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Originally Posted by adios
How about both, college and bootcamp? It is not an either or choice.
I would say that they are, sort of. I mean, if you spent 4 years at a college and can't get a job... As for the flip side, see the post you quoted.
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What higher level math is essential for doing software development?
This is hardly an exhaustive list:
SQL -- Classical Logic, Graph Theory.
Machine Learning -- Calculus, Probability, Statistics, Linear Algebra
Image Manipulation and Ray Tracing -- Linear Algebra, Calculus, Trigonometry.
Algorithms -- Calculus, Counting
Marketing -- Statistics, Calculus, Probability
Cryptography -- Statistics, Probability, Classical Logic...
I can think of many more examples, but why waste bandwidth going on and on?
The stock answer is black boxes, and that is fine to a point. Even if you never create the wheel again, there is immense value in learning the foundations that black are created from. It is akin to cashing your paycheck, asking for the account balance, and the teller telling you that your account balance is negative when you know for certain that you had 5k in the bank yesterday. You don't have to be able to precisely know what you should have, but your alarm bells should start ringing.
Engineers use black boxes as well, but I certainly would never trust an engineer to design a bridge that never worked out statics by hand.
Of course, programs generally aren't life-threatening, but there is something seriously wrong with the programs I've had to use at my previous and current jobs. There is something seriously wrong with visiting websites that takes eons to load and cause my computer fan to spin. This is result of not understanding or learning the fundamentals.
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Please know that I have a great deal of respect for the knowledge that is anpotentially acquired in a university setting. I made a post last month about a situation I encountered at a company where I would definitely be consulting with Phd level talent in algorithm development. I will readily admit I don't have that talent. In my view not many do. I totally agree that pursuing university degrees has a lot of value. Again I don't think it is an either or choice. Also I can see value in attending a boot camp without a degree.
I cry foul on "talent." Picasso didn't wake up at 23 years old and decide to paint his masterpiece. I'm a believer in the 10,000 hours theory. Yes, gaining that talent takes a strong interest in the subject and a determination to be damn good, but there is nothing precluding you or I from having "talent." Lack of talent is a lack of desire, will, or time. Perhaps all three. I posit that there is a relatively small difference between the best and worst chess grandmaster. Yes, that status looks unattainable to us, but we aren't poring over books and playing chess for years on end either, are we?
As for what you quoted, I'm sad that you'd dispute me, of all people on this point. I'm the one person in this forum who is doing exactly what I described, so you know that I'm not talking out my ass. It is not easy to go to wake up at 6:30am, get home at 6:30pm, cut time out for food, laundry, and other mundane things and still get in 3 hours of study each day, especially when your work demands staring at a screen and typing the whole day.
The largest issue with self-learning is two-fold: you have no guidance. I have a few 1,000 pages of books. I know for certain that no professor demands his or her students work through all of this in one class, and he is able to guide students in what they need to know. Me? I just grind the whole thing and hope for the best.
When you self-learn, you don't know if you are correct. There really aren't as many answers on the web as you may be led to believe.
Finally, and this is a major point: there is no romance and no reward. People try to self-learn, but really (and this is often said and often ignored), it takes *years* of practice to get the system down, and there is no one that can tell you what works for you. There is much romance to the notion of autodidact, but I never felt it was romantic or easy, and I will say for the vast majority of people, it is utterly impossible. There's lots of data-points on this very fact alone. One only need to look at the drop rates of MOOCs. There are lots of people working on this issue independently, and there are many theories about, but nothing that I've found convincing.
The only good advice, from my, and others autodidacts' experience: don't do it.