The Future of Academia - Being the Change: OSS UNI

>>8674618
CS is somewhat unusual in that you can actually do a lot of what you'd do at work from the comfort of your own home and thus learn it.

However, for many jobs you really can't get relevant experience by yourself. For example, you can tinker with things to see how they work and become proficient at it, but whether that translates to undertaking and managing a larger scale engineering project is questionable. So getting the experience to bypass the need for a degree by yourself isn't very easy, especially in the kind of jobs that require a degree to begin with.

Many countries have decent to great universities with tuition fees being nonexistent or much smaller than in the UK or US. At some point young people who got fucked by huge debt burdens in a job market where degrees don't automatically give you a job anymore are going to be in a position to make a change and hopefully they'll spare the future generations this silliness. The other option being that the prevailing attitude will be "I dealt with it, why shouldn't these kids?".

>>8674679
I would hope that online resources expand to courses such as engineering, that are traditionally much more hands on. Certainly, some sort of internship would be needed as compensation for that aspect - I just hope employers begin to respect that as a possibility (very unlikely unless this becomes a massive new trend and produces positive results, but I believe that's putting too much faith into people).

And you're right about countries outside of the US, I tend to forget it's really just us dealing with these outrageous prices. I'm curious as to how Europe must run that, because here in the US it seems to be a capitalistic, free market approach where the prices are going to rise until demand drops. They must be public, non-profit institutions? Also, the textbooks and software are fucking ridiculous. There's easily a replacements for most books and programs that are free, or much, much less expensive.. I'm not sure why (most US) colleges choose to require such expensive books, I suppose the incredible demand jacks up the prices there too.

Hopefully we see some change for future generations. But as a student interested in academia for the pursuit of knowledge, it all seems incredibly unnecessary to the point where I feel I'd progress faster and more thoroughly if I were to just hire a private instructor when needed.

>>8674618
>Many simply don't pursue higher education at all because of the cost

Many idiots do not understand how to control costs while getting a higher education.

FTFY

>>8674745
>>8674679
All in all, it's just a game that I do not agree with, but that puts students like myself between a rock and a hard place where you either choose to play the very expensive game to achieve a knowledge body and lifestyle you enjoy, or to take the risk, self educate, and pray things work out.

Another thing that needs to GTFO is the stupid pre-reqs for being "well rounded".. A physicist aspiring to be a professional physicist shouldn't have to jump through the hoops of taking classes like art appreciation, physical education, WW2 history just to fill degree requirements.. Not to say they don't matter at all, but to a professional physicist, they are not needed.

>>8674748
>most idiots don't understand how to control cost
While this is true, the argument still stands. At what point will you surrender that view? When the price for a degree is an average of $50k? $100k?

Certainly financial responsibility is a huge part of it (I haven't paid a dime for school yet, scholarships and FAFSA all the way) but this doesn't deny the point.

>>8674768
Samefag

expanding on how I haven't paid a dime yet, I'm in community college currently, and have to decide whether or not to throw down real bux on uni soon, hence all the angst

And I doubt my credits will transfer to a foreign uni, I also doubt I would get citizenship/free uni benefits but maybe that's worth exploring. I just dislike supporting a system I do not agree with.

>>8674745
At least where I'm from (not UK though I study here) universities are public and (as far as I know) non-profit. That does require a lot of tax money, so when cuts are made the universities suffer and sometimes they become rather inefficient institutions. But people are generally happy to pay for them.

In the UK a big grudge people seem to have is working-class taxpayers paying for the tuition of someone whose income will be higher than theirs. But this never made much sense to me, since usually rich people pay more taxes, and the poor will also be able to send their kids to university, hence the people whose university they paid for will pay a slightly larger part of their kids' tuition. Apparently this is supposed to be fairer towards the working class but it's exactly their kids that are gonna end up with prohibitively high debt should they want higher education. I guess it makes sense on a personal level if you don't plan to have kids or you don't plan to send them to uni.

>>8674776
>I doubt my credits will transfer to a foreign uni, I also doubt I would get citizenship/free uni benefits but maybe that's worth exploring

I've always wondered about how that really worked (and if it does work, why more US citizens aren't doing it). Presumably you can at least get permission to study in another country quite easily, since I know plenty of Europeans studying in the US.

In my current university in the UK, tuition fees depend on where you're from (same fees for all EU citizens, stupid high fees for Asians and Americans). In my home country it used to be that university was free or had a nominal cost for everyone but they changed that to rather meaty fees for non-EU people, which seems to be the standard nowadays. Norway still seems to offer tuition at little to no cost for everyone, maybe other places do so as well.

>>8674760

>Another thing that needs to GTFO is the stupid pre-reqs for being "well rounded".. A physicist aspiring to be a professional physicist shouldn't have to jump through the hoops of taking classes like art appreciation, physical education, WW2 history just to fill degree requirements.. Not to say they don't matter at all, but to a professional physicist, they are not needed.

See, this attitude is highly prevalent in STEM and is very problematic. This classes teach you the ways that racism, sexism and other forms of institutionalized oppression seep into our society and how to combat them to make a more just world.

>>8674869
I wonder how long I would have to live there until I'm a "EU people" and would get the benefits..

>>8674898
nice b8 m8

>>8674618
>CS may be one of the most prominent fields in which a self taught background couple with a portfolio can cause an employer to overlook a degree.

No doubt about it: when companies need a programmer or database developer--to fix something asap--they will take what they can get if one has experience; or sounds intelligent to a computer-illiterate hr interviewer.

>>8675209
I've always thought it'd be so easy to impress a computer-illiterate interviewer..

"..Yes I specialize in developing mathematical algorithms using new fields such as propositional calculus and Boolean algebra with an understanding of digital logic to solve whatever problem this company might.."


..and i'm only twelve!