Many of the world’s greatest innovators in tech don’t have a formal degree in engineering, and many of them are college dropouts, including Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and others.
Now we have Apple CEO Tim Cook supporting the fact that a four-year degree isn’t really necessary to become a good coder. “I don’t think a four year degree is necessary to be proficient at coding. I think that’s an old, traditional view,” says Cook.
The CEO made the statement above earlier this week while visiting an Apple Store in Orlando, Florida, to meet 16-year-old Liam Rosenfeld. He is one of the 350 scholarship winners who will be attending Apple’s annual WWDC event next month.
Cook found Rosenfeld’s accomplishments with code “pretty impressive” given that managed to achieve it at such a young age. He cited it as a perfect example of why he thinks coding education should begin early at school.
He further noted that if coding is incorporated in the earlier stages of school and continued until high school with a gradual increase in difficulty, students like Liam manage to write apps that could be put on the App Store before even graduating.
Earlier this year, Cook shared similar thoughts during an American Workforce Policy Advisory Board meeting at the White House.
