From 84df9a6f486af2615181ead9bbd7e72f9e44ad24 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jeffery R Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2018 10:00:45 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] added a blog post --- ...ersity-vs-teaching-yourself-programming.md | 63 +++++++++++++++++++ ...nglish-conventions-to-write-clean-code.md} | 0 2 files changed, 63 insertions(+) create mode 100644 entries/programming/university-vs-teaching-yourself-programming.md rename entries/programming/{using-english-conventions-to write-clean-code.md => using-english-conventions-to-write-clean-code.md} (100%) diff --git a/entries/programming/university-vs-teaching-yourself-programming.md b/entries/programming/university-vs-teaching-yourself-programming.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5515f22 --- /dev/null +++ b/entries/programming/university-vs-teaching-yourself-programming.md @@ -0,0 +1,63 @@ +Many people on the internet furiously debate whether it is better to learn how +to program in college vs teaching yourself. This is not necessarily a one-sided +debate, there are merits of both teaching yourself how to program and taking +computer science in college. + +University +========== + +The main advantage of taking Computer Science in college is that you are also +taking a lot of math and science courses. When talking to a professor from +Clarkson University he said that they were not teaching students simply how to +get jobs, but how to pioneer and shape the field. It is possible to buy a book +and teach yourself how to program Python or attend a coding boot camp. However, +the tech field is changing at a rapid pace, and what you learn now may be +irrelevant in five years. The combination of programming courses and other math +and science related courses allows students to create the tech of the future. +Think about all the advancements in artificial intelligence we have made in the +past year, all that requires higher level statistics and calculus. + +When you are attending a University your professors and friends can help you +understand the content fully. College also gives you a time to experiment which +corner of the computer science field you want to specialize in. + +Self-Taught +=========== + +Most of what I know in the computer science field, I taught myself. I feel that +it is a virtue to have. Picking up new programming languages or platform over +the course of a weekend is good skill to have – especially when going into a new +job. The best programmers are those who are constantly seeking new knowledge and +learning. + +When I was at a career fair I asked multiple companies what they were looking +for in a suitable candidate. Most employers liked candidates who worked on +projects outside of school and showed drive to learn new things. However, one +employer simply said that they looked only at juniors/seniors who have taken the +Computer Science courses at RIT. I decided to ask her if their company liked +students who taught themselves additional programming languages. She shrugged +the idea and said that they typically don’t favor that because people who taught +themselves programming might have picked up bad practices. This brings up a +valid point. Computer science courses are laid out to incentivize and favor good +programming practices. Computer engineering courses are specifically designed to +teach you good programming practices and working with larger codebases. With +that said, it is not impossible to teach yourself good practices, however, it +takes additional work which is not what everybody does. Writing a modular +program which perfectly readable is different than writing spaghetti code which +simply works. + +The largest advantage to being self-taught is that it is cheaper and faster. +Over the course of a weekend I was able to teach myself NodeJS and start making +the framework for this blog. If I would have done that in college it would have +taken an entire semester or more. Plus, I don’t think there are any college +courses being offered on NodeJS. The information that you are teaching yourself +is often newer technology than what is being in college. College courses +typically take some time to catch up with what industry is currently using. + +Conclusion +========== + +If you are a dedicated individual, you will find success in both methods of +learning programming. I would argue that you should always be learning and +teaching yourself something new every day; however, a combination of college +education and self-teaching is the best. diff --git a/entries/programming/using-english-conventions-to write-clean-code.md b/entries/programming/using-english-conventions-to-write-clean-code.md similarity index 100% rename from entries/programming/using-english-conventions-to write-clean-code.md rename to entries/programming/using-english-conventions-to-write-clean-code.md