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Brendan Zabarauskas
@brendanzab
Building dependent type systems and compilers. 🙋‍♂️ I did try to do uni twice but dropped out both times. The most valuable for me was the design program I did where I was exposed to art practice and art history - a lot of that perspective informs the research work I do now.
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Emily Kager
@EmilyKager
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🤯 RT this if you’re an engineer working on OS, compilers, APIs, algorithms without an engineering degree! 💅
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TikTok comment “you can be a programmer the word engineer needs a degree”
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Brendan Zabarauskas
@brendanzab
Replying to
@brendanzab
The second was a junk CS course which taught out of date programming practices and provided very little in the way of historical context or the theory underlying what we do. It was a big disappointment and but did help to get my foot-in-the door in some internships.
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Brendan Zabarauskas
@brendanzab
I dropped out both times due to personal reasons. But yeah, you don't need a degree to do this stuff. I do however think that degrees *can* be helpful, and universities do a lot of great work, especially if they aren't forced to follow short term demands from industry.
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Brendan Zabarauskas
@brendanzab
To give some more insight into what was so great about the design course: I went in wanting to create original work of my own, but had no idea how to do that, and was intimidated by all the great art that other people were doing.
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Rahul Goma Phulore
@missingfaktor
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Replying to @brendanzab
I would love to know more about how art practice and art history influences your work!
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Brendan Zabarauskas
@brendanzab
In the span of a semester, they had completely obliterated the idea of originality by way of art history, showing how even the most celebrated artists and designers drew a lot from other artists and their unique historical and cultural contexts - and that this is a good thing!
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Brendan Zabarauskas
@brendanzab
Via history, they also showed how many things we take for granted today in art took place over generations of work, by many different people. New ideas an approaches don't come out of nowhere in sparks of inspiration, they take time, effort, and learning from others.
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Brendan Zabarauskas
@brendanzab
They also taught practical stuff at the same time via life drawing, helping you unlearn a bunch of bad habits, and building a process of deliberate and continued practice. A lot of that I had to continue to work on over the years, but I do trace it back to that first semester.
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Brendan Zabarauskas
@brendanzab
My approach to programming and research is very much like the approach to design and art I learned at uni. There's a lot of developing a sense of taste and seeking out influences, creating my own approaches based on what I see and what interests me.
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Brendan Zabarauskas
@brendanzab
To be clear, I’m definitely not claiming that my haphazard approach is the right and only one, more pushing against the more subtle gatekeeping behind the original post - ie. it is implied that the degree’ that engineers must is a ‘technical’ one.
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Brendan Zabarauskas
@brendanzab
The arts and the humanities have a huge amount to offer computer science and maths, etc. just like maths and logic etc. have a huge amount to offer the arts and the humanities.
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