Hey, what's up?
John Sonmez here from simpleprogrammer.com.
I've got a question.
This is an interesting one.
I've gotten some variations of this question for a while, but I've avoided answering it
just because it's going to stir up some shit but, eh, let's stir it up.
This question is about degrees and this question comes from Chris and he says, "Is a degree
acquired in one country worth more than a degree acquired in another country?"
He says here, "I live in Hungary and I want to go to college or university in the US.
Is it worth it to get a software engineering degree in the US or should I stay here?
As to where I want to work in the future is uncertain.
My brothers live in the US but my family lives in Hungary, so either is a viable option for
me."
Here's the thing.
I don't know.
I'm not going to profess to know like what degrees are more valuable in what countries,
but I guarantee you that there is a difference between getting a degree.
I'm not trying to pick on anyone here, okay, but you know it if you live in India.
You know that there's a difference between getting a master's degree in something in
a college or university in India versus getting one in the United States, or in, let's say,
England or a lot of other places in Europe.
You know it.
I don’t need to tell you that.
It doesn’t mean that the degree is worthless.
Some of them are.
Some degrees, you know.
I was just reading a book.
Again, I don’t want to pick on any particular countries here, but I was reading a book,
where was it?
You know, I think it was—you don’t say Mr. Feynman, I thin, maybe or—I can't remember
the exact title, but it's Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize winning physicist.
You can check out the review that I did here.
That's why I'm pointing there.
He was talking about going to Brazil.
I think this is—I hope that—maybe I'm mixing the story up, but no, I think he went
to Brazil and he was talking about the education.
It's probably changed since then, but he was talking about how he would ask some questions.
Maybe this is a different book.
I'm trying to think.
Either way, I'm just going to tell you the story, okay?
Whoever this person was, he went there and he was trying to teach physics or something.
He would ask them questions and they would be able to verbatim give the answer to like
some high level physics question, but when he gave them a situational question that basically
was applying that principle to an actual situation, they could not answer it or they couldn’t
even come close to figuring it out.
Even though they had all the formulas and all the details, they didn’t know how to
apply it.
What he said was—what he found out, he was actually giving this speech because he was
asked to speak in front of the education board or whatever in a university where the students
were graduating.
He basically told them that their education sucked.
The reason why he said that was because that they just did Rote memorization for everything.
They thought—they equivalated education with memorization.
So all that they tried to do was try to memorize stuff and actually I think it's improved,
I'm sure it's improved since then, but this was—this was way back when, but it just
gives you an example.
I'm just using this as an example.
Again, I'm not picking on any particular country here, but I'm just saying that not all degrees
are equal.
From talking to a lot of software developers that have come from a lot of different countries,
I can kind of tell.
I can tell where someone comes from.
If their degree, what they thought in school was very valuable or not.
Now, I'm not a big fan of higher education in general.
I feel like we're in an information age where anyone can learn information.
They don’t need to pay and go into debt to have a teacher tell them what they need
to learn.
I don’t like the system and the structure of it.
I feel like it sort of confines the mind in general.
If you're going to get an education, get a quality one.
Don’t waste your time.
If you're going to spend four years, 6 years pursuing an education, make sure that the
university that you're going to go to is going to be one that's actually going to teach valuable
skills and that is actually going to be useful to you.
I prefer that you self-educate as a software developer or go to boot camps.
That's my preference.
I think that that's a smarter move or maybe go to a community college for two years and
then go up to a university.
Keep that stuff in mind.
I would say you can kind of know, right?
I'm sure there's probably some resources out there to check the levels of the universities
in different countries and compare it, but in general, most of the United States universities
are going to be of a higher degree than a lot of, especially a third world country.
You wouldn't expect their universities to be of as high a prestige, right?
I would keep that in mind.
I would definitely keep that in mind, but at the same time I wouldn’t go like super
into debt.
Remember this.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what college you go to or what school you go to.
It's going to be up to you.
You're ultimately responsible for your education.
You can go to the most prestigious US university and you could learn jack shit.
You basically could or you could just do Rote memorization just like I told you that story
in Brazil and you could have no real applicable knowledge.
You could just pass the test.
You can just cram just in time to pass the test, and you pass the test and you're done
and you've just gone through the motion.
That's fine if you just want to get a piece of paper.
That's fine but why waste the time?
If you're going to do it, do it well.
Learn.
Open up the book and figure out—take it upon yourself.
Yes, you got to pass the test at the end of the semester, but take it upon yourself to
actually learn and to invest in your education and make sure that you understand this stuff
and it's actually valuable to you.
You can do it anywhere in the world.
Anywhere in the world you can do that.
You can take what might be a sub-standard.
Some of you don’t have the opportunity to go to the US to go to school.
I understand that.
You can't afford it or you just don’t have the ability to do it, then take what might
be a sub-standard school in one of your—in the countries that you're in and make your
education more rigorous.
You've got the textbooks.
The textbooks will probably be of descent quality, you've got a lot of other information
out there.
Figure out how you can find—how you can take responsibility for your education.
You're not just going to accept this crappy degree from this crappy college.
You're going to make it into a really good education and you're going to learn something
from it, because the ultimate goal is not to get a piece of paper.
It's to learn something.
At least that's what colleges were supposed to be.
It was supposed to actually be to learn something.
I totally get that if you just want to get the piece of paper and you're going to learn
on your own, that's fine, but think about those things.
All right.
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Take care.