Why do self taught coders like me are better than university students that learn coding

Question

why self taught coder are better

Answer 1

igambisa george This is a silly question since you don't actually provide any context regarding the following:

1. The basis of your claim that "self taught" coders are better than university students.

2. The basis in which YOU are better than university students.

3. Your skills, number of years of experience, and self assessment of your respective skill level?

4. How many university students vs self taught coders have you worked with?

5. The assertion that self taught coders are better suggests that universities make coders worse. If so, among the university students you've worked with, how many different universities and countries are represented?

I'll reserve my other feedback for another time.

Answer 2

Self taught people are the best as they make up for lack of guidance with heavy research and hard work. Most of the smart people I know here are self-taught with no programming background

As per my observations and personal experience most university kids are lazy when it comes to research. They are spoon fed concepts and they lack the practical reasoning behind "why we do something that way".

Whereas self-taught people learn this the hard way and because of that they also bring improvement in the process.

But if a person with self-taught mentality goes to a University then my goodness, he/she becomes a Rockstar.

I have a programming background but my eyes opened when I got out of university. University was not useless for me as it made me disciplined and I made great friends. But Army school or Art school would also do that 👍

Answer 3

I am self-taught and I doubt that I am better than a university student. And looking at your codes I think the same goes for you

Answer 4

David Carroll, without context this question does seem silly. It also makes my answer looks generalised, I didn't thought about that.

I must say I was an average performer and failed to utilize the resources in my University which led to my lower expectations from my University.

In retrospection, if I went back and rejoined my Uni i would have utilized the resources( library, faculties, programming groups, projects, labs) properly, which I think will be very difficult to simulate by a self-taught person. Environment is a big factor that I took for granted in my answer.

But I am pretty confident that the interest that was generated in me was mainly from so many self-taught sololearners, I have them on my followers list including you.

Thinking back, if I had your guidance and sololearn back when I started my Uni. I would have been a Rockstar by now. 😬

Answer 5

If guy removed himself from the equation, I might have actually took the question seriously.

Answer 6

@Hatsy Rei

Might be a mild case of => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Answer 7

being self-taught is not always better each path has its own pros and cons. Universities or any other institutions use a very structured approach to teach within a limited time and schedule and set very specific goals for each period. being self-taught does not restrict you to do any thing anytime , but it takes time and sometimes you get lost because you don't have a specific purpose, unless you pick up an effective way for learning, it can be hard.

Answer 8

Don't generalize.
Every person has his weight, in coding, relationship, honesty and so on.
When I was student I enjoyed a lot coding with Qbasic but never considered it, my bad.
Today we have internet, we can easily access informations, find inspirations, FOR FREE!
Knowledge is the key to open our mind and BECOME FREE and internet give us a FREE big OPPORTUNITY

PS: Pros and cons are everywhere, also troubles.

[EDIT] Be better doesn't mean think to be the best, it means appreciate other people and learn something new from.
It seems obvious but is not so easy.

Answer 9

I still don't agree. You're implying that students don't like learning. Even if that were true (I don't think it is), a major difference between students and self-taught coders is that students are "forced" to learn stuff they struggle with. If you're a self-taught coder and don't want to learn how pointers work because you don't enjoy it or think it's too complicated, nobody forces you to learn it. So you'll probably just ignore the whole topic and miss out on a very important concept. As a student, you can't just ignore a topic you don't enjoy that much.

Answer 10

One word.
MOTIVATION.

Answer 11

Seems that your question is written only to serve to validate the fact that you probably have not or will not get an education in development. That's fine. But what I can tell you is that by immediately thinking you're better than those who have earned a degree/diploma is just plain arrogant... I can guarantee you that if you enter a workplace with that mindset, you wont learn anything, you won't be able to effectively work with others, no one will want to work with you, you wont get ahead. You might think you're a good coder, but dont close yourself off like that... you'll kill your career fast.

Answer 12

Lord Krishna Checkout OneTab Extension for Chrome. It's perfect for research junkies like us. 😉

Also, regarding your last posted answer, you said:

"I could relate to most of your points excluding passion."

Are you saying you lack passion for programming or did you mean something else?

Answer 13

🤔

I've been teaching a variety of skills and subjects (both professionally and as a volunteer) for a very long time. Self-teaching and university are only two delivery methods. Some universities offer an excellent curriculum in the subject you're interested in (I guess coding in this case) and some may not. Some delivery methods may be ideal for some learners while others may not. Where there is a teacher / professor, some students may be able to form a valuable learning relationship with him / her, while others may not. Pacing is also a common variable. There's certainly no shortage of variables to look at. I think it would be more valuable to "compare apples to apples instead of apples to oranges" per se.

Answer 14

Statistically, your claim is neither true or false but one thing I believe is that most university students are more driven by social demands than passion only to regret later. Most of them have many unknowns in their minds. Questions like 'is this what I want in my life?', 'is this a well paying career than that?' , Am I really good at this?', e.t.c. Some people call it choice paralysis. As for self taught coders, most of them are driven by passion which is so influential to the outcome. However a university student has a wider and deeper intuition on how programming works which is great advantage.

Answer 15

Godwin Mordecai
I can relate to most of your points excluding passion.

About the research part: When reading a new topic/subject i end up with at least 10+ new tabs then was before(after i'm done i do try to close most of them).
It's not uncommon to have tabs in the range 40-90 (which sometimes becomes 100+) Not to forget the usage of bookmarks and notes.

About addicted to code: Is it really an addiction if you love doing some stuff:?

Answer 16

igambisa george Your codes aren't "silly", but they are very basic and you're making the same mistakes almost everybody makes at the beginning of their coding journey.

Look at your python code. Didn't you notice that no matter what number you enter the if clause is never executed? Doesn't that make you wonder why that is? Do you want to imply that you know what's wrong with your code but just felt like publishing a "silly" (aka not working) code? That doesn't make sense to me.

Answer 17

Those who learn with passion and purpose learn better than those who learn just enough to get a degree.

Answer 18

David Carroll I was hoping I could get away with a one liner here but you dragged me in 😀. Yes I guess someone with a degree who learned with purpose and passion has the upper hand in terms of employability etc. and no, a self learner would not necessarily lose their passion if their CS degree was relevant to their needs and goals.

Answer 19

Anna Maybe it depends on the university. Although I knew students who had just learned enough to pass the exam, it rarely did for a degree. And if it does, then people have done something different afterwards. In the long run I don't think that you can do something without passion.

Answer 20

It seems presumptuous to say that because I teach myself to program, I am better off than a student at the university. I would never make that claim because I could not prove it. I do not have to take any exams, so no certificates. How good you really are can only be determined if you work alone or with several people on large projects that are relevant to practice. I also do not know why this comparison should be good.