I'm of the opinion that a university degree is less about learning the subject matter, and more about teaching you how to learn. So a programmer who has not completed a degree may be a fantastic programmer, but one who has done a degree may have a few extra skills on top of simple programming skills.
I.e. Communications skills, analytical thinking, knowing where to look for solutions, how to ask the questions that improve your knowledge and the proven ability to see through a project etc...
When I completed a CS degree in '88 I remember thinking that what it was really doing was lining you up to possibly go on to do postgraduate research - which I did eventually do. If you aren't going to be doing something that is vaguely like research then I'm struggling to see the relevance of CS degrees for most development jobs.
Universities are really rather splendid places for research and absolutely awful at vocational training!
I couldn't agree more. Universities shouldn't be for everyone - they should be for people who are in it for the learning, or for highly skilled research, not degree factories for entry level positions.
What breaks my heart in academia in the UK is seeing courses being dumbed down so that students are "happy" in their courses (i.e. not failing) so that the university gets a good response in the National Student Survey. The other thing I see is an increasing sense of entitlement - "we pay your wages so you should pass us". Going to uni is like going to the gym. You don't get fit by simply having a gym subscription - you have to work at it. Same goes for a university education. Higher fees are only going to make that sense of entitlement worse, which means for more dumbing down... and the cycle continues.
You don't learn the same way like you did fifteen years ago. You don't go to a library. Instead, you google. And try. And fail, and try more, and google more.
Maybe you still run into one fundamental problem or two where you need to read something hard.
But otherwise, the "how to learn" thing is more obsolete than the other things claimed.
I read this article last Tuesday at the auto mechanic, after I finished the book I brought. So it's probably the September issue, which comes out before September.
