With a Computer Science Degree, an Old Man At 35?

GrApHiX42 writes "I pissed away my 20s and now I want to go to school and get a bachelor's degree in computer science. The thing is, I'll be 35 when I get out of school, and I've read on numerous sites that there seems to be some ageism going on in the IT industry when it comes to older geeks. What have some of the 'older' Slashdot readers experienced as far as being replaced or just plain not getting hired because IT is a 'young man's game'?"

Comments

Yes, go for it.

[KingSkippus]

To paraphrase what someone once told me, in four years (more or less), you're going to be 35 anyway. There's not a damn thing you can do about that, except die. if you don't go to school and get your bachelor's degree, then will it be any easier for you if you're an "old man" without a CS degree?

If you don't have a degree at all, then jump through the hoops and get one. My personal experience is that my salary almost doubled literally the day after I got my CS degree. If you do have one but not in computer science, then I'd suggest that you might be better off pursuing certifications relevant to the field you're working in.

If you're not currently in a computer-related field and you're asking if you should get the degree and go into it in an entry-level position, that's your call. You'll probably need that degree to break in, even at 35. If it's worth starting over from scratch, go for it.

Fortunately, I got hired by the company I'm currently at when I was 27. Unfortunately, they're going through the RFP process to outsource all of our jobs. If I'm lucky, I'll be spared. If I'm not, I'll be working as a contracter doing the same job I'm doing now. If I'm really shit outta luck, I'll be a 37-year-old in the job market in the worst economy I've ever known. It won't be easy, but at least I do have my CS degree to help me stand out from, with all due respect, people like you who don't. I don't mean to be cruel, but if it means the difference between whether or not I'm eating cat food, I'll use every advantage I can to beat you out in the aforementioned job market, including the fact that I have a CS degree.

So knowing only what you've asked in your question, my advice is that yes, it is worthwhile having the piece of paper.

Re:Yes, go for it.

[SQLGuru]

The problem he *WILL* have is that there will be a lot of 35+ year olds that have had their CS degree for several years and have years of experience (like me, graduated in 94, so 15 years of real experience). You'd like to think that he'd be lumped in with the other fresh-outs, but his age will make people want to lump him in with the experienced people. He'll need to find a good mentor and take to the real learning quickly (school doesn't really teach you how to work in the real world). The faster you catch up to those in your age bracket, the better.

Is 35+ too old? No, I'm almost 37 and by far the best developer in my area (very large company). The people I see being squeezed out are the ones that are over 50 with no upward aspirations......so there's plenty of time to make good on the degree.

Re:Yes, go for it.

[ardor]

Note that this study isn't undisputed. Also, it was made with today's population, which is not a good sample (thats one of the reasons for the dispute). Basically, people who are in their 20s today often learned much longer and much more than older generations, which had this attitude of learning one job ONCE and then never anything else again. I wouldn't be surprised to see vastly different results of such a study in, say, 20 years.

Other studies also showed that while younger minds are faster, they also make more errors than older ones. This is likely to go hand in hand with experience.

I'm not denying the decline, but I am arguing its actual impact. It certainly is NOT a good discrimination for IT. IT has several fundamental patterns, mechanisms, etc. learn them well, and you will recognize them almost everywhere. Once you managed to do that, learning new technologies and understanding them becomes significantly easier. Learning the patterns should be done at a young age, but recognizing and applying them, well, this is something anybody at any age could do, and this is the really important bit in operative IT.

Re:Yes, go for it.

[gutnor]

Mental ability peak in the 20s, Memory in 35. However, the ability relying on accumulated experience ( like vocabulary, ... ) peak at 60.

Can remember the reference, but it was a recent article.

So yes you are sharper in the 20s: you can read RFC faster. Big deal, experience and attitude plays a huge part in the efficiency of a developer.

Re:I dunno `bout the rest of the world..

[Threni]

Some companies want younger people because they're cheap, and they'll work extra hours for a USB key or a pizza or something. If you have the skills, you're useful, and companies want someone useful. Most companies are shit, run by fucking idiots in suits anyway. Don't worry about it.

Re:No, don't go for it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree with your post almost in its entirety.

There are plenty of great actors, directors, writers, painters, etcetera, who didn't get involved in the profession they became famous for until later in life -- the most blatant example being Grandma Moses, who started painting after most of her generation was dead. Some people choose their young adult jobs because they need to make a living, or circumstance forces them, or because they simply never had exposure to something they later discover or it was the wrong type of exposure. There are so many reasons why someone can have a passion for something and not pursue it until later in life.

Even if I grant you that 10,000 hours is the right number, 10,000 hours is about 5 years of a full-time job. I will say that lines up pretty closely with my personal experience, as I switched to a CS major with two and a half years left (from math, from studio art) and felt extremely solid after my first three years on the job.

Great Points

[ideonexus]

I work in an environment with several people who are in their late 60s-70s. Some of them have told me stories about the days of punch cards and having to buy expensive processing time on mainframes (One great story was about an infinite loop that cost the programmer's company $10k in mainframe processing time). I will readily admit these older developers are not as quick as the younger ones. These seniors also have a great deal of frustration dealing with relatively new concepts. For example, I'm working with one on a project right now who is pulling his hair out trying to understand object-oriented programming. But you know what? Every one of these seniors is indispensible to our organization. One of them works 60-hour work-weeks because no one else in the organization has been able to rise to the task of learning everything he knows in his 40+ years of IT. Just remember that when you go into Computer Science, you are going into it for life. Everything in IT changes every five years, and you must assume the responsibility for lifelong learning. Plus it sounds like you have one big advantage over all the younger CS graduates: you know how much you don't know. : )

Re:Great Points

[lwriemen]

Everything in IT changes every five years

I'm going to have to call bullshit on this statement. The only things that change every 5 years is the popular programming languages or methods, and the amount of computing resources available. As far as software engineering concepts go, there really hasn't been anything new in about 20 years.

The relational data model is still valid, requirements analysis (now often called "test first" or TDD[sic]) is still the thing to do first, and peer review is still the best way to reduce defects.