I am always astonished by the range of people who claim their college degree was useless, citing rote memorization and bad classes. I had an entirely different experience and so did most people I know. University gave me the opportunity to talk to world-class researchers during office hours, to discuss ideas with my peers and have them either validated or critiqued by experts. Sure, all the information is available online (which is a miracle into itself) but without frequent contact with professors and mentors I wouldn’t have even known where to look or what existed in the field. University, for me, was a place where I was apprenticing full-time under highly experienced people, surrounded by people my age who also were doing the same. Years of self-teaching didn’t get me anywhere close to what a few semesters of expert mentorship got me. I never felt I had to memorize anything: exams consisted of system design or long programming projects or optimization challenges. I loved it, and I’m not sure if people went to different universities or just didn’t take advantage of the opportunities presented to them.

Makes me think of the "The purpose of a system is what it does" axiom. Universities were always about credentials whether professional or just to indicate social class. They can at the same time be places of learning, and many still are in some disciplines.

The problem is that value of the credential is now worth more (to most people) than the value of the learning/knowledge. So universities adapted to the that model. Its more profitable and university presidents can now earn millions of dollars, further intrenching the problem as it now attracts exactly the kind of people into those positions who only care about money (and themselves).

The true blame for this situation, (IMHO), are the employers across the economy who require applicants have 'university degrees' for jobs that in no way need those skillsets. Bullshit requirements then led to the demand for bullshit degrees which the universities changed to supply.

In contrast to many comments, I had a great time studying. Sure, the staff didn't have great teaching skills (classical prof with an unruly hairdo reading from the syllabus in a large hall), but after the first year, classes became smaller and teaching was --while not passionate-- certainly inspired in many cases. It was a period in which students could still pick an academic topic and write a (small) thesis for graduation, or do some internship and write a report about that. I had a supervisor who was into some of the newer stuff and gave me practically free reign with regular feedback.

That was in 80s. I stuck around, changed faculty (AI, cogsci, neuro), and saw university change. It became very financially oriented. The number of students kept rising, norms kept dropping (2nd year student asking: what does this symbol √ mean?), students participating in real research became rarer and rarer, even PhDs shifted towards more and more teaching, and 20 years later, the most influential member of a university's board was the one doing real estate, and an academic career was based on the amount of funding obtained.

The elephant in the room here is that perhaps the biggest difference between the two learning experiences that OP is describing is himself.

He might just have discovered he is more mature at 30 than he was at 18...

This was exactly like my experience, although mine was in the UK maybe 15 years earlier. I went to university and studied a particular subject so that I'd be employable and didn't enjoy what I was learning. (It's debatable whether I learnt much at all, though.) Like the author, many years later I also came across computer science and found it exciting and engrossing, but I have a slightly different take on that:

    > Absolute joy turned into anger, and anger into resentment, as I wondered how different my life might have been if I’d been taught subjects I actually cared about by professors who cared too. 

Perhaps I needed to grind out a dull degree as it ultimately set me on a path to a time/place/subject that I really do enjoy. My interests now have been shaped by my journey and if you'd tried to teach me computer science at 18 I'm sure I would've hated that, too.

The annoying thing is that: when universities aren't toll gates and you actually learn something, then people don't believe you and you have "0 work experience".

So often, I've had the experience with work that it just feels like a long elaborate lab and there really is not much of a difference. Whether I make Jupyter notebooks analyzing things in a computer lab or for colleagues, I still use the same skills. Whether I present in front of classmates or colleagues, same skill.

Well, they used to be, but the modern industrial age needed institutions that could train workers - and universities fit the bill. I don’t think it’s possible to detach the credential aspect from universities without a parallel work-focused system existing, and even then, the prestige of universities will still mean that the wealthy and privileged will prefer universities, which means that that prestige will trickle down to everyone else.

The only real solution IMO is to support institutions like St. John’s [1] and others that are explicitly not career-focused, and work on making similar institutions affordable and accessible. There’s no real reason why someone can’t start a student-operated (to keep costs down) university that focuses on the liberal arts, classics, mathematics, etc. that is affordable enough for the average person. I suspect the main problem is the lack of prestige and precariousness of the economy at large.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_College_(Annapoli...

Seeing the comments here, I thought I'd quickly share my experience at Matfyz (Charles University in Prague), specifically the computer science programme:

I applied for admission and was accepted based on having not-too-terrible grades from an optional high school exit test, but later all admission tests were cancelled due to COVID. The idea is to admit hundreds of applicants and keep those who pass the nontrivial first semester, which I much prefer to hard exams.

Despite some missteps caused by COVID and just me being me, I really enjoyed my years of study and am now continuing in the masters programme.

Some lectures were great, and most were at least decent. I learned to check who taught what class and ask around for feedback, and I'll shamelessly admit to choosing my specialisation based mostly on that feedback and personal experiences.

I almost never felt that rote memorisation was being asked of me, or that it was the key to success. The vast majority of issues I had could be solved by understanding more, not just knowing more. Some examiners even allowed small cheatsheets (and plenty of people still didn't pass, so no free exams).

I know that not all university students in the Czech Republic have had such a good experience. I've heard about plenty of problems with stubborn teachers or unfriendly bureaucracy, but on the whole I'd say it's about more than the degree.

I know someone who started uni at 24, after 7 year of working as line cook then chef. She seems to have the opposite experience that you have. She has had a lot of support from the professors in her first year, and only wanted to reach bachelor. Then the seocnd year came, she started to really understand biology, and changed her goals from nutrition to pharmaco/biochemistry, changing her courses with the help of the admin. Then in Master 1, she once again pivoted towards genetics (therapeutic engineering to be exact), and it seems her M2 will push her toward a doctorate in genetics and anthropology, which is yet another pivot.

For myself uni wasn't a success, and maybe we whould require children to work before getting to uni if they don't know what they wat to do yet, but at least for some, Uni is great and function exactly as it should.

> Absolute joy turned into anger, and anger into resentment, as I wondered how different my life might have been if I’d been taught subjects I actually cared about by professors who cared too. Then I caught myself, realizing I was being melodramatic about a decade-old grievance.

This is incredibly self-indulgent. You were given opportunities you refused to engage with and are now continuing that pattern by blaming everyone else for your failures.

University has no value beyond credentialism only if you don't put any in.

Bourdieu covers this

I am able to write C++, I worked as a C++ dev, and in france I cannot get a job because I failed to validate the degree for personal reasons 15 years ago, so I don't have a degree, yet I have excellent senior C++ tests. French companies want degrees. Many recruiters say that it's a problem.

They’re so much more, sad the comments aren’t seeing it. Making lifelong friends, learning independence, true freedom to explore topics and interests, higher challenge and opportunity for scholars. The toll gate function only makes sense from a Birds Eye view.

If anything community colleges are more like toll gates. Pay a small fee to use a locally shared resource to then get your job.

There is a good essay with a similar theme under the title of "The Nearly-Free University" at https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-nearly-fre...

As someone with two degrees (B.A. English, followed after I caught on a bit, by a B.S. in physics and computer science with minors in math and chemistry), I can say that I would not take that route again. Mostly a waste.

"What you can accomplish in the real world will rapidly become more valuable than a credential such as a conventional college degree. The credentialing gatekeepers are protecting an 'asset'--the college diploma--that is largely a phantom asset for the vast majority of students."

I wish.

I'm so glad I studied something other than programming, because I taught myself coding. College taught me important life lessons, especially one involving lawyers. I was already working as a freelance programmer and it was my second study (first one was sys admin on a practical level, because I was lazy at school because of gaming haha).

I suspect a lot of people on HN have similar stories. College is always in conflict between rote memorization (easiest to grade, therefore cheaper) and actual understanding (best outcome, therefore increases college ranking).

I spent my high school afternoons on github.com/ossu/computer-science ; years later during my actual bachelor’s in computer science I just had a good time with the people around me. I’m grateful for the internet, life is good, universities are mostly for credential and the fun part is the best.

I think it is fair to say universities lean heavily on credentialing, but calling them only toll gates is too harsh. They also provide exposure to new fields, access to labs and mentors, and peer networks that are hard to replicate outside.

That being said, the essay itself wanders and sometimes repeats points instead of driving the metaphor home. Tightening the structure would make the message stronger.

This is also true for universities in Europe and America.

They used to be; I got my first master in that environment; academic rigor was the goal and purpose and my second one what it became after and is now; something to get a job with. The former was free and very hard the latter was loans, pressure but very easy. This happened in about 15 years in the Netherlands, between around 1990 and 2004; from excellent to shite as far as I am concerned. I was 'teaching' (assistant) and teaching for a bunch of those years and it really became quite shitty. My alma mater math & cs faculty is a joke now compared to the well deserved suffering of the 1990s rigor we had to endure. I wouldn't want to have lived the current fluff party. But sure, it's more practical as most we were taught was not practical and was not supposed to be; it was to teach us how to think.

Everyone has a different path.

I ran out of money, dropped out of college and self taught myself straight to 6 figures.

Thank you Brendan Eich for JavaScript. Without it I'd probably still be making minimum wage, or working in a Java shop which might be worse.

I finished my useless BA just to hang it on my wall.

College should not be a job training program. It's valuable on its own merits, but the loop of you need a degree to get a job, and you need money to get a degree, so you can get a job to pay off your loans is stupid.

If anything, and this is an American perspective, high school has failed.

You should be able to read and write to a point of employability.

If you want to go to college, it should be optional. Do it after work or part time.

Outside of maybe medicine, law( which is debatable, you can technically just take the bar after a clerkship in a few states), and maybe a few other careers, college isn't needed.

Why in God's name would you get a Masters in Art, the loan payments will make it impossible to survive.

Just make the art!

Draw.

Write poems!

Want to make games, make games!

Knowledge is basically free, we're still adapting to this.

University is what >you< make of it. If you don’t like it, you have the choice to not go.

Well, if you actually want to learn, there is always the vast swaths of the Internet. Virtually everything here is free, and nobody will care until you do something impressive with your knowledge.

As for universities, they will likely stay as signaling mechanisms until society finds a more efficient way to signal the things that universities do. This is a worldwide pattern that has emerged, and to the extent you see deviations from it it's usually situations like e.g. getting into Tokyo University is already so incredibly difficult that some employers will just accept your letter of admission itself as a sufficient signal of your value to the firm and hire you and let you skip the whole getting a degree thing.

What does university graduation signal? Some combination of raw intelligence, conscientiousness, and ability to conform (not against the "I have beef with the standard model of physics" nonconformance, so much as the "I will not physically assault the professor for telling me I'm wrong in class" nonconformance). Admission to a selective university signals you had these traits even earlier and with greater strength than your peers.

I'm going to underline something from your own article here, which is that you went to an excellent university and got near the top of your class despite hating it. It is an incredibly rare psychological profile in the wild to be able to war-of-attrition your way through so many elite classes, while having virtually zero interest in the material themselves. Any employer would be drooling at the mouth to hire you because you sound reliable even in a pinch. Alas they cannot tell you apart from the ultranerd who gets all As because she genuinely finds all knowledge presented to her endlessly fascinating - but she's probably a good hire too, for different reasons!

But, almost by definition, you can't really signal that kind of ability if you only ever do things you want to do... And most of the things most people in the world want to do most of the time aren't very economically valuable from the doer's perspective. Everyone wants to eat, nobody wants to grow crops, etc.

"The Controversial Exam Carl Sagan Gave His Students"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pc3IuVNuO0

Today, most students would fail this class. Note, the reading list is still relevant decades later. =3

I get my blood pressure to dangerous levels each time I stumble upon some high quality video lectures on youtube that explain some topics that were totally fucked in university, like PID control. 30 Minute video made by some amateur with cool animations explains basically 95% of everything you need to know vs old lifeless dork professor at "elite" university mumbling some nonsense and throwing walls of formulas with zero context, explanation or examples to help you understand. And in the end, your uni knowledge is at most 5% applicable in your work, you are still totally unprepared to enter the workforce and your first employer carries the burden to teach you.

[dead]

From my experience at a German university, it was very clear that every student with a desire to learn would learn relevant skills and have no trouble passing any exam. The exams never were easy and studying was required,but if you understood the subject you would definitely pass.

The experience the author describes seems totally disconnected what I have ever experienced in university. The author believes (which I think is unlikely) that the university had nothing to teach to him, in my experience this always was the fault of the student. Often blaming "esoteric" and "irrelevant" subjects such as linear algebra for their lack of success, while not understanding that it is a vital course for any engineer.

The university system is a titanic waste of resources. Let's switch to a trusted testing system. Basically, have a thorough knowledge and skill test for any career (doctor, engineer, lawyer, etc) that anyone can pay to take and pass.