Clearly, I didn't go to the Technion, so I can't comment on that particular university, but I do have a lot to say about higher education in general.
First, let me say that I think that the whole "We won't hire you without a degree" thing is utter bunk. I've gotten jobs many times simply because I have a degree, and the employers haven't even bothered to notice that none of my degrees are in CS or EE or in anything even remotely related. I'm always amused by people's reaction when they find out I went to UC Berkeley. It's often along the lines of "They made BSD there!" as if that matters to a student in the Social Sciences. There is no question in my mind that it is entirely possible to be an excellent engineer without a University education. I am a strong believer in autodidacticism and there are some awesome hackers in the international community who have learned everything they know about computers without the structure of a university. My business partner is an amazing individual, and he's always surprising me with his depth of knowledge and engineering skill, but he's "only" got a high school education. Mind you, I'm also a proponent of radical unschooling for kids, and my eldest son (who happens to be at university right now) was unschooled for 5 years. I think that he learned far more by building his own linux distro, making independent movies, publishing comic books, working at the Seattle Aquarium, and playing with role playing games than he ever would have learned by wasting his time in a classroom through high school. (Apparently, his university agrees... they actively recruit homeschooled and unschooled students like my son.) So, if the university isn't *necessary*, why go? Well, it's not necessary, but it can be quite good. University is not the only place where you can stretch your mind and learn new things, but it is one option. Options are good, and there's no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water. The structure of classes can help you to move through material at a steady pace without distraction, and the support of the teaching staff, tutors and fellow students can help get you through the more difficult points in your learning. There is also the fact that employers like to see a degree. Let's come back to that for a second. Why do employers like to see that degree? Honestly? It's because they need something external that they can use to narrow down the field of potential employees. It's a lazy and inefficient strategy, but it's the done thing, and so they keep doing it. Then, of course, they complain about the quality of the people they actually interview. It's insane. But, when you buy into the system, you get what the system spits out at you. That's life. (On the other hand, if you chose not to buy into the system, there's always the uphill battle against the people who can't see outside of their little boxes. That's also life.) As for the question of whether you should go to university right out of high school, I give a resounding NO (in the vast majority of cases). As always, I leave the door open to those rare exceptions, because we humans are such a varied lot and there's always someone for whom going to university right out of high school really is the perfect thing. Usually, however, I think that the time out of school allows for a certain level of maturity, development, and recovery from the burnout of the school system and these things all go together to improve the actual results of the university education when it's finally received. - Elizabeth Sterling -- "In fact, one of the saddest but most common conditions in elementary school computer labs ..., is the children are being trained to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint. I consider that criminal, because children should be making things, communicating, exploring, sharing, not running office automation tools." -- Nicholas Negroponte _______________________________________________ Perl mailing list [email protected] http://perl.org.il/mailman/listinfo/perl
