Tim Cook: 'I Don't Think a Four-Year Degree is Necessary to Be Proficient at Coding'

[Visor]

You know...right now most ppl who driving a aircrafts have no "fly skill". Because automatic doing everything. That's how we lost around 600ppl at last 2 Boeing crushes. They are no a pilots. They are "managers". Who can click. But if something go wrong they have no idea what to do. They have no personal experience how to landing boeing.

Pretty same story with coding. Every idiot can copy-paste code from stackOverflow and write primitives. But they can't do anything real that not described in google. Thats a problem. Every monkey can push buttons that gives them banana. But monkey have no idea about mechanism. And how to fix it if button works wrong. That's why you need proper education. To be no a monkey and understand process more deeply. Most of this "coders" just "hammer nails with microscopes". Because it works somehow. In 95% of projects it can be forgiven. For other 5% we have ppl with proper education who gets a big salary. Thats how it works. Tim just want to economy some money by taking "monkeys" who can be not bad at coding but never become something bigger. Like architect or top specialist.

[Ishayu]

Yep, most people can write code. I wrote code when I was 11, and I've got old apps to prove it.

But I became a WAY better programmer by attending university. If you actually have good teachers, they'll help prevent you falling into a myriad traps and bad practices.

[Xirrohon]

I agree. But.. having a degree could help get you a job over a person that doesn't. Still, that is the only thing I feel like a degree is worth in terms of IT positions. In IT, work experience > degree/certs but its good to have both. Also, many Govt/Contractor positions are now requiring 4yr degrees.

[Unholyground]

Syntax is irrelevant if you know the foundations of coding which can easily be self taught with some discipline.

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I agree. But.. having a degree could help get you a job over a person that doesn't. Still, that is the only thing I feel like a degree is worth in terms of IT positions. In IT, work experience > degree/certs but its good to have both. Also, many Govt/Contractor positions are now requiring 4yr degrees.

See this is the issue, going forward I think higher education is going to be looked down on more and more outside of science and medical since it is just a money and time sink.

[Shalcker]

You know...right now most ppl who driving a aircrafts have no "fly skill". Because automatic doing everything. That's how we lost around 600ppl at last 2 Boeing crushes. They are no a pilots. They are "managers". Who can click. But if something go wrong they have no idea what to do. They have no personal experience how to landing boeing.

They got checklists they go through when something goes wrong. Sometimes checklist is wrong, or some unexpected/undocumented behavior happens - but if they wouldn't know the answer already, they wouldn't have time to find it out through experimentation anyway.

Pretty same story with coding. Every idiot can copy-paste code from stackOverflow and write primitives. But they can't do anything real that not described in google. Thats a problem. Every monkey can push buttons that gives them banana. But monkey have no idea about mechanism. And how to fix it if button works wrong. That's why you need proper education. To be no a monkey and understand process more deeply. Most of this "coders" just "hammer nails with microscopes". Because it works somehow. In 95% of projects it can be forgiven. For other 5% we have ppl with proper education who gets a big salary. Thats how it works. Tim just want to economy some money by taking "monkeys" who can be not bad at coding but never become something bigger. Like architect or top specialist.

Most of people who can learn to code can dive deeper into intricacies of mechanisms that feed into some particular bug or behavior they encounter. Those problems often have StackOverflow questions and answers too, or specialized blogs and forums you can find once you know right keywords.

Knowledge can allow you to take shortcuts and explain some behaviors right from observations without googling, devise complex solution to fix things if there are no readily-available fix, or adapt existing solutions to your particular environment; but in most cases it only saves time.

And cases where specialized knowledge is useful are rare (otherwise it would be common knowledge with well-known solutions).

[LiiLoSNK]

You absolutely need a 4 year to code. There's literally no other way to get the knowledge required. The limitless information found on the internet can't compete with the information that a shitty state university can give you slowly over the course of multiple years.

[Draco-Onis]

See this is the issue, going forward I think higher education is going to be looked down on more and more outside of science and medical since it is just a money and time sink.

The facts simply don't support that look at any job posting entry level college degree is the new high school diploma.

[Unholyground]

The facts simply don't support that look at any job posting entry level college degree is the new high school.

Maybe in the US. Here something like 35%+ of the workforce is retiring over the next 10 years. We will have jobs no one is "qualified" to fill and many places are hiring people just to fill spots that are needed regardless of post secondary already. So ya depending on where you are it is becoming less and less important.

[Draco-Onis]

Maybe in the US. Here something like 35%+ of the workforce is retiring over the next 10 years. We will have jobs no one is "qualified" to fill and many places are hiring people just to fill spots that are needed regardless of post secondary already. So ya depending on where you are it is becoming less and less important.

The US has a labor shortage this hasn't happened I think you are being too optimistic of human nature.

[Varitok]

The best thing you can do is have a portfolio of projects you've worked on, code you've written. Send that in to an employer and they can actually review real world applications of your skills instead of paper that says you've done the minimum required in college/university.

[Heladys]

Well of course it isn't, Tim Cook. Thank you for this profound insight.

[Magical Mudcrab]

Gotta love the hypocrisy. Last sentence doesn't excuse the disconnect between statements and practice, considering that Cook was talking about coding jobs specifically.

It's generally implied that you require a degree or the rough equivalent in terms of experience for tech jobs. This could mean that you've either worked at other well known tech companies (Apple will consider you if you've had internships or jobs at Google or Microsoft, for example) or have a good open source background that you can show (well reviewed Git repositories that you've created or helped maintain).

That said, it should also be stated that there's a large difference between coders, developers, and engineers. For brevity:
> Coders are generally code monkeys that don't have in-depth knowledge of algorithms and effective software architecture/design; they're less sophisticated developers.
> Developers/Programmers are generally more experienced, with more algorithmic knowledge and insights into effective architecture/design, they usually also know more than one programming language (Good example would be a fullstack developer outside of the MEAN/MEVN/MERN stacks).
> Engineer is a weird title that can either be synonymous with a senior developer or a specialized title requiring training (such as the case with Canada where you need an accreditation to be an engineer).

I doubt it is hypocrisy on their end. It's likely that the're looking for more experienced developers on their site and there's a difference in understanding between what constitutes a coder, developer/programmer, and engineer.

[Unholyground]

The US has a labor shortage this hasn't happened I think you are being too optimistic of human nature.

It has already started here, we have a problem in Canada, more old than young so they have 0 choice.

[Draco-Onis]

It has already started here, we have a problem in Canada, more old than young so they have 0 choice.

Outsourcing and automation while increasing the number of skills and requirements for jobs this is what has happened and will continue to happen. In the long term unless something is done this will be a major problem, on the job training programs are basically dead in the US not sure about Canada.

[Unholyground]

Outsourcing and automation while increasing the number of skills and requirements for jobs this is what has happened and will continue to happen. In the long term unless something is done this will be a major problem, on the job training programs are basically dead in the US not sure about Canada.

We are trying to get UBI implemented at the federal level which can stave off the damning effects of automation. I think too many people have lost hope that things will get better. soon as the tipping point happens something will have to be done or people will rise up like they have always done.