Is it worth it to go to university if you have experience as a programmer?

Question

IT education

Hello!
I am 16 years old, I live in a small town in Ukraine. I am graduating from school next year and the question arose before me: is it worth it to enter a university?
Most of all I have always been interested in web development, which I have been fond of to some extent since I was 11 years old. By this time, I have a remote part-time job as a Full-Stack with a small salary by IT standards, but still a salary of 12-13 thousand hryvnia, which takes about 3 hours a day. The rest of the time I am engaged in self-development in this area. Including their own projects, the level of "startup on the knee" - one even "took off" and began to bring a small profit, but got tired of doing it. I have been using Linux as my main OS for 2 years, I know and continue to study popular frameworks (Laravel, Symfony), design patterns. I read books on the topic (now started Clean Code). About 200 GitHub commits to Open Source projects in the last month and stuff like that.
I have no special desire to go to study at one of our universities, it seems like a waste of time, but all my relatives (who are not versed in IT) say that there is no way without it. At the same time, I think I could find a real job in the office, at least as a Junior, and at the same time do what I like, grow in my career.
What would you advise to do: go to university or look for a real job? Any advice is interesting, especially from people who at one time also faced a similar choice.

Answer 1

1. If you want to bring your knowledge of programming into the system, understand programming at a deeper level, then yes.
2. If you ever want to get a job abroad, where a specialized diploma is highly quoted (albeit not mandatory everywhere), then yes.
3. If you just want to expand your circle of acquaintances, make connections, "know life", then yes)

Answer 2

At the tower you can get:
* A diploma (useful for employment abroad and government agencies, and some require HR)
* At the tower you can get advanced knowledge in mathematics and algorithms, deal with geometry, have a base for working with physics engines, 3D and statistics / mat analysis - if you manage to delve into at least something in this direction - the prospects for getting a job somewhere to develop computer vision, work with bigdata, neural networks increase significantly.
* Acquaintances and the department, where it is possible to make useful contacts.
* Reliable excuse from the army
The fact that the quality of university teaching will be lower than it should be is another matter, but you can find a job as a junior and study by correspondence. The main thing is that in the university program you do not discard "I need this and this is not necessary", but find a way to study, understand and pass.
Judging by your history, you are a very developed young man, and it should not be a big problem for you to study university material in absentia.

Answer 3

What do you want to go to college for?
open the mind? yes
find new friends in the same area? Yes,
live recklessly in a hostel and fuck all the students from the stream? Yes,
to get the knowledge necessary for work? no, from the university you will use about 5% of the knowledge gained and they will have a greater impact on your horizons.
behind a formal cover? yes, sometimes it is convenient to present a crust if it is formally needed to obtain a work visa abroad.
behind the crust to get a good job? No, unfortunately our universities do not prepare for real work.
Your decision depends on your desires.

Answer 4

I think that the tower is needed because:
- You get good fundamental knowledge that will help you more easily delve into complex topics. For example, machine learning is tightly tied to mathematics and it is almost impossible to smoke this topic without knowledge of mathematics.
- You systematize your knowledge and broaden your horizons at the expense of non-core subjects. This will allow you to consider problems from different angles and teach you to make better decisions.
- The university teaches how to learn. This is also important.
- Just a huge number of new acquaintances that can help you in later life.
- The world is changing, and if now there is a shortage of software developers and the employer is ready to hire a person without a higher education, then in the future there will be no such shortage and, other things being equal, the choice will fall on a person with a diploma. I understand that you are freelancing now and everything is cool, but there are different situations in life.

Answer 5

5-6 years of your life is a very serious investment. If you have already left the game world for the real one, this term has a great alternative value. You should make such an investment only when you know what you need, why and where you will get it.
Shifting these decisions and responsibility for them to one's surroundings leads to subsequent disappointment and to armies of stupid "specialists" with diplomas who do not know how and do not want to work in the "passed" specialty.

Answer 6

How beautiful everything is, but it will be difficult to find a job before the age of 18. In order not to waste time, you can learn (useful), especially since the work takes 3 hours.

Answer 7

You study English
- you enter the university that interests you
- or you find a job
Your choice is up to you
PS use the particle "in" when indicating the country of the
teaching staff ask questions that can be answered specifically goo.gl/spqRI2

Answer 8

In the presence of earnings at the moment, some misunderstanding with relatives, in my opinion, the optimal way of development would be to enter a university abroad (Germany, Italy, Austria, because there are not bad prospects, the learning process is completely different, excellent experience), looking for a part-time job there. It is not difficult at all, you need a desire and a decision.

Answer 9

The tower is only needed to move abroad, otherwise you can go to correspondence school !!!

Answer 10

In any case, it is better with a tower than without it. Indeed, you can go to school and look for work in your free time. There will be a diploma and a job.

Answer 11

I am 99% sure that you are not really a programmer, but a coder. It is possible that a good (especially for his age) - but still a coder. "I study frameworks" - this is certainly useful, but in essence it is decaying in comparison with algorithms and mathematics.

Answer 12

Even Jobs and Gates once tried to graduate from high school, BUT they could not get a high school diploma. BUT they were able to do much more than certified graduates. BUT this does not mean that you do not need to get higher education. If at some point you realize that you do not need to turn the IT world upside down, then the crust of a higher education diploma will be an opportunity to try to find a good job for "uncle".
ps any study is an investment in oneself, and no one can take away these investments from you.

Answer 13

I have only 11 years of school behind me and many years of self-development.
What I encountered:
1) Finding a full-time job in Moscow with a salary of 60-70 thousand rubles is a trifling matter.
2) It is real to earn enough for living and entertainment while sitting at home.
3) Earning 100-150k while sitting at home is real, but already more difficult.
4) Getting a loan from a bank in 20 years is easy.
5) Entering the university for the sake of respite from the army is nonsense. If hopelessly fit, it's better to go at once, but I turned out to be unfit.
6) I studied for a month and a half at the university, I don’t want to go back there.
On the other hand, having a diploma will help you immigrate to another country or simply find a job there.
I would consider two options: either not enter at all, or study abroad.

Answer 14

A university degree makes it easier to get a work visa. To Europe, for example. Otherwise, you will have to be a very valuable employee for the company to fight for your move, for your visa.
A university degree is important for the state. offices and large corporations.
Serious computer firms are well aware that this is all bullshit and are able to independently determine your qualifications. A degree is a small plus. Sometimes.
My diploma was never looked at. Although they asked "do you have a diploma in the profession." I just nodded. By the way, I have it.
Studying at a university is a rather interesting period of time. Communication with teachers and fellow students (if they are also already programmers) is very instructive and useful. Finding somewhere else such a large group of people who are interested in the same things as you is difficult, almost impossible (well, only if you are lucky in Yandex, Google, etc.).
By the profession of a programmer at the university, I learned almost nothing. I knew everything before high school.