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[CyberPanda]

Earlier this week, Apple CEO Tim Cook visited an Apple Store in Orlando, Florida to meet with 16-year-old Liam Rosenfeld, one of 350 scholarship winners who will be attending Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference next month.

Echoing comments he shared with the Orlando Sentinel, Cook told TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino that it is "pretty impressive" what Rosenfeld is accomplishing with code at such a young age, serving as a perfect example of why he believes coding education should begin in the early grades of school.

"I don't think a four year degree is necessary to be proficient at coding" says Cook. "I think that's an old, traditional view. What we found out is that if we can get coding in in the early grades and have a progression of difficulty over the tenure of somebody's high school years, by the time you graduate kids like Liam, as an example of this, they're already writing apps that could be put on the App Store."

Cook made similar comments during an American Workforce Policy Advisory Board meeting at the White House earlier this year.

While in Florida, Cook attended a conference that saw SAP and Apple announce an expanded partnership focused on new enterprise apps taking advantage of technologies like machine learning and augmented reality.

Despite all of the technological advancements in recent years, Cook told Panzarino that many businesses have not "changed a whole lot" and are "still using very old technology." With more solutions like those from SAP and Apple, and tech-savvy employees of the future like Rosenfeld, that could change.

"I think what it is is they haven't embraced mobility. They haven't embraced machine learning. They haven't embraced AR. All of this stuff is a bit foreign in some way. They're still fixing employees to a desk. That's not the modern workplace," Cook says. "People that graduate from high school and get a little experience under their belt can do quite well in this job."

The full interview can be read on TechCrunch with an Extra Crunch subscription or in the Apple News app with an Apple News+ subscription.

WWDC 2019 begins June 3 in San Jose.

Apple CEO Tim Cook: 'I Don't Think a Four-Year Degree is Necessary to Be Proficient at Coding'

Earlier this week, Apple CEO Tim Cook visited an Apple Store in Orlando, Florida to meet with 16-year-old Liam Rosenfeld, one of 350 scholarship...

www.macrumors.com

 

[Cybrwzrd]

No shit? A 4 year degree isn’t required to be proficient at just about anything barring maybe the medical industry, and then you need many more years of training and practical experience to be good at it.

If you are smart and driven enough you can teach yourself just about anything.

 

[Papa]

Degrees are only necessary for careers in which a mistake can cause suffering to another, e.g. medicine/health, engineering, law.

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

Frankly, anybody who says you need a 4 year degree to be proficient at coding should be dragged out in the street and shot in order to keep such stupidity out of the gene pool, thus preserving the future of the next generations.

 

[Yoda]

College isn't really about the subject matter, literally everything you can learn there (college) can be found online, and most of the time it's free. Even the specialties that "need" it could be massively reworked to lower the amount of years spent in school (ex: most countries do not require 4 years of "pre med" in order to apply to medical school). However most of the large tech cos (I work for one) bias HEAVILY towards people with CS degrees, including Mr. Cook's company. Hiring is expensive and currently people w/CS degrees do better in the high pressure software engineering roles vs. those from non-traditional backgrounds.

 

[petran79]

If you are self employed, yes. But good luck getting accepted in public or private companies or even accepting others in your small enterprise without a degree

 

[Ovek]

And yet every single developer job currently advertised at Apple require a BS or MS degree.

Software Engineer - Vector Maps v- Jobs at Apple (UK)

Apply for a Software Engineer - Vector Maps job at Apple. Read about the role and find out if it’s right for you.

jobs.apple.com

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

If you are self employed, yes. But good luck getting accepted in public or private companies or even accepting others in your small enterprise without a degree

I never got my degree and I’ve been a professional programmer (game and otherwise) and a writer (game and otherwise). Not having a degree makes it slightly harder, but in skill based professions, it isn’t as big a handicap as you would think.

 

[Soltype]

I don't think people realize, degrees shouldn't be used as a sign of proficiency, but more as a refelctiion of resolve.

 

[ComptonJapan]

It's not necessary, but good luck having someone even consider you for an interview if you don't have one.

 

[Tesseract]

it's not necessary but i def ain't giving anyone a shot without one or significant demo work

which goes with the territory imo, and is almost a tautological point to make

 

[petran79]

I never got my degree and I’ve been a professional programmer (game and otherwise) and a writer (game and otherwise). Not having a degree makes it slightly harder, but in skill based professions, it isn’t as big a handicap as you would think.

I agree. I was more referring to jobs requiring a degree by law, eg education, civil services, statistics etc

 

[gundalf]

I never got my degree and I’ve been a professional programmer (game and otherwise) and a writer (game and otherwise). Not having a degree makes it slightly harder, but in skill based professions, it isn’t as big a handicap as you would think.

Same here and I have no problem getting jobs regardless for big corps or small startups.

But mind you the world of software development is like playing on easy mode with cheats as long you are a well adjusted person who knows how to talk and present yourself.

 

[HoodWinked]

Bill Gates and John Carmack both didnt bother completing their 4 year degrees

 

[Wings 嫩翼翻せ]

I see these CEOs are mostly non-degree holders anywayzzzz

 

[Ownage]

As an MBA holder, if you wanna be an entrepreneur, it's not necessary at all.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Some of the best ever don't have coding skills, it's good to remind students that the Bill Gates and John Carmacks didn't bother to complete their 4 year degrees.

 

[ComptonJapan]

Bill Gates and John Carmack both didnt bother completing their 4 year degrees

But they started out in an Era where hardwork paid off more than a degree and people were willing to give you a chance than today.

 

[Insane Metal]

And yet every single developer job currently advertised at Apple require a BS or MS degree.

Software Engineer - Vector Maps v- Jobs at Apple (UK)

Apply for a Software Engineer - Vector Maps job at Apple. Read about the role and find out if it’s right for you.

jobs.apple.com

Yup, hypocrisy at its best

 

[CrankyJay™]

If you are self employed, yes. But good luck getting accepted in public or private companies or even accepting others in your small enterprise without a degree

Wasn’t there an article earlier this week saying Silicon Valley companies are pulling this restriction? I have a CS degree but everyone in this thread is right, it’s not necessary. My boss never went to college and he’s a way better developer than I can ever hope to be.

 

[Sqorin Hammerfarf]

But they started out in an Era where hardwork paid off more than a degree and people were willing to give you a chance than today.

Hard work still pays off more than degrees. Degrees aren’t worth the paper they are printed on.

 

[petran79]

Hard work still pays off more than degrees. Degrees aren’t worth the paper they are printed on.

Degrees now have lost much of their worth with so many graduates and competition. A Bachelor is practically useless. Many pursue at least 1 or even 2 Masters degrees or even a PHD.
I even read cases with fake Medicine degrees. There is also a whole industry behind it, squeezing as much as possible out of the post-graduates (in their 30s and older) who try to get a Masters for better job prospects.

A colleague of mine who has even a post-PHD (dont know the term in English) in Special Education, teaches courses for a Masters degree in Education and countless participants take part in order to have more advantages in employment. Even she admits that the quality of this Masters is very low and it is made only to squeeze them out of money and handle the papers. She is not a perm uni professor of course. University professors here are making a fortune out of this. Plus many are on pension yet continue to earn money by teaching at foreign universities. They have their own cliques really

Where I live situation is so dire that even people with PHDs are out of employment and seek few months of low paid temporary jobs each year in public services. At least there pay is stable compared to the private sector, that is in a dire state. At school there is a guy who teaches computers to kids. He has a degree in Computer Engineering and participates in a relevant PHD. But because of family and having to spent 5 hours on train every day to come to work, he has yet to finish it.

On the contrary my sisters husband has just a high school degree. He dropped out of university (Maths faculty) and with his sister they set a small company specializing in Web design the last years. Pay is very meager and if it wasnt for their parents supporting them and paying their taxes, they'd have run out of business from the first year.

 

[DKehoe]

It's not necessary, but good luck having someone even consider you for an interview if you don't have one.

Yeh, this is the thing. It’s definitely not necessary but companies receive so many applications these days that not having one is probably something that’s going to get you filtered out early on in the selection process. As people say, everyone has one now. But the flip side of that is that they can then use that as the minimum standard they’re looking for. If you can manage to get that initial job without one then you can build from there. But it’s that first step that’s the tricky part. The best thing to do is start something of your own if you can.

 

[highrider]

I never went to college and could never function in classroom settings, but I always assumed college was more of a barrier of entry thing, and also a networking system for like minded professionals and creators. There were always examples around me of people that were successful without a degree or higher education.

On a side note, I kind of despised most of my peers in college. They had no ambition but their parents had money. I felt like I got more from the military than they got from college. Also society crams college and education down your throat from a young age, it was everything to my parents. For those reasons alone I knew it wasn’t for me

 

[Lanrutcon]

We regularly get CVs that looking fucking great on paper. Then you sit the dude down in front of VS for a practical without access to Google and oh boy...

 

[Virex]

I have a 4 year degree and unforunately it is required for my job. But I've got a few friends that do Blue collar jobs (boilermakers, wielders etc.) And they are just as successful as I am. Sad that in our current day and age that people pull up their noses towards these people. I have no student debt luckily because my university was paid for me. But where I work there are a lot of people without degrees that make good money and are happy. Never look down on people is what I was always taught my by Dad and mom.

 

[Grinchy]

We need more big companies to start hiring people without degrees. The only reason anyone gets a degree is to get their foot in the door.

HR people, who sometimes have no understanding of what a job entails, are the gatekeepers of that job. And they are looking for the same old shit - degrees and the answers to the top 50 most asked interview questions. These two factors keep out some potentially great employees.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

And yet every single developer job currently advertised at Apple require a BS or MS degree.

Software Engineer - Vector Maps v- Jobs at Apple (UK)

Apply for a Software Engineer - Vector Maps job at Apple. Read about the role and find out if it’s right for you.

jobs.apple.com

Yeah, put your money where your mouth is, Apple.

 

[kingwingin]

And yet every single developer job currently advertised at Apple require a BS or MS degree.

Software Engineer - Vector Maps v- Jobs at Apple (UK)

Apply for a Software Engineer - Vector Maps job at Apple. Read about the role and find out if it’s right for you.

jobs.apple.com

He's not saying you dont need a degree, he's suggesting that coding be treated like any other language and you should start teaching it early.

Like how colleges have intro courses if you didnt take physics or pre cal in HS.

 

[Ten_Fold]

Health or Law is about the only thing you SHOULD need a degree in since that’s pretty hard to learn solo, but coding, management is something you shouldn’t need no degree for, especially coding it’s all on the internet you can learn enough to get a job within 3-6 months, that’s what I did.

 

[Barnabot]

Frankly, anybody who says you need a 4 year degree to be proficient at coding should be dragged out in the street and shot in order to keep such stupidity out of the gene pool, thus preserving the future of the next generations.

You can't do that to HR people who create the job description. That's cruelty even though I agree with Tim Cook.

 

[sendit]

This isn't new. Tons of proficient coders where I work making upwards $130K+ base pay without a degree. In this field, experience matters more.

 

[Bogey]

As someone who works in high frequency trading without ever having studied CompSci - he's right of course.

I'd almost say the opposite - Almost nobody who "just" learnt how to code in some 4 year degree will be particularly competitive in the very high skilled sector. For most peers, coding is a genuine passion, and almost everyone I know has been starting rather early on in their lives. There are definitely aspects of development that you will need to read up on in some sort of structured form/literature, but obviously a formal degree isn't necessarily the only way to do that.

 

[Afro Republican]

Degrees are only necessary for careers in which a mistake can cause suffering to another, e.g. medicine/health, engineering, law.

You don't need a degree to go into most things involving law.

But anyway, degrees used to be a short cut so you an get to higher paying positions faster (with some exceptions like surgeons etc.) but now with so many shitty degree majors like "gender studies" and other things that are oddly specific college is basically just as useless.

You got out with a degree in subject J and you can't find a job hiring for subject J but for subject H and K, you're basically screwed. Because most college courses focus on a specific category, not other skills that are related. Back some decades ago going to college would train you for J but give you enough knowledge to do or quickly adapt to H and K as well. NOW that's not the case.

Over half of the degrees issues out are useless and over half those that made it decent or big after college aren't working in the field that their college education was based on.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Who the fuck ever claimed a good coder needs a university degree?

 

[Vicetrailia]

I hate the idea of going to college except for a few professions. It should mostly be inexpensive one year training events that you take periodically through your career.

 

[hivsteak]

now with so many shitty degree majors like "gender studies" and other things that are oddly specific college is basically just as useless.

You spout nonsense in every single post it is intolerable. Your way of thinking is just straight up toxic.

 

[Super Mario]

College is where it is at because it's a big business and political pandering. It's not a bad thing by any means, but can absolutely be excessive and meaningless if not done right.

I've hired people for over 10 years now. No, I'm not hiring lawyers, but I'm also not hiring part-time box movers. Honestly, what is most important is how you present yourself. How do you think? How do you interact with others? What is your work ethic? How do you overcome problems? Things a paper degree cannot say.

Yell at me all you want. I will however have some sort of perception if all you have is a GED vs someone with a degree. It's not the be-all, end-all, but it is something about your resolve.

 

[Blood Borne]

He’s right.
I have no qualifications but I code. Taught myself Excel, then SQL, then Python then Golang.

I keep telling people that Uni is a scam. The purpose of Uni is to leverage their resources, resources that you can’t get anywhere else. Like if you want to become a doctor/surgeon, where are you going to get a dead body and the tools to learn other than Uni, or if you want to become a rocket scientist or some highly specialised field, where you need access to resources and materials you can’t get anywhere else then obviously you need to go to Uni but if you can get the materials yourself and/or it’s not some job where you need to have a license, then why should you waste years in uni, get into debt when you can get it yourself.

I taught myself how to code from YouTube, textbooks and forums.

 

[One Eyed Willy]

It's not necessary, but good luck having someone even consider you for an interview if you don't have one.

I built my entire career as a sr system engineer as a college drop out. The best engineers, real engineers worth their weight do not have degrees. Having a degree is not necessary in IT, like at all. Much like anything its the guy who's willing to fight and not expect a job b/c he has a degree who will edge the pack.

I know a guy who is dumber than bricks, low IQ and makes six figures. Not luck, no degree, but when he was 20 he got a job picking up trash at an electrical yard. He worked hard, showed up early and was willing to work 6 days a week when others couldn't wait to get home and do fuck all. Today he runs the yard, no degree, still dumber than dirt but he built his castle from blood, sweat and tears. Years of hard work in the industry.

I know another electrician who makes nearly 200k a year, dropped out of high school. Neither of these guys are "lucky". In fact, both are unlucky by most regards but climbed out of their holes themselves.

An education is great, fantastic even. However high school counselors are wrong, and have been wrong for decades. They've tricked and fooled generations of kids into thinking you need a college education in order to be successful. It's not work smart not hard, it's work smart and hard. You don't deserve success because you graduated college, your earn success. Even when you graduate with your degree, congrats you now are entering the workforce at 23-25 at the same level, same place as others who skipped college.

"But but but, you need a degree to get the job!" Tell that to your coworkers who don't have degrees lol.

 

[Afro Republican]

You spout nonsense in every single post it is intolerable. Your way of thinking is just straight up toxic.

Statistics don't care about your feelings.

 

[Rest]

Who's Tim Cook? The CEO of Apple is named Tim Apple.

 

[RiccochetJ]

If anyone goes to College for a Computer Science degree thinking that it's 4 years of them learning to program in different languages is going to be in for a rude awakening.

I think I took a grand total of 2 courses in learning C++. After that, if we were using a new language, they would point us at a primer or videos to get you up to speed.

If you hate doing mathematical proofs, then you're going to absolutely hate CS. Hell, in my Junior and Senior years a lot of my courses were cross listed as Electrical Engineering courses.

 

[infinitys_7th]

If anyone goes to College for a Computer Science degree thinking that it's 4 years of them learning to program in different languages is going to be in for a rude awakening.

I think I took a grand total of 2 courses in learning C++. After that, if we were using a new language, they would point us at a primer or videos to get you up to speed.

If you hate doing mathematical proofs, then you're going to absolutely hate CS. Hell, in my Junior and Senior years a lot of my courses were cross listed as Electrical Engineering courses.

A lot of CS courses ARE math courses. For my math major, I focused in stochastics and numerical methods, so I was in a lot of classes with CS majors.

 

[RiccochetJ]

A lot of CS courses ARE math courses. For my math major, I focused in stochastics and numerical methods, so I was in a lot of classes with CS majors.

Yep. When I graduated I think I only had to take 2 more courses to get a minor in math if I was so inclined.

 

[n0razi]

A degree isnt proof of having knowledge or skills, its proof that you are willing to put up with bull shit for 4 years which is what hiring manager want to see

 

[Deleted member 12837]

Degrees are only necessary for careers in which a mistake can cause suffering to another, e.g. medicine/health, engineering, law.

That would include coding and software engineering to a great extent, then. These days it's hard to find any sort of system, critical or otherwise, that doesn't depend on software in some manner. Healthcare and medical devices, military operations and weapons, transportation (cars, planes, trains, space shuttles, roads), agriculture, general infrastructure...that's really just the tip of the iceberg.

Generally I don't really think there's much of a connection between having a degree and an ability to deal with high risk projects and situations. There are independent certifications and compliance-related standards for that sort of thing. You'd pursue those as part of your professional development.

 

[hivsteak]

Statistics don't care about your feelings.

I see your posts everywhere and they’re always off. You reference “stats” that are one sided that reflect only your views. This happens in every single post you make.

You sensationalize everything, rant about any subject you get your hands, and made it off like you know everything because the facts and stats are on your side.

College isn’t worthless. Education isn’t worthless. You don’t measure the worth of a degree by how many people stay in that field or how many of them are successful. A degree is invaluable. If college was free the majority of people would have a degree.

The cost of pursuing a degree, financially, logistically, etc, is the real issue here.

 

[somerset]

Two kinds of talent. Natural born and trained.

1) Natural born. This does *not* mean the knowledge is baked in from birth, but that the indivual will be self-educating using the best resources available. I went to uni on a computer degree, but I was a better coder already, learned almost nothing from the lectures, and watched a class of useless coders be just as useless at the end of the course.

2) Trained (the majority). Hopefully the better trained person will learn the basics- be exposed to a degree of craft skills. These people can do well in unchallenging environments- and for coders represent (sadly) the majority of people working.

All truly talented coders will profoundly disrespect the idea that trained coders are actually capable of really good work- they are not. But most coding is *not* 'algorithms' and 'structures' but glue using the data structure and algorithm designs of the truly skilled via APIs and libraries.

Today's alt-left depicts coding as *data entry*, like that recent sh-t film "hidden figures" that claimed a bunch of data entry females were 'coding' and hence responsible for America's space program. COBOL was a *data entry* system where zero skilled data entry personnel in the Navy could convery simple descriptions like A = B + C into the COBOL equavalent. This was *never* coding- not even coding as in glue code calling library functions.

It is true that for a 'black' female at the time to get a *data entry* job, discrimination meant she did have to have a degree. But use of skills from that degree played no part in the knowledge needed for data entry.

A one-to-one translation from a design line to a code line is *not* coding, even tho what the data entry person types in is, strictly speaking, a line of code.

At the very least, coding is writing a fully functioning section of code that can be run and then debugged. A section of code that is *not* copied from a functionally identical line-by-line description.

I have *zero* personal awareness of self-taught female coders. This speaks volumes, for the home computer revolution, combined with the number of households with *only* daughters, meant that all explanations for this *except* that females are not inclined to code, vanished.

But trained female coders are probably as 'good' (if good is the right word) as their trained male counterparts.

PS for the hard-of-thinking who'll try hard to deny the above, cos they think trained coders are the 'best'- compare to sports. How many sports peeps become really good at sports *only* when at uni and trained there? *Zero*. For the greats, it is in their blood and they've been doing a form of this well since childhood. Indeed unis select them cos they are *already* great.

Even if a once sad fat person decides to change their life at college, and take up martial arts, it ain't the 'education' but that person's own internal will that is going to make the change. Sure they might fin the uni's facilities useful. But the best of the best educate and motivate themselves.

PPS if you are a prize idiot you will take the above as 'advice' that the great can skip the rigour and hard work of formal education. No- the self-made person works *harder*, reads *more* books, and spends mre time honing their skills. Before we did the stats and probability segment of maths at school, I could actually derive the concepts from first principles- when you are good at something you love that thing.

How do you become good at coding? You code. You read about coding. You think about coding. And you do, read and think the maths needed to code as well.

 

[Afro Republican]

I see your posts everywhere and they’re always off. You reference “stats” that are one sided that reflect only your views.

The cost of pursuing a degree, financially, logistically, etc, is the real issue here.

No it isn't, most of the courses that are being pushed are for specific types of jobs and are generally useless once you get out of school. Then you have courses that teach you in a field that has demand but doesn't teach you general information about things that are related to the subject and focus on the specific subject almost in isolation, so say, for example, a course teaches you strictly HTML but doesn't give you enough info to adapt or understand CSS or similar. Then what good is your HTML degree if there's nearly no openings outside a few rare ones here and there? That's a simple example even you can follow.

The issue here is you aren't smart enough to comprehend this, if the issue was "pursuing a degree" than the debts, bankruptcy's, rehabilitation, Loan amounts wouldn't be increasing. Sure that's is an issue but a smaller issue, the biggest issues is that your college degree and education has to focus around a safe bet. If you get a Gender studies or basketweaving degree your basically screwed unless you happen to have gotten your degree at a time some companies were actually hiring for those but those categories aren't ever in high-demand so having millions in "gender studies" classes will inevitably screw most of the people involved over.

This is the same for having you taught one specific subject but not giving you enough general education so you can use your knowledge in that subject to adapt or easily learn how to do closely related fields. If people leave with only enough information to do ONE type of job despite there being many other types of jobs that are similar or are related, then people are still screwed.

The biggest problem is that the degrees and the education are useless and becoming more and more useless unless you go with the generic safe courses and not all colleges even offer those. The Colleges know that millions of people are not going to make it, and many are backed by the Gov, so why would they not raise the price knowing that they get rich even if you fail?

The stats are clear, most people that go to college that end up major successes are in a different field than what they got their degree in.

Most people who don't become big (most people) but are either mildly successful or not successful are also not usually in a field they went to school for.

You can't have 3 million students get "gender studies" degrees with minors in "race relations" and think that all 3 million of those people will have access to jobs in that field. This is a fact that you can't seem to understand.