I respect people who are resourceful and get stuff done. If you choose to go to college and wait out the great recession, I'll look down on you no matter if you went to MIT or Stanford. If you went to college for business or technology and you didn't produce anything during your time at college, you'll have a hard time convincing me to hire you.

It's only a matter of time before the rest of the world catches up to my way of thinking.

Does getting a college degree not count as getting stuff done? Would you rather someone list every single problem set, proof, project, etc that they have done? I can vouch that a degree from some schools requires much more work/time/resourcefulness than making a couple of cool projects on github.

Also, as a technologist, my ultimate goal is to push things forward. Think SpaceX, Google, Intel, or even something smaller like Lytro or projects like Google's autonomous vehicles. These technology beneath these things (cheap manufacturing, PageRank, integrated circuits, etc) isn't invented by the people who make CRUD webapps; its made by those who master a field and have some insight to vastly improve their domain. That's what changes things.

Note, mentioning Apple or Facebook might seem like a counterpoint to my statement. I would argue Apple has pushed design forward in the same way Intel has pushed the semiconductor business forward. However, Facebook seemed to have no extraordinary technology at its core, but just capitalized on a hole in the market so much that it actually has changed how society functions.

Also, I'm not at all discounting the hustlers who get stuff done, by I think to really change things, one must be a hustler (or know one) and also have extraordinary technology.

That's awesome that you want to push things forward. We need that, but what I'm saying is that nothing is going to help you except down right resourcefulness. You're going to have to go deep and master something to do that, sure.

Five years ago, I think you would have been right. The resources to get started weren't there. Today it's all changed and now resourcefulness gets you so much further than it ever has before.

It's only a matter of time before the rest of the world catches up to my way of thinking.

What's so special about this way of thinking? Do you really believe in the existence of brilliant MIT or Stanford grads who have produced nothing during their 4 years in school? Further, do you believe these hypothetical underachievers are getting hired by Google, Facebook, Apple, Intel, or any other excellent company?

You're populating this thread with straw men and false dichotomies. The two spectra you're talking about -- autodidactism versus traditional education, and real-world experience versus theory -- are not mutually exclusive. There are students with strong theoretical training who hack on projects at AT&T Labs over the summer, and there are autodidacts who take night classes at their local university or college.

Please stop spouting off about "people who get stuff done," or these pseudo-sheeple you've dreamt up who go to Caltech, get degrees, then do nothing. Everyone gets stuff done in one area or another.

I admit that last phrase was a bit over the top. But, I do believe that long term industrial education will slowly die out. Probably a lot slower than I think. There's nothing that special about my thinking really.

Google, Facebook, Apple, Intel, etc all hire the best. I don't know THAT much about their hiring policy or practice, but there are people just by sheer numbers (on either side of spectra) who are more than qualified.

In fact you can go to college and get stuff done. It's one of the best ways to go because you can use loans and scholarships to fund yourself getting stuff done. It's the degree so much that I don't care about. And to be really honest, it's probably easier to get stuff done in the right college setting than it is to get it done almost anywhere else in the world.

All I'm really saying is that I have a strong preference for self learners and people who have done more than get a degree.

Am I missing something?

I can't think of any key indicator of why I would want to hire someone that can't be demonstrated in some other way besides a degree.

Why is it so awful that I realize that technology and business can be learned much faster, much cheaper, and more indepth by actually doing them than going to school for them?

Why is it so awful that I value someone figuring out a better way to spend a recession than in school learning something that may or may not help them and for most of them puts in solidly in debt with few options after graduation.

Your generalization of the knowledge one gains by doing a degree is much too broad.

But, Here's what I'm saying is that you can spend 2 - 4 years going to school to learn about big 0, or red-black trees or whatever. That's fine.

Or you could spend 2 - 4 years hacking 3/4 to 1/2 time and hanging out on HN and building cool projects and learning about those things as you go.

I will ALWAYS pick the second person after those 2 - 4 years. Always.

Sure, someone who's very driven will learn the same amount regardless - mostly by reading all the same books that someone who's gone to school will have read. But most people are not that driven. Most people are happy to hack around building webapps on the back of other people's libraries and then deluding themselves into thinking that gluing together a bunch of libraries and adding a pretty frontend counts as a significant achievement.

Frankly, with your attitude you're doomed to hire the mediocre while the people with the brain and skills to do any form of non trivial analysis go elsewhere - as they well should.

And that is the crux of the matter. A college graduate that is not driven to learn about the practical aspects of programming is no better for the job than the non-graduate who is not driven to learn about the theoretical side. After only four years of study, I would say that both applicants in the previous example are on equal ground. Both are lacking, just in different areas. It is not really clear at that stage which one of the two will have the drive to fill the gaps.

The dirty little secret is that you cannot apply generic processes to find the best applicant. Doing so will lead to mediocre selection no matter which bias you choose.

You're right that they both have weaknesses. What I'm saying is I'm willing to go all in on the person who figured out much of it by himself using whatever he had available to him than the person who had a college instructor put together everything for him and then provide additional readings, power points, and web links to all their students.

A smart person has to think their way out of a box. A resourceful person can just hack their way out of the box. I don't mind a little mess, so I'll take the resourceful person over the smart person everyday of the week.

CS departments are not all ivory towers.

Consider the following opportunities in my department:

(1) TA or grade production-quality software classes taught by Google engineers, with discussion on version control, code style, scalability, etc.

(2) research and implement algorithms for diagnosing hospital patients more effectively using ML techniques,

(3) push the frontier of computer vision in concert with former telecom engineers.

Software development contains a large set of cool, non-trivial problems. Without formal CS training, you will not get to access those problems. This might change someday, but it is not close to true right now.

This is also a false dichotomy. You do not really know what people are working on outside of the college setting.

Computer vision is pretty low hanging fruit for anyone to take on. I will grant you that it may be difficult to access medical data outside of the institution, but the same ML techniques can be applied to other data that is relevant. As a hobby farmer, I see all kinds of interesting places for ML on the farm. How many CS students are working with that kind of data?

No, it's a reality of the labor market for doctorate holders. Startups are experiencing a shortage of coders, but the supply of CS doctoral students is robust. Just look at how quickly internships/positions at industry labs (AT&T, Yahoo, Microsoft) fill up.

Not all computer vision is "low-hanging fruit," especially if you're pushing boundaries. Similarly, applying ML techniques to "other data that is relevant" is a far cry from using ML to save lives at a hospital due to misdiagnosis. I'm not talking about regressing A/B testing results.

Computer vision is low hanging in the sense that you already have everything you need to make positive contributions to the study. I think the same is true with ML in general, but it was specific about what type of ML, which hangs higher due to the data availability.

> Similarly, applying ML techniques to "other data that is relevant" is a far cry from using ML to save lives at a hospital due to misdiagnosis.

Are you saying that programmers that are not working directly on saving lives are essentially wasting their time? There are a lot of interesting ML problems that do not save lives, but they are still worth working on.

Sure, but to be fair to achompas, that isn't what he said. What he said was

"(3) push the frontier of computer vision in concert with former telecom engineers."

Pushing the frontier of CV (as distinct from implementing/applying some CV algorithms) is hard to do outside a university or industrial research lab. Without formal CS training, it is very hard (Not impossible, but very hard) to access those problems.

My point is that you simply cannot generalize. You have absolutely no idea what talents someone has just by looking at their history. It is simply irrelevant information if you want to hire the best of the best.

Look, I appreciate your attitude. You have a positive outlook on what you can accomplish, and that's undoubtedly a good thing.

But, to be frank, the skills required to access my example problems above are not trivial. Let's consider the autodidactic route for computer vision:

1. You need to be cozy with linear algebra, convex optimization, calculus, and algorithmic complexity if you even want to understand prior research. This, alone, is 1-2 semesters of course load for a full-time student.

2. Then, you need to survey prior research to gain awareness about what already exists. You'll hit Google Scholar, search for papers, and have to circumvent article paywalls.

3. After that, you'll need to code your own framework (non-trivial) or convince other researchers to share their source code (very non-trivial--almost impossible, given that they might monetize or license their work, or their university owns said license).

4. Then you need to collect data to test your CV algorithm, iterate on it, etc.

Universities overcome all of these barriers. Hence, it is unrealistic to suggest one can produce cutting-edge CV work by themselves (or without university help).

2. You have to spend the time doing the research no matter who you are. Alternatively, you can ask someone else. Either way, anyone can do it.

3. This is a fair point, but you are allowed to spend money. If it costs money to access that code, so be it. Students are paying for that access too.

4. Again, true of anyone.

But more to the point, who cares how someone achieved their accomplishments? If it was through college, great, if it wasn't, still great. Why are you immediately discounting the person who did something amazing, just because he did it by himself?

Edit: I confused you with another poster. You may not have been judging people on their past. I do agree that people are more likely to do that work in a school setting, but that remains irrelevant when it comes to hiring.

Thanks for retracting that. :)

Thanks for pointing this out, as I've said earlier, I'm not sure we really disagree that much.

For the theoretical programmers out there, you may recall that the future is independent of the past, given the present. I'm not certain it is worth hiring anyone based on their history. I would look to what they can offer today, and try to discern from that where they are headed in the future. It takes more effort this way, but you get what you give.

If you're job is to improve PageRank, I'd rather much take the person with a strong theoretical background linear algebra, probability, machine learning, and algorithms. That person is more than smart enough to learn the coding on the job.

Look, if you want to build a Rails app, go build the app and post it on HN afterwards. If you want to

(1) develop an incremental optimization algorithm,

(2) push the boundaries of appsec,

(3) revolutionize mobile software UI at a handset manufacturer,

(4) or research cryptographic algorithms for the NSA,

well, you need school. Period.

As someone who attended Penn State (but not MIT), I would have to say that's some extremely wishful thinking. And even if the material is 100% identical, the way it's taught certainly isn't. The fact that the latter is far more important is undeniable. After all, why bother with a university at all when we could all purchase the same material (textbooks) on Amazon.com?

You also seem to ignore the fact that many tech companies are now far more interested in your personal website/portfolio and GitHub page than the degree listed on your resume. Even if you find a potential employer who values an expensive piece of paper more than your actual ability, would your really want to work for them anyway?

While there were differences in curriculum, the biggest difference I found was in expectations for the work I produced. My Yale classes have simply expected be to do more with the material: take it farther, make more inferences, produce a more insightful answer/project than the ones I took at UNT did.

Regardless of branding, I could never say the experiences have been interchangeable.

Isn't that just a SV thing, though?

Even if you find a potential employer who values an expensive piece of paper more than your actual ability, would your really want to work for them anyway?

For many or even most people, the answer is a resounding yes. They just see the college degree as a painful/expensive ticket to gain entry. The skills necessary to do the job will be learned in the first 6 months of working, and the degree is just the shit-sandwich/iq-test-by-proxy you have to endure to get your foot in the door in the first place.

This is even more so the case where I live, due to the Scandinavian tradition to defer to experts and promote based on seniority and credentials. Oh, and having free college helps too, I guess.