You left out the most important part - "why" - which merits representation in this tl;dr.
The author claims tomorrow's problems cannot be self-taught (listing the physics of hard drives, wearable computing). I'm honestly not sure if I agree with this. What about Coursera, Udacity, edX? The courses on these platforms are maturing at an alarming rate.
He's right about the prestige-whoring of large corporations. You won't get a fair shake at most of them without a PhD. However, he's also wrong about where The Future is coming from. Most likely, it'll be small elite consultancies that work for larger companies. Right now, these are the guys (and gals) supporting the top open source projects.
"But what if I want to learn about the physics that drive hardware performance? The materials science behind the next generation of wearable computing? Or what about how to bring electronics manufacturing back to the United States? "
1 and 2 you can ascertain through intensive reading and finding the right courses (which could cost money) - you have to be a pretty good autodidact but if you are, they're certainly possible. If you're not, then college will probably be a preferable path for learning most things - even stuff that's easily digestible online.
3 certainly isn't locked in academia; whether you can 'obtain' the knowledge from the field either is the interesting question. I'd guess the best way would be to just fail fast/iterate and hope you get the key pieces quickly.
He's making the right decision-- not having the college degree will hurt him in the future, and for quite a long time-- but I think some of what he's saying is wrong.
The most interesting technical problems of the next decade won’t be solved in areas of knowledge that can be self-taught, and most technical knowledge remains locked up in traditional academia.
Disagree strongly with "can't be self taught". Graduate school is mostly teaching yourself; guided self-study.
It's just hard to do that when you also have bills to pay. Perhaps a new startup idea: how to make MOOCs look like work (as in what you're paid to do). There's often too much motion in those videos, while you miss out on some detail if it's audio-only.
The next generation of innovation will come from larger organizations, where traditional credentials are more highly valued than in degree-agnostic web tech startups.
Half-true. It'll come from small elite consulting firms that serve larger companies. In-house innovation at large companies is a political rat's nest. Either the program gets ruined by "they have to follow the same rules as everyone else" policies or the R&D center becomes a true CoE (Center of Excellence) and then everyone capable wants to work in it. Either way, I don't many large companies will succeed at this.
It was somewhat different in the age of the paternalistic corporation. You could talk to your boss and say, "I want to be working in PARC/Google-X/Bell Labs in 5 years" and start the discussion about how to get there. Now, you let it be known that you have higher aspirations and your ass gets fired.
Want to work on the self driving car? That Ivy league engineering credential is your ticket onto that sort of team.
No undergraduate degree accomplishes that. The MIT and Harvard grads face closed-allocation bullshit like everyone else. A PhD might get you halfway there. Still, I think it comes down to politics in most of these organizations.
If I'm being unduly critical, I still believe OP is making the right decision (of going back and getting his college degree) but I don't buy into his particular reasoning. I don't think anyone knows where The Future is coming from, but established organizations are not it.
"It's just hard to do that when you also have bills to pay. Perhaps a new startup idea: how to make MOOCs look like work (as in what you're paid to do)."
This is the crux of the matter. With the current employment climate for new grads, education is an expense, not an investment. Employment in the tech sector is highly experience based, such that a college degree is only useful for entry level positions.
The problem we have to solve is how to allow for structured learning to occur in a system where learning is prohibitively expensive. This is independent of college costs, as even MOOCs require costs of living to be covered.
I wholeheartedly believe that we have quickly saturated the low hanging fruits of web and mobile app development. Future breakthroughs are sure to be in traditional high tech areas such as machine learning, material science, and advanced engineering. How we go about allowing people who are currently working with a salary the opportunity to upgrade their skills without massive debt is the trillion dollar question of the next decade.
How we go about allowing people who are currently working with a salary the opportunity to upgrade their skills without massive debt is the trillion dollar question of the next decade.
Maybe "Can't" is too strong but some areas are very hard to self-teach. One reason is stumbling blocks. In academia you have TAs and fellow students who can spend half an hour explaining you a hard concept. Asking on stackexchange cannot always beat that.
The other reason is motivation. In academia you are being prodded towards the next milestone. On your own you need to set own milestones and find internal motivation to reach each one.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 37.1 ms ] threadThe author claims tomorrow's problems cannot be self-taught (listing the physics of hard drives, wearable computing). I'm honestly not sure if I agree with this. What about Coursera, Udacity, edX? The courses on these platforms are maturing at an alarming rate.
Disclosure: I'm a full-time student.
He's right about the prestige-whoring of large corporations. You won't get a fair shake at most of them without a PhD. However, he's also wrong about where The Future is coming from. Most likely, it'll be small elite consultancies that work for larger companies. Right now, these are the guys (and gals) supporting the top open source projects.
1 and 2 you can ascertain through intensive reading and finding the right courses (which could cost money) - you have to be a pretty good autodidact but if you are, they're certainly possible. If you're not, then college will probably be a preferable path for learning most things - even stuff that's easily digestible online.
3 certainly isn't locked in academia; whether you can 'obtain' the knowledge from the field either is the interesting question. I'd guess the best way would be to just fail fast/iterate and hope you get the key pieces quickly.
The most interesting technical problems of the next decade won’t be solved in areas of knowledge that can be self-taught, and most technical knowledge remains locked up in traditional academia.
Disagree strongly with "can't be self taught". Graduate school is mostly teaching yourself; guided self-study.
It's just hard to do that when you also have bills to pay. Perhaps a new startup idea: how to make MOOCs look like work (as in what you're paid to do). There's often too much motion in those videos, while you miss out on some detail if it's audio-only.
The next generation of innovation will come from larger organizations, where traditional credentials are more highly valued than in degree-agnostic web tech startups.
Half-true. It'll come from small elite consulting firms that serve larger companies. In-house innovation at large companies is a political rat's nest. Either the program gets ruined by "they have to follow the same rules as everyone else" policies or the R&D center becomes a true CoE (Center of Excellence) and then everyone capable wants to work in it. Either way, I don't many large companies will succeed at this.
It was somewhat different in the age of the paternalistic corporation. You could talk to your boss and say, "I want to be working in PARC/Google-X/Bell Labs in 5 years" and start the discussion about how to get there. Now, you let it be known that you have higher aspirations and your ass gets fired.
Want to work on the self driving car? That Ivy league engineering credential is your ticket onto that sort of team.
No undergraduate degree accomplishes that. The MIT and Harvard grads face closed-allocation bullshit like everyone else. A PhD might get you halfway there. Still, I think it comes down to politics in most of these organizations.
If I'm being unduly critical, I still believe OP is making the right decision (of going back and getting his college degree) but I don't buy into his particular reasoning. I don't think anyone knows where The Future is coming from, but established organizations are not it.
This is the crux of the matter. With the current employment climate for new grads, education is an expense, not an investment. Employment in the tech sector is highly experience based, such that a college degree is only useful for entry level positions.
The problem we have to solve is how to allow for structured learning to occur in a system where learning is prohibitively expensive. This is independent of college costs, as even MOOCs require costs of living to be covered.
I wholeheartedly believe that we have quickly saturated the low hanging fruits of web and mobile app development. Future breakthroughs are sure to be in traditional high tech areas such as machine learning, material science, and advanced engineering. How we go about allowing people who are currently working with a salary the opportunity to upgrade their skills without massive debt is the trillion dollar question of the next decade.
I agree. Trillion dollars is not an underestimate, even though we sound insane when we use those numbers: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/programmer-au...
The other reason is motivation. In academia you are being prodded towards the next milestone. On your own you need to set own milestones and find internal motivation to reach each one.