this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025
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[–] boletus 76 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Why would you sign up to college to willfully learn nothing

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

If you go through years of education, learn nothing, and all you get is a piece of paper, then you've just wasted thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars on a worthless document. You can go down to FedEx and print yourself a diploma on nice paper for a couple of bucks.

If you don't actually learn anything at college, you're quite literally robbing yourself.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

My Java classes at uni:

Here's a piece of code that does nothing. Make it do nothing, but in compliance with this design pattern.

When I say it did nothing, I mean it had literally empty function bodies.

[–] boletus 25 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yeah that's object oriented programming and interfaces. It's shit to teach people without a practical example but it's a completely passable way to do OOP in industry, you start by writing interfaces to structure your program and fill in the implementation later.

Now, is it a good practice? Probably not, imo software design is impossible to get right without iteration, but people still use this method... good to understand why it sucks

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

So what? You also learn math with exercises that 'do nothing'. If it bothers you so much add some print statements to the function bodies.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

I actually did do that. My point was to present a situation where you basically do nothing in higher education, which is not to say you don't do/learn anything at all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Mine were actually useful, gotta respect my uni for that. The only bits we didn't manually program ourselves were the driver and the tomcat server, near the end of the semester we were writing our own Reflections to properly guess the object type from a database query.

[–] TheSlad 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A lot of kids fresh out of highschool are pressured into going to college right away. Its the societal norm for some fucking reason.

Give these kids a break and let them go when they're really ready. Personally I sat around for a year and a half before I felt like "fuck, this is boring lets go learn something now". If i had gone to college straight from highschool I would've flunked out and just wasted all that money for nothing.

[–] boletus 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah I remember in high school they were pressuring every body to go straight to uni and I personally thought it was kinda predatory.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I wish I hadn't went straight in, personally. Wasted a lot of money and time before I got my shit together and went back for an associates a few years later.

[–] boletus 3 points 1 week ago

Its hard to make wise decisions when you're basically a kid at that age.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] boletus 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A diploma ain't gonna give you shit on its own

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

So does breathing.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

To get the peice of paper that lets you access a living wage

[–] Crampi 7 points 1 week ago

To get a job so you don't starve

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Because college is awesome and many employers use a degree as a simple filter any way

[–] boletus 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Not a single person I've worked with in software has gotten a job with just a diploma/degree since like the early 2000s

Maybe it's different in some places.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Many HR departments will automatically kick out an application if it doesn't have a degree. It's an easy filter even if it isn't the most accurate.

[–] boletus 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Yeah fair point, but then how are you going to get the job if you're completely incompetent at programming 🤔

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

I don't think you can get the CS degree with being completely incompetent. A bunch of interviews I had were white boarding the logic, not actual coding. Code is easy if you know the logic.

[–] ThrowawayPermanente 2 points 1 week ago

Just use AI bro

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

"Necessary, but not sufficient" sums up the role of a degree for a lot of jobs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

We are saying the same thing. Degree > diploma for jobs. Go to college, get degree

[–] boletus 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I meant any form of qualification. Sure it helps, but the way you get the job is by showing you can actually do the work. Like a folio and personal projects or past history.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Art? Most programming? "Hard skills" / technical jobs... GOOD jobs. Sure. But there's plenty of degrees & jobs out there. Sounds like you landed where you were meant to be, alot of folks go where opportunity and the market takes them

[–] boletus 1 points 1 week ago

Its probably a regional difference. Here in AU, you can be lucky and land a few post grad jobs if you really stood out. Otherwise you're entirely reliant on having a good folio and most importantly connections.