[Haskell-cafe] education or experience?

[Mike Meyer]

Heinrich Apfelmus <apfelmus at quantentunnel.de> wrote:
>Christopher Howard wrote:
>Concerning a university education, there are two approaches>
>1. I want to learn as much as possible
>2. I want to learn just enough to get a high-paying job

There's actually a third approach ( and probably more):

3. I want to learn to do this job as well as possible.

>On the other hand, approaching university from the second point of view
>
>usually does not justify the cost for the little benefit you obtain
>this 
>way. Unfortunately, it seems to me that the tuition costs in the U.S. 
>strongly suggest the second approach. To avoid this, I recommend to 
>either go abroad or become very good and acquire a scholarship.

That really depends on the job at in question. When I was looking for entry level programming jobs, not having a degree meant you never got past the hr department. Getting a degree (pretty much any degree) was required to get the high-paying job. I'm willing to believe that's no longer the case for programmers, because academia has consistently failed to deliver sufficient quality programmers to meet industry needs. On the other hand (watching my sons deal with the job market), the litmus test for "you've got what it takes to survive in the system" is now a masters, not a bachelors, so maybe you're wrong about that.

The other thing to consider is what your long-term goals are. Do you want to be a code monkey all your life? Or do you aspire to more? What are the requirements for that "more"? Getting a degree now may well avoid doing it later.

Finally, with approach #3, you really need a mentor who can tell you whether or not you're doing a competent job. You're much more likely to find that in a university environment than trying to learn things  by yourself. Joining an open source project might get it for you.
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