Comment Re: Depends on the person (Score 1) 284
You are making a HUGE generalization.
I know a fellow who graduated with a 4-year CS degree, and couldn't write a program to save his life. When he was in school (a fairly prestigious southeastern university) all of his programming assignments were group efforts. So he just got in the groups with the best programmers, then offered to do the jobs no one else wanted (documentation and presentation). On the rare occasion that he had an individual assignment his friend, a brilliant programmer, would "help" him with his assignment. Today, he has a nice shiny degree hanging on his wall, that most would agree is worth no more than the MCSE of a "Transcender Afficianado".
Do you think he is a unique case?
While there are a lot of paper-toting know-nothings in the world, there are also quite a lot of certified developers and administrators who, while lacking financial means to attend college, had the drive and initiative to master their skills through self-study, and used certification simply as a metric to demonstrate their knowledge. Let's not start blindly lumping people into categories of academic haves and have nots.
While perhaps not a shining star to point to (especially on Slashdot) Bill Gates could serve well as an example of someone who rose to greatness without the help of an academic degree. He dropped out of Harvard in his junior year to found Microsoft. Would he somehow have been a better programmer or businessman if he had spent an extra two and a half years drinking and playing cards, and left with a piece of paper?
I know a fellow who graduated with a 4-year CS degree, and couldn't write a program to save his life. When he was in school (a fairly prestigious southeastern university) all of his programming assignments were group efforts. So he just got in the groups with the best programmers, then offered to do the jobs no one else wanted (documentation and presentation). On the rare occasion that he had an individual assignment his friend, a brilliant programmer, would "help" him with his assignment. Today, he has a nice shiny degree hanging on his wall, that most would agree is worth no more than the MCSE of a "Transcender Afficianado".
Do you think he is a unique case?
While there are a lot of paper-toting know-nothings in the world, there are also quite a lot of certified developers and administrators who, while lacking financial means to attend college, had the drive and initiative to master their skills through self-study, and used certification simply as a metric to demonstrate their knowledge. Let's not start blindly lumping people into categories of academic haves and have nots.
While perhaps not a shining star to point to (especially on Slashdot) Bill Gates could serve well as an example of someone who rose to greatness without the help of an academic degree. He dropped out of Harvard in his junior year to found Microsoft. Would he somehow have been a better programmer or businessman if he had spent an extra two and a half years drinking and playing cards, and left with a piece of paper?
