Why Self Taught Education is More Effective way for IT career

Feb 11, 2023

Hi all! Today I want to talk about self-education, namely why I consider self-education the most effective way of learning in general and in IT in particular. I will try to prove to you that now YouTube can easily replace undergraduate studies at the average university in the world, and educational platforms underestimate their contribution to education. We'll talk about this and more today. Let's get started.

My Story in Brief

I will say honestly and immediately - I was disappointed in the education system after graduating from the university. I have a bachelor's degree in computer science. The fact is that the education system in my country is a little different from the usual one all over the world. Where I studied, there are absolutely the same degrees of education: bachelor's, master's, and so on, but the huge difference is that we did not have the opportunity during the course of training to pick up subjects for ourselves like products in a supermarket. Thus, if you enter the computer science department, it is impossible for us to graduate from the university with a degree in archeology, you will graduate with a degree in computer science and you have no choice.

Therefore, it often happens that students drop out of university because they have chosen the wrong faculty. They understood themselves, understood what their strengths and weaknesses are, what they want to do in life and what they don’t, but they can’t do anything about it. The only option in this case would be to leave the university and re-enter, re-taking these exams and preparing a portfolio.

The system is terrible, completely illiberal, but in such a system I had to learn. Such an education system has formed in me a very categorical opinion about the education system as a whole. My opinion may not be correct, because I studied in a different environment and other conditions, but I still think that my thoughts can be useful to someone and accepted with some understanding. In any case, I always look forward to criticism and discussion in our community on Reddit.

What's Wrong

Knowing how the education system works in other countries, I was always offended and kindly envious. I also wanted to choose subjects that are interesting to me and not enter the faculty, but the university. Since the subjects could not be chosen, there were a number of subjects that were mandatory for study, regardless of which faculty you were studying at.

For example, I studied at the Faculty of Computer Science and among my subjects were philosophy, political science, history, just like the guys who studied, for example, at the Faculty of Mathematics or at an engineering school. These are compulsory subjects that have the same exams and requirements from teachers as in core subjects such as mathematics or physics.

Such a commitment makes you focus less on what is really interesting. So, for example, in my first year of study, I had problems with mathematical statistics. And instead of learning theory and training by solving problems, I taught Kant's philosophy while studying at the Faculty of Computer Science. Thus, I missed a lot and did not pay due attention to really worthwhile subjects, for example, instead of electives in databases, I attended additional lectures in history, simply because I was not good in the humanities and I had to improve my knowledge in order to continue my studies.

So it turns out that compulsory subjects, such as history, jurisprudence or philosophy, distracted from the main program, which, by the way, I chose upon admission, for the exams of which the entire graduating class of the school was preparing. It may seem to some that versatility in this regard is useful. Perhaps even the Ministry of Education in my country thinks so, but it is not. Studying such sciences against his will, only in order to continue his studies further without debt, does not leave any knowledge later. As soon as I passed the exam in history, two days later, I forgot everything that I had learned the day before. But how much time I spent on these lectures, seminars and exam preparation, instead of attending electives in operating systems.

Positive Sides

However, this obvious disadvantage, which I mentioned above, has one advantage, namely the motivation to learn what is interesting. Attending lectures on history, I increasingly valued my free time from studies, which I can spend on a personal project in a specialized subject or a scientific article in mathematics and probability theory or preparing for a university scientific conference. In a word, I appreciated every free minute I had.

This free time, everyone disposed of in their own way. I decided to devote time to self-education, thereby compensating for all the gaps that I received due to the obvious shortcomings of the education system. I dedicated my time to online courses. The courses were completely different. If I felt that I was lagging behind somewhere in programming, then I would catch up with the help of additional courses in C ++ or Python. If I felt that I was lagging behind in the subject of mathematical statistics, then I took a course in business analysis and analytics and so on.

Unfortunately, the disadvantages of the education system in the country where I studied could only be covered up by personal initiative and work; the university helped in this unwillingly and weakly. Of course, many teachers of compulsory subjects (such as philosophy or history) encouraged additional education, and sometimes they could just let me go from a lecture so that I could work out what was more interesting to me. For example, I was often dismissed from classes in philosophy, but there were also such teachers who did not compromise and even realizing that their subject was not a core one, they were stubborn and did not meet the student halfway. So, for example, I never managed to leave history classes.

Because of these holes in the education system, I discovered self-education. I understood why this is an ideal form of education, and why no university in the world will give me a better education than myself.

Self-education

Self-education (it doesn't matter in what area - from mathematics to cross-stitching) is important because it is completely your choice. Here everything depends only on you, and the degree of the knowledge that you receive also depends only on you. No teacher will give you more than you invest in yourself. Only you know what you really need. How to figure out what you need is another question and clearly a topic for a separate article.

Any education system, even an ideal one (which I did not study), is just a system - it is like a car, designed for a mass audience, for a mass consumer, it generalizes students and is built for a typical student, for a template. And this is wrong. Each student is unique, each should have its own approach and a separate teaching methodology. The university cannot give this, it is banal because not a single university in the world has the resources for this and never will. But there are resources for it online.

The Internet is a huge pile of experience, where you can find anything - from smiling cats to instructions for building a nuclear reactor (if you know where to look). So is there really no one there who would help you learn, with a similar worldview, desire and, most importantly, a life background. For me, self-education is freedom, the freedom to choose what to study, with whom to study, when to study and where. The university did not give me this, so I myself am looking for opportunities. The desire is there, so everything else will be found.

Conclusion

I am not saying that my thoughts and reasoning are the truth and nothing but the truth. The fact is that everyone has their own life experience and their own emotions about education, so I cannot say what is best for you. I just wanted to reason with you and say that there is always an alternative. It makes no sense to be disappointed in something (as I am in the education system), but it makes sense to take matters into your own hands and just learn.

Studying for me is an important part of life, as I spend a lot of my time on it. It's like a hobby for me, so I sometimes combine serious study with something more fun, like web design with a game of poker. But you need to constantly learn, such is the modern world. Good luck!