Education not important? Come'on 37Signals
Posted by Jesse Rodgers on November 13, 2007 at 06:40 PM
In what is probably the silliest post I have seen on 37Signals blog, they ask Is formal education important? The response?
“We’re more interested in someone’s experience, real work, and point of view than we are with their diploma, degree, or GPA. Formal education is probably last on our list of qualities we feel make someone qualified to work at 37signals.”
They aren’t saying a formal education doesn’t count but they do under state the value of higher education. I think it’s a common misunderstanding that higher education is about specific skills training. But I suppose higher education means different things to different people.
To me it’s about thinking outside of your comfort zone, meeting different people with radically different beliefs/values/etc, and gaining strategies/techniques that enable effective life long learning. Is it for everyone? No. You can certainly gain a similar value through work experience. But that takes some luck.
Update: What I do want to point out is that if you are up for a job against some one with the similar personality, same experience, skill, and passion and they have a degree and you don’t… guess who will likely get the job?
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It’s very wrong to think higher education is more valuable over experience and skills. It might cost $30,000 to do a computer science degree, but very little to study and learn a programming language.
Often the time invested in self-education has a greater return than the dollars invested in a scholarly education, provided the experience can be tangibly demonstrated. Higher Ed proves little, other than parental financial support and a propensity to retain and regurgitate information.
If you can afford to take a degree, then great, certainly do so with pride. However, if you can’t then fear not - learn your skills through your own motivations, prove your value, and I’ll pay you what your worth, regardless of your background.
Luck is not a factor. Personal motivations are far more important to me than an ivy league ( or other )endorsement.
B
Bill: you make a good point. I suppose in Canada it is (was?) not so much about who could afford it. If you have the marks in high school (no GPA or SAT) you go to a University. Some schools are better than others but generally an undergrad degree is the same no matter where you go (although some schools attract a certain personality of student). It is your off-campus experience that varies.
For the record, I was a crap student. My graduate education has been the best I have done though… structure isn’t there, I learn at my own pace.
I have mixed feelings about this. I do value higher education - and I actually work for a university. However, I feel that part of this problem was caused by the universities themselves. Many comp-sci students come from programs that are more than outdated. Employers then get students that have to be completely retaught. Also, it seems the standards have become a bit lax. At least now, if you get a “self-taught” worker - you can assume that they are interested in the technology and are self-motivated. You can no longer make this assumption about students coming out of a university.
I’m in total agreement with David on this one. Getting my University degree was a pathetic experience with the amount of crap course and rampant cheating going on. These days when everyone has a degree my by comparison isn’t worth very much.
A self-learner needs to have tangible products to show off instead of that piece of paper but overall that shows more to a company.
Here is an article from Paul Graham of Y Combinator on this issue. http://paulgraham.com/colleges.html
I’m revisiting this topic after a couple of weeks thought (chimed in to David Tuckers’ comments on this)
two things:
(1) Good Formal education can provide structure. you can sit and self-learn to be a great Flex developer (for example) but know nothing of Human-Computer Interaction, Fitt’s Law and how it applies to User Interface Designs.
(2) Formal education provides a hurdle/suitable benchmark for people to jump over. It’s not so much what’s been taught but how. The diffence between giving someone a fish vs teaching them how to fish (and how to read the seasons and tides for the best fishing). Smart companies are not just looking at qualifications for the job at hand, they’re looking at their employees for the opportunities of tomorrow (or there but by the grace of “thinking ahead” goes COBOL programmers)
Sure, formal education is very important. I understand the idea of online schools gains its popularity because of comfortable educational conditions, but no one online school is able to provide you with quality education, it can only confirm your intelligence.
I’m eager to agree with Bill. Higher education is important, but it is not so vital. I know some examples when a person with a degree obtained can not aplly their knowledge into practice. The working experience is more important. Even to find a well-paid job you need to have a great experience in the area you choose and only after it everyone will care about your diploma.
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