Having just earned my bachelor’s degree in computer science, I wanted to outline and summarize the pros and contras of pursuing IT studies (or any studies for that matter) in the 2022. This is my second bachelor so obviously I was inclined to study in the past, but for the somewhat odd reasons. Moreover, if I was today thinking of enrolling, I would probably not do it. Here is the quick recap of my reasoning.
Pros
Consistency
This was the main reason for me to pursue the studies. I was aware from the beginning that the studies have streamlined path, with steps to conquer towards the end goal. This may seem obvious, but comparing it with a self-study (and especially having tried it as I did), it is a major advantage: you are forced to do your assignments, seminal papers over multiple exams. It is usually a linear process; you need to pass an exam and then move to other ones. When doing that over a longer period, one faces with an internal struggle in order to achieve the most important thing in professional life: consistency. Being consistent means doing small but continuous improvements on any matter, which are added-up over the time, enabling a mastery over given topic. The source of consistency in my case, apart from the curiosity and passion about the underlying tech matters, were the tuition costs: the fact that the money you invested in education could be spent elsewhere. Therefore, opportunity costs are pressing you to justify your current sacrifice (expressed in your decision to allocate your money to finance your studies). Of course, you are sacrificing your current income in order to achieve return on your investment in the future, which is the main reason for studying anyways (apart for some rare non-monetary incentives).
Networking with the peers
In my view, the second most important advantage of studying is meeting other people in similar position (studying the same thing) and connecting with them. Being constantly on the same place at the same time during number of years enables people to acquaint with each other, to connect at various levels respective to their primary (topics of study) and secondary (hobbies, similar views on other aspects of life) interests. This creates lasting personal connections that could be significant in later professional and sometimes even personal life. Unfortunately, because of the extraordinary events starting in 2020 my networking experience was very limited.
Intellectual challenge
In this world, any achievement is done by continuous effort through series of challenges. This is true for any type of achievement, being intellectual, physical or artistic. Studying will mentally challenge you, forcing you to obtain new knowledge and to adapt during the process of solving problems. You will fall and rise; do trial and error; until you either quit temporarily or permanently, or succeed. It can be frustrating but addictive too.
Cons
Dealing with academia
I guess no one is fond of messing on a daily level with hierarchical bureaucracy that considers you as a number on the list: waiting for the enrollment while queuing in the students’ lines, admission to various tests, seminal papers, managing installments, deadlines of various things and other trivial and boring issues. It is as if you are employed just that instead of being paid, you are obliged to pay and to obey at all times. Then there is dealing with lecturers’ egos: taken on average, academia doesn’t encourage free thinking and exchange of ideas supported by arguments. On numerous occasions, student will be wrong about something and will have to accept the argument of the academics (which is the obvious thing to do and one of the reasons of studying); but when vice-versa situation occasionally happens, academics often just don’t have the habit of reevaluating their views. And of course, studying is not about rightness or wrongness per se, but it should include honesty and integrity, virtues which seems to be in a rapid decline in our times. If you are a maverick, you will have very hard time on academia.
Wrong perception of curriculum
It may happen that the enrolling student is passionate about one set of topics and that the given uni’s curriculum (and/or the execution of the curriculum) is just not focusing on those interests and passions enough. The end effect is losing motivation and your passion, because if you are passionate about Python or C# for example, and if your uni’s lectures on those topics are not broad enough as expected but instead focuses on VBA, you will feel like losing time and achieving wrong goals. To be fair, there is some flexibility on curriculum because on the later years of study students usually can choose their courses, but even then, I’ve found out that self-study and custom-tailored courses offer more insight and depthness on the selected topics than those served by academia.
Unjustified costs
Depending on one’s country of origin, enrollment possibilities and the choice of the uni, the studying costs will range greatly. Still, it is safe to say that taken in relative regard, they will be significant. The incurring costs need to be justified and if usual way of financing the studies is taking student loans that span over the multiple years, it will mean a significant reduction of a student’s living standard afterwards – until the breaking point is reached when the gains will overcome the costs. Therefore, the dilemma of justifying the costs of studies is whether the gains can be achieved without studying or not. I believe that, especially in IT field, studying is becoming more and more redundant.
What future brings?
The basic reasons of pursuing any studies just a decade ago would be to be able to learn from the recognized academics and industry’s experts: to attend the lectures in person, to actually see and hear the lecturers and interact with them. Since then, rapid changes took place as everything became digitalized and even freely available. Today, one can find loads of quality material online: myriad of courses, lectures and even complete studies are available freely or paid, in the video, text, audio and other forms (with additional material such as manuals, course books and exercises). Then there are specialized websites, apps, forums, social media groups and channels which are practically on the one’s fingertip.
For those inclined to more traditional ways of learning, there are ratings and reviews of studies and courses; advices from the fellow students; and group collaboration tools that can be really useful when it comes to evaluating the decision about picking the right type of education.
So, my guess is that the possibility of obtaining access to the freely shared knowledge will be preferred in the near future. While I am mostly thinking about IT, that will probably apply to other, non-regulated fields of human endeavors too, because in the end, knowledge is about passion, not necessarily about academic degrees.
Conclusion
Although I think that obtaining a diploma in IT still has some merits, it has some serious drawbacks. It all depends on the one’s personal situation and perception: if you want all-rounded, broad educational path with a conservative mindset of starting your career, then pursuing studies would be appropriate. For those eager to focus and specialize, other, modular learning paths are probably better option: they will lead to quicker employment or possibility of creating something on your own (maybe in entrepreneurial sense).