CS degree sucks. FCC is awesome

Hi, my name is Raul Galbincea

I’m just getting started with FCC and it’s been amazing ! I’m currently a University student majoring in Computer Science. The education system of my University sucks. I can hardly stay awake for the lectures in my CS classes and I just don’t feel that engaged. I was going to give up programming because of this until I looked up some videos on YouTube and found .FCC. FCC really gets you engaged with programming and I actually look forward to program. Literally today I was in class and thinking, “I can’t wait to program on FCC”. I just started 3-4 days ago and I can’t wait to get my front-end certification. I’m taking it step by step, wish me luck!

I just want to thank FCC ! Thank you guys so much for this awesome curriculum.

FCC vs. CS degree

Winner: FCC

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Hey Raul, I love your enthusiasm, but I am not sure I completely agree with you that FCC is better than a CS degree. First of all, FCC is not meant to be a replacement for a CS degree; it is a collection of challenges and projects. A CS degree on the other hand does many things FCC cannot. A CS degree will easily get a better interview, and may be required for a certain job. It shows you are smart enough to go through 3-4 years of college and not just learn on a little site or youtube; it shows that you will also be prepared for life. You will also learn many important principles that FCC will never teach you such as advanced algorithm solving.

Also to point out, since you have been at college you already have an understanding about how to code. FCC is very difficult for some people (especially the javascript side) if they have never programmed before. Believe me, you will probably get bogged down by the time you get to the back-end and data-viz. Don’t give up on your degree it will do so much that FCC cannot. (Don’t give up on FCC either if you find the challenges fun and engaging).

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I do agree that having a CS degree is much better in a practical sense. And I’m sure as the program goes on you’ll encounter more and more interested material.

But I do think this is a good opportunity to discuss the failures of the current educational system. I’ve recently watched someone give a talk on the subject about how we approach the education of programming (link below). And I can say that my time in school for Robotics followed a similar sentiment. There is very little attempt to accommodate differing learning styles and this results in not only lower engagement rates but also significantly lower information retention. Which funny enough creates a feedback loop as the lower information retention means that educators need to slow down their curriculum to compensate. And slowing things down lowers engagement rates and the cycle continues.

But it’s not all doom and gloom when it comes to education. There are certainly steps that can be taken to help better prepare students for that they will really do. What I feel needs to be better emphasized is not to teach students what to learn, but to teach students how to learn. With our world of ever-changing technologies and a business culture that is following trends on a yearly or even monthly basis, your body of knowledge is not nearly as useful as your ability to learn what’s new.

That’s just my take on education though :stuck_out_tongue: But I’d also echo that having the degree is very important. But hey, if FCC is really helping you learn how to code, then take advantage of the tool alongside your schooling. So even if you have to listen to information you might already know, sometimes by knowing a little in advance you can learn even more from the same lecture or assignment. Plus hey, your project work should look much better then your classmates :slight_smile:

I wish places like FCC was available when I was in school. :slight_smile:

The classes themselves may be outdated and unengaging, but from my experience, the opportunities and connections you can form at college, outside the classroom, are where the real value lies, and being around like-minded people. This is coming from a recent mechanical engineering grad.

FCC != CS degree. FCC is meant to augment what you would learn in a CS degree since the degree isn’t exactly meant to teach a lot of programming.

Programming, or even web development for that matter, is typically only a small part of a CS degree. Programming = tool to do CS. CS = huge field of science like math or physics.

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If you’re freshman then it’s too early for you to judge your university.
As for the so-boring-that-I-cant-stay-awake problem, it will definitely pass when you start to flunk the exams.

If you’re attending a university, you should understand the difference between education and training. University is not meant to give you specific skills, that is the job of vocational schools.

Hey guys,
thanks for commenting on my post. I really appreciate your feedback. I agree with DWAbrego and bilgiprog about how the Universities don’t increase your skills and that there is a difference between education and training. Also, thank you IsaacAbrahamson, TacCom98, chunb, P1xt for being optimistic about having a degree. Thank you everyone for your time and helpful opinions.

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