18 Things You Can Only Learn at the University

There are those who say you don’t need to go to university.

One such person is James Altucher:

Did James just write another post about college education? Is this, I don’t know, the eighth one he’s written?

Here’s the problem: Everyone is lying to you. And maybe three people are telling you the truth. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY.

While I tend to agree with some of his points, I do believe that university gives a better understanding of computes for developers – it brings a breadth and depth of the theoretical knowledge that I haven’t seen in developers who have skipped the university part of their lives.

A thing I learned best at university was to draw my hand so I won’t fall asleep in complex math courses.

My hand from one of the lessons

Here are other 18 things that I have learnt at the university and couldn’t have learnt elsewhere:

1. o(1) and o(n) rocks. o(n^c) and o(x^n) sucks. Everything in-between (=o(n*log(n))) is debatable
2. Fourier transforms are for mathematicians. The only thing worth understanding is that changing the problem’s definition can help you reach the solution you seek
3. Computers speak in binary. Real developers write in assembly. Hackers in C or C++. The rest think of them as programmers but they are just writing scripts
4. There are several techniques that keep me awake in lectures and meetings. Here are the best 3:
   1. Write what is being said
   2. Draw the back of my hand
   3. Surrender and fall asleep
5. Sleep is the best way for me to absorb computer science information. Drawing works best for humanities. Writing down is good for math
6. Lambda calculus is for computers and mathematicians. Programmers should stay away from it
7. Inter Process Communication comes in different shapes and sizes. So do Inter Person Communication
8. N=NP might be the most important problem of computing. It is a waste of time dealing with it as a programmer
9. Text search is tricky. Use a ready-made module instead of trying to write your own crap algorithms
10. Tail recursion is awesome. No recursion is even better
11. There are very few new discoveries. Most of the research today was done by someone a decade ago already – he just had less computing power at his disposal to make use of it
12. Nobody really understands critical sections
13. There’s a lot of solid math behind security, but at the end of the day, the way you design your security protocol will bring your undoing
14. You will never be the smartest. There’s always a 15 year old who goes with you to the math and physics courses, but has an easier time getting his homework done
15. How to say all those mathematical terms in Hebrew. English is how you find it in Wikipedia. Hebrew is how they teach it at the universities in Israel
16. Statistics is a deterministic science. You start by determining the result and then find the numbers to prove it
17. If statistics and practicality made sense in this world, there needs to be only a single male. Or maybe a handful
18. Whatever it is you learnt in university will not help you in real life

What things did you learn at the university that aren’t easy to come by elsewhere?

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James also has a new book about alternatives to college.