Lately my schedule has become horribly strict as full time school, part time work, books, and a particualr online game swallows my day whole with unhinged jaws. Nothing I can’t handle, but something that hasd been bothering lately is that I just don’t seem to be learning much from two of my college classes. The textbooks/ computer programs are as dry and boring as cardboard, and the professors don’t seem to be much better. Now in my experience, sitting down with a book or two you personally picked out based on various reviews and message board reccomendations is a great way to learn, and I’m finding often even more effective than some college classes. With this in mind, I’ve decided to read my required college math program, and one suggested here in an earlier thread. And after today’s class, I’m think about doing the same thing for another class of mine: Principles of programming. This is supposed to be a very basic programming class requiring very little experience in said topic, but the only people who can understand what the hell our professor is talking about are the people who have already taken similiar classes.
Then, right before I think of what additional book to buy for my programming class, I stop and think to myself: “Read new book? With what time? I hardly have time for the work I have to do now…and why the hell am I even thinking about this for the second time in a single semester? These classes aren’t serving their purpose. Teaching myself would be more efficient.” Right before I indulge my imagination into the possibilities of self education, I’m pulled right back in reality and remember that a degree is almost a necessity to be succesfull in life. Almost. It’s possible to be successful, but how many people are? For as long as I’ve been working, I’ve only had a handfull of coworkers my own age, all other’s have been around middle age. I really don’t know how these people are able to support families on the same paychecks I get. It’s mind boggling, and it’s something I really don’t want to investigate further twenty years from now.
But whose life is this? I want to be succesfull, but I don’t want to compromise a decade of my life. This is something we’re paying for, and sometimes I can’t help but think the money is just going to someone so they can keep records on me and give me a document down the road proclaiming my competence.
With having said that, some of these classes are usefull and have intrigued me, but still, I’m beggining to doubt their effeciency. Does anyone else ever feel like this? Am I perhaps just going through a wishy washy semester, or maybe I should look forward to a different college later?
If you decided to forget college and “teach thyself”, you’d need a lot of willpower to make sure you spent your time studying and not playing that online game. If nothing else, even the lousiest college gives you some structure.
That said, if you really feel you aren’t learning anything from your classes then they’re either bad classes or you’re not putting in enough effort. Either way, something needs to change.
It’s basically a game where you pay shitloads of money for the priviledge of paying shitloads of money for books with which to teach yourself. Then you teach yourself. Then, if you’re lucky and the school doesn’t dick you around and add requirements on you at the last minute (at the same time pretending that it’s all your fault), you’ll get a piece of paper which is somewhat usefull in obtaining a job. Sometimes.
College isn’t for everyone. I went for a year and a half and nearly went insane with boredom and depression. Luckily my interests were geared towards a field where there are a lot of self-taught people (computer science) and for the past few years I’ve been making an excellent living despite not having a degree.
Whatever you do, make sure you put a lot of thought into it first. It’s not a simple decision.
The big advantage of a college course is that when you finish the course it shows up on your transcript and you can say to your prospective employer-see I took a course on Underwater Basket Weaving, that proves I know how to do it! Rather than try to persuade the interviewer that you know what you are talking about without the transcript. Of course, sometimes different instructors offer sufficiently different material under the same titles, that one still might leave the course not knowing what the next interviewer will expect you to know.
One of my courses this semester is focused on designing web pages. it is supposed to be an introductory course. About half the class has designed one or more web pages before(many of us actully just plugged our information into a standard outline but did do the coding by hand). A few students are more experienced than that, a couple of them actually need a “complete idiots guide to computers” It has made our first couple of classes painful. Soon, though, the instructor promises we will get to the point where we spend most of the time working on our own projects.
I went the college route and really enjoyed it. My goal was to be a teacher, so I figured it really didn’t matter what I majored in. That allowed me to choose a subject I really liked in the first place. I majored in French, then went on to get an MA and not-quite a PhD in French Linguistics. My major also gave me the opportunity to live in France for several years at basically no cost–I even got paid to be there for two years. It’s also a subject that can’t really be self-taught. (I’ve been trying to teach myself Spanish for years, with very little progress.)
When it came time to find a job though, there just wasn’t a whole lot out there for French Linguists with a specialty in syntax. I ended up as a SAHM for a couple of years, then went to work for a retail computer store. Self-teaching mode went in high gear there. I taught myself to build computers, troubleshoot them, use a wide variety of programs. The place I worked paid for my to get my A+ certification and MOUS certification. Finally ended up teaching computer science classes at a local university, and I really enjoy it.
However, I often feel guilty about teaching students who are paying hundreds of dollars to take my classes, when I essentially learned it all for free. I sometimes feel like shaking some of the students by telling them that if they just took the textbook and went through it on their own, or even just got enough incentive to work on a project that WASN’T required for the class, they would get a LOT more out of it. Most of them, though, act like I’m torturing them when I expect them to understand what they’re doing. Yet, they are absolutely convinced that if they sit through the classes, do only the bare minimum, get C’s and a piece of paper that says they have an Associate’s degree, they will be able to make 70 grand a year the day they walk out of the auditorium with their diploma.
I do enjoy teaching students who want to learn. But I see myself as a mentor who should field questions and guide the students toward the answers to those questions, rather than a font of knowledge that they can drink from and understand everything perfectly.
You don’t need a degree to be successful in computer science, IF you are motivated enough to learn the stuff on your own. However, the degree can be an incentive to develop the motivation you need if you don’t have it already.
