[ale] CS Degree necessary?

[Kevin O'Neill Stoll]

I'm with Vernard on this one. I can't hold my tongue any longer.

    To begin, I am bias. I believe that formal education, depending on the
institution, is of a great deal of importance and I would never detour
anyone from perusing such a goal. Personally, I believe that at some point
in time, it was not "as" necessary to obtain formal education when skilled
tradesman would pour their life and knowledge into an apprentice. I believe
that America in general, and maybe other countries, have lost the art of a
mentor/apprentice relationship thus making it necessary for an individual to
pay a fee to obtain just a portion of the knowledge that they would
otherwise learn from a mentor.

    Before I began my IT career I was in the automotive field. I obtained a
formal education but I also had the honor of being mentored by 3 senior
techs. The skills that I obtained from watching, asking and making mistakes
under supervision far out weighted the amount of knowledge that I gained in
my formal education.

    At any rate, all that to say. At this time, it is still my goal to
attend Georgia Tech for CS but the time, energy, and heart ache that is put
into my college career will never supersede the solid mentor relationships
that I have been or will be a part of.

just my 2 cents....

Kevin O'Neill Stoll
http://kevinstoll.org/
(770) 569-7251

----- Original Message -----
From: <kschmidt at mindspring.com>
To: ale at ale.org
To: "Vernard Martin" <vernard at cc.gatech.edu>
Cc: "Matt Shade" <mshade at threekay.com>; "Michael Golden"
<naugrimk at yahoo.com>; <ale at ale.org>
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 9:46 PM
Subject: Re: Re: [ale] CS Degree necessary?


>
> Interesting view point. The comment about people working on motherboards,
CPUs, etc., is true. That's because the knowledge needed to do that sort of
thing is VERY specialized. These people have degrees in EE, CE, and, to a
lesser degree, CS. The nice thing about computer science, and more
specifically software engineering, programming, etc., is that you can be a
college drop out and do amazing stuff.
>
> Aside from theory of computation and analysis of algorithms, there isn't
much else that a non-CS major can't learn over a CS major. And, to be
honest, I have never, ever known anyone who used the stuff you learn in AofA
in their daily jobs. This includes guys with CS degrees.
>
> And, like I said before, I'm working on a CS degree. Not because I think
it will be good for me, help me get a job, or help me get chicks, but
because I love the subject matter. I think the REAL concensus on this list
is that you should do whatever makes you happy.
>
> -Kevin
>
> Vernard Martin <vernard at cc.gatech.edu> wrote:
> > On Thu, 2002-01-17 at 03:33, Matt Shade wrote:
> I have tried to keep my mouth shut on this particular topic but I guess
> my better judgement has finally lost the battle.
>
> There seems to be a general consensuse that computer science degrees are
> mostly useless in the technical field. While it may be true that many
> folks without computer science degrees are great programmers, blah blah
> blah, do not fool yourself into thinking that folks without CS degrees
> know the same things as folks with CS degrees.
>
> I'm speaking from the stance of someone that has a couple of degrees in
> computer science and trying desparately to finish off a third. Simply
> put, a CS degree means is that you have supposedly been exposed to the
> various theory and rationals behind much of what physical computers are
> based on. And you ahve supposedly been given time to properly learn
> these theories and think about them and ponder them in an environment
> that isn't as harsh as the real world. While it is often true that the
> academic environment is the least useful place to learn these skills, it
> is sometimes the ONLY place some of these skills will be learned.
>
> I'm willing to bet that most of the folks doing the really innovative
> design work on motherboards, cpus, video cards and operating systems are
> not the folks that dropped out of engineering school or just learned it
> all in the basement. Don't fool yourself just because some folks can do
> without a formal education does not mean that is useless.
>
> V
>
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