College, or Self-Education?

Off-Topic
#10

When I was in college everyone was expected to spend approximately 2 hours outside of class studying and doing homework for every 1 hour of lecture. At what point does that time spent outside of class go from being considered University studying to self studying? Is going beyond what was directly assigned self studying or is that a natural extension of your University studies? I think that line can be pretty blurry.

Conversely the line for going from self study to University studying is very clear because of the scheduling and financial obligations.

Also, in my case, I took a heavy course load every semester so once my course work was finished I usually spent my time relaxing so I wouldn’t go crazy.

#11

Choose college. The classes that you think are worthless or unrelated could come in handy later, or they could ultimately be completely meaningless. Given the gamble of a 100% certainty that something will be useless, and some x% certainty that it will be useless, wouldn’t you prefer to have a chance at gaining something else in the process? Those “extra classes” aren’t going to be completely meaningless, especially if you end up choosing a different path from the one you originally studied specifically for. Likewise, there’s not always going to be an opening for the job you specifically want. That degree will help you out a lot more than it won’t.

Self education? Sure, you can learn to do something on your own. I’ve done that. Experience matters a lot, and getting started right away in something will help you gain that experience. Having a degree will help a lot too, and will reassure your potential employers that you’ve likely got a reasonable grasp on the subject at hand and haven’t just pressed along and happened to look reasonably useful to their untrained eyes. In other words, you’ve been recognized by capable people, not just peers.

Go for the degree. Do self study when you can. You don’t have to restrict yourself just to what you’re being taught; you can skip ahead. For degrees in languages, there are placement programs that will put you at your right level too.

That’s the advice I would liked to have given myself a decade ago, anyway. Regardless of what you choose to do, good luck.

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#12

I have graduated from University and have a degree and now I’m in college (where I’m actually learning stuff) . I should have done everything I will list below.

Depends on what you want to do and the school. Some schools offer state of the art programs, staff and other opportunities. While some might not know what they are doing. Researching this is key. Do you know of people who graduated there? Do they make a living wage? Many questions to ask yourself.

Self education, depending on the area, can work amazingly well. It could be because of connections or you are just really good. Though in some instances it can’t always be the end all. Saying this, I do agree that knowing software and teaching yourself is really beneficial never stop doing this, but it might not be the complete way to get a job (though it might depends on the person). But In some respects you don’t learn how to do something properly, to standards or rather industry standards. Not to mention people hiring you may want examples of your work and they can see the inexperience. You can also gain connections in the field you want to work in because teachers and classmates can refer you. There is also the fact that it looks better on a resume if you come from a good school vs someone else. My school offers you professional coaching to prepare you for interviews and also allow you to take extra courses until you get hired.

University is hit or miss, depending on what you want to do. Research before you go into the faculty and know what you want to do before you waste money on classes that mean nothing. Then they have profs that have 10 year and you can’t get them fired no matter how horrible they are. But certain educations like medicine require this.

In summary it is up to what field. I encourage you to get familiar with software and basics of anything before going into it. I wished I did this for some programs I’m taking so it would be easier to transition into them and have less struggle. But it worked amazing for Japanese knowing the basic alphabets ahead of time.

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#13

It heavily depends on the field you’re interested in, but in general, having a college degree will help a lot, even if you didn’t learn anything from attending to classes. Nowadays, staying in a job and progressing will take a fair amount of dedication and real skills, but to just get the job position you’re going to need some evidence to back up your claims. You’re gonna need a degree, job experience, projects… and even if you are a genius, you won’t get through the first cut during a job selection process if you don’t have at least some of those.

The bottom line is, get a title or something that will open doors for you and meanwhile learn other things on your own. For instance, in my case, studying aerospace engineering, we are taught little to no programming skills, so I need to do self-education on those, yet, it would be a suicide to quit the degree just to learn programming languages all by myself. Either way, you’ll see many things going to college that you wouldn’t have otherwise known that existed if you just self-educated yourself.

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#14

There’ve been a lot of very good points re: the whole “to college or not to college” in this topic, and I commend everyone for the great discussion! I especially love the point made regarding degrees in creative work vs degrees in STEM. A very level-headed look, if I must say.

However, if I may, I shall give a practical perspective, especially one for you @Apasher. Get a practical degree. One that is in demand, can get you a job, but is also something that you can manage learning. The truth about the J->E localization industry is that majority of those who work on it don’t hold japanese-specialized degrees. They learned the language as part of their passion, tried translating in the fan scene, and rode the waves into professionalism. I even know someone who did all that while taking up higher education, and after finishing their degree, went to work in the VN translation scene.

The same could be said for other fields, like software development. You could be studying law, but learn to code in your free time, build up a reputable github repository, and end up in the software engineering field. It is all very case-to-case, and if what you want to do is something that doesn’t rely too much on formal learning and research (the research part is important as it will be a big part of a uni degree), then it might be more practical to take a separate degree and honing your passion on the side. That way, should your road in the future seem hazy, at least you’ll have multiple options to take in life.

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#15

I sometimes wonder if would have been better if I had not gone to college, and instead had tried to pursue professional training or something. My major was Japanese, and I loved college while I was there, and I was “good” at it, but the degree certainly didn’t get me anywhere job wise, though part of it is my fault for not being diligent about putting myself out there enough.

If you do go to college I agree that going with practical degree is probably the best choice, though I will suggest you still make use of your schools Japanese department to take some classes and to study abroad. You will make good connections in the program both with teachers and students, and as someone else who thrives much more with some guided learning the classes taken will lay the foundation for what you do with with self study.

It is worth mentioning that an undergrad degree in Japanese wont open many doors to you without a lot of self study anyway. People hire for Japanese more based on the JLPT than on any kind of degree. I am sure results vary from school to school but without study abroad I would say the undergrad degree would only prepare you for the two lower levels of the test, and most job postings want the top two.

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#16

and get paid half as much as your colleagues because your employer says “well you don’t have a degree that we need so we don’t need to pay you as much.” What Pepe is recomending isn’t a bad option–if you have more qualifications that’s only more doors you leave open for yourself–but if you’re looking for an optimal strategy there are better but sometimes more risky paths.

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#17

You know this a tough question and there are 2 points to take in consideration. First; a school, institute or university will never teach you everything you need to know so it’s up to you what you want to do and learn. Second, companies or any kind of employer will always value that you have a way to back up your knowledge, by this I mean certificates or different kind of documents. So yeah you need to take these in consideration.

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#18

This.

It is best that you could do both: Higher education (bachelor, masters, doctorade, MBA, etcetera) for professional or academic purpose. Self-education for actual use or interest of knowledge.

For example, I have a masters which granted me opportunities in my job and university. It gave me a great base of knowledge and personal contacts that let me improve in both academic and professional fields. However, I educated myself to learn the technologies needed to perform my job correctly and to learn more about my hobbies (like playing musical instruments, understanding new languages and cultures).

#19

Much of what has already been said I agree with strongly; Things like performing research on an institution ahead of time, listening to word of mouth/anecdotes from attendees of an institution or a specific program, considering the field of study, etc. Given my experiences as a graduate and going into my first software job soon, I will try to give a bit of general advice from my college experiences.

Not to add to the College echo chamber in here, but I would agree that getting a formal education along with some sort of credential as proof is usually the best way to go about educating yourself. Below I will list some points in its favour based on some of my own experiences. Take into consideration that some of these may or may not apply, as every area and college/University is different in what they offer.

Resources and Learning Atmosphere

One particular advantage that having a formal degree or education can help provide is school services, particularly Career Resources and such. Despite some services being annoyingly compulsory, there are usually services that will assist with job searches, resume/cover/job interview advice, Co-op positions for work experience and such. These can be a great asset for students who are inexperienced with finding work and can be a good way to obtain some practical experience in the workplace. It and classes at large usually provide a good atmosphere to converse with others in the field or classmates to help practice and provide feedback that you might not get studying alone. Other bonuses to it are learning how to work with others in group projects in your field of study and possibilities to have friends you made in classes help you with networking.

Status/Associations

This may seem a bit peculiar, but this also matters. I am not talking about having the title of “Degree” on a Resume nor having one, as that’s already been discussed. There are certainly cases, particularly in local committees, where a college or institution is well recognized by employers. I have experienced some cases in which I said: “I am a Computer Science student attending XYZ College” and employers at career fairs mentioned that many of their workers were graduates from those programs and love hiring them. Additionally, graduates from your college working on a small start-up company in your field of study might be interested in you, since they already know you and what you’ve learned.

Learning How to Learn

I found this to be one of the best skills I ever gained out of College. Whenever you are learning more advanced concepts or even other languages/dialects, being able to apply the same principles you learned in classes is incredibly useful. While most classes usually teach the basics of a subject, on a larger level that class and program is really teaching you how to learn and adapt in that field. I think this is more prevalent in College than self-teaching, as having a bunch of classes teaching similar material helped me switch and acclimatize myself efficiently.

Motivation and Self-Discipline

I know this one was brought up already, but this one was huge for me in making my decision. By nature, self-learning is hard for me since my attention tends to waver, even in subjects I am passionate about. Now if someone put an official deadline to me with real consequences for not meeting that deadline (like an assigned sketch piece), my attitude changes drastically and I am able to not only focus but I am also able to help give my life a sense of structure. I also now have an end-goal to strive for in meeting the deadline, giving myself even more motivation to complete the task. I realize that this might not be a big problem for some, but I don’t think I would have learned nearly as much had I decided to try to self-teach myself.

Now, this post has gone on long enough, but a blend of self-teaching yourself material and attending a program or College, in general, is what I think is optimal for learning. Lectures and assignments given by professors will give you something to work on and a place to start. This way you can learn the material on your own or even learn concepts and materials with others. My last pieces of advice I can give are to keep copies of any work you do/assignments to show employers what you can do/have learned and having a side project to also show employers and help solidify your own knowledge. I didn’t necessarily do either that much and I wish I did in College.

TL;DR: Like others here, I generally would recommend having a College education, though it can vary case by case on fields of study (which I know basically nothing about Japanese to English Localization Jobs, so keep that in mind) The main advantages I think College has over Self-Education is access to College Resources to give you services for helping with getting a job after College like Resume help, a potential benefit of having your school or program be well known to employers (meaning you may have an in through the company that way), gaining the ability to learn how to learn, and can help with motivation. Make sure to keep copies of your work and I’d also recommend having side projects while learning to help show employers what you have been/had worked on as evidence to back up your resume.

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#20

I currently have two Bachelor degrees (Multimedia and Computer Science). I don’t regret going to University though I will probably be in debt the rest of my life (rip mortgage). The resources and networking opportunities are invaluable though a lot of the time you have to seek it out from lecturers and tutors because they can only do so much in the classroom. Even then I think I collectively learnt more actually working as a programmer than I did in the classroom. But then I wouldn’t have gotten the job without the degree. It’s a weird situation.

It’s cool that there are lots of free resources on the internet if you do want to learn something, I don’t even think they were around (or at least not as extensive) by the time I read leaving school and going into higher education. That was less than 10 years ago.

I’d say they both have positives and drawbacks. University gets you the status (which can help with getting a job) and the networks. Self-study is free (though some places have free University - it should be everywhere but you know, capitalism) and you can research what you care about. Pick your poison. :b

#21

High-school Junior here and still have yet to know what the hell I’m doing (and going to do).

I have a feeling that there’s two types of people who go to college: one of them fall into the category of people who are actually pursuing the STEM fields, and the rest of them are people who doesn’t exactly know what they’re doing and are just going with the flow. For me, I’m not really sure… Growing up in a family whose parents were both teachers at one point in their life, going to college not only feels like the norm but may be the only acceptable option here. I don’t know, maybe I’ll get lucky and accomplish something before senior year and actually opens up a path where I can just actively be involved in a job instead of being in college… Like getting @NotKyon to support me on Patreon

I’m not too keen on the whole college, debts, and money thing in general, but it’s definitely something to watch out for, especially when it comes to gauging your own ability to follow through with the program instead of quitting half-way through and getting screwed over by loans… Of course, a degree, in this day and age, is unfortunately quite valuable in a business environment. Whatever cultural heritage that we took out of the good ol’ days where a person who holds a degree is regarded in a higher class still holds truth today, even when they are the norm now, just by having a degree when applying for a job puts you at an obvious advantage to those that don’t, giving college degrees a lot of credits when it come to career paths.

On the topic of self-education vs school education, like many people here have said, it is really dependent on the field that you are interested in. As someone who is sort of half-assedly pursuing art (the half-assedly is a result of the belief that it’s an impossible dream), 100% of what I’ve learned so far and will probably learn more is a result of me just deciding to sit in my room all day and draw shit.

Art is a good example of a field where a lot of your experience will come from just you drawing on your own, it’s something that’s accessible at home and doesn’t need an education facility of some sort to provide you with the learning material for it. Of course, there’s also certain field where you will definitely and utmost needs formal education to accomplish them… something that involves the scientific field will definitely require you to either get access to equipment worth an incredible amount of currency, or even a filming career will probably leave you at a position where you’ll have to get college education just to be exposed to the kind of equipment that are necessary to learn.

Onto your dilemma itself, you’re very much correct. The problem with self-education that a lot of people have experienced is to find the motivation to continue on doing it, with something like a formal education, it’s much easier to do because you’re sitting in a class doing work and getting them assigned… like you have been for most of your life up to this point.

That’s weird though, college forcing you to take classes that aren’t directly related to the one that you specifically pursues for… Shouldn’t it be something like “hey, at this point in your life, you probably know what you’re doing if you’re here, so how about we just focus on said subject instead of hammering you with pointless classes that you probably won’t ever use in your life”

Actually, you know what? Screw school subjects that I probably won’t ever use in my life, math, for example, is a good contributor to that list. Why the hell am I learning Algebra 2 if I know I will never get into the STEM field? There’s 8760 hours in a year and around 1,170 hours of school in a year for American students, assuming you’re a healthy individual, sleep (THIS IS WHY WE SHOULD ALL HAVE POLYPHASIC SLEEP) takes up 1/3 of your day, turning that into 5840 hours a year that you are actively functioning, 1170 of which is taken up by school, which is around 1/5. What if someone know that they are guaranteed their dream job as something like a master pianist if they are good enough for it? What if they just drop out of formal education to get 1170 hours more into practicing whatever skill they want to pursue? THAT’S A LOT OF TIME TO IMPROVE SOMETHING AND SCHOOL IS TAKING IT AWAY, IT’S TAKING AWAY FREEDOM, AND BECAUSE OF THAT I DEMAND THAT SCHOOL NEEDS TO BE REFORMED, THAT EDUCATION NEEDS A COMPLETE MAKEOVER.

Although… isn’t a big part of school is opening up pathway for you, and especially so for people who aren’t quite sure which road they should be going down? So naturally if you know you already going to have a good job without needing some sort of college degree, it should be without saying that you should just drop out, because school is pointless at that point.

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#22

Having me support you on patreon is actually pretty viable. Effectively that’s the sugar daddy path, which you can only do while you’re young or clever. In any case it’s a frowned upon option in modern society and I’ve no choice but to say it’s not recommended if you value acceptance among your peers and potential peers.

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#23

I’d argue that arts, especially creative fields, are highly reliant on peer evaluation. While anyone can evaluate whether a craft is good or bad, professionals of particular creative fields have better grasps of what makes it good or bad. That sort of evaluation comes from learning perhaps about art history, various techniques, and frameworks to which art is evaluated on.

If you’re like me who have no plans of pursuing, say Fine Arts, professionally, sometimes being acquainted with experienced artists is enough. But if you want to be a professional artist, you seriously need to have art professors look after your progress.

#24

My main argument against that is, well, how do you know that you will never get into the STEM field? Things change, people change, and maybe somewhere down the line you might just end up there and you will be thankful you learned algebra 2.

Or maybe you won’t and it will be a complete waste. But my point is, you really won’t be sure until the time comes and IMO that time only really comes once you’ve graduated from high school, so until then I think that it is an adequate general preparation for more advanced fields that may or may not come.

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#25

Fair enough point, I don’t think I’m dumb enough (or anyone really is) to not be able to pursue the STEM field, so there’s always the possibility that happens, no matter how unlikely it may be.

Although my point still stands that there should be an option of some sort to choose to not take those subjects. To be completely honest, I don’t know anyone, or if I ever will, a person who is so set on their future career that they will consider education that doesn’t pertain to that subject to be completely worthless; but looking at it from the point of view where you can be spending the time doing something else that’s much more (subjectively?) involving with the dream in question, taking a core class that you know you won’t ever use is kind of aimless.

Then again, can we really decide the future just by setting our mind on it? What if something happens along the way that’s out of our control? What if a huge factor of being successful in your dream involves luck playing a big role? What if it’s just as important to keep as many doors as opened while still pursuing your dreams…

damn it pepe why are you right

no you know what society needs a reform
this world needs a reform

why can’t i just pick a class role that i want and farm all the way to end game

#26

I wish I had known enough to ask myself how practical college was for me. I kind of went along with the flow (mom literally told me as long as I went to college I could stay at home, teachers assumed my good grades meant college was a good step for me, etc), but ended up with a degree I don’t like much and haven’t used. And debt, yay.
I think community college is fair enough to start out with for most people, especially if you’re wondering if college is a good fit but you’re not too sure what you want to study. Also college is very much about making connections in your chosen field (both faculty and other students), so if you’re going to be a recluse and not network you’re not getting as much out of it as you could be.

I’d be asking questions like if the college you’re thinking of has a good field of study, any scholarships, study abroad opportunities, do they help you get language certifications, etc.

#27

At first sight, it looks like that, but let me present the complete opposite to your situation. What if there’s person who is committed to go to college and study a STEM field, would subjects like art, music or philosophy be useless for them. No. Those subjects may seem aimless, but even if they aren’t practically used, studying them helps structure your brain and thought process. Knowing philosophy helps you maintain healthy discussions, and art and music aid with having more imagination, which can actually be really useful if you’re an engineer looking for a solution to a problem.

The same goes for STEM subjects that may not directly have anything to do with art subjects: math, for instance, increases your abstraction capacity, which enables you to deal with daily problems in a more objective and efficient way.

After all, school isn’t a place where you go to acquire knowledge to pursue a career. That’s what college is. School is, rather, a place that teaches you general subjects to give you a standard knowledge that has been agreed upon, which allows you to get by on a daily basis and train your brain to work more efficiently.

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#28

When I was looking at colleges I was looking primarily at 2 colleges. One was a public university that had those other class requirements that you dislike, while the other was a smaller private college that had a hyper focused curriculum geared for the career I was interested in. I wound up going with the public university because I didn’t want to give up my higher level math studies, but I had that other option.

If you know what you are looking for you can probably find that focused curriculum that you want, but first you have to know what you want to do. Otherwise your search for such a curriculum will be much less effective.

1 Like
#29

I can’t quite rack my brain to see how specifically a math subject that’s above anything Algebra to have application in real life, could you provide some examples? Is there an article somewhere that I can read about how math in particular can structure the thought process outside of understanding math itself better? I mean I guess STEM can be justified…? Science relies on observations after all rather than formulaic structures. I know that the STEM field is made out to be the grandiose of the academic world and gets romanticized and all, but seriously, will the math that I learn right now every be applicable to life? Math like dividing and multiplying, practical math, is so much useful and something that I would rather learn because I know I’ll be doing tax at one point in my life, paying off debts at one point in my life, and budgeting my money, that’s the kind of math that we should learn but it’s not even a part of the core classes.

Moreover on financials… Debts. What about the complete opposite of being successful thanks to college? What if you screw yourself over somehow by not being able to find a job in whatever topic that you have a major in (cause you know, they’re not guaranteed for some reason HAHA) and ends up doing something else that, yes, lets you scrape by, but with a load of debt on your back from college to top it off? I don’t know, maybe this is too much of a case by case basis that it’s hard to pin down an answer, considering all the possibilities.

Taking away from high school, in my last post I agreed that it is better for the general masses to take coursework that is designed to be as useful as possible for finding out your pathway, but what about college? According to Apasher, aren’t you still forced to take core classes that doesn’t necessarily pertain to your career? To refer to school and college as two different things by separating them by the kind of things they’re supposed to teach make sense, but feels a little weird in this context, especially when there’s little to no difference if you’re still forced to take those subjects in either system, and especially so at the point in college where you have to pay money for courses, money towards something which, if you have the mindset that it’s not useful towards your specialized career, feels… wasteful? What is college and higher former education are trying to do here? Ascending you to a significant point in human intelligence and knowledge or are they trying to prepare you for a specific career path?

@BlackHayate02

Fair enough point, college professors are always a good source to help you, but is that really the only option here? If you were to consider the financial cost of going to college, is it really such an appealing offer? There’s very many fields of professional art with different industry work that involves them so I can’t really go in too much detail… In the first place does professional help counts as a professor sort of thing? I mean, if apprenticeship in this kind of creative field is a prevalent thing in America, then that’s also another option, though I have no idea how that works… Just that it might exist.

A degree from a college would look great on my name and all, but the case for art is a little different, where most of the time your ability will be judged on your portfolio, rather than a degree (or maybe that’s just a misconception). Sure, college does offer a good deal of social networking especially for artists who, like you said, needs evaluation and such, that’s something that I can agree on that you’ll definitely miss out if you’re not in college.

I also do believe that having a degree is definitely very useful, since there is a lot of jobs that you can miss out on if you don’t have a degree, simply because they require one. A degree is kind of like wearing nice and appropriate clothes to an interview, while not having one is comparable to that of being naked, except maybe you’re buff as shit because you’re actually very knowledgeable and have a lot of experience with the job, but even so you may not get hired simply because you’re not wearing clothes, which, of course, is messed up, but that’s just how things are.

It’s a funny idea though, self-motivation and all…

If you have the self-motivation to get through college, won’t you also have the self-motivation to also focus on self-education to whichever subject you’re passionate about?