I Need a CS Degree. I Don't Need a CS Degree
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Comments posted to this topic are about the item I Need a CS Degree. I Don't Need a CS Degree
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Schrödinger's Degree. Both needed and not needed.
Back in the day when I was leading development teams my experience was that people with degrees covered the same range of useless through to excellent as people without a degree. The key was that if someone could pick up new ideas quickly they moved to the excellent end, but if not they moved towards being next to useless. Mostly a degree made no difference.
Except for the odd one or two with degrees who picked up ideas quicker than you could throw them. They were so good they were scary.
Talent at anything seems to follow the same flattened ogee curve. At the bottom are those who really cannot do the job they are in. At the 10% of population mark the talent curve becomes almost flat and does not rise much until the 90% of population mark is reached. It then rises steeply, with the top 5% easily being an order of magnitude or higher more effective than the average.
So for most people in any field of work, three years intensively doing the trade will be about as good as three years learning the trade before doing much of it. But I also think most people have the scope to be in the top 5-10% of something. If somehow they can work out what that is while still young and inexperienced and go study it at Uni then they can shape a bit of the world.
Original author: https://github.com/SQL-FineBuild/Common/wiki/ 1-click install and best practice configuration of SQL Server 2019, 2017 2016, 2014, 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005.
When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor they call me a communist - Archbishop Hélder Câmara
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I've been looking at the algorithms used by search engines. I can just about understand them but there is no way I could come up with them. The level of thought that went into some of them borders on philosophical. For me that level of thought is what I would expect from a CS degree, possibly one of the higher ones.
I don't have a degree and I am near the end of my career as an IT person. I recognise myself as more of a doer than a deep thinker and there has obviously been a huge market for people like myself. Someone who is prepared to turn up and do the job to the best of their abilities but won't set the world alight.
A world changing thing needs 3 types of people to create it
- The inventor e.g. Steve Wozniak or Phil Katz
- The person who can see how the invention could change the world e.g. Steve Jobs
- The people who will do the donkey work.
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I am in a unique situation as when I got into IT, I did have a degree, but it was in Philosophy -- not CS. I did recognize that I had both an interest and a talent for computer-related stuff. So I went the certification route to get my foot in the door. This, however, was back in the late 90's where IT was hitting a huge growth period, so opportunities were there for entry-level people, especially those with talent, ambition, and ability to learn.
Now, my kids a college-age, and they have interest in IT. I tell them get the degree in CS, but don't break the bank by going to the most expensive college. They go to the local state-run university and do a hybrid of commuting and doing some online classes. They will have some college loans, but it won't strap them financially like other colleges can.
I also tell them to get their degree in order to get that "foot in the door" paper. In many ways, it's a saturated market for people new to the industry. So you have to distinguish yourself or know someone in order to get that first job out of college.
Once my career was established, I did go back and get a master's in IT Mgmt. These 2 degrees did allow for me to get into management. I think it's difficult these days to get into management of any kind without a degree. So it depends on how you see you career long-term. What I like most about mgmt is the ability to influence decisions and make decisions. I didn't have that kind of influence when I was just a DBA. I am fortunate that I am a working manager so I do get the best and worst of both worlds, but it's what I enjoy. I can't give up the technical full-time, but I also know that better decisions can be made with my knowledge and experience than someone who is only a manager.
I hope that was helpful for people.
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Like Jerry Nixon said early in his Twitter/X post, getting a CS degree or not is very nuanced. My first software development job I got because I have a degree. It was one of those, "CS or related degree" situations. My degree isn't in CS; my degree is in Mathematics, but its related. 🙂 It proved that I could learn and I've been learning ever since.
But I've known some software developers who didn't have a degree, but were brilliant software developers. And I've known people who have Master's degrees in CS, and were totally worthless as developers.
What bothers me most about getting a degree now, is how expensive it is!! I had student loans, and paid them off. Steve's concern about how expensive getting a degree in anything is these days is very valid. Someone might rack up tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, and only be able to because a manager in retail or fast food industry. You've got to wonder was it worth it.
I don't think there's a simple answer and I think the answer can be different for each person and situation.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
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I have a very mixed opinion on the current value of a degree. I have pretty much always thought that there are potentially two benefits. First is having the motivation and determination to do the work and achieve the results for ones self. Second is the potential benefit of developing analytical and reasoning skills which can apply to any endeavor. Note that neither of these really depend on the specific field of work but instead on developing the over-arching mindset.
For perspective, I earned my bachelors degree (plus) in the old days by working lots of hours while attending college, and by the time I graduated I had debt of a whopping $1100.00 at 3% interest with ten years to pay it off. Then I spent a total of eight months working in my field of study - sociology, psychology, and education. I feel the overall value was to develop the skill of seeing detail, understanding cause and effect, and anticipating results. (I do tend to drive my wife silly when obsessing over her letting her glass of wine sit too close to the edge of the table).
This is als0 why I definitely am in favor of community colleges where one can get the general education classes at lower cost and gather some real-life experience in the working world on which to base further career decisions.
As I have related before, my whole 42-year IT career began by visiting a friend at his work and seeing a computer for the first time. Then I got the old printed manuals by IBM in those days, took them home, and studied at night to learn.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) ) -
I have a very mixed opinion on the current value of a degree. I have pretty much always thought that there are potentially two benefits. First is having the motivation and determination to do the work and achieve the results for ones self. Second is the potential benefit of developing analytical and reasoning skills which can apply to any endeavor. Note that neither of these really depend on the specific field of work but instead on developing the over-arching mindset.
For perspective, I earned my bachelors degree (plus) in the old days by working lots of hours while attending college, and by the time I graduated I had debt of a whopping $1100.00 at 3% interest with ten years to pay it off. Then I spent a total of eight months working in my field of study - sociology, psychology, and education. I feel the overall value was to develop the skill of seeing detail, understanding cause and effect, and anticipating results. (I do tend to drive my wife silly when obsessing over her letting her glass of wine sit too close to the edge of the table).
This is als0 why I definitely am in favor of community colleges where one can get the general education classes at lower cost and gather some real-life experience in the working world on which to base further career decisions.
As I have related before, my whole 42-year IT career began by visiting a friend at his work and seeing a computer for the first time. Then I got the old printed manuals by IBM in those days, took them home, and studied at night to learn.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) ) -
Duplicate due to server timeout...
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) ) - EdVassie wrote:
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Talent at anything seems to follow the same flattened ogee curve. At the bottom are those who really cannot do the job they are in. At the 10% of population mark the talent curve becomes almost flat and does not rise much until the 90% of population mark is reached. It then rises steeply, with the top 5% easily being an order of magnitude or higher more effective than the average.
So for most people in any field of work, three years intensively doing the trade will be about as good as three years learning the trade before doing much of it. But I also think most people have the scope to be in the top 5-10% of something. If somehow they can work out what that is while still young and inexperienced and go study it at Uni then they can shape a bit of the world.
I'm not sure about a flat curve. I find a wider variety, but I do think there are certainly some percent that are in the wrong place and the top 10% or so are amazing.
That being said, I seem to find more that a large majority have 6 mos of experience repeated over and over, and quite a few, but a minority, work hard for 3 years to get good at things.
- David.Poole wrote:
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A world changing thing needs 3 types of people to create it
- The inventor e.g. Steve Wozniak or Phil Katz
- The person who can see how the invention could change the world e.g. Steve Jobs
- The people who will do the donkey work.
I guess I'm a
I am however, an effective beast
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My ~30 year career in IT has been with a company whose products are not software. In that kind of environment I've worked with many people without degrees who were amazing coders. Almost all of them had troubles getting their foot in the door, and then their careers stall for a period of years. What has often limited them as employees was some missing CS foundational knowledge and a whole lot of missing "how business works" knowledge. All the "boring stuff" that is easy to skip over when learning on your own but you are forced to do in order to get a degree. Such knowledge holes don't seem to impede in the early years but become a real barrier to advancement after about the first decade. Those who find success long term find a way to fill in the knowledge gaps, which can take a lot of extra work on their part since they often don't know about those holes until they fall in them.
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I am very skeptical on the ROI of a degree. Not the value, but the return based on costs.
Years ago, one could get a nice degree for not too much money. Even now, the cost of community college for a semester is $5k in CO, which is about what I paid at the University of Virginia years ago. Maybe you can work and earn that, but likely you need some help or go part time.
I'm a big fan of education, but not sure about college for all of us. Some of us, but mostly I wish companies would stop using this as a litmus test. Yes, you had to work for 4 years to complete a project, but that doesn't mean you learned a lot or that you'll be a good employee.
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I am very skeptical on the ROI of a degree. Not the value, but the return based on costs.
Years ago, one could get a nice degree for not too much money. Even now, the cost of community college for a semester is $5k in CO, which is about what I paid at the University of Virginia years ago. Maybe you can work and earn that, but likely you need some help or go part time.
I'm a big fan of education, but not sure about college for all of us. Some of us, but mostly I wish companies would stop using this as a litmus test. Yes, you had to work for 4 years to complete a project, but that doesn't mean you learned a lot or that you'll be a good employee.
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I have both a BA and MS in Computer Science and have worked with individuals with and without degrees during the course of my almost 30 years in IT. Most of my career has been spent developing in-house applications and doing all of the database development. One thing I have noticed with developers who did not get a degree or got a degree from a "diploma mill" is the lack of consistency when developing, reinventing the wheel, and inability to reverse engineer someone else's code (and in some cases, their own code.) I know not all developers who did not get a degree are not like that but I have yet to encounter one. From the courses and professors I had in college, I became aware of the importance of those 3 things. My professors were my mentors because I haven't worked with anyone who would have taught me what they did. I'm guessing because I've worked in small shops.
Having said that, I love seeing people mentioning going to a community college as I tell everyone I can to do that. There are really good 2 year CS degrees out there and if one is going to transfer to a 4 year school, go to a community college and get the gen-eds knocked out and then transfer to an in-state public school (which is what I did.)
My degrees have gotten me interviews during recessions and I know from the comments during those interviews, that's exactly why I got called.
One thing that cannot be taught and what I look for in a job applicant is passion. I love working in IT and I am constantly learning new things to help me be a better developer. I have worked/am working with a lot of people who aren't like that--working in IT is just a good paying job and marking time until retirement.
- Steve Jones - SSC Editor wrote:
I am very skeptical on the ROI of a degree. Not the value, but the return based on costs.
Years ago, one could get a nice degree for not too much money. Even now, the cost of community college for a semester is $5k in CO, which is about what I paid at the University of Virginia years ago. Maybe you can work and earn that, but likely you need some help or go part time.
I'm a big fan of education, but not sure about college for all of us. Some of us, but mostly I wish companies would stop using this as a litmus test. Yes, you had to work for 4 years to complete a project, but that doesn't mean you learned a lot or that you'll be a good employee.
several times I took IT classes at three different community colleges in two states in evenings and the cost was quite reasonable. You don't have to do it all at one time.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
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