This will make you rethink the value of college
In the debate “Too many kids go to college”, Peter Thiel, the cofounder of PayPal, recounts that from his experience in Silicon Valley, he has seen many talented people who had not gone through college and still achieved great success.
He then states that college fees in the United States have risen tremendously even after accounting for inflation. According to the New York Federal Reserve, outstanding student loan balances stood at $1.34 trillion as of 31 March 2017. That is a lot of money.
Peter Thiel then argues that going to college leaves many burdened with huge student loans which they have to pay off over the next few years of their lives. This situation pressures them to get a high paying job. They potentially have to give up more interesting or impactful opportunities which may not offer a high salary.
I was fortunate to have a college scholarship and I tried doing a startup after graduation. However, my cofounder had to get a job after a few weeks because there was a huge student loan debt to repay. The interest was compounding with each passing day and our startup had no projections of revenue yet. I wonder how many dreams had to be given up because of student loan debts.
There is value in the actual experience of going to college, however, that is not without its flaws. A viable alternative to college is to enroll in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), some of which are actual college courses which are offered at little or no monetary cost.
The first problem is, what courses should you take? There are so many available courses. To make matters worse, there are false promises of quick riches. For example, there may be unrealistic promises that a 12 week bootcamp is the only thing that you need to land a six figure salary as a developer. For most people, 12 weeks is just not enough time to gain a good understanding of the content. It is not just about familiarizing yourself with what tools to use, what guides to follow, or what code to copy from Stack Overflow.
Ideally, you want to have exposure to both theoretical and practical subjects.
The value of practical subjects such as knowing how to code in a certain programming language is obvious, and that is often a starting point. It is also important to do multiple projects and have a record of failures from which you have learned from.
However, having a theoretical background of how things work under the hood is also important, although it may not be immediately obvious how it can be useful. It may allow you to learn new technologies more easily because you already have fundamental knowledge. It may enable you to deal with leaky abstractions when they arise from time to time. It may open the doors to specializations such as data science, artificial intelligence, or security.
If you only learn trending languages or libraries, what would happen when those trends go out of fashion? Some years ago, Ruby on Rails was super hyped, and coding bootcamps responded by offering it in their programs. However, it is less popular today. The takeaway here is to invest in understanding the principles and learning how to learn so that it will be easier to keep up with changes in technology.
I accept that an absolute beginner has little ability to discern and curate a series of courses independently. That is why it is important to do some research. For example, searching for posts on Medium, Hacker News and Reddit regarding this topic and listening to some experts on YouTube can be somewhat helpful. You can also cross-reference course syllabuses from reputable colleges (e.g. Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Also, periodically evaluate your progress and make adjustments as you learn.
At this point, I would like to offer some unsolicited advice. I would recommend taking a few humanities and social science courses, even though most tech employers do not list them as job requirements. These courses enable us to hone our personal judgement, critical thinking, and creativity. Therefore, instead of simply accepting a list of requirements, we can ask if we are solving the right problem in the first place. We can evaluate solutions from the perspective of multiple stakeholders rather than only from a technical perspective. The biggest asset is that such skills cannot be easily automated away for the foreseeable future.
In addition to the problem of knowing which courses to take, it takes an incredibly self-motivated and resourceful person to finish the course work. Unlike in college, there is no enforced schedule of going to a physical classroom. There is less pressure to get good grades. In addition, there is inertia to start implementing because it is easier to passively consume video content and feel good about it. However, do not mistake a sense of familiarity with the content for a true understanding of it. Substantial learning can only occur with additional effort, such as the effort to create notes, internalize content, and do some hands-on practice and projects. Just being a consumer of content is not sufficient.
Despite mentioning many problems with the self-learning route, I believe that people can still learn and qualify for technical jobs through this route if they receive good guidance and have the discipline to follow through with their plan. In addition, it liberates such people from the burden of college tuition debt.
Conventional wisdom dictates that the way to career success is to go to college. However, I believe that we are at a turning point. Soaring college debt is a real problem for many. The job market is changing and some people must make career switches. The rise of MOOCs and other initiatives enable people to upskill and reskill with enough time and effort. For these reasons, people should consider the possibility of starting a career in tech without going to college, and employers should consider the viability of hiring such candidates.
