The “college experience” of living in a dorm for 4 years is probably overrated, but if you can afford it, there’s definitely a benefit to spending 4 years on directed learning. Both in subjects you’re interested and in being forced to learn subjects you would never touch on your own.
I went back to school after a decade of web development, and learned a ton. I think I’m a much better developer than I would have been had I learned only what I thought I needed for my job (could be wrong about that, but I don’t think I am). I’ve also worked with plenty of people without degrees who were better developers than me, but to a person, I think they would have greatly benefited from a broader theoretical foundation than what they built through self directed learning.
One thing you should think about is that rationalization likely applies to you just as much as it does to the college educated people you’re talking about.
I was in the college is useless boat before I went back and most of it was rationalizing my choices—plus a bit of feeling inferior.
It’s one thing to decide that college wasn’t the right decision for you (and maybe it wasn’t). It’s another entirely to write off everyone who went as suckers.
I graduated from college the first time; did both community college and university as a transfer. Still got the 'freshman experience' my first semester at uni, then lived on campus, except for my final semester where I commuted.
Yes, having dedicated time to focus on learning was great. But I was effective at that because I'd already learned to, well, learn, on my own, by homeschooling the latter half of high school (where I'd study, take CLEP tests).
College isn't for suckers, but the scholastic benefits of it can be gotten through other means (and should probably be done because a job you're interested in requires it, ideally in the confines of that job, like an apprenticeship in the trades). Many of the other purported benefits (social, etc) are BS.
The main benefit I can think of outside of that dedicated study time is being forced into more of a cultural milieu than I had experienced prior. I think that is important, but I also think that entirely depends on the school, just as it depends on the job, so I'm not sure that's entirely a college benefit so much as a "get into the city if you're living somewhere suburban or rural" benefit.
> the scholastic benefits of it can be gotten through other means
Where else will you get the direct access to expertise in all those fields, guiding you in what works/experiments/skills/etc to read/learn/acquire, answering questions personally, the massive labs and libraries, the students to study with.
As someone who has tried to study on my own at a serious level, I would say the opposite: Studying on my own is nothing like it. I am very jealous of those in college. I don't know which books and papers to read, how to contextualize them, what they have and lack; I have nobody to ask (Reddit and Stack Exchange being very poor substitutes); I lack access to resources that are far too expensive, JSTOR being a simple example, making much study very time-consuming or impossible. I regularly run into things, years later, that would have been introduced in the first day of class by an expert - I have an unknown but large quantity of blind spots.
That's kind of my point - the nature of "study on my own" is different than "can I find the resources I need to solve a particular problem". College is creating a problem of "pass this test" or "complete this assignment"; studying on your own, yes, you don't know where your blind spots are or where to begin, because you don't have a problem you're trying to solve. College provides you some, but they aren't fundamentally different than work problems. And while some classes may attempt to 'teach' the material, the ones where that was an effective use of my time (rather than just read the textbook, or those where class time was unrelated to the projects we were graded on) were definitely in the minority. YMMV.
You can ask a professor, or multiple ones. If the classes are within your major, the school will guide you. This part is a non-problem. You can also take several classes for a week or two, depending on the school, and see which ones suit your priorities.
> College provides you some, but they aren't fundamentally different than work problems.
Usually the opposite is said, that college problems are not at all like what you encounter in work, that students are unprepared for work problems and that professors don't understand them. College problems are crafted carefully for you to acquire knowledge and skills; work problems are crafted to avoid having you learn, because that takes extra time.
> And while some classes may attempt to 'teach' the material, the ones where that was an effective use of my time (rather than just read the textbook, or those where class time was unrelated to the projects we were graded on) were definitely in the minority. YMMV.
I think this is not realistic for most people. It's also possible you missed a lot without the professor's context and expertise. In anything, would you rather just read a book or have access to an expert mentor? There's no question IME.
Maybe it depends on the courses, which I'm starting to suspect explains a lot of the response at HN: Were you in a STEM field, particularly T or E?
Didn't see this response - but yes. Computer Science. From a top 10 school. Some of what I'm saying is mostly true of the two years of 'core' classes, and then some of the softer CS classes. Others include classes 'taught' by professors there for research. Literally the only classes that felt like "yeah, this was worth attending" were the ones being taught by 'instructors', not professors, i.e., people with Masters degrees rather than Ph Ds, who weren't being pressured to publish and bring in grant money. Meaning I can think of roughly...4, of the dozens of classes I took, that felt worth it. And chunky classes, like Data Structures and Algorithms, and Computer Graphics, there was no point to attending the class; an hour invested in the textbook was worth more than an hour attending.
Conversely I learned functional programming, multiple languages and new CS concepts, fault tolerant system design, and system architecture skills, all in the context of a short period of work.
> College isn't for suckers, but the scholastic benefits of it can be gotten through other means
Of course it’s possible, but the number of people who have the discipline/inclination to get through a degree’s worth (or even a significant fraction of a degree’s worth) of education on their own is very small. Small enough that if the reason you’re skipping college is because you think you can/will learn everything they can teach you on your own, you’re most likely kidding yourself.
With self directed learning it’s also shockingly easy to develop huge blind spots that you have no idea you have.
> and should probably be done because a job you're interested in requires it
I’ve personally benefited a good deal from taking the year of physics I was forced to take, despite no job having ever required it.
The same goes for all the papers I had to write in non CS classes.
I went back to school after a decade of web development, and learned a ton. I think I’m a much better developer than I would have been had I learned only what I thought I needed for my job (could be wrong about that, but I don’t think I am). I’ve also worked with plenty of people without degrees who were better developers than me, but to a person, I think they would have greatly benefited from a broader theoretical foundation than what they built through self directed learning.
One thing you should think about is that rationalization likely applies to you just as much as it does to the college educated people you’re talking about.
I was in the college is useless boat before I went back and most of it was rationalizing my choices—plus a bit of feeling inferior.
It’s one thing to decide that college wasn’t the right decision for you (and maybe it wasn’t). It’s another entirely to write off everyone who went as suckers.