Do you really need to take classes in CS to learn how to program?

Thomas_1
Mon, 01 Jul 2013 06:35:01 +0000

Of course you can learn programming on your own. There are many people who have become good programmers in high school, or even middle school. However, a degree in CS (at least from Berkeley) has very little to do with programming. Programming is only used as a tool to teach you the important concepts. How to use memory wisely, how to scale systems vertically and horizontally, which algorithms scale and why they do or do not, how to approach certain types of problems, etc. Companies are Google are looking for people with this knowledge, not people who are “good programmers”, because that’s a given.

Can you learn these concepts on your own? Sure you can, but it’s a bit more difficult. The material online is more limited (though Coursera already has a great selection). You could also read the relevant books and papers. However, in that way, you could learn any subject on your own. Unfortunately there isn’t (yet) a good way to “proof” that you have truly mastered the concepts, that’s what the CS degree is for.