A Computer Science Degree is (Mostly) A BAD Decision

that's $216,000 in the negative at the start line of your career you're bound to lose in life and struggle along the way and when you finally pay it off your youth will have left you and you'll probably have regrets could I convince you by waving $80,000 in front of your face to teach yourself the code on your own and become an amazing software engineer here's 80,000 here you go you have 4 years to do it could you learn it and become good at it and land the job what's up everybody it's Travis here from travis. media so over the years I've just become a real critic of higher education I see so many people burdened with debt for most of their working lives with nothing to show for it and I truly think college in general in 2023 2024 and Beyond is mostly a bad decision and I wish I could do a whole video on this but it's not really what my Channel's about so I'm narrowing it down to computer science degrees specifically now this doesn't mean then to go and switch your degree over to something silly like interior design but I would like those who are considering pursuing a computer science degree to think twice before putting in the time the effort in the money to get that piece of paper with your name on it allowing you to then enter the software industry and in this video I'm going to give you my five reasons why I think it's a bad decision now before I get to that I need to give two Exceptions there are two exceptions here the first exception is if you can do so for an affordable price maybe your company will pay for it maybe you're in a country where education's cheap or you get a great scholarship or reasons like that but truth be told most colleges are not affordable for most people and then the second exception is that you live in a country where your education is Paramount to your future success for example in India now I've lived many months in Nepal and while that's not India the culture is very similar and an education for most there is vital for success in life it's very hard to succeed as a self-taught Dev in those areas because of the importance of education and a degree being the norm or if you're just in a place where education is necessary to get you into a better place in life where you can Thrive go for it those are my two exceptions and these exceptions are why I said mostly in my video title now quick disclaimer I'm not knocking anyone with a CS degree you earned it you'll probably have it easier than a self-taught Dev and two don't drop out of school on account of this video stay the course if of course that's what you'll actually end up doing when you get out of college third we need really smart people that thrive at the University level though I could really argue that University makes many people dumber and four though I've developed a real aversion to colleges overall I do realize that many professions require it you cannot be a doctor without it and we wouldn't want you to be so all of that out of the way here's my five reasons number one and at the Forefront of all of this is the cost here are the statistics the average cost of college in the United States at an inate college is $967 per student per year in out ofate tuition averages $227,000 a year and this does not include books and supplies and costs of living and by the way why is every book you have to buy in college over $100 and then when you're done with the class the new version is out such that you can't then sell the book back anyway that's like a brand new car every year but you don't get the car and you have to pay double with interest and I could do a whole video on why this is designed to screw you up in life but I don't have a personal YouTube channel we don't talk about things like that on Travis media maybe one day I'll start a second channel for that kind of thing and you're paying this back over the course of your lifetime double the amount that you borrowed becoming one of the many cogs in the industry that's $216,000 in the negative at the start line of your career you're bound to lose in life and struggle along the way and when you finally pay it off you're youth will have left you and you'll probably have regrets now let's say you go instate at $10,000 a year let's leave the housing books and cost of living out of the picture and with interest you'll pay back like $80,000 when you're done could I convince you by waving $80,000 in front of your face to teach yourself to code on your own and become an amazing software engineer here's 80,000 here you go you have four years to do it could you learn it and become good at it and land the job because once you get the job you're in you don't need the degree anymore and you might be like hey Travis things are really competitive now and I really need this degree to help me stand out to which I would have to say is it worth the $80,000 Edge over others for example a site like zero to Mastery has like every course you would need plus they have these entire career Pathways to being a python developer or web developer or backend developer cyber security freelancing Etc and it's like $279 for a whole year full access $300 or $80,000 and of course forbes.com disagrees with me saying the college isn't needed refrain is dangerously shortsighted a person with a high school education is unlikely to see much growth in their earnings while the person with a college degree will earn nearly twice as much on average sure they'll earn twice as much so that they can pay back all that they've borrowed plus interest so that's number one cost number two is that there are great Alternatives out there for aspiring developers you have at your disposal all the material that you would learn in a traditional CS degree now the coding part is actually easy it's cheap but I'm talking about the science part of it have you seen the cs50 courses they have it all all and they're like 10 times more entertaining than benstein your local CS Professor next there's boot camps sure they get a bad rep but for those who take it serious and really apply themselves they will find a job just be sure to choose one that doesn't cost the same as a college degree though in math you can learn math and statistics anywhere like free code camp or brilliant.org remember you have four years to learn it all you can skip stupid classes like the sociology of Miley Cyrus or zombies in popular media or turf grass science looking at you Aaron Rogers and you can perhaps do it in just one to two years number three the indecisions many graduate and realize that they really hate programming especially after all the dry books they just read so they either start a career they hate or they just give it up all together throwing all of that time and money down the drain in fact many people do this with college anyway they go without a clue as to what they want to do they pick something either on a whim or something that will pay them the most money and they run with it only to find out lat that they hate it this indecision is an expensive one and could have a major impact on the majority of your working years financially and emotionally now number four this is a big one if you think about it and it's that tech companies no longer require it that's enough for me you don't need me to pay $80,000 then I'm not going to do it sure it's easier with a CS degree to get it but it's much more motivating to do it without six figures of debt weighing you down so if they don't require it you don't need it you can put in the work sacrifice a year of your life which remember is 1/4 of a college degree and do so on your own account what they really want is experience so you need to figure out how to land that one job so that you can then put that experience on your resume and make a career out of it in fact and this is where the model is changing these big tech companies are actually providing their own training and their own paths into the industry that actually helps people transition in think Google career certificates or The Meta designed front-end and back-end courses that course Sarah offers you don't need all the English and history and sociology and psychology courses to be a Dev and finally number five it's just a different world now the wideopen web has created a gazillion opportunities for those who seek them out teenagers are making six figures on social media taking selfies and old 30 plus year veteran software Engineers are now teaching us all the tips and tricks on YouTube prior to all of this when I was young most of us just needed an education of some sort to land a job it's Corporation and then move up the corporate ladder and many brave people started their own businesses well it's so different now and kids are so techsavvy that the traditional paths that we look to over the past 50 years they're phasing out colleges should be getting scared because of all the competition so don't go to college just because you think that's the only option out there it's an expensive decision so what if you don't want to go to college but you still want to pursue this software engineering field well it's all there for the taking you just have to put in the work that's the number one factor are you willing to put in the time and energy to do it whether you're 15 25 35 45 it's all the same thing all courses teach you the same thing JavaScript is Javascript python is python zeros and ones are zeros and ones no matter who teaches it to you so you need to learn to code practice at it build legitimate projects learn the algorithms to pass the interviews work on your soft skills apply to a million places don't give up remember you're doing all of this for $80,000 in four years of your life back take a year out of your life in the big picture remember it's only a year if you start at 30 you'll be 31 and devote yourself to it make connections get on LinkedIn get on Twitter and be proactive make sure you check the below description for recommended links so what are your thoughts on College and CS degrees I'd love to hear them down in the comments if you found this video helpful give it a thumbs up consider subscribing to the channel and I'll see you in the next video

Channel: Travis Media

Views: 51,799

Keywords: computer science degree, self taught developer, self taught programmer, comp sci, cs degree no job, cs degree worth it, cs degree useless, self taught programmer vs degree, self taught developer motivation, college degree vs no college degree, college majors that are worth it, computer science major advice, computer science major, computer science vs self taught, do I need a computer science degree, college is a waste of time, computer science degree cost

Id: lcYTlAPhYrU

Length: 9min 7sec (547 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 05 2023