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  3. 8 years of college and can't program?

8 years of college and can't program?

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  • L Lost User

    RyanDev wrote:

    In the US they are interchangeable

    Ehhhh... not exactly. A University is made up of colleges. The College of Engineering, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, College of Business, College of Law, etc...

    Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington

    Z Offline
    Z Offline
    ZurdoDev
    wrote on last edited by
    #18

    Mike Mullikin wrote:

    Ehhhh... not exactly

    Yes. But people still say, "I'm going to college" way more than "I'm going to university." In fact, I can't recall ever hearing anyone saying, "after high school, I'm going to university."

    There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

    L K 2 Replies Last reply
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    • Z ZurdoDev

      Mike Mullikin wrote:

      Ehhhh... not exactly

      Yes. But people still say, "I'm going to college" way more than "I'm going to university." In fact, I can't recall ever hearing anyone saying, "after high school, I'm going to university."

      There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

      L Offline
      L Offline
      Lost User
      wrote on last edited by
      #19

      True

      Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington

      1 Reply Last reply
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      • N newton saber

        Here's a snippet from this great article and great author, James Altucher... [-- Only one problem: when I arrived at the job, after 8 years of learning how to program in an academic environment—I couldn’t program. I won’t get into the details. But I had no clue. I couldn’t even turn on a computer. It was a mess. I think I even ruined people’s lives while trying to do my job. --] https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140506232520-5858595-10-things-entrepreneurs-don-t-learn-in-college?trk=object-title[^]

        R Offline
        R Offline
        Ravi Bhavnani
        wrote on last edited by
        #20

        I liked the first reply to this article. :) "I stopped reading half way though this because the article has nothing to do with entrepreneurship or college. This is a long rant about somebody who lived a sheltered life and got hit hard when they came to the "real world"." /ravi

        My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

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        • Z ZurdoDev

          Quote:

          8 years of college and can't program?

          I would expect that someone who takes 8 years to get through college can barely tie their own shoes.

          There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

          G Offline
          G Offline
          GrumbleDuke
          wrote on last edited by
          #21

          What are shoes?

          Z 1 Reply Last reply
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          • G GrumbleDuke

            What are shoes?

            Z Offline
            Z Offline
            ZurdoDev
            wrote on last edited by
            #22

            GrumbleDuke wrote:

            What are shoes?

            Ah, I see you went to community college.

            There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

            1 Reply Last reply
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            • C chriselst

              They do in the UK. College is where children (and some adults) go after school to get low level vocational qualifications or to get skills up to a level to go to university. University is where adults go to get degrees or higher qualifications. Although it used to be different, there used to be polytechnics for vocational qualifications and universities for academic qualifications but the polytechnics had pretensions of grandeur and soon both were called universities. This happened the year I first went to university IIRC. Traditional universities are made up of a number of colleges, but that is more of a tribal thing than an educational thing, and they are not related to the colleges from above.

              Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.

              I Offline
              I Offline
              irneb
              wrote on last edited by
              #23

              Same here in South Africa. Though we have Universities for the "degrees" and Technical Colleges (abr. Technicon) for vocational qualifications (i.e. Diploma instead of Degree). Or at least that's how it used to be (when I was at uni) until someone thought it sounded not too Politically Correct and now you can get your B.Comm / B.Sc / B.Funny at a tech as well ... :omg:

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              • N newton saber

                Here's a snippet from this great article and great author, James Altucher... [-- Only one problem: when I arrived at the job, after 8 years of learning how to program in an academic environment—I couldn’t program. I won’t get into the details. But I had no clue. I couldn’t even turn on a computer. It was a mess. I think I even ruined people’s lives while trying to do my job. --] https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140506232520-5858595-10-things-entrepreneurs-don-t-learn-in-college?trk=object-title[^]

                Sander RosselS Offline
                Sander RosselS Offline
                Sander Rossel
                wrote on last edited by
                #24

                We had an intern who was in his fourth year of college (not university, but something more practical), and he couldn't write a single line of code. He studied for Application Developer. The name of his study was Application Development. He had courses like Programming, Databases, Design and what have you. He couldn't write a single line of code... Literally. When I first sat down with him he 'forgot' how to declare a variable in multiple languages (we tried VB and C#). According to his teacher database design was his strong point, but he couldn't design a basic master-detail structure (he put the detail id in the header and couldn't figure out what was wrong even when I pointed it out). Here is the sad part. He graduated the same year! :omg: :wtf: :confused::~ :| X| I lost the little bit of faith I had in our schooling system, and humanity as a whole, the day I heard he graduated...

                It's an OO world.

                public class SanderRossel : Lazy<Person>
                {
                public void DoWork()
                {
                throw new NotSupportedException();
                }
                }

                S N B 3 Replies Last reply
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                • C chriselst

                  They do in the UK. College is where children (and some adults) go after school to get low level vocational qualifications or to get skills up to a level to go to university. University is where adults go to get degrees or higher qualifications. Although it used to be different, there used to be polytechnics for vocational qualifications and universities for academic qualifications but the polytechnics had pretensions of grandeur and soon both were called universities. This happened the year I first went to university IIRC. Traditional universities are made up of a number of colleges, but that is more of a tribal thing than an educational thing, and they are not related to the colleges from above.

                  Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.

                  S Offline
                  S Offline
                  Simon ORiordan from UK
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #25

                  "University is where adults go " ROFL! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

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                  • S Simon ORiordan from UK

                    "University is where adults go " ROFL! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

                    C Offline
                    C Offline
                    chriselst
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #26

                    Well that took a lot longer than expected. What is the correct term for those who are no longer legally children but not yet able to act like adults. Twats perhaps?

                    Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.

                    I 1 Reply Last reply
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                    • Sander RosselS Sander Rossel

                      We had an intern who was in his fourth year of college (not university, but something more practical), and he couldn't write a single line of code. He studied for Application Developer. The name of his study was Application Development. He had courses like Programming, Databases, Design and what have you. He couldn't write a single line of code... Literally. When I first sat down with him he 'forgot' how to declare a variable in multiple languages (we tried VB and C#). According to his teacher database design was his strong point, but he couldn't design a basic master-detail structure (he put the detail id in the header and couldn't figure out what was wrong even when I pointed it out). Here is the sad part. He graduated the same year! :omg: :wtf: :confused::~ :| X| I lost the little bit of faith I had in our schooling system, and humanity as a whole, the day I heard he graduated...

                      It's an OO world.

                      public class SanderRossel : Lazy<Person>
                      {
                      public void DoWork()
                      {
                      throw new NotSupportedException();
                      }
                      }

                      S Offline
                      S Offline
                      Simon ORiordan from UK
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #27

                      Of course, I went to London University, which meant going to a college and, after three years, being able to use BSc(Eng)(Lond) after my name. I studied Aeronautics at the world's first Aeronautics faculty at QMC. We 'ad it 'ard. We had about three lectures on computing and were expected to pick up how to use the card batch system on our ICL 1904 mainframe for Fortran 4 programmes which solved equations - Runge-Kutta, Newtonian or plain algebra - and that was it. In my final year I chose a full year project, simulating Harriers in full 6 DOF, still in Fortran 4. By the time I did my first Masters (Cranfield, 1 year), the die was cast and I was hooked on engineering programming. Nice work if you can get it, but while my degrees gave me general engineering sense and domain knowledge, programming was self-taught.

                      Sander RosselS 1 Reply Last reply
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                      • N newton saber

                        Here's a snippet from this great article and great author, James Altucher... [-- Only one problem: when I arrived at the job, after 8 years of learning how to program in an academic environment—I couldn’t program. I won’t get into the details. But I had no clue. I couldn’t even turn on a computer. It was a mess. I think I even ruined people’s lives while trying to do my job. --] https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140506232520-5858595-10-things-entrepreneurs-don-t-learn-in-college?trk=object-title[^]

                        J Offline
                        J Offline
                        JHubSharp
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #28

                        I hope the article is exaggerating a bit, but I agree with the general statement. After 4 years of writing arrays and data structures and OS fundamentals I got out of school and landed a VB.Net job as a contractor on a team of 1 to build a web app. I had never written in .Net or any decent OO language (VB6 doesn't count). Most of our C++ in college was all functional recursive stuff. I had a ton of concepts to learn, an IDE to understand, deployment to think about, SOLID principles, etc. A friend of mine did a vocational school instead and hit the ground running when he finished. 10 years later we've both ended up as strong technologists but I would have had a much easier go had I learned things applicable upside of academia. I think the only thing I learned from my 4 year BS degree (no pun intended) that I haven't relearned is what O(n) means.

                        N 1 Reply Last reply
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                        • N newton saber

                          Here's a snippet from this great article and great author, James Altucher... [-- Only one problem: when I arrived at the job, after 8 years of learning how to program in an academic environment—I couldn’t program. I won’t get into the details. But I had no clue. I couldn’t even turn on a computer. It was a mess. I think I even ruined people’s lives while trying to do my job. --] https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140506232520-5858595-10-things-entrepreneurs-don-t-learn-in-college?trk=object-title[^]

                          J Offline
                          J Offline
                          JimmyRopes
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #29

                          If it is any consolation neither can any of your professors. :~

                          The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
                          Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
                          I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes

                          1 Reply Last reply
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                          • L Lost User

                            RyanDev wrote:

                            In the US they are interchangeable

                            Ehhhh... not exactly. A University is made up of colleges. The College of Engineering, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, College of Business, College of Law, etc...

                            Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington

                            F Offline
                            F Offline
                            Fabio Franco
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #30

                            Same in Brazil. I studied in a college that became an university when they started teaching other areas besides engineering. Edit: You could say that you always go to college when you are going to the university, but you are not always going to university when you are going to college.

                            To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia

                            1 Reply Last reply
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                            • Z ZurdoDev

                              Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote:

                              College?! Not university

                              Do those have a different meaning where you are at?

                              There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

                              G Offline
                              G Offline
                              Gary Huck
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #31

                              RyanDev wrote:

                              where you are at?

                              At my college/university we were taught to not end a sentence with 'at'. Oops, just did it. (sorry Dude, couldn't resist)

                              Z 1 Reply Last reply
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                              • Z ZurdoDev

                                Mike Mullikin wrote:

                                Ehhhh... not exactly

                                Yes. But people still say, "I'm going to college" way more than "I'm going to university." In fact, I can't recall ever hearing anyone saying, "after high school, I'm going to university."

                                There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

                                K Offline
                                K Offline
                                kalberts
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #32

                                When I spent a year as a high school senior in Minn. a long time ago (75-76), my classmates were certainly considering going to the University or to a college - often referred to as a "community college". Maybe things have changed in the 38 years since then, or maybe it varies from state to state. Those community colleges did award bachelor degrees, master degrees were far less common. The education was generally viewed as less academic, much more applied science. Here in Norway, we distinguish between universities and "høgskole" (which literally translates to "High School", but you start høgskole education after 13 years of general schooling). Similar to what Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter tells, høgskole education teach you how to do things properly, rather than do develop new theories ;), and the education is shorter: Up until a few years ago, you could choose between a two-year and a three-year program. Today, only the three year program is offered. In engineering diciplines, a University education will take you five years. If you continue to a Ph.D, it will typically take you another two to three years, for a total of eight years. Re. the headline and original post: It is commonly said here in Norway that a høgskole educated engineer can be put to productive work immediately, while a university educated engineer won't be of any real value for your company for the first year after he completes his education. (However, the university guy usually has a much higher long term potential.) I guess this is another phrasing of what newton.saber says. In my study days, I postponed my last year of study, working for 14 months, so I believe I was of use to my first (post-degree) employer from day one. :) (Actually, it was the same company I worked for during those 14 months.) But I would like to mention that going back to university after 14 months of work exprience raised a lot of questions in me about the usability of the stuff we worked with the last year. It didn't seem very essential to the needs that I had learned during my working year.

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                                • G Gary Huck

                                  RyanDev wrote:

                                  where you are at?

                                  At my college/university we were taught to not end a sentence with 'at'. Oops, just did it. (sorry Dude, couldn't resist)

                                  Z Offline
                                  Z Offline
                                  ZurdoDev
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #33

                                  Gary Huck wrote:

                                  (sorry Dude, couldn't resist)

                                  No problem. I get busted by the grammar police all the times. :)

                                  There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • K kalberts

                                    When I spent a year as a high school senior in Minn. a long time ago (75-76), my classmates were certainly considering going to the University or to a college - often referred to as a "community college". Maybe things have changed in the 38 years since then, or maybe it varies from state to state. Those community colleges did award bachelor degrees, master degrees were far less common. The education was generally viewed as less academic, much more applied science. Here in Norway, we distinguish between universities and "høgskole" (which literally translates to "High School", but you start høgskole education after 13 years of general schooling). Similar to what Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter tells, høgskole education teach you how to do things properly, rather than do develop new theories ;), and the education is shorter: Up until a few years ago, you could choose between a two-year and a three-year program. Today, only the three year program is offered. In engineering diciplines, a University education will take you five years. If you continue to a Ph.D, it will typically take you another two to three years, for a total of eight years. Re. the headline and original post: It is commonly said here in Norway that a høgskole educated engineer can be put to productive work immediately, while a university educated engineer won't be of any real value for your company for the first year after he completes his education. (However, the university guy usually has a much higher long term potential.) I guess this is another phrasing of what newton.saber says. In my study days, I postponed my last year of study, working for 14 months, so I believe I was of use to my first (post-degree) employer from day one. :) (Actually, it was the same company I worked for during those 14 months.) But I would like to mention that going back to university after 14 months of work exprience raised a lot of questions in me about the usability of the stuff we worked with the last year. It didn't seem very essential to the needs that I had learned during my working year.

                                    Z Offline
                                    Z Offline
                                    ZurdoDev
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #34

                                    Interesting. Thanks.

                                    There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

                                    1 Reply Last reply
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                                    • I irneb

                                      Same here in South Africa. Though we have Universities for the "degrees" and Technical Colleges (abr. Technicon) for vocational qualifications (i.e. Diploma instead of Degree). Or at least that's how it used to be (when I was at uni) until someone thought it sounded not too Politically Correct and now you can get your B.Comm / B.Sc / B.Funny at a tech as well ... :omg:

                                      R Offline
                                      R Offline
                                      Ri_
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #35

                                      The degrees you get at SA Technicons are technical degrees, so it would be a Technical B Com or B Com Tech or some such, I'm not sure about the terminology. Also, they take an additional year or two. So after three years you get your Diploma, and then with an additional year of study you get a B Tech degree. Another two years and you might get your M Tech.

                                      I 1 Reply Last reply
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                                      • R Ravi Bhavnani

                                        I liked the first reply to this article. :) "I stopped reading half way though this because the article has nothing to do with entrepreneurship or college. This is a long rant about somebody who lived a sheltered life and got hit hard when they came to the "real world"." /ravi

                                        My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

                                        R Offline
                                        R Offline
                                        Ri_
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #36

                                        Oh MAN I wish I could follow that boy's life when he leaves school :laugh:

                                        1 Reply Last reply
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                                        • N newton saber

                                          Here's a snippet from this great article and great author, James Altucher... [-- Only one problem: when I arrived at the job, after 8 years of learning how to program in an academic environment—I couldn’t program. I won’t get into the details. But I had no clue. I couldn’t even turn on a computer. It was a mess. I think I even ruined people’s lives while trying to do my job. --] https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140506232520-5858595-10-things-entrepreneurs-don-t-learn-in-college?trk=object-title[^]

                                          U Offline
                                          U Offline
                                          unknownprof
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #37

                                          The article is a bit contrived IMHO. Could not even turn on a computer? Even my elderly mother-in-law can do this. That said, as someone who teaches CS at a major university, it is clear there is a bubble. Students who have little aptitude for programming and math are majoring in CS because of the economic incentives. This dilutes the academic experience for the capable students, while sending the incapable students off on an unsustainable career path. The bubble will burst, and will leave many people high and dry. We would do everyone a favor by encouraging the incapable students to pursue something they *are* good at. Related to this, it is clear there is a disconnect between what CS programs require students to learn and what skills are relevant in the working world. Many students who go into CS actually want to learn software development, but CS programs offer very little in the way of SD. Institutions of higher ed, however, typically make changes at a glacial pace, and we should not count on them to fix the problems anytime soon. Accordingly, I'm in the process of fixing the disconnect in a small way by providing SD training to recent CS graduates. Even so, SD training won't magically make incapable students capable. And related to this, don't expect universities to discourage incapable students from majoring in CS. Universities are, first and foremost, interested in selling their customers what they think they want, and the students are the customers. Meanwhile, I've yet to find an incapable student who is unable to turn on a computer, so Mr. Altucher would bolster his credibility by going a little more lightly on the hyperbole.

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