Should Geeks Skip College?

WaldoJ sent us a link to a Forbes article about geeks and college. The question is if college is worthwhile or not. It was a 4.5 year time vacuum for me. Education can't really keep pace with "modern" technology, sure, learning theory and getting some practice never hurts, but if you're already a geek, is it a waste of time? This article seems to say so.

Comments

College provides experience

[dmaze]

I'm still an undergrad, but I'd argue that college so far has been a good experience for me. Classes have given me some experience working on big projects (e.g. writing a compiler); we get to work in teams, learn about testing, etc. with all the pressures of a Real-World (TM) big project but without the threat of, say, losing your job if you fail. In the Real World (TM) they don't make you do things like read the original papers about Unix or Ethernet. Punting college means you'll probably have more real-world experience, but you won't necessarily be clueful about the major successes and failures about the past 20 years.

But is it worthwhile? Up to the individual...

[JerkBoB]

I will agree that the pressures are different (a lower grade vs. looking for another job), but your assumption about not learning history is incorrect. Just because something is not required reading for a class assignment doesn't mean that someone who is on top of things won't read it on his own.

Perhaps your CS classes are/were different than mine, and bully for you if they are more well-rounded. Mine were pretty dry theory, so almost all of the interesting bits and history I learned on my own.

I don't think most people here would agree that there are no benefits to attending university. I do think that there is a growing number of people who are challenging the notion that to be successful in the technology field, one has to get a degree from some school.