Why college isn't irrelevant
11 Jun 2022
I recently completed my undergrad in CS Engineering and graduated. Like most of my peers around the world — past or present — during the course, I firmly believed in the irrelevance of college education (apart from being yet another checkbox in a status-driven society).
Now that I am on the other side, and with the benefit of hindsight, context, and more importantly, distance from temporal and localized pain, I’ve come around 180 degrees — I think college and your degree are relevant, probably more than ever. This is a long read. I have provided a table of contents so that you can jump around. There’s also a summary in the end for the folks interested in a quick read.
Sections
Disclaimers and Assumptions
The topic at hand is a pretty complicated and opinion-rich one. But more importantly, this is fundamentally a contextual topic. For example, the problems and issues of the higher education system in, say, the US doesn’t translate in its entirety to the issues of the Indian Higher education system. Within the Indian context, too, sub-contexts are very important. Engineering disciplines have their own set of issues that have little overlap with, say, medical and liberal art disciplines.
It suffices to say that context and nuance are fundamentally crucial for topics like these.
Hence below is the set of assumptions and disclaimers I hope you keep in mind while reading this article — so here goes,
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I am 22 years old at the time of writing and graduated a couple of weeks ago. Take everything mentioned here with a two-pinches of salt. With time and experience, my opinions on this would most definitely change.
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This article is primarily meant for B.Tech folks in India. It would probably make little sense to people outside this limited context. If you are one of them, thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy reading just for fun!
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I am aware and actively trying to counter my survivorship bias. I have been through the intense workload pressures and other stuff that make people mad about the system.
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Most of the things mentioned here are personal lived experiences and observed experiences of peers.
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There are a lot of nuances involved. I will try to be explicit about the more obvious ones but it must be noted that it is not possible to account for each and every nuance and subtlety.
Exposure
Before we go ahead, let’s define what I mean by a background in the context of an 18-year-old fresher.
Background for an 18-year-old is the number of family members and people in close familial proximity in engineering. Not just the degree, but their career tracks too are in engineering.
Now that the definition is established, let us carry on.
Very few people come from a family of engineers. Most people come from very non-technical / traditional backgrounds. Along with pretty much all of my friends, I belong to this category.
What is the issue here? Well, frankly, we don’t know much about the larger industry and, more importantly, the trends before college. Most of our decisions/plans before joining are driven by folklore, some of them being,
- The whole B.Tech -> MBA -> Investment Bank career track.
- CS » everything else.
- Engineering » everything else.
- Working in software companies is painful, a source of unhappiness, full of regimentation, and everyone is just sad. (Thanks, Bollywood!)
College is like a buffet of exposure and experiences. A couple of weeks in, you realize that careers can be in all shades of the color palette, beyond the black and white you thought it to be.
Batchmate who is programming for the first time is roommate with batchmate who has been programming since age 10? Check. Peers who want to stay in engineering roles vs. peers who found their calling in other non-tech domains? Check. An electrical engineer who transitioned into Software? Check. The friend who wants to join the military/IAS after graduation? Check. Batchmate joining the film industry after graduation? Check.
Your batch probably has people coming from all sorts of backgrounds. And everyone is trying to figure out what they want to do. Some would find their calling in the process, while the rest would carry on the search. But the fact that you spend four years of your life with fellow travelers on this journey exposes you to ways, means, and ideas you never knew could exist. And that’s important.
I know you are asking, “But hey, what about Twitter and online communities?”. Please read on to The Bias and Incentives Online section.
Peer Relationships
Colleges in India, especially those that admit students from all over the nation, are probably the best socio-economic and cultural mixers. For most people, it’s perhaps the first time they are transplanted into a new environment outside their immediate familial environment - an unknown city, unfamiliar languages, and new cultures — and as a bonus, you are sharing rooms with strangers.
The only coping mechanism is to make new friends. Some make a large number of them, some very few. The bottom line is that you build new relationships.
More importantly, you have fun along the way!
On a more serious note, all these relationships and experiences act as a transformation function for everyone involved.
Noone that I know of is the same person on their graduation day as they were on their commencement day.
Like it or not, none of this can be replicated on online forums. Most people you meet online are “connections,” “followers,” and, at best, “acquaintances” - Not friends.
Alumni Networks
Probably one of the most significant upsides of college. But more importantly, this upside is directly proportional to the quality of your college and hence contributes significantly to the famous (or infamous) “tiers.”
Being from a higher tier (read: the IITs and BITS of the world) college with a strong, active, and high-quality alumni network across industries and research institutes makes your life relatively much easier. Referrals, information, and help come much more smoothly. Thanks to a pass-out senior, a friend of mine from one of these top institutes found it much easier to get in touch with a very sought-after professor at his dream lab in Canada.
Please note, at no point am I insinuating that kids from these colleges are somehow less deserving or somehow life is easy for them. It’s not. These colleges are supremely competitive and demanding.
Also, I am not insinuating that colleges that are not IIT/BITS/NITs do not have such networks. My college does. So do other non-tier one colleges. I have benefited a lot from my college’s alumni network. It’s all a question of how expansive and active the network is.
Brand and Mean Can-Do Index
Just a while ago, we mentioned the very emotive and dramatic (even controversial) word: “tiers.”
We can go on and on about tiers and why they exist (or don’t exist) or why they matter (or don’t matter), but that’s not why we are here.
The TLDR is as follows,
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Your college’s brand is directly proportional to the number, variety, and quality of companies and roles coming on-campus.
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The most significant value a higher tier college provides is that the average kid suffers from a relatively lesser amount of inferiority complex and believes they can achieve or do much more. It’s a herd mindset game. This, in turn, has a substantial impact on on-campus activities (technical or otherwise), which indirectly impacts the average student skillset.
Go where your curiosity takes you
College is an exciting place to be in. At any given point in time, multiple things are happening on campus.
Chances are there is a club for everything. Mars Rover? Yes. Race Car? Yes. Space Satellite team? Yes. Electric Race Car? Yes. Dirt Racing? Yes. MUNs and Public Speaking? Yes. Organizational committees for fests? Yes. Dance and Drama Clubs? Yes. Competitive Coding Clubs? Yes. — this list could go on. Even if there isn’t one for your niche interest, very little stops you from starting one for your own niche needs!
The point is that college gives you a unique opportunity to work on multiple streams of interest — at the same time. You could spend the first half of the week working on fine-tuning the suspension of the racing vehicle that goes into testing next week while spending the last few days running around collecting sponsorships for the upcoming cultural fest! All the while squeezing in the time in-between for friends and other activities.
College is probably one of the few periods in life wherein you can take up or drop projects/work/interests on an ad-hoc, non-committal basis and try different things to find out what sticks. After all, engineering is more than grades and the degree in the end.
Reality and the eternal cycle of suffering
This section is the no-brainer one.
The reality of the world we live in (as of date) is that degrees are essential. 99% of open tech roles require an undergrad STEM degree. Life becomes easier when applying for work visas if you have an undergrad degree. The bottom line - life is much more challenging without a degree. Of course, there would be exceptions, but edge-cases cannot guide our decision/opinion-making.
Another critical point against college is the suffering during the degree, namely, endless assignments, tests, limitations, administrative barriers, attendance requirements, etc.
I have been through the rigor and felt the same frustrations. But now that I am through, I have a slightly more evolved way of looking at this. If you are someone who isn’t in your final semester (semester < 8th), please skip this as it would read like utter bullshit.
My perspective on this has essentially evolved into this — all engineering batches, past, present, and future, have felt and will feel the same frustrations, so it’s okay. You are not a particular case and consider this to be part and parcel of life. It sounds a lot like stoical resignation — but it’s much more simple.
Bias and Incentives Online
Aha, the most controversial section of all!
If a martian were to judge the progress of human technology from #TechTwitter, it would seem that 95% of tech is javascript, crypto, and leetcode. This is, of course, is sampling bias. When dealing with social media of any kind, especially tech/ed/career twitter, the theory of sampling bias becomes fundamental.
So what is Sampling bias?
You can check out the Wikipedia article here, but the essence is as follows,
When a sampling technique is flawed such that the sampled set is biased towards certain members of the population which results in the mischaracterization of the underlying population — this bias is called Sampling bias.
But again, why are we talking about Sampling bias?
My theory is that people (including myself) forget about this bias during their feed-scrolling sessions. As a result, you start misjudging the underlying population thanks to the bias in the reference sample. For example, a career in tech doesn’t start and end with javascript — there are other things that people do as well.
None of the above are wrong in themselves. All the three disciplines mentioned above are essential in their own right. The problem arises when people don’t account for their own sampling bias and forget the unsaid ToC about social media — the world doesn’t start and end with what you see on your feeds.
Another critical point to keep in mind is a conflict of interest, especially in the context of accounts with more significant followings. If an account A is telling you that X is bad/sucks but also stands to gain financially by selling you Y, wherein Y is an antidote/competition/alternative to X, it’s safe to assume that there is a bias and it is a potential case of a principal-agent problem. An important thing to note here is that I have essentially described capitalism, i.e., there is absolutely nothing wrong with identifying a problem and profiteering by selling its solution. All our modern economies are based on this simple concept. It’s also important to note that content creators play a critical role in pushing new products and services that often are better than the existing solutions. At the same time, while forming your opinions about an industry or anything in general from people on the internet, it helps to be mindful of potentially misaligned incentives.
Summary
The TLDR is as follows,
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Please read the Disclaimers and assumptions before proceeding.
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A college experience (for most kids coming from ordinary and modest backgrounds) introduces the 18-year-old fresher to a wide array of career trajectories and opportunities to switch between them.
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Four years of undergrad is probably the best time to meet peers from all around the country, build relationships (not just professional, but of all kinds), and have fun :)
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Access to an active and high-quality alumni network is an advantage in life. For a more lengthy explanation, please check out the Alumni Network section.
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A high-quality undergrad environment and peer groups generally lead to much better outcomes for the average student. On top of this, colleges with a better brand, more often than not, are a significant advantage, at least in the early days of your career. Again, for more verbosity, check out the Brand and Mean Can-Do Index section.
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The four years of your undergrad is an exciting opportunity to work on multiple interests - technical, creatives, people management, or whatever else might interest you. Hopefully, you will be able to figure out what your thing is.
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In reality, life is a lot harder without a degree. Exceptions exist, but exceptions and edge cases cannot be the primary north star.
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Account for sampling biases and principle-agent problems while basing your opinions/approaches on social media commentary.
Conclusion
Finally, we are at the end of this one! Pretty much all of this piece is essentially opinion based upon personal and observed experiences. I could have added another section regarding job hunting as a fresher, but that would be stretching this article too far. More importantly, I feel that the topic is saturated with content.
It’s important to emphasize again that there are a lot of nuances that have been left unsaid in the paragraphs above.
I enjoyed writing this article a lot more than I expected. That could be because it helped me solidify most of my thoughts and ideas around this topic.
All in all, it was an excellent mental exercise! I really hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this. More importantly, I hope this gave you some ideas to think about!
Feel free to write to me at pranjaldatta99@gmail.com with any feedback and counters!