site banner
greyenlightenment  investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...  1yr ago (greyenlightenment.com)   2821 thread views

Why the college bubble won’t pop

greyenlightenment.com
12
Top Bottom New Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

College is not, if you're smart and capable, a useful way to learn to code in any sense.

It's possible that a useful conception of "learn to code" is narrower than I'm contemplating here, but for much of the work I'm used to in the tech industry learning to code is a fairly small part of what's taught and what's needed skillwise from a college education. There is absolutely an employment niche for people whose skill is only coding doing fairly deterministic work; web pages still (arguably?) need to be built, UI widgets plugged into backend widgets plugged into backend databases and so forth, but the people I see out of boot camps and the like have basically zero background in even the theory of building large-scale robust software systems that use CPU and memory efficiently. It's that latter group, usually with at least a bachelor's and often advanced degree, who are the ones making a serious career of it.

That probably sounds elitist AF, but as somebody who was arguably the best programmer in my high school I'd still have been a hot mess at any software engineering job without even the unevenly rigorous computer science classes I got at my (otherwise very good) liberal arts school.

That said, and despite that I endorse the value of college coursework for software engineering jobs, I'm still suspicious of the general case of a college education causing better outcomes vs being correlated with better outcomes.

forth, but the people I see out of boot camps and the like have basically zero background in even the theory of building large-scale robust software systems that use CPU and memory efficiently

Bootcamps are much worse than college, certainly, but if the goal is to learn "the theory of building large-scale robust software systems that use CPU and memory efficiently", college really is not an efficient or particularly useful way to do so versus experimenting and reading - if you're very capable in any case. And the most impressive "large-scale robust software systems that use CPU and memory efficiently" that I know personally come from people who were self-taught and then learned by reading, talking to people, and doing.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats