Announcement: A technical support officer is required. Responsibilities: answering customer calls, assistance in loading and unloading. Requirement: higher education, work experience from 5 years in a similar position.

Exaggerate a little. But what does higher education mean when applied to IT? Of course, a MIT or Berkley graduate with a specialty in Computer Science is really cool.

... but we're talking about Russia, right? Sales Manager with a diploma in maritime navigation, financial director with a dissertation in organic chemistry, a linguist-system administrator ...
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But no, not a linguist. Applied mathematics and physics. Department of fluid dynamics. The Navier-Stokes equation, the ephedra of the shear forces ... This is very important information when we start discussing the peculiarities of the guest core in a para-virtualized environment. Well, or at least poking around in the Python code, having fun with fragments of functional programming.

Why does an IT person have a higher education? Why does an IT person need a higher education (i.e., why does a tick "there is at least some kind of a / c")?

I heard several arguments, and none of them suited me.

So, the arguments from the devil's advocate:

1. Higher education is a mandatory requirement for employment, resumes without a w / o are not considered in large companies
2. Higher education shows that a person can achieve his goals, he has the ability to study difficult and useless things, he has perseverance
3. Higher education broadens the mind, gives the foundation
4. Higher education teaches a person to learn

Note, not a single argument, which would be reduced to "they will teach you what you need in the work." I could not reject this argument - and he would convince me. But I remember the institute's isolated, timid subjects, somehow relating to computers. I remember the old lecturer on the subject of "software computing systems." I remember how insanely boring he was at his lectures, and how long he mumbled about “four empty” in the code on Fortran. In the first year I already knew that. And no one told me what I did not know (yes, this is an abyss) - and I had to read it myself.

So, consider the argument. For credibility, I will parse the arguments in reverse order.

Higher education teaches a person to learn

It is assumed that a person who is able to study philosophy, the history of Russia, pass a test in physical culture, go through mathema-analysis and learn the formula conclusion for the boundary layer of ideal fluid will easily learn new things. And a person who, instead of studying the types of torsional loads and profiles of the supporting beams, picks at the Linux kernel in his spare time, is completely incapable of this. I find it difficult to refute the first part of the thesis, but categorically disagree with the second part. A person can learn what interests him. What is really needed is what concerns him. Instead of cramming the calculation of the convergence of the 6th order Runge-Kutta method. Learning is not related to the learning process at the institute. Moreover, existing training programs strictly contradict how one has to study something in IT.

In IT there are several methods of learning:

1. RTFM
2. dig into sources / scratches
3. do it yourself

If the first method is similar to reading textbooks, then the second two are not at all. Reading the finished documentation (which someone has already written!) Is the simplest of methods (consumption of ready-made in a convenient form for consumption). It often turns out that you need to investigate the phenomenon yourself, to collect information from disparate sources. This is not taught at the institute. Thus, I cannot say that studying at an institute teaches learning. Rather, teaches cram and believe written. What is sometimes fatal.

Higher education broadens the mind

Of course, the chapters on GR will give us a vast expansion of the outlook ... in the area of ​​GR. Often you use IT in IT? The horizon is so ephemeral, that talking about it as an important factor in the work, and saying that it directly depends on the institute ... The main thing is 5 years. 5 years on expanding horizons. Maybe it's better, 5 years to sit and discovery on TV to watch? And that, too, expands. And also in non-related IT fields.

Higher education shows learning ability and perseverance

I can not argue. Certainly, the “nerd”, who memorized anatomy textbook by heart, has a high ability to memorize. And those who went to the Saturday lectures on philosophy for 5 years at 8:30 am without delay will, of course, come to work punctually.

Excellent characteristics for the clerk, for the secretary, for ... well, I do not know for whom, but not for the IT specialist. The world of computers is either interesting or not. If not, it’s useless to cram. It needs to breathe, it needs to live, it has to be absorbed into the blood, like a native language. Then there will be an understanding. If the computer is a foreign environment, which is understood (by memorized by heart) vocabulary, then no skills and no perseverance will produce results.

In other words, this argument, specifically applied to IT, I do not accept.

And finally, the last argument.

Higher education - the way to work in a serious company

... in a serious company that recruits only people with higher education.

I will ask a question: do you really want to work in a company that appreciates the presence of a tapeworm diploma, and not your knowledge of database replication? Do you really think that in such a company you will have an IT-Shaya (not to be confused with the iT-directorship) career? What will you have the freedom to choose a decision, the freedom to study and implement? If it is there, then why does your future head (head of department) choose people on the orders of HR, and not on real skills?

Total

What they read at computer science institutes is pulling at the level of maximum vocational schools in computer science. Otherwise, a piece of paper from the institute is only a relic of the Soviet time and a waste of time in the present. Yes, like a piece of paper, it is valid for people who bow before this piece of paper. But it is a ritual, tradition and regulation. There is no evidence of professional skills, and obtaining this paper does not give anything to your professional skills.

And all the arguments “for” are reduced to one thing - how much rituals mean and their observance in our life.

Probably, somewhere there are separate Kaferda and institutes that really teach computer science (eh ... so how do we translate it into Russian?) Who are not trying to reduce everything to communication theory, electrical engineering, nonlinear circuits, computational and discrete mathematics ( subjects related, very useful and respectable, but not at all as comprehensive as we would like from specialized education).

But for now, I see that higher education in our field, in the field of computers, is absent. And his palliatives in the form of “at least some kind of an issue for a tick in a resume” are fiction, profanation and wasted time.