After recently landing myself a new job as an (iOS) developer, I find myself wondering again what the true value of education is, at least as far as IT goes. I'm one of those truly self-taught developers. Started programming 'for fun' in the early 90s, discovered C++ in the late 90s, attempted IT course at college but dropped out due to sheer boredom. Currently I'm landing senior developer jobs with ease, even taking on duties I have had no real exposure to before, such as my current iOS development tasks. All thanks to a nicely padded resume. Is there truly any value in following a programming/IT course at a college or university, or should you just wing it in your spare time? I have heard people say that those who have followed an official course use the 'proper' techniques, but I'm not sure I'd agree with that. Looking at my own experiences I'd say that those who are self-taught generally have had a much broader exposure to different approaches and thus tend to pick what's right for a project. What's your take on this?
I personally think there's value in being self taught anything, especially after still experiencing the modern school system. If you teach yourself, you make the mistakes, you do things right and you enjoy it yourself, is that not better in most cases?
Everything I've learned myself I can still remember... Most of what i was taught at school I've forgotten...
Self taught is fine, and great for what you need - but you dont usually experience the depth you get on courses, which expose you to a massive array of different things. There is a significant amount of merit in being self taught - but you dont know what you dont know, and things like uni courses or it certifications can help open your mind to things Those that say what they dont' remember what they learnt at school are lying or don't realize what they did, because what you learn at school forms the basis of everything you do. Education is about expanding what you know, and self teaching is no different.
Well its clearly not very much use to you, since you are doing the job that you would be doing had you finished your college course. It just depends on what kind of person you are. Clearly the classroom doesn't work for you. For me, I find it a good way to learn something. Even just various week long courses and so on. Large amounts of info can be transferred over quickly from someone who is already trained in that information and also trained in how to pass it on. University degrees are definitely overrated. But I still think that they are worth doing for most people. Once completed they provide a good starting point to actually learning about your chosen field. To succeed without a degree you need to be highly motivated and interested in the field and most people will never be that interested or passionate in anything to be both successful and entirely self taught. Of course for things like engineering and computer science, being self thought isn't a bad way to go if it works for you. But I'm glad that doctors and surgeons go through rigorous training as opposed to figuring it out on the fly.
Self taught skills are invaluable, but there have been situations that I would have loved to go to a class to learn something. There have been many times that it would have been nice to as an experienced person how to do something instead of spending hours of googling trying to figure it out and never find the answer you were looking for. A lot of time courses give you well known shortcuts that make things so much easier. I do value the self taught route and that's how I learned most of what I know but I have also taken classes that have tremendously helped me and saved me a lot of wasted time trying to figure them out by my self. I still can't figure out how to make both of my network work together to get better throughput.
with coding learning has to be done in your spare time, and I honestly think learning a computer language is much like a verbal language. I've been trying to learn python (unsuccessfully) which as many know is an interpreted language. However I still find myself wondering if I should actually start at C considering I want to work more with my arduino, but python would allow me to understand a lot more linux based projects like blender, so I am torn between two start points. Oooo major side track... Up shot a university degree gives relevance to your ability, but if your self taught in coding then a portfolio and open examples of your work are just as good if not better. I wouldn't want a home/self taught surgeon however... lol!
Good point There always need to be another person checking your work if it's crucial enough, whether you're self-taught or via a course of some kind. With people messing about with your insides even more so I guess that the most important thing is that you have a passion for what you want to practice?
Having a passion certainly helps. It allows you to get much more deeply involved in the subject without considering it work, and thus, you naturally do more.
The more I acquire skills outside of formal education, the more I realize I didn't actually teach myself anything. I simply followed directions and used common sense to apply them, giving me experience. So knowing which directions to follow suddenly becomes of great importance. You really are better off with the best instruction available, it fills in so many small voids of knowledge that you might miss. And the benefit of an experienced mentor is priceless.
There are swings and roundabouts to either course of action. Make use of the positives and make sure you have a method for dealing with the positives (and probably do a mix of self taught and instructed learning as a way of balancing those things out).
This is essentially the 'Jack of all trades, master of none' scenario. Self-directed learning is fine to a point. You can pick up a few basic skills and end up doing a wide range of things at an amateur level. The result, as JJ pointed out, is that you may miss the smaller details that separate professionals from hobbyists. As for the original post: I guess it depends on your experience. You noted that you started programming in the 90s. How long were you programming before you got your first related job, and how long have you been developing that particular skill to the point that you are able to land management roles? 4 years? 6 years? It sounds like you weren't necessarily self-taught. Rather, your education came from your career rather than a classroom. Instead of having professors you had professional mentors (in the form of coworkers and managers). For example: I have a friend who has college degrees in Psychology and Latin, but through self-directed learning worked his way into entry level positions in IT. He nurtured his skills within his career, and now holds more senior positions. He doesn't have a formal IT degree, so while he does perform very well in certain IT functions, he lacks proficiency in a number of others (e.g. he only knows a couple of programming languages).
Although i did a btec I had taught myself the electronics before they taught it. My interest and motivation in electronics has seen me get my two jobs (which weren't advertised) and into one of the best unis in the UK! I have also never had an unsuccessful interview! I have never had a job I didn't want and have been fully employed since I was 16 now 19. I do feel lucky someone say I shouldn't as I have put a lot of hours in over the past years. But I don't feel they were work I enjoyed doing it and I wouldn't be doing anything else and I have easily learnt it.
The thing is, and I can only speak for programming, that while you can perfectly learn yourself how to write code, even become very good at it, that's not all you do in a formal education. I've only been a Computer Science student since october last year and in that time I've not only programmed a lot, in Python and C++, I've also learned about CPU architecture, designed (in software) a simplified MIPS processor myself - without any pre-made components, used a sort of assembly language to program for that processor, learned about data structures, complexity, automatons, the different binary systems… All accompanied by a relatively heavy maths course. Not all the most advanced stuff (hey, I'm in my first year), but especially the subjects so “close to the metal” made me realize fully what's running behind all the “magic stuff” in programming language. This way you get a much broader range of knowledge in a far shorter amount of time, I'd think. If you had to do all of this by yourself I have no doubt it would take much longer, since you'd need to search for all the information yourself and sort out what is valuable and what isn't. So, for me, there actually was a lot of value in following an education (up until now at least, can't speak for the 4 next years yet).
The OP doesn't say why the course was boring. Perhaps at a different institution etc. you'd have got on much better with it.
That's quite possible, sure. I'm not sure if it's just the colleges/universities here in the Netherlands, but essentially you are expected to rigidly follow the provided program and not deviate from it. That I already knew how to program in Java, C++, PHP and a few other programs did not matter. I had to start at the beginning. Showing the teacher an app I made in Java with Swing (calculator-type app) just resulted in him chastising me for wasting my time with something we wouldn't be doing for a while yet in that course. What I like the most about being self-taught is that I always get to set my own challenges and goals. Getting there is my rewards. If a course had offered something like that I might have felt motivated and encouraged to actually follow it instead of abandoning it due to a complete lack of interest from either side.
As a repair tech. Self Taught is honestly how you get by. There is nothing better than your own experience. I'm no programmer but I am a hardware tech guy. After years of working, there are so many little tricks you pick up. I think the problem with the programming field (and indeed most of IT) is that it's not like your standard business where there's a strict protocol and you have to follow it. Programming is a nebulous thing, not every fix can be repaired in the same way and not everything needs to be made exactly the same. But alas, people don't realize this. The thing about skills based courses is that it's hard to find a level field, I wouldn't begrudge the instructor (although chastising you is rather odd) but a rigorous protocol really doesn't work in most IT situations. Mainly because there's such a broad spectrum of skills needed. Having been in a rather diverse history of work for a 19 year old. I'll say this. Most of the regulations are absolutely pointless given that all of the work has multiple solutions.
It doesn't matter; you were in an introductory level course. While I commend you for showing the initiative to start learning the material on your own ahead of time, you need to realize that structured courses are designed to teach you a subject from the ground up. They are designed to ensure that you (and all of the other people in your class) are beginning with a solid foundation in the basics. Again, it's great that you taught yourself how to program a Java application, but don't confuse that with understanding the fundamentals. I'm curious what you expected from the instructor? I had a similar attitude when I was in school, though my experience was based in the arts, not computers. I was almost entirely self-taught in Photoshop, and by the time I was taking senior-level college courses I was frustrated that every course began with an assignment to create a color wheel. I was arrogant, and I always questioned why every art class I had taken since the 6th grade required me to create a color wheel. Now that I'm older and wiser, I understand. Don't underestimate the basics. Why did we always have to create color wheels? We did them so that the foundation of color theory would become innate. It's not uncommon for professional artists to go back from time to time and take basic courses. It never hurts to refresh basic skills, and you never know what new techniques you may have missed because you were too busy painting, drawing, or coding the same way you had been taught 10 years ago.
Depends alot on you as a person and how motivated you are. I was self taught in IT hardware and network repair, still got sent to the relivent Comptia and MS qualification stuff as the company wanted me certified as all there engineers had to be. Some jobs don't care 2 hoots worked in a local IT shop and he could not care I could do the job and that was enough for him. The bigger the organisation the more chance they will tell you to go and get the relivent certifications. As most advertise the fact that there engineers are all certified in online adds Ect.
