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Continuing an IT Career Without a Degree?
skaffen42 asks: "Recently there have been a lot of employment related "ask slashdot" posts. There have been questions about hot technologies, the international job market, certification, college and even landing a regular job! I find myself in a situation that have not been covered these posts. I dropped out of college after a year and went to work as a programmer. Now, ten years later, I am a senior systems engineer at a medium sized software company. I have challenging work, a decent salary and good prospects for advancement. But we all know that in this economy even a good job like this can disappear without warning. Unfortunately I don't have a degree. Which brings me to my question: a couple of years ago anybody could get a job if they could spell "C" and someone like me with nearly a decade of experience could usually pick and choose between job opportunities. Those days are (unfortunately) long gone. What I want to know is how much my lack of a degree will count against me in the present job market? And what can I do to make my lack of a degree less of a liability? What can I do so that I can also have these kind of problems?"
1) Get a degree (obvious). Night school or whatever.
2) Never leave your current job (also obvious, but not really under your control)
3) Network. A lot. Without a degree, in this job market, your only chances for landing another job are to a) already know the person, have an 'in', or b) impress the hell out of the interviewer. b) is possible in smaller companies, but if the interview's being conducted by HR, you can just forget it. So that leaves a); gets lots of people who know you, and are willing to hire you if you get canned.
In the present market, and definitely in my region, your situation is a very dangerous one. Presently, the few companies that are hiring in the region are taking full advantage of the market downturn and its resulting glut of skilled professionals. These few and far between companies are demanding degrees, usually advanced degrees and offering pathetic salaries in return.
Here's one: Major insurance company seeks mid-level programmer. Requires Master's degree in Computer Science or related field and minimum 10 years experience developing in C/C++ and Java. $65,000US + Benefits.
MCSE's beware!!!!
I just got a job last monday after four long months of searching. Same situation as last time, my employer had me over a barrel, but he chose not to screw me. I actually got a decent salary, and the job was based on experience & certifications. What got me in the door? Sheer determination. 2 years of it. I interviewed with this company before, and kept my eye on it. I've wanted to work here for quite some time, and i plan to stay for a long time. But i do plan to have one thing before i leave:
At least an associates degree.
I have a long way to go. at least 3 years worth of work. The luck i encountered in getting this job was quite amazing. I could have been looking for ages more and never found a job. Sysadmins are a dime a dozen, and, unfortunately, there are a lot of talentless hacks out there taking the jobs from the more qualified and skilled, based only on the fact that they'll work for $15,000 less.
What hurt me the most in the job search is some of these talentless hacks (I knew some of them, so im not just making this up) had degrees.. but absolutely no skill. IMHO, you need all the qualifications to be [easily] successful in todays job market - Certifications, Formal Education, and Experience. Not to say you can't get far just by trying reaaaaly hard...
Keep in mind all you unemployed people.. once you find a job, its back to 12 hour days, weekend work, and after-hours studying!
(Whats up with that anyway? Why is it in the computer industry people expect the standard work day to be 10-12 hours?)
Development projects are moving out of the country more and more, to India, China, anywhere that salaries can be paid much lower than here. Programmers don't have to be geniuses, but companies like to see degrees. Overseas, not going to or dropping out of college is almost unheard of. There's a glut of programmers that have Bachelor's or Master's level degrees that are willing to work for 1/4 to 1/8 of what you are
I've been working full time since 1996, starting as a web programmer, all the way up to my current position as a distributed systems architect. Even still, I've never felt safe without my degree, so I've kept plodding on. I'll finish it this fall after 7.5 years, and it will be worth all the time and effort. Finally, I will have a good answer for that favorite interview question "so have you gotten your degree yet?" Put in the effort and finish the degree, whatever it takes. Thousands (or perhaps millions) of foreign programmers already have done so.
Frankly, your point doesn't seem very well thought out. Here's how I look at it: somebody with the determination to learn how the stuff works without sitting in class, i.e. doing it on their own, is showing a lot of motivation that many students can't muster without sitting in a class having a professor help them along. I'm not saying that those folks are lame, that is the way the vast majority of very smart computer geeks (and geeks of other varieties ;) get their education. But it does speak to someone's capacity for initiative and working independently.
Point two is this: I've worked with many people in the field who had degrees in CS who seemed to know as much as I did or less(!) about some things, just as a result of experience. The experience that I gained working in the job put me at essentially the same level as those folks when it came to real-world situations. They don't hand you a lot of ugly legacy code in school and expect you to sort through it, it seems. They don't ask you to figure out how to migrate a web site set up for Apache to Netscape Enterprise (don't ask). Granted, I've read a lot. But the books I read were for the most part books I saw on other people's desks being read too, whether they had a degree or not. Maybe the point is that they can't possibly teach you everything in school, so you aren't _necessarily_ going to have an immediate advantage over someone because of that degree.
Point three? Less debt. Yay. Right now I'm contemplating going back to school, but part of me is thinking "why bother, why get in debt like that?" I mean, maybe I will, because doing research level work in school to get a masters or greater I think is a different thing than undergrad CS. But I've had three different jobs in the three years I've been a computer geek and I've never had to explain that I don't have a CS degree.
Again, I want to stress the point that I don't think that _by_default_ you are going to be in the same boat as someone with a degree, but it's not such a bad thing not to have one and can work in your favor in some ways.
If you want to pursue research for private or public institutions, or your interests are in the purely academic, then by all means get that degree. If you want to work, get your ass out into the workforce as soon as you can.
When I was in college (Purdue, started in '90), I didn't feel like I was getting much from the classes. I learned more from my dorm-mates about computers (and that fancy "internet" thing) than any class. I was treated more like an asset than someone who was trying to learn -- far worse than any huge Katzian corporation ever could. I was miserable. My parents were paying ~$15k/yr for professors and TAs who couldn't speak a clear English sentence.
Of course, I'm biased. I didn't doo well in school. I was #2 in my HS graduating class, yet I got my ass kicked in my engineering-track math and science classes. I bounced from CEE to ME to philosphy, then, when I finally figured out that I loved the application of computers, rather than the theory, I moved to Computer Technology (CPT).
Unfortunately, the instructors still spewed the party line -- no creativity at all. (Susan Lisack and James Goldman, you can kiss my ass!) It didn't help that the students in the CPT school were not much more than a bunch of Indiana farmboys who heard about "computers" and that they were a fat paycheck.
After my first year, I got an internship with a hugh aerospace company as an helpdesk jockey. From there a got a lead on a job as a sysadmin for a small company, took it (i.e., dropped out of school) and I've never looked back. I now have a reasonably comfortable job at a state university as a senior admin.
Perhaps university wasn't for me. Maybe Purdue wasn't for me. Or maybe I just had a bad attitude.
My only regret was wasting my folks' money, as I feel I let them down by not getting the degree. That, and wasting 5 years of my life.
Sometimes in discussion, over luch with some co-worker who also didn't finish college, I find that I have a mild urge to get that degree, as do they. But when we analyze that gut-nagging feeling, we conclude that it comes down to simple pride, rather than a lack of job security or opportunity in our fields.
I waited tables at Chi-Chi's for a year. My manager had a degree in chemistry. My sister works the bar at Applebee's -- she has a degree in German. I have a cousin who got a biology degree, with more schooling in physical therapy, and she's a branch manager at a bank.
All of those people seemed content with their career choices. I ask you, does one need a 4-year degree for any of those things?
Nope.
I know of several other family members with no degree (some without any college at all -- some dropping out of high school). who have done very well for themsevles. One retired from being the controller of a software firm, and now does odd accounting work on the side to fund her pottery habbit. Another is head of sales for some Xerox branch. Another is head chef for an up-scale restaurant.
Just because these aren't fields in hard science or technology doesn't make my point any less valid. A friend of mine, who doesn't have a degree, started off as a tape duplicator, joined me at the small software firm I worked for as an admin, went on to work as head admin for a large regional gasoline manufacturor, and now runs his own wireless internet startup.
Can you write code for NASA or Lockheed Martin without a degree? Not likely. Can you find and keep a fun, well-paying job as a programmer without a degree. Most certainly!
If you have the ability to sock away some money -- do it! Even if you can't -- do it! Savings will save your ass if times get rough. But don't stress about the money too much -- it isn't worth the ulcers. When I met my wife, she was on state assistance. Trust me -- the world will not end for you or your family (if you can swallow your pride) lose the shirt off your backs. You probably don't realize just how spoiled you (and most of us tech workers) really are.
- Small companies usually have smaller teams. Larger companies usually have larger teams.
- In small teams, each team member has a broad role, but certain skills. There is a need for an exact match of personality and skills.
- In large teams, each team member has specific tasks. The team works collectively, and there's really nothing specific a company will really need.
So you see, in a large team, they're just looking for general ability. Someone with a degree will probably be reasonably intelligent, at and least know something. If you get a big enough pool of people, all of them filtered by degree, you will probably be able to finish most projects.In a small team, the company needs self-starters. The skills are special, and indeed a small team cannot afford to filter by something as generic as a degree: they're looking for specific skills.
Also, people in small teams work harder, but generally have more fullfilling tasks. Would you rather spend 10 hard-core hours writing a variety of tasks or spend 4 hours a day doing the same thing every day?
Whether you have a degree or not, I'd go for the small team. And a good team leader is not dumb enough to look at a degree. A department manager is too busy to care about specific skills. As a final note, in a small company, you'll have a good list of accomplishments to show another small team. A big company will respect that you worked for other big companies. Choose now, because it's hard to change cultures. I suggest you go for a small company. You have a better chance of landing a job, and the jobs are better.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
Why work for somebody else if you don't have to? If you have the skills, cut out the middleman. Maybe find some of your brightest friends/colleagues and pursue the entrepreneurial dream. Or maybe just look around at people's needs and start a small, friendly, ethical business to meet them. There's an old saying that goes something like "help people and the money will follow." And you'll never have to sit through another interview either. (-:
--
Q.) What do you call a college dropout in 5 years?
A.) Boss