Re: [Israel.pm] Is University Really Necessary?

Hello Araik,

I wish to highlight from advance, that I'm not going to attack you,
and I really interested in answers (I hope you do not know what I'm
talking about) :)

As far as I know from your "CV" (I didn't really saw it), you where
head of computer science at the Technion, or something close.
Now I really respect what you are saying, but because Nir used some
quoting, I have the need to use it as well:

"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the
level of thinking that created them."
    Albert Einstein

Personally (I always write about myself or on people I know from first
hand), I'm not very objective in my perspective, and I think that non
of the answers on this subject can arrive from objective point of view.

However, any such argument creates some type of stereotypical answers.
That's btw what happens also when you are looking for a job. 

Personally, I believe that the open source world gave us something
great: The ability to show the rest of the world our code, and the
ability to learn from others without the need to be part of an "elite"
group.

Personally I do not believe that things such as exams can point on
someone knowledge in a subject other then taking exams.

I do not believe that learning at a university can point something on
a person.
I know (from first hand) a person that have taken curses in order to
have an academic degree in one subject, after two years, he moved to
computer science, with points on many subjects that gave him "ptor"
for a lot of harder classes, and now he learns CS in order to be a
software engineer.
I also know from first hand, few people that dropped out of
university, and returned to finish their degree.
And last but not least I know people that have so many diplomas, but
they don't understand anything.

So I can't trust that someone can be good or excellent just because he
or she learned at the university. 
I also believe that no one is perfect (I know that I'm far from being
perfect).

But why do you believe that only someone that learned from university
can have good tools and paradigms, while others can not ?

Why did the studding at university became like religion, that only the
ones that part of that "cult" can have access to things, while people
that do wish to know, but can't handle this religion, are not deserve it ?

While I do have a lot more to say, on the subject I'll shut myself up
and I'll end up in few other quotes of my liking for this subject :)

"Data is not information, Information is not knowledge, 
Knowledge is not understanding, Understanding is not wisdom. "
    Cliff Stoll & Gary Schubert

"The only real security that a man will have in this world is a
reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability."
    Henry Ford

And last but not least:

"Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always
glorify the hunter."
    African Proverb


Ido
--
http://ik.homelinux.org/

--- In [email protected], "Arik Baratz" <yahoo@...> wrote:
>
> On 3/24/07, Nir Simionovich <nirs@...> wrote:
> 
> >   As an employer, I can surely say that for some roles I would
rather take a
> > person with a degree, while other roles require someone who has
none. When
> > taking somebody to work inside a large team, I would rather take
someone
> > with a degree, as I know that they are "programmed" to do what
they are
> > told, and their paradigms are well known and fairly predictable.
When a role
> > requires a somewhat of a "lone gun-man" approach, I would prefer a
> > non-academic background, as this approach requires "out-of-the-box"
> > thinking, an ability to go beyond the paradigms and in some cases,
breaking
> > a rule or two along the way.
> 
> Hey Nir,
> 
> You're being very stereotypical. You're assigning properties to
> people's character based on their education.
> 
> I would say that there are good people and excellent people. The good
> people can benefit from higher education (by learning to treat
> problems in a structured way), and the excellent people cannot be
> ruined by higher education, and can sometimes benefit from it.
> 
> I can say that I have benefited from my Technion experience (I'm a CS
> BA). I've learned, mostly, humility. I used to be able to just wing it
> in high school, to the extent that I would read the response to my
> homework from a blank page, doing it in my head as I pretended to
> read. The Technion is the first place that challenged me in a major
> way and taught me that winging it is not enough, that sometimes it
> does pay to sit down for a moment and do structured work.
> 
> It has nothing to do with being a "lone gunman" or thinking outside
> the box or bending some rules to a well-calculated pre-breakage point.
> This is where you need someone excellent, regardless of education.
> 
> Being able to both think outside the box AND enjoy the benefits of
> structured work is even better. What's more, higher education gives
> you a common language spoken by the top people in our industry, and as
> you well know, communication is sometimes as important as mad skillz.
> 
> To sum it up: The people who "do what they're told" and are programmed
> with paradigms are good, and they probably benefited from higher
> education. They probably made a wise choice. The people who are
> excellent, might be refined by higher education but you can't take
> that edge away from them.
> 
> I have a lot of examples to show you of both kinds of people,
> including people we both know.
> 
> -- Arik
>