Comments on: “But I Don’t Know the First Thing About…” http://www.kollelguy.com/dont-know-anything-without-college From Kollel Yungerman to Happy Working Man - A Complete Guide Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:07:51 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Path to the Exit – Part 4 : Lost in Kollel http://www.kollelguy.com/dont-know-anything-without-college/comment-page-1#comment-43404 Path to the Exit – Part 4 : Lost in Kollel Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:51:00 +0000 http://www.kollelguy.com/%e2%80%9cbut-i-don%e2%80%99t-know-the-first-thing-about%e2%80%a6%e2%80%9d#comment-43404 [...] to start investigating what kinds of opportunities are available to you as a kollel graduate. I know there will be many readers who think the situation is helpless, and they have already spoken out in the [...] [...] to start investigating what kinds of opportunities are available to you as a kollel graduate. I know there will be many readers who think the situation is helpless, and they have already spoken out in the [...]

]]> By: chochom http://www.kollelguy.com/dont-know-anything-without-college/comment-page-1#comment-1778 chochom Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:58:17 +0000 http://www.kollelguy.com/%e2%80%9cbut-i-don%e2%80%99t-know-the-first-thing-about%e2%80%a6%e2%80%9d#comment-1778 There is much to be gained by learning yourself, but there is much lost out without having a more involved/immersive learning process. In attaining a dgree you don't just read the books, you have to prepare assignments, projects, and presentations. You have to learn various software packages to do that (word, excel, powerpoint, databases etc.) you need spend time trying to writing your paper/assignment well (with much effort in editing till you've put together a polished product). You need to collaborate with others on team assignments. You have experts (professors) to ask questions to, and listen to the questions of other students. You can learn gemoro on your own but does that mean you don't benefit from having a maggid shiur? (lehavdil). Equally important, that you retain the information much better and learn the application when you put the learning into practise via projects/tests, rather than reading it today and forgetting most of it by next week. There is much to be gained by learning yourself, but there is much lost out without having a more involved/immersive learning process.

In attaining a dgree you don’t just read the books, you have to prepare assignments, projects, and presentations. You have to learn various software packages to do that (word, excel, powerpoint, databases etc.) you need spend time trying to writing your paper/assignment well (with much effort in editing till you’ve put together a polished product). You need to collaborate with others on team assignments. You have experts (professors) to ask questions to, and listen to the questions of other students.

You can learn gemoro on your own but does that mean you don’t benefit from having a maggid shiur? (lehavdil).

Equally important, that you retain the information much better and learn the application when you put the learning into practise via projects/tests, rather than reading it today and forgetting most of it by next week.

]]> By: Zachary Kessin http://www.kollelguy.com/dont-know-anything-without-college/comment-page-1#comment-1070 Zachary Kessin Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:22:24 +0000 http://www.kollelguy.com/%e2%80%9cbut-i-don%e2%80%99t-know-the-first-thing-about%e2%80%a6%e2%80%9d#comment-1070 Speaking as someone who is a programmer and has been for many years, I would not say that a degree has no value. Yes you can learn to program from books and such but there is a LOT you won't learn that way. There is a lot more to being a programmer than knowing some java or C# (Or pick your favorite language). Understanding how to work as part of a team, what tools to use to do that are very important. As are some ideas from computer science. For example this one comes up in my life all the time: The program works fine on test data but fails on the real data. Why? In general it has to do with how things scale with size. There is a lot of understanding that goes into understanding this problem. Yes you can learn it from a book, but you probably won't without a degree. Why? Because you would have no idea that you should even have read that book or why. So yes you can work without a degree but it will hurt you. Speaking as someone who is a programmer and has been for many years, I would not say that a degree has no value. Yes you can learn to program from books and such but there is a LOT you won’t learn that way. There is a lot more to being a programmer than knowing some java or C# (Or pick your favorite language). Understanding how to work as part of a team, what tools to use to do that are very important. As are some ideas from computer science.

For example this one comes up in my life all the time:

The program works fine on test data but fails on the real data. Why? In general it has to do with how things scale with size. There is a lot of understanding that goes into understanding this problem. Yes you can learn it from a book, but you probably won’t without a degree. Why? Because you would have no idea that you should even have read that book or why.

So yes you can work without a degree but it will hurt you.

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