n is small.
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> motivation, discipline and resourcefulness
In my experience those that lack these do not have chance in tech in the first place, so save yourself lot of debt.
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It has happened several times - junior web devs can't find jobs, junior Java devs can't find jobs, etc... usually after a surge wave in the related tech area. We had large overall surge in tech around Covid time, and as usually there is some adjustment now.
The dotcom bubble had comp sci lecture halls with students overflowing into the hallway. I don’t blame people, it’s migratory. Jobs and resources are there, so, go there.
Then we blame the other group of students for not going there and picking majors where the jobs aren’t.
We need some kind of apprenticeship program honestly, or AI will solve the thing entirely and let people follow their honest desires and live reasonably in the world.
> AI will solve the thing entirely and let people follow their honest desires and live reasonably in the world.
I always find hilarious that people treat transformer tech as a public good. Transformers, like any other tech out there owned by large tech companies. Short of forcing the few companies who own the top models to abide to your rule, there is no chance OpenAI is going to give itself up to the government. And even if they did, it means nothing if Microsoft/Amazon/Google/etc do not provide you with the facilities to deploy the model.
A much realistic solution is that Big Tech will collude with governments to keep certain autonomy and restrict its use only for the elites