It's true, going to college for a semester taught me that I never, ever want to write java for a living.

Most college educated people I meet can't write half as well as the OP.

Are you saying that you can't learn to write without going to college?

You can learn everything you learn in college somewhere else. But it's nowhere near as easy.

I would also argue that while learning stuff on your own is doable for most people, it is even more important to know what you need to learn and to stick with learning it, even if it doesn't seem immediately useful.

This is one thing I think CS programs provide that is really, really hard for people to do on their own. As programs like Udacity and Coursera get bigger and more mature, I think this is one area where they can really add a lot of value: giving people a roadmap and an external way to gauge their progress.

I disagree with what you say, but a lot of people tend to agree with you. I'm assuming that most people haven't actually tried teaching themselves something to know what's more effective.

> For example, most people who didn't go to college can't write a blog post like yours.

I'm fairly certain this has more to do with the average type of person that doesn't go to college rather than any causal link between Freshman Composition and good writing skills.

Causation and correlation makes this entire topic grey.

The truth is for 99% of people college is the best option for them. They'll get a job paying a decent salary, with a better work environment and the possibility of upward mobility if they so choose. Better than had they not gone to college.

There's a small, no miniscule, fraction of people who are motivated enough that they can achieve the same or more without the institutional learning and degree.

* I never finished college but benefited from my 3 years spent there.

Possibly. But I have seen college itself (not just dedicated writing classes) help people write immeasurably. This is because writing is involved in most everything one does there. It's an extension of high school. Same concept.

My highschool courses were all graded on essays except the hard sciences. College is not the only place to learn to write. I also remember my 5th grade teacher telling me we all deserved As (for average instead of E for excellent) but that if anyone were to have an E it was me or this other girl. Writing is encouraged at all ages, not just college.

Do you really believe that a collegiate level composition class doesn't improve writing skills at least a little bit?

I dunno. I tested out of it based on what I learned in high school, so it seems likely it merely reinforced the same techniques.

That's somewhat of a straw man. I have no doubt it improves writing skills at least a little bit on average. I contend that it doesn't make a difference in any absolute sense.

I received AP credit and thus passed out of Freshman Composition so my experience is slightly different. In my AP class, everyone's writing skills improved but no one who was a bad writer became a good writer.

If you ask any author the most effective way to become a better writer they'll tell you to read. Most people don't like to read and thus (I believe there is a causal link here) most people are bad writers. It takes much more than two semesters of Freshman Comp. to radically improve ones writing skills. Quality writing is something that you internalize over many years.

Yeah, I agree with this. My English skills have always been top of the line (99% on standardized tests, 5s on APs, etc), and I fully accredit this to the fact that I have been reading CONSTANTLY since I was little. You have to develop an ability to hear the written word inside your head as your eyes move across the page--a lot of lower functioning people don't seem to have this, as indicated by the bizarre sentence constructions they vomit all over their word processor.

A knack for sentence flow isn't practiced, it is absorbed. Want to be a good writer? You need a vocabulary to match. Those of us who acquired extensive vocabularies through osmosis can tell when a lesser person has whipped out the thesaurus in an attempt to sound "smart." (usually, the fancy words they try to insert just end up hilariously misused, since they don't understand the different shades of meaning attached to them. You can only get that through observation of the word in its natural setting.)

As anecdata, I know someone with an English degree from our flagship state school who can't manage to comprehend the difference between "its" and "it's," "your" and "you're," and routinely mangles grammar in a manner absolutely horrifying even before you take into account the fact they studied English for OVER FOUR YEARS and still never managed to grasp the proper use of the possessive.

I more often hear they say to write. Though I'll concede reading a lot is also important.