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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?"
Something I wish I had known.
Youre not in college to get a degree.
Youre in college to get a job. Which normally means you need an internship or some useful contacts for when you get to the work world.
Most good employers don't have to hire someone with out experience, people want to work for them. So get some experience soon!
Experience is definitely the key, and many times more important than a piece of paper saying you know what you know + 20%. I know of several highly succesful people (including some CS folks) that are still going through college, yet they get regularly hired by companies to do high end jobs and are picked above people coming from prestigous universities. A degree is one thing, but experience serves as proof that you can do the job and are worth it. If possible, start building up your job portfolio now. Intern with a company or program on the side. That will make you a far more favorable candidate in the future than any piece of paper will.
I have virtually no formal CS training, other than a fortran class in college. I'm pretty much self-taught, working with computers since I was 8 in some capacity or another. My formal background is in Biology Education, though I quickly discovered that teaching high school biology wasn't for me.
What led me to my current position was a lot of persistance and being able to demonstrate that I was a smart, capable person. I started as an entry level programmer (mostly hired to teach the occasional Access class), caught the whole "web application" wave, and ended up in a well-paying position some eight years later.
The trick in many cases is just getting in the door. For that, being able to say you're certified with a particular skill or have a degree is good enough. Once you're hired, the key is to show that you really know your stuff and can make your customers happy.
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.
While experience is probably the most important reason for success, I have found that developers who believe that they "learned nothing of value in class" tend to write poor code. Two people with the same degree from the same university writing the same program: The one who values his degree will write much more maintainable and smaller code.
Computer Science degrees are "learn by example" degrees. While you're in all those classes learning about Networks, Vision, Robotics, etc., you're supposed to be learning how to write good software by seriously thinking about your professors' comments and critisism. Those who don't value their degrees tend to be those who didn't value their professors, or listen to them.
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
I vote with staying where you are, if you're happy there.
I was in a similar situation; my school wasn't terribly noted for engineering, so after 2 years my mom convinced me to transfer to Virginia Tech. The biggest reason is that I was looking for a co-op job and no one would hire me from the previous university.
VT was very different from my old school. It did seem like the program was a little better academically, and the school definitely had a much better intern/co-op department which made it much easier to find internships. Also, I think the big name on the resume does help a lot in your first job or two; this may be more important now with the terrible job market than it was when I first got out of school in '98.
However, I paid a terrible price for the change. First, it was much more expensive. My family wasn't exactly rich, so while I was doing ok at my first school, where I paid in-state tuition, costs went up greatly at VT, leading me to build up a large debt in student loans. Secondly, and possibly more importantly, I never managed to build a network of friends at VT like I had, and lost, at my first school. Being a not-terribly-outgoing person, I had a very hard time finding any new friends at the new school; I found that I believe that most relationships are made in one's freshman year, when you're living on campus and everyone is new. After everyone's been there a few years and has a circle of friends, it's not so easy to break in. And maybe it's just me, but the engineering students at Virginia Tech seemed to be a bunch of snobs compared to the students at my old school. Not having many friends in college isn't bad just because of the social aspect, but those relationships can also be rewarding to your career: look how many companies were started by people who were friends in college.
So, in summary, if you're happy where you are, don't screw it up. Personally, I don't believe in making changes to anything unless there's something wrong, or there's something else that's obviously better in sight. I don't see any posts here so far in favor of big-name schools (unless maybe you have your sights set on politics).
Your post describes EXACTLY why I am in school right now to get my degree.
I currently have a pretty decent job- without a degree, but with about 7 years of solid experience.
But I know if I want to move into management (which I do) or if I need to change out of my 'specialty', my chances without a degree are very slim. But, with a degree, and my experience, I can move around a lot more.
Since I am only going at night, I still have quite a few more years to go. But I'm hoping that I finally finish my degree the day before my head explodes because I am sick and tired of writing code. Then it will be my chance to be the clueless boss who assigns impossible projects without any clear objective, reasonable timeline, or decent support.
No reason to lie.
I call bullshit.
I see a ton of resumes in my job as IT VP and the militarily experienced always earn less than their otehrwise educated counterparts because they end up in dead-end regimented IT shops and they start their careers at a later age.
Of course, the IT industry as a whole is going to the drone model, so maybe that disparity will change. Right now, a tour in the military is worth -$10,000 to -$15,000.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
While I agree that there is a major difference between programming and computer science I diagree with your statement that a good university will not teach you to write code.
In my opinion a bad university is one that:
The problem with not teaching people how to code is that people will end up writing code that only they can read, and in my experience would not be able to read after a 2 week break.
I did a Computer Science degree and found that it taught a good mix. We were taught how to program and the principles of programming as well as all the other stuff. I say all the other stuff because I have not used any of it since leaving university.
I think that there is more need for good Software Engineers than for good Computer Scientists as everyone I know who did a Computer Science degree is no working as a Software Engineer.
On the point raised. In my experience (admitidly in the UK) the only person who cared about my degree were the HR department of the company that hired me. The decision to hire me was not made by the HR department, and they made more of a fuss about it than anyone. Although I cannot prove this I suspect that had I then failed to get the degree no one would have cared.
Actually, I should add: the best thing one gets from going to a top-notch school is the connections and networking opportunities.
Data point: At my Fortune-100 company, I have interviewed many candidates. I have never seen a candidate without a degree of some kind. Dunno if HR is just tossing out resumes without degrees, or people without degrees just don't bother applying.
Also, I assume some minimal level of compentency from someone with a degree. I never assume that someone with a degree from an Ivy League is better than someone with a degree from East Podunk City University. I have mysterious ways of finding out candidates' skill levels :)
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
I got my degree in CS from a state university. The most important thing I did for my career during my !4 years in school was sign up for the internship program. I interviewed at 4 large code-mill-type insurance companies and 1 state agency. I ended up getting a job at the state agency and thinking that I wasn't a good enough programmer to get a "cool" web programming job at Aetna or ING. For the most part that was true as is the case with many recent CS grads. CS doesn't make you an out of the box coder. Once I learned the technology I needed to solve business problems, I was on my way to my current job as a statistical analyst/programmer. I solve problems and CS was important for me because I did't have an innate ability to do this otherwise. Some would argue, and quite validly, that experience is key and I have to agree with them. So, stay where you are, land an internship or co-op or volunteer to write some apps for a non-profit, and you will be on your way. The average cs/programmer/code monkey changes jobs so many times that it is important to note that it is the last one that you have that will matter, not the first. Put yourself in a position to choose that last one and make it something you love to do and are compensated well for. I think you are well on your way right now.
--Always, I mean never..., No I mean always check your references.--
With the problem with outsourcing, one of the most stable and lucrative markets in the US is contracting to the federal government. Payrates are set by the GSA schedule, which heavily favors college degrees. Sure, you can make up for having a college degree by having 15-20 years of experience, but even then, that same 15-20 years experience plus a college degree is still a good 35% higher.
If you work for a company that doesn't do much federal contract work, but does some, it still impacts their hiring decisions - if they can put you on private contracts 80% of the time, but for 20% of the time you're billing on a federal contract at half the rate that your coworkers are, you're likely not going to be profitable at the same salary, and they probably won't hire you. Consider most contracting firms get between 10 and 20% profit of the hourly wage they charge for T&M contracts - with that 80/20 model mentioned above, at the same salary as everyone else, that 20% of your time reduces their margin so that they barely break even on you for your work for the entire year. Unless you have a particular skill they are in desperate need of, they'll fill the empty desk with someone else, or they'll offer you a much lower salary.
In IT, results, soft-skills (communication) and service are what defines the top performers and those who move up. No one has even asked why I don't have a degree - and that's assuming people have even noticed that I don't have one. It's simply a non-issue for me, and while I've expected to be "capped" at some point, instead, I've found myself on the fast track.
Perhaps I'm a rare case, but from what I've seen, it's all about experience, ability and results.