Destination SkillQueue
Are We There Yet
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Posted - 2010.12.28 13:02:00 -
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Edited by: Destination SkillQueue on 28/12/2010 13:04:03
 Originally by: Iraherag
Originally by: Kolatha
Originally by: Iraherag
Ha, architecture has a couple thousand years of experience and tradition on its back.
How appropriate that you would call it "crappy professionals".
Guess what, the early pioneers of flight were all crazy people doing impossible stuff (remember those muscle-powered "helicopters"?)
Does that make you want to have an autodidactic, experimenting, self-overestimating, formal-education-lacking pilot for your next flight or would you prefer someone who received the proper education?
50 years ago programming was still in its infancy and formal education basically non-existant, but that's no excuse to skip it now that it's readily available...
Oh and "the best <insert profession here> I know" is quite a remarkable feature.
You probably know 0.0001% of all the millions of programmers out there in the world.
If only you had told about your extensive studies earlier...
You will find that a very large portion at the very top of hi-tech and engineering fields, aerospace, computer science, architecture etc, are people who are pretty much self taught. More so with the pioneering and cutting edge developers. Robotics and aerospace development in particular are great places to find amazing self taught people because there is still so much room available for development.
This is because, being at the leading edge of technology and engineering, they have to pretty much make it up as they go and that fits quite nicely with the whole self teaching process where false limitations aren't unwittingly introduced by the educators.
Right and they all got their PhD by not bothering themselves with things like educators...
I guess his point is that many leading figureheads didn't actually graduate and still managed to be in the forefront of scientific and technological development. Studying in a university prepares you to do that kind of independant research and work that is required to be on the cutting edge of your field, but that is not the only way to get there and can even become a limitating factor in your thinking, since critical and unconventional thinking isn't often rewarded in academic community.
A place of higher learning is also an institution, so there might not even be an opportunity to study some of the latest/controversial/unorthodox/unpopular fields in science/tech. You're basicly on your own there whether or not you have a degree or not. Studying in an institution is good and will help you, but you don't really learn anything unique, that you can't learn by studying yourself. It just makes things easier since the research was done for you by a researcher and condenced to easily digestable form by your educator, you also get help when you hit a difficult spot and you can get access to equipment most private persons can't. All this helps, but isn't the only way to get results.
As for famous self taught people. Bill Gates(college dropout), Alexander Graham Bell(college dropout), Michael Dell(as in dell computers, college dropout), Thomas Alva Edison(self-taught, "too stupid for school") , Wright brothers(Self-taught), Frank Lloyd Wright(Already well-known during his lifetime, Wright was recognized in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as "the greatest American architect of all time"., dropout), Vivien Thomas(Cardiac surgery pioneer, highschool only), ect. ad infinitum.
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