There is a trend among students - skip classes because they have a job. I've seen this happen to my colleagues when I was a student, and I see this happen to my students today, when I am a teacher.

I always disagreed with this, for a very simple reason - education is the best investment you can ever make.

A job gives you money, but with a better education you can get a better job and even more money. If money is what you're optimizing, then the calculus is trivial: "money" << "even more money"; the choice should be obvious. Shouldn't it?

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Breadth vs depth

The average employer is not interested in increasing the skills of the employee, unless the skills are immediately related to what the person is doing for the company.

For example, if you're making sites in PHP: they may support you in learning more about PHP, they may also teach you about databases, XML and CSS (stuff related to web-development) - the minimum you need to get the job done.

However, they will never ever encourage you to study other fields, such as computer graphics, parallel and concurrent programming, cryptography, etc. These things won't bring immediate profit to the company, therefore from the company's perspective - this is a waste.

Long term investments

Certainly, there are companies that are lead by wise people who encourage any kind of self-improvement, even if it is not tightly connected with the business.

This happens because they understand that education is a long-term investment. The payoff is not instant, but it is much "juicier".

A good leader is also aware of the fact that a bright person will take "usual" ideas and find new ways to apply them, new fields in which they can be applied, etc. This is why a good leader won't discourage your attempts to learn something new.

General hint: if your employer teaches you about things that are not directly related to whatever is written in your job profile - stick to that employer. This means that they are not selfish and not purely profit-oriented; they care about your education.

Another thing good employers have in common is their awareness of the following fact:

The only thing worse than training your employees and watching them leave is not training and keeping them.

Incompetent teachers

Yes, some teachers are incompetent; either they don't know what they are talking about, or they simply fail to show you how cool their subject is. I admit that I've done these things in some classes:

• go to the back of the classroom, put my headphones on, cover my head with the hood, put my head on my face, sleep;
• disconnect myself from the world and read a book;
• play "sea war" or other paper games with an equally-disinterested classmate;
• write an article or a poem on my PDA (obviously, not one related to the class);
• work on assignments I got in other classes (draw charts, write code, etc).

I don't regret I've done these things, and I'd do them again.

Competent teachers

However, I would always be there when the teacher was a competent person, listening to whom I saw as a privilege, an honour. Those folks are worth heroic efforts such as:

• getting up early on a Saturday;
• coming to the university just for their class;
• doing my homework, such that I could ask for their advice regarding the parts I didn't understand.

It may come as a surprise, but a university has a lot of bright people in it. Hanging out with them will significantly expand your horizons. You make an investment into your own future - and that's wonderful.

Conclusion

• If you fear you won't find another job, you should learn how to make decisions based on arguments, not fear;
• Unless you're in a desperate need for money, the only reason to not attend classes because of a job is shortsightedness.

English • Technology / programming, Thoughts, Society, Academia • 2 comments