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How Important is a Well-Known CS Degree?
syynnapse asks: "I've been interested in computer science since my mother taught me how to program in QBASIC when I was eleven, and I've wanted to be a developer ever since I learned C++ in AP Computer Science while in high-school. Now I'm in my sophomore year of college studying CS at a state university that isn't particularly known for its CS program, but I'm quite happy and personally think I'm learning plenty. My father thinks otherwise, and the deadline for transferring successfully is approaching quickly. What chance do I have in the real world with a not-so-prestigious degree? Am I likely to be learning what's important? Am I looking at a series of awful jobs if I don't transfer?"
Here's my general rule on quality of college:
Unless you want to go for an ivy league type of degree (MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, etc.), as long as the college offers a strong program, where you go to school has ZERO effect on your life after your first job. I went to a average school (Cal State University, Chico), and got average grades. (3.0 average). I found a good starter job when I gradiuated, and started progressing on *merit* after that. Now, I am in a top design position at a huge networking company, and no one looks at my degree. When I interview people, I never look at the college, other than to verify that they got a degree.
The only caveat is if you want to get a high profile degree from a top of the line college. All the Phds I work with come from top drawer schools, and went to top schools from the bachlor stage on. It is more of a pedigree at that point, and it clearly matters.
Go to a school that has a good CS program, has energetic professors, is fun to live in (you can't beat Chico), and just do your best. Once you get a job, your accomplishments will distinguish you from the rest.
I am sure to be flamed by people who went to well known schools and swear by it, but none of the people I work with who have BS desgrees went anywhere recognizable. It is all about how you perform.
Good luck!
Todd
I have a CS degree from a state university that's not especially known for it's CS department.
I graduated in 2000 and didn't find the degree to be a hinderance at all. Granted this was at the tail of the bubble, but I was hired ahead of a Purdue and a U-Wisconsin graduate, both of which I'd consider to have far superior programs.
Why? First, because I interviewed well. I was able to interact with my future bosses and coworkers, I didn't lie on my resume, and I was eager to learn. Second, because I had relevent experience gained while I was a student. I found that working as a programmer for the campus IT department 15 hours/week and volunteering as a lead sysadmin for a student government / organization webserver to be far more relevent to the job then anything I learned in class.
Since that first job, I've found references and contacts to be the key to getting other interviews and offers. I don't feel like a state-U degree hurt me at all; college is what you make of it so learn to socialize, volunteer or take a part time job relevent to the field you want to work in, and concentrate on getting a good broad education. Take liberal arts classes and business classes, etc.
If you are learning, stay exactly where you are. You don't want to discover how horrible it is to attend class after class, year after year, and be learning nothing. I'm currently studying at a well-known university that's crashed a probe into Mars. But reputation and content are two very different things. As long as you're learning, stay where you are.
Besides, your university credentials are mainly useful in getting your first job. After that they are more interested in your previous jobs. So at worst an unknown university will just add one stepping stone on your career path.
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Remember: *Learning* is what's important here, especially when we're talking about an undergrad degree -- I went to a small state school where there were 10-20 people in my classes and I recieved a much, much better education than my peers who went to large universities. Why? Because I could walk into my professor's office and spend an hour talking to him about class material, advances in computing or the state of the industry or whatever.
In my experience, the sort of jobs you'll get with an undergrad degree tend to value understanding and skill over who your degree is from -- if you can do the work, you're their person. If you're going to a job that requires a graduate degree, well, you can go to a high-profile school for your grad work, eh?
Aside from all of that, I've learned the hard way that you should follow your instincts. Follow yours on this one and stay put.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
well i mean if you go to podunk community college, then year it may. but any major college, you will be fine.
i had one of the worst graduating GPA's in my CS class, but i managed to get one of the best jobs out of college. why? becuase of what i knew and what i did on my own time.
college simply teaches you how to teach yourself. if you are basing how you will do off how you do in class, then you are in for a suprise.
if you can teach yourself the new technologies and get your name out there somehow, you will be set.
but then again i am planning on getting out of the tech field in 2 years so take it for what it is worth.
WORK EXPERIENCE
Seriously, take a look at my resume (http://www.codesweep.com/about.cfm) you will see that there are plenty of interesting jobs on it (and I haven't throughly revised it in awhile, I could state more). While my college degree is a footnote at the bottom. While Cal Poly Pomona is a good school, it doesn't matter based on what's more attractive, the work or the school.
Bottom line: Find a good (even if cheap) job NOW. Failing that, grab an open source project at http://www.sourceforge.net and contribute something to get your name on the developers list. Something, anything for your resume besides a degree (whether Ivy League or State U) is paramount to a good job. If you can accomplish this, it won't matter if your degree says "WTF Coding University".
...in bed
It does matter for your first job.
Unless you know somebody, it's hard to get in to the truly cool jobs. Most companies only recruit at a relatively defined set of universities, generally where the founders and a few of the early employees came from. Which means you have to seek out companies more if you want to avoid being a coding grunt.
Once you are out for a bit, it matters far less.
Oh yeah, and a good CS degree is not about being taught. It's about being tortured into learning because your professor is really bright but can't teach. So he gives you hard tests and you have to teach stuff to yourself in order to pass. At least, that's the shared experience amongst most of the grads from top-10 CS schools that I've talked to.
Gentoo Sucks
I've been interested in computer science since my mother taught me how to program in QBASIC when I was eleven
No you haven't. You may have been interested in computer programming since age 11, but you didn't even know what computer science was, let alone have any interest in it.
Not that there's anything wrong with this; the world needs plumbers and electricians (and computer programmers) as much as it needs writers, mathematicians, and computer scientists. But this is one way the well-recognized undergraduate computer science distinguish themselves from the programs at the College of Upper Podunk. A good university will teach computer science, and expect you to work out how to write code on your own; a bad university will teach you how to program, and not even admit that there is anything more to learn.
Decide what you want from your years at university, and pick your university accordingly.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Asking a questions like this on slashdot is pointless.
People who have a CS degree from a well known school will say "most definitely!" so they can justify their own.
People who have a CS degree from Arkansas Community College will say "not really" because they got a job just fine with theirs.
People who have a computer-related degree from DeVry will say "nope" because they have a bottom-rung tech job.
People without a degree will say "most definitely not" because they have a job based on experience.
I'm trying to hire three developers, a project manager, and a business analyst where I work. We ignore the degrees they put down, unless it's for the pm spot where a MBA from anywhere will work. Some of the applicants have a BS in CS from places like Berkeley, but it doesn't really matter because they got it ten years ago...with an emphasis in cobol.
Having a degree on your resume will just help it get through the automated resume grabbing filters big companies use when fielding hundreds of applicants.
Oh, and I don't have a degree.
Degrees can also make you more flexible. If you're, say, a Perl programmer without a degree, the only jobs people will hire you for is Perl programming. If you're a Perl programmer with a CS degree, you are far more likely to get hired for jobs using, say, C++ if the Perl market is dry where you are. You are also more likely to be considered as a candidate for management, if that's what you want, if you have a degree behind you.
Getting a job that matches your particular skillset is easy if you're good at what you do, degree or not. But getting a job that may deviate from your skillset, but still exists in the same general area, will be impossible without the degree, but may be reachable with it.
As for schools, in my experience, the only schools that have been looked at with derision are the known degree-factory schools, particularly online and "nationally accredited" schools like the University of Phoenix. If the school sounds like a traditional university, it probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference which one it is.
I agree whole-heartedly. IMO, one of the most important things you should look for in a CS program is that they have a co-op program. This is a good way to get your foot in the door with a company before you graduate (and earn money.) Even if you don't stay with that company after graduation, recent graduate with 1 year of co-op experience will be looked on much more favorably that one without.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
If you have a rich relative offering to pay, and you can go to MIT without going into debt, then yeah, of course you should transfer. But if, like most of us, you're going to pay for college, you should choose the best accredited undergraduate education that will leave you financially stable (read: debt-free) afterward.
You'll hear lots of people telling you about the value of name schools, the need for "networking" and other such hoo-hah. And often, they'll try to convince you that it's worth $30,000 in debt to get a top-tier undergraduate education. Don't buy it.
Remember -- at the undergraduate level, most schools will teach you the same things (oftentimes, from the same books). So why pay out the nose for an education that can be obtained for a fraction of the cost of a top-tier university?
Save your money, keep yourself out of debt, and you'll have more options later on. That's doubly important today, where Punjab's willingness to work for 30 cents an hour will almost invariably trump an expensive diploma....
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
In most cases the degree does have significant weight, and given two people who are more or less equal, the guy with paper will win.
Not to mention the degree will get you past the HR department.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
And then there are the people who leave the military in a box and enter a hole in the ground.
Joining the military is a serious commitment. It is not a job training program.
The most important thing in the market today is experience. Go look on Monster or any of the other sites right now, and you'll see one phrase quite a bit - ...or equivalent experience.
And Monster.com is where you find the -ahem- monster jobs.
DISCLAIMER: I'm an independent consultant.
In my experience, the good jobs, the real jobs, the ones that you really want to get don't come from job sites or the newspaper.
No, the good jobs are filled out on the golf course, or over fine wine at dinner, when two executives meet for business/pleasure.
The job interview really goes something like "Hey, one of my networking guys just got married and is leaving the state. Do you know anybody good?".
The words that follow that question are crucial. You should be ready to sacrifice animals to the higher gods to have your name follow such a question.
If the responding executive recommends you, you are almost guaranteed the position. You'll walk in with coveted status. You'll be appreciated for doing good work. And, you'll be paid decently without complaint.
It's OK to ask people you work with if there's anybody else who might need your services. If you're good, they'll actually mention your name prior to you meeting the referral, or meet with the referral with you.
And that's gold. Pure, and sweet.
Job? Newspaper? Website? There, you're guilty until proven innocent. You get no respect, as you are just a commodity easily compared to thousands of others. Every dollar you earn is "an expense". Yuck.
Referrals, baby. That's the ONLY way to fly. (and it's the ONLY way I've EVER promoted my myself!)
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I disagree.
:) ) tends to be much more pragmatic and about ability rather than titles. But I've worked with recent immigrants from various places where that is not the case -- I saw an excellent potential employee turned down because his degree was from a "second-rate" university.
I'm not saying your wrong about your experience, obviously, but I have been on both sides of the process and have seen degrees make a big difference. I've seen people with great experience lose out to people from the "right institution."
Here're a few reasons:
- Some institutions, particularly service-related companies, are vain about the statistics they can cite. I worked with a Big Consulting Company once who had a VP who would frequently state that over 25% of their employees had PhDs from Berkeley, Stanford, or MIT. I asked him what their GPAs were as a joke, but he took it entirely seriously, and told me he could find out. For companies and people like that, the image is as important as the education. Their product is design audits, system reviews, etc, so they're essentially selling confidence to other companies. They sell to upper management, not the engineers, so easily-recognized indications of quality (i.e., reputation) are important.
- Insecure hiring/HR people. It's like the old "no one ever got fired for buying IBM" mentality. It's a defensive mechanism.
- It's cultural, too. Certain cultures put more emphasis on titles and institutions than others. American culture (whatever that is
Also, people's prejudices come out in the hiring environment. University degrees are easily verified, while experience may or may not be.
And experience can be a slippery thing, too. I hired someone once who gave an outstanding interview and who had amazing knowledge of Unix development. This person turned out to be very talented, but unable to follow directions at all, or even perform the job requirements. It wasn't a lack of ability, it was an unwillingness to work with the requirements that our client had imposed. A university degree here would have been a good thing -- it indicates that someone is capable of, for want of a better phrase, being compliant and going along with the bullshit that jobs unfortunately often require. Being talented and knowledgable is not enough. You have to be able to deal with and compromise with people who are less talented, situations that are not ideal, and, as you call it, the real world.
Anyway, that's my take on it. Yes, experience is very important, but I wouldn't overlook a good degree as a tool for getting yourself hired.
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
In my opinion it depends entirely upon the type of job you're looking for. The computer field is rather messily divided between techies and intellectuals. It's a bit of an open system, with people migrating in both directions, and considerable overlap, which disguises the fact there there are, in fact, two camps.
Degree or no, fine school or barely adequate, you're going to start life as a techie. Welcome to the help desk, cubeville, or low-end development. Your geek-badge and a love of white-collar slavery is your passport to this world. And thus begins the journey. . .
You will gain experience, confidence and skill, and begin to be promoted. You will (hopefully) gain a reputation in your chosen fields, and garner the laurals of a job well done. You begin to plan a career path. Somewhere around Sr. programmer (substitute DBA, Network Admin. or Sys Admin as appropriate) something unexpected happens.
You see, at the upper end of "applied technical knowlege" there is a fork in the upward path. The broad road leads to middle management, and God help the poor souls who venture there. The narrow path leads to "think tank" positions.
It's true, most large companies have one or more senior geeks doing funded research, planning strategy, or generally dispensing wisdom on demand. They really do exist, but you don't see them because they live in the nice office building in corporate headquarters not in the programming shack.
Here's the important bit. These guys are hired for their brains, and to join the club you need to have the sort of broad-based understanding the almost inevitably comes from a top-notch college education. A B.S. gets a distainful sniff, but the doors gape wide for the ivy-league Ph.D's, and may open for an M.S from a solid school with a bit of persistance.
The self-taught crowd will howl and cry that it's not fair. They can program as well or better than their pedigreed peers, they have probably built an open-source terminal emulator, and they've labored in the same trenches, side by side for years. However, in reality, very few people teach themselves calculus, computer theory, materials science, economics (and don't forget ettiquite) with the level of rigor demanded by these positions. This is where the four, six or eight years of studying that "useless theory" becomes useful, even necessary.
I'm a self-taught techie with several certifications, facing this division. I'm 40 years old, and a Sr. DBA for a large firm, making a good salary -- end of the techie line. I've been courted for managment positions, which I don't want. I've got three B.S. and one M.S. degrees in various sciences, all from good schools, but no C.S. degree.
Over the past two years I've taken several C.S. classes from a good school - algorithm analysis, advanced data structures, automata, etc. I'll probably get an M.S in a few years, and maybe a Ph.D. after that, but more importantly, I'm learning all the little details that differentiate a computer scientist from a competent techie. There IS a differance, after all.
Computer Science is a very young discipline compared to other engineering disciplines. This explains why there are so many computer scientists / software engineers who do not have a degree, did not go to college and yet have highly successful careers. This is characteristic(sp?) of young disciplines. Ignore it.
CS itself is getting older, more mature. People are starting to understand that just knowing how to hack doesn't quite cut it (always). In short, going to a college and getting a degree in CS never hurts (as opposed to not getting one, not opposed to getting one in some other engineering field).
If we agree to the above - ie we must get a degree in CS or EE or math or something related, we question where we must get it from. College degrees are not pieces of paper that open the door to getting a fat job. This is one of the perks for sure, but there are others. They open the door to contributing something for the betterment of humanity (by doing original research), they open up your mind by forcing you to interact with peers who are often better than you. No matter what your job, you will fall into a mental rut as compared to school. A school is only as good as the students that study there. The students are what makes the MITs and Stanfords of today - not the professors. If the professors were getting sub-par graduate students to work with or sub-par peers they'd leave.
This is why it is absolutely essential to try to go to the best possible school you can go to. You will get exposed to things that you never were exposed to. You will learn new things from both professors and students alike. You will take part in activities that will challenge your mind in multiple dimensions - something quite unparalleled in the "real" world.
And you never know - you may want to do research for life. You may want to go on for a higher degree. In all these cases, the better school always wins. You can get by with going to a lower school - in fact you can "get by" with not going to school at all. But our purpose in life is not to just "get by". The whole point is to do something great - something that you can point your finger to 50 yrs down the line and say "I did that and changed they way people think / do something". Always strive for the best.
That's little dick syndrome. The "real worlders" always think that experience is the only teacher. I'm not a huge fan of the non-degree folks I've worked with. Some are very good. The majority have wacked out egos because they don't have a concept of the field as a whole, just their little piece, which makes them overestimate their knowledge and ability. The ego thing is also because of the inferiority complex they have because they didn't go to school. So they sit around and poo-poo school and all that book learning that the kids have, slap themselves on the back for not going that dead end route.
I've also worked with fresh faced grads that couldn't think their way out of a paper bag. Or have the first job ego: "I produced something that actually works, I'm awesome!" And anyone who uses goto in anything but the most brain dead of situations gets a swift kick in the junk. I don't give a shit who the person is, someone is going to have to read that code, goto generally doesn't help.