My son is completely self-taught in programming. After correcting for inflation his first professional job didn't pay all that much more than my first professional job. ;) I went through four zero income years for less.;(
That said I made a career of developing military electronic systems (no education in either the military or electronics) involving computer hardware and software (no education in either) but self taught in all four fields plus project management methodology learned on the job. A BS in physics got me a job to do completely unrelated things. The sheepskin is what the employer looks for which is why you got one. But even then I had an unsolicited offer from ORNL after only two years of the BS work if I was willing to become a programmer.
Perhaps software is the only field where this self-learning is practical.
I prefer to look at it differently based upon that long digression. Programming is the only new discipline since the invention of science back in the Renaissance. All the old fields are stuck in the old mold of acolytes studying religion in colleges which was later extended to studies in other fields <em>in addition to</em> becoming a priest.
What we all do once in the real world is learn what we need to learn regardless of the academic degree. Even in the academic version of the real world, a PhD professor, they are so narrow in their specialization they do not use 90% of what they learned. They do the same thing the rest of us do.
We have a model and it works even for the college dropouts who lead the companies which lead the fastest growing and newest industry in the world. We are not hide-bound to medieval schooling methods and it works better than great. It is really the way most people learn the subjects that are how they earn a living. It is about time the rest of the world at least give it a try.
I do not remember his name but a few years ago I read a couple articles on how to get an education for free as long as you were not interested in just getting the provers, the sheepskin.
He pointed out the universities have their course offerings online along with the texts and readings. If your city has a university the texts can mostly be found in used book stores near it or try eBay or whatever. You can complete the degree materials on your own. Of course you don't get tests and feedback on papers but you can find papers online after you write yours and see if they measure up. In technical fields there are plenty of answer books for the "even numbered problems" to test yourself against.
While there is some rationale for having the last year of study on campus where the cheats can be weeded from the reals, if you just want the knowledge there is no need to pay an arm and a leg for it.
But there is a field which says your degree is great but you still have to pass a final, the law and you have to pass the bar exam. Granted that is only to practice in court but there is no reason this idea cannot be extended to any degree field.
Is this an unworkable idea? How many of us are actually doing anything we learned in college? I mean you learned several languages but which ones are you using now? How many are addressing problems that existed back in college? In fact in this field there are more who started programming as kids and never got the sheepskin than there have ever been child prodigies in music or any other field. Why should it be different for any other field?
Authored Comments
[There is a reason for this long preamble.]
My son is completely self-taught in programming. After correcting for inflation his first professional job didn't pay all that much more than my first professional job. ;) I went through four zero income years for less.;(
That said I made a career of developing military electronic systems (no education in either the military or electronics) involving computer hardware and software (no education in either) but self taught in all four fields plus project management methodology learned on the job. A BS in physics got me a job to do completely unrelated things. The sheepskin is what the employer looks for which is why you got one. But even then I had an unsolicited offer from ORNL after only two years of the BS work if I was willing to become a programmer.
Perhaps software is the only field where this self-learning is practical.
I prefer to look at it differently based upon that long digression. Programming is the only new discipline since the invention of science back in the Renaissance. All the old fields are stuck in the old mold of acolytes studying religion in colleges which was later extended to studies in other fields <em>in addition to</em> becoming a priest.
What we all do once in the real world is learn what we need to learn regardless of the academic degree. Even in the academic version of the real world, a PhD professor, they are so narrow in their specialization they do not use 90% of what they learned. They do the same thing the rest of us do.
We have a model and it works even for the college dropouts who lead the companies which lead the fastest growing and newest industry in the world. We are not hide-bound to medieval schooling methods and it works better than great. It is really the way most people learn the subjects that are how they earn a living. It is about time the rest of the world at least give it a try.
I do not remember his name but a few years ago I read a couple articles on how to get an education for free as long as you were not interested in just getting the provers, the sheepskin.
He pointed out the universities have their course offerings online along with the texts and readings. If your city has a university the texts can mostly be found in used book stores near it or try eBay or whatever. You can complete the degree materials on your own. Of course you don't get tests and feedback on papers but you can find papers online after you write yours and see if they measure up. In technical fields there are plenty of answer books for the "even numbered problems" to test yourself against.
While there is some rationale for having the last year of study on campus where the cheats can be weeded from the reals, if you just want the knowledge there is no need to pay an arm and a leg for it.
But there is a field which says your degree is great but you still have to pass a final, the law and you have to pass the bar exam. Granted that is only to practice in court but there is no reason this idea cannot be extended to any degree field.
Is this an unworkable idea? How many of us are actually doing anything we learned in college? I mean you learned several languages but which ones are you using now? How many are addressing problems that existed back in college? In fact in this field there are more who started programming as kids and never got the sheepskin than there have ever been child prodigies in music or any other field. Why should it be different for any other field?