[ale] CS Degree necessary?

[kschmidt at mindspring.com]

I must be one of those exceptions, I guess. I've been using computers since age nine, programming since age 10, and working full time in the field for almost 10 years (I'm now 28). Not having a degree hasn't hurt me at all. Heck, I've written an O'Reilly book and have started on a second one.

Just because you stick it for four years doesn't guarantee that you're worth a damn. I've met some real clueless people who had CS degrees. And some of the best coders I've known where either college drop outs or guys with non-CS degrees.

Here's my take: If you have zero experience, then having a degree will get you in the door. But it has been my "experience" that if you know your sh*t, then you will never have a problem, degree or no degree. 

-Kevin


Christopher Bergeron <christopher at bergeron.com> wrote:
> Michael, I went to Florida State for CS, but ended up with a degree in MIS
because I'm not very good at higher mathematics (go figure).  I've got a
great job and this might be blasphemous to some, but I make more than the
guy with the CS degree in my office.  I highly respect what the CS majors
had to go through to get thier degrees - I just couldn't hack it.
....buuuuut, since I'm more experienced (I've been hacking since High
School) I equate that to my overall higher salary.  I tend to think that
salaries in general are a logarithmic curve.  When you're not educated it's
harder to get to the apex, and when you're too educated you're actually
overvalued and it's harder to find work (ever talk to someone with multiple
degree's and a phD or master's in CS that _wasn't_ an instructor or
professor? - neither have I).  The point of all this is that (IMHO) it's
important to _have_ a degree; but ultimately your experience will pave the
way of your career.  The degree will get you into interviews that you could
not normally get and as a result I think you'll do much better than with
just experience alone and no degree.  Although, to be practical I don't know
how far a degree in "Paperclip Art" would get you.  You have to be
realistic.

That's just my take on things,
-CB

P.S.
I'm 25 years old and according to salary.com I make in the middle-upper
percentile of salaries for my job description (unix admin) adjusted for
geometery of course!  [or is that geography!?]
:)



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Golden [mailto:naugrimk at yahoo.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 7:56 PM
> To: ale at ale.org
> Subject: [ale] CS Degree necessary?
>
>
> Hi,
> 	I know a similar thread has gone on in this list a while
> back but for
> one I'm too lazy right now to go back and try to find it and two I don't
> recall well enough if it addressed this exact topic.
> 	Right now I am set up to major in Computer Science but I've
> only been
> taking general education core classes so far. I was talking to people
> about some of the classes for the major and I took a look through them
> myself and I'm not sure how interested I am in taking half of them. I'd
> like to have a career in computers but I don't know how much I'll enjoy
> this major.
> 	Is a CS degree really necessary in the real world for computer jobs?
> What are the advantages/disadvantages to having it? Anything else to
> add?
>
> Michael
>
>
>
> ---
> This message has been sent through the ALE general discussion list.
> See http://www.ale.org/mailing-lists.shtml for more info.
> Problems should be
> sent to listmaster at ale dot org.
>
>


---
This message has been sent through the ALE general discussion list.
See http://www.ale.org/mailing-lists.shtml for more info. Problems should be 
sent to listmaster at ale dot org.



---
This message has been sent through the ALE general discussion list.
See http://www.ale.org/mailing-lists.shtml for more info. Problems should be 
sent to listmaster at ale dot org.