On 3/26/08, Stuart Jansen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Well, sure, if you enjoy installing and maintaining someone else's > software or writing yet another method to push bits back and forth from > a database, why even bother getting any degree?
Or if you enjoy actually working on interesting problems instead of proving you can crank out the same crappy 4-month (at most) assignments that students have been working on for the last 20 years, why bother indeed? Don't make the mistake of thinking that the world hasn't changed since you were 18. It has. (Talking mainly to the 30+ crowd here, like me.) You know this already at some level but the implications haven't all sunk in. Today's motivated 18 year old could easily have been contributing to OSS for four years or more. The kind of employer he wants to work for -- and they are out there; not everyone is stuck in the 20th century -- will value this. As for "the stuff you don't learn on the job," could you learn at least as well from MIT's opencourseware or Berkeley's, as from a local school? (Berkeley has more video content for now, incidently.) I think you could. Yes, interaction with professors blah blah blah but be honest, how much time did you spend in your professor's office hours? That's what I thought. Today "get a BS" is the default choice for people who want to make a career out of programming, but it's not the only one anymore. The next 10 years will see this trend continue. -Jonathan /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
