Why universities are not a good option to be a front ender

Too time and money to finish obsolete.

The universities all around the world have a common set of problems that does them no compatible with the abilities a front ender needs.

This doesn’t mean that their teachings are not helpful. They provide us with a good base knowledge in maths, algorithmics, logic and so on.

However, if you are looking for specific knowledge in front ending, the things change.

Normally, a degree in a university means among three and five years of hard study, most of them in subjects that a front ender doesn’t need. You study system engineer subjects like programming microcontrollers, drivers, automatisms, compilers and so on. You also learn about databases and old programming languages for the server side or for systems and desktop programming like LISP, C, Haskell, etc.

All of these time wasted in skills you don’t need could be used learning SASS, Grunt, Yeoman, W3C techniques, WCAG and WAI-ARIA guides, principles of design, a lot of useful javascript libraries and frameworks like AngularJS and Backbone, even a great new technology like node.js. The list of subjects is huge, I think enough to create a degree specifically for front enders and web designers.

Secondly, in the three or five years you were studying, the most of techniques and languages you learned was change drastically. Think in the tools you are using today and in your current workflow and think how these things were five years ago, in 2009. I don’t know about you but my methods of work are totally different.

Internet changes with a velocity that universities can’t get. It’s in their own nature. Universities are not agile, are not adaptative, are bureaucratic institutions with a lot of problems to modernize their study programs.

Maybe in the future universities could improve their adaption to the internet rhythm or the velocity of the front ending evolution will be reduced but, at this time, I think is not the best option.