Is College Worth It?

[Jessper]

I have always planned to be a videogame designer/programmer/writer, but even then I didn't quite see the purpose of college to my own ends. I still don't, really, but I've started planning to at least attend a technical school; something like Devry or Full Sail. Something that gives you the high school mentality while still maintaining the independence of a university. (And because Devry gives away free laptops XD).

I'm about to graduate with a degree in Software Engineering Technology, programming from a tech school. I have learned more than I imagined there was to this whole programming idea, sure you can learn c, c++, xna, etc etc from the internet, you can even find all the courses you will go over on wikipedia but there is so much more to it than a 2 page article.

My professors have explained a number of times that we are not there to be code monkeys, that is what they hire high school grads for. Knowing how to design a system from the top down is more than you learn from the article "Everything you need to know to code in C++" it just isn't that simple.

Even with out the growing up experience there is a wealth of knowledge at college that is necessary to operate at the levels a company will want. When I was asked what big o notation is during an interview it wasn't a written test question, it was because it matters in their product.

Even the extreme math we take as computer engineers is necessary, it isn't like I remember all the tricks to use to take a derivative but my senior project uses linear algebra to determine camera views.

On top of all the non-monetary reasons you WILL get payed more, so the time and money are worth it. The only exceptions are crazy one in a million breakthroughs, and even those are mostly from people that have attended college (look at you-tube, it was a senior project for college and is worth an enormous amount of money).

But for too many people name-branding means more than I think it should. They wouldn't be happy unless they graduated from a Harvard or Stanford.

People visit my school all the time and tell us how they love the people from here, it is backed up by their business hiring many of our students every year and having >30% of their employees made up of people graduating from here. I'm happy with the name in my situation, not saying you are wrong but that it sometimes the name is worth something.



I've got a job out of college and I know for a fact that I will use my college training on a daily basis.

The simple answer is if you can get through it yes it is worth it, in my opinion.

(Ignore the ironic incoherence!)