[ale] CS Degree necessary?

[James P. Kinney III]

This is one of the best responses I've seen yet to the "degree vs.
non-degree" discussion. 

I have a bias in this. At the age of 30, I went back to school to finish
my degree. I changed my major once (to physics) and went straight
through to complete my masters degree. I have taught college physics
labs for 5 years, as a senior undergrad, a grad student, and after
graduation as the lab coordinator at Emory University.

At 18, one has NO CLUE about why all that boring crap they are not
interested in is important. 

At 30, I could see how understanding literature could help me to
understand the insane actions of a boss. Homer (not Simpson) was a
brilliant portrayor of the fallibilities of humans. As was the Bard and
all the other literature classics we all blew off in high school.

I turn 40 this year. (I intend on getting _very_ drunk to honor the
passing of a life milestone (as well as the end of a fiscally crappy
year)) This past year, I have also seen how the lack of this broad-based
knowledge acquired (and retained) by the modern, university,
degree-seeking student adversely affects those who have to work as a
subordinate to the "I am self-taught" person. While the self-taught
person is often extremely capable in their narrow field, they are often
lacking in the most important aspect of adult life, communication. That,
above all else, is what the bachelor's degree aims to teach to students.
Sure, the student will learn some specific tools relevent to their
chosen field. But faculty meetings are about finding ways to teach
students to communicate both what they know and what they don't. 

Anyone who skips this student process misses out on tens of thousands of
man years of effort to discern the most effective ways of inducing
people to voice their misunderstandings and espouse their understandings
to others. This is important because it is the process that injects the
literate, communicative people into society where they, in consort with
others like them, cajole society as a whole to strive for something
better than they are now. They are the catalysts for progress that sets
the timber of development that leads to a better world for all.

Every one who can perform the difficult should seek a degree if for no
other reason than the personal gratification of accomplishing an arduous
task. If by some small chance they discover a way to improve the lot of
mankind in the process, however minute, then their effort along the
journey will be remembered by all of those whose lives are directly
touched by their knowledge and efforts. 

Those who have the ability to "do well" with out the degree are those
who will astound the world with their talents while achieving it. 

On Fri, 2002-01-18 at 21:12, Vernard Martin wrote:
> On Thu, 2002-01-17 at 03:33, Matt Shade wrote:
> I have tried to keep my mouth shut on this particular topic but I guess
> my better judgement has finally lost the battle.
> 
> There seems to be a general consensuse that computer science degrees are
> mostly useless in the technical field. While it may be true that many
> folks without computer science degrees are great programmers, blah blah
> blah, do not fool yourself into thinking that folks without CS degrees
> know the same things as folks with CS degrees.
> 
> I'm speaking from the stance of someone that has a couple of degrees in
> computer science and trying desparately to finish off a third. Simply
> put, a CS degree means is that you have supposedly been exposed to the
> various theory and rationals behind much of what physical computers are
> based on. And you ahve supposedly been given time to properly learn
> these theories and think about them and ponder them in an environment
> that isn't as harsh as the real world. While it is often true that the
> academic environment is the least useful place to learn these skills, it
> is sometimes the ONLY place some of these skills will be learned.
> 
> I'm willing to bet that most of the folks doing the really innovative
> design work on motherboards, cpus, video cards and operating systems are
> not the folks that dropped out of engineering school or just learned it
> all in the basement. Don't fool yourself just because some folks can do
> without a formal education does not mean that is useless.
> 
> V
> 
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-- 
James P. Kinney III   \Changing the mobile computing world/
President and COO      \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244             \.___________________________./

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7 



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