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.

[qw0ntum]

Great, great, response. I know the poster is not asking whether or not he/she should do it, and I'm not really an "older" reader (currently trying not to piss my 20's away), but perhaps they'll find this useful as well.

You have a blessing in front of you in having a strong desire to do something, namely, to go to school and get your CS degree. If that's what you are passionate about right now then you need to take advantage of that energy and do it, because you'll make the most effective use of your effort by doing so. I am at a top CS program and many of my classmates are so-called "non-traditional" (read: have more life experience than your average student) students, and not only are they often the ones setting the curve, they ask the best questions, they are motivated, they take advantage of the opportunities available to them better than most, and all in all they enrich the quality of our program.

Some advice I might offer as a young student. Most of my friends who are older students tend to be a bit disconnected from the rest of the University. Don't make that mistake: as much as you might think so, you're not a graduate student, even if you're the same age as them, and your academic life does not only revolve around your department. At the very least, you'll have to fill gen ed requirements. More importantly, as an undergraduate, the university has resources that can be very helpful and enriching to your education. Make friends with some (highly motivated) younger students (even outside your dept) who tend to be more aware of these things and can help you get more connected.

You should be focused on your objective. But undergraduate college years are an excellent time to take some risks and go different directions than you may have previously seen yourself going. Do that: universities are breeding grounds for opportunity, and you might be surprised at what doors you might open for yourself by trying something new.

Good luck!

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.

[Skreems]

Speaking as someone who interviews candidates at a technology company, I can tell you we don't give a damn how old someone is if they're good at the job. Make sure you take on large projects and/or internships during school so you have usable experience once you get out and you'll be fine.

Re:Yes, go for it.

[Runaway1956]

Just based on the assumption that people become more agreeable as they age,

Errrr, what about me? I was a disagreeable cuss when I was twenty. By the time I was 40, I was unbearable. Today? I can't even stand to be in the same room with me!! All the same, age and treachery will always triumph over youth and naivete.

Re:Yes, go for it.

[TapeCutter]

"If you love it do it"

I dropped out of HS at 16, after more than a decade in labouring/factory jobs I went to university and graduated at 31 with a BSc with majors in CS and OR. I had a family at the time and still managed to make a few bucks driving cabs. I picked that course to get into the industry but I loved programming my AppleII well before I thought I could make money by programming.

I am now 50 and still "in demand". Not one year since graduating in 1991 have I failed to exceed the average national take home pay by a respectable margin.

Re:Yes, go for it.

[scoove]

Outstanding advice. I went back ~35 after a career up until then in network engineering and information security, though I went back and picked up a finance degree. gw0ntum makes a valuable addition. You're going to find it awkward, especially when you have some profs your age or even younger. Some suggestions I'd make:

1. BE HUMBLE: even if you're an alpha, don't play one. set it aside and adopt an alternate persona. your classmates not only don't want to hear about your experience but they're ready to reject you if you show any signs of it. instead, humility is your friend. when you kick ass in assignments and show you're naturally good at some things, your younger classmates will likely respect you then for it. but always keep the humility as your persona. they're going to be intimidated by the age difference and when they find that 15-20 years of age difference really doesn't mean jack u-know-what, they'll be cool with you.

2. HANDLE PROFS CAREFULLY: show your creativity, innovativness, eagerness, etc. by DOING, not by saying. this screws so many nontraditional students up. yes, its important to let the prof know you're eager to learn/succeed. but do it by doing, not by showing off. understand that you're an outlier, so every subtle action you make in the classroom will have 10x the effect. this pisses off your classmates and makes your prof uncomfortable.

3. FIND YOUR PERSONA AND STICK TO IT: my dad's long-time faculty at a university that has a good amount of nontraditional students. i've learned that even the faculty has stereotypes of the nontrads. eager beavers (over-eager volunteer for everything desperate to show their worth low self esteem types), suck-ups (total poseurs that will flunk out but will suck up at first and try to play the 'hey prof, i'm a grown-up like you, give me preference'), one-class-ponys (typically 60+ gals who take one class and blow the damn curve cuz they have no freaking life outside of that one class), over-committers (usually the nontrads who have just come back to academic world and are so clingy and over-committing trying to prove their worth to self and prof), and dominators (nontrads that want to give input to everything, dominate the discussion, share their "worldly" experience on everything and embarrass everyone in the room except themselves). Those are not good choices. Find something subtle, quiet and driven. Sit in the front row, kick ass and let your work show your drive. Let the prof call you out because you get stuff right. They will balance the dialog and keep you from being seen as a show-off - hey, when your work is good, that's the game.

4. FRIENDSHIPS: Be open, kind and friendly to all. I ended up with friends spanning the total range - from girl jocks to geeks to poet-thinkers to hard core achievers. All I had to do was smile, be relaxed, be damn good, and be a team player.

It's a weird situation but if you handle it right, it'll be very rewarding, and that degree does open up tons of doors. Good luck!

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:Yes, go for it.

[PizzaFace]

The article was discussed here last week: Brain Decline Begins At Age 27.

Re:Yes, go for it.

[tomhudson]

Recent research actually shows that mental faculties begin to decline as early in life as the 20's. Kids don't seem sharper, they ARE sharper. That isn't to say that there isn't more to being a good employee or that older individuals don't have their own advantages but there is a basis for IT discrimination based on age.

ecent research actually shows that some people's mental faculties begin to decline as early in life as the 20's.

There - fixed that for you.

The truth is a lot simpler - most people put their brains in neutral after they get out of school.

The brain is like any other tissue - use it or it atrophies. Even BONE will leach its' calcium if it's not subjected to regular stress from such ordinary things as walking around.

The average person doesn't read books any more. They get their information from the echo chamber of the internet - in short, ephemeral snippets that register on the eyeballs but not the brain, because 2 seconds later, they're onto the next "oh shiny!"

Then thare are those people for which life is a continuous learning experience - not just because we have to keep learning to stay current, but because our curiosity leads us to continue learning, continue integrating new facts and attitudes into our knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. BTW - there are also studies that show that most "genius" is probably the result of a combination of that curiosity, plus persistence.

Staying up to date will never restore your cognitive abilities to the level they were at when you were 22 and they peaked or 27 when they begin to show a measurable decline.

You can have my cognitive abilities when you pry them from my cold, dead brain!

Re:Yes, go for it.

[laughing_badger]

When the ball goes under the coffee table, and the kid goes under to get it - you know exactly what is going to happen next. The kid is going to stand up, full speed, and bang the hell out of his head on the underside of the table.

I spotted my 2-yr old do this the other day, hard but not so hard as to provoke screaming. He spent the next minute carefully proving that it was hitting his head on the table that had caused the pain, and then hitting it again a couple of times very gently and then a bit harder to see when it hurt. I was astounded at the level of reasoning going on as he worked out what had happened to his head and how it had been caused.

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.

Just go for it

[Lysol]

I'm pushing 40 this year. Been programming most of my life. Never completed my CS degree. Worked on some fairly high profile projects in NYC, Chicago, San Francisco. I would say tho, at this point in my life, I'm definitely at the Sr. level and if I was to apply for a 'real' job it would be a Director or VP/CTO position - probably in a small startup.

I know of friends consulting companies that have guys in their 20's-40's. Other friends work for big software companies and have similar age groups. In the end, if you're a good programmer and not over 50 ;) then you shouldn't have a problem. But at some point, you're going to probably start your own company or be at a level above 'straight out of schoole 20-something coder'.

I wouldn't worry about the ageism thing at 35.

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.