The Value of Education

Anybody who knows me knows well that I value education. I have studied countless languages, formally trained in both locksmithing and herbal medicine, achieved a third degree black belt in taekwondo, and earned an associates degree in psychology. But what surprises most people is that I don’t have a degree in computer science. In fact, even the degree I do have was earned through a correspondence school less than 10 years ago. I did not go to college out of high school, I joined the army. And, just about everything I know about programming I taught myself. Why does this matter? Well, in today’s society there still seems to be a strong desire for candidates applying for programming positions to have a bachelors degree in computer science. Many job listing require a bachelors at a minimum. The unfortunate thing is that most of the best programmers I have ever encountered did not have a degree in computer science and many had no degree at all. Throughout my career, I have always been identified as among the best when it came time for reviews — so a degree is not necessary for someone to ascend to the top of the class. So what is needed? Programming is an art that is learned through doing — not through formal education. And that is where the problem begins. I have interviewed countless candidates for programming positions with degrees and, sadly, few of them really knew the first thing about programming. They had attended years of college, but couldn’t identify the objects in a problem or design a trivial database to house the corresponding data. Why? Because they had never actually programmed much of anything. Maybe they implemented a stack, a linked list, or a sorting algorithm. And, while an understanding of those things is important, they already exist in the libraries of every language out there. Have they ever written anything more than that? Typically, I hear graduates tell me about one or two projects they worked on. They have a degree, but they’ve only ever written one or two real programs. What’s the value to that? Their piece of paper has come with no actual knowledge or expertise. We seriously need to revamp our education system to focus on real world training and spend less time on the things which bring no value to the business world. If we do not, we will continue to watch computer-related jobs go to foreign firms that are better trained and cheaper than our own fellow Americans.

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