As a college student, I
selected computer science as my major course of study, as it seemed
most useful to my post-graduation professional plans. But I did then
and do now greatly enjoy studying computer science on my own; I don’t
need the structure and motivation provided by a formal classroom
setting in order to persuade myself to learn more about software
engineering and algorithms.
So of what value is a college education to someone who is motivated
to learn on their own? Everyone is different, but in retrospect, I for
one greatly appreciate the breadth of study required by the college
curriculum.
I not only enjoy studying computer science on my own; I also enjoy
studying a variety of other topics. But I tend to hyper-focus on often
very specific topics and study them in-depth. I might, for example,
study United States history at the expense of ignoring all other
history; more narrowly, I might study the period of the founding of the
United States at the expense of ignoring all other periods of United
States history.
This is not necessarily a bad trait; I reckon it’s better to be
studious about a few particular topics than not at all. But in college
I was required to take a certain number of classes that met particular
criteria, and accordingly ended up studying topics that I had not
previously considered: Russian history, early 20th century United
States culture, jazz history, and geology, to name a few.
All of these topics are interesting, but not all are really my cup
of tea. I might never study these topics to any significant way again,
but my knowledge in these areas has been greatly expanded through the
coursework. Even within jazz, which I do enjoy listening to, I found
myself listening to periods and genre of jazz that I had previously
ignored: I don’t particularly like listening to Jelly Roll Morton, but
I have better appreciation for his contributions to jazz, and can
listen to his recordings with more understanding of what he was doing
at the time.
Will any of this knowledge help me to get a better job? Probably
not. My major studies of computer science — those things I likely would
have learned anyway — were the part of my college education that helped
me get work. But all of the other things I learned helped to make life
more interesting, and I feel better about myself for having learned
them.