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Ask Slashdot: How Is Online Engineering Coursework Viewed By Employers?
New submitter KA.7210 writes "I am an employed mechanical engineer, having worked with the same company since graduation from college 5 years ago. I am looking to increase my credentials by taking more engineering courses, potentially towards a certificate or a full master's degree. Going to school full time is not an option, and there is only one engineering school near me that offers a program that resembles what I wish to study, and also has the courses at night. Therefore, I have begun to look at online options, and it appears there are many legitimate, recognizable schools offering advanced courses in my area of interest. My question to Slashdot readers out there is: how do employers view degrees/advanced credentials obtained online, when compared to the more typical in-person education? Does anyone have specific experience with this situation? The eventual degree itself will have no indication that it was obtained online, but simple inference will show that it was not likely I maintained my employment on the east coast while attending school in-person on the west coast. I wish to invest my time wisely, and hope that some readers out there have experience with this issue!"
Cause I've got a frosty one!
Dual First posts.
You will have your former skills to provide a broader experience. And the initiative to take your early career in a new direction.
If an employer doesn't like it, then that shows their weakness, not yours.
Over here good educational institutions are certified and registered.
I know from first hand experience my boss is willing to pick up the tab for further education providing he sees the advantage of it and you stay for another two years.
It is common a new employer would pay off any remaining expenses for the course when you change job before the end of the payback period.
In short, ask your own boss what he thinks of a particular course.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Once you have experience and a track record, that matters far more than what school or degree or GPA you had (the exception being ivory tower institutions where they protect their own). How those courses are looked on depends more on you than on wherever they came from.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
At my last employer, where I was involved in the technical half of resume screening and candidate evaluations, online courses weren't worth very much in the early stages. The problem is that the quality of the programs varies so widely that it's best for the screener to just ignore them. Yes, there are diamonds in the rough, but you don't have enough time to go do the research, so you mentally block that part out and continue on. It's not particularly fair, but when you have 500 resumes to work through in a day, you have to come up with a fast system.
Now, if you make it into the later rounds and it comes down to you versus someone who hasn't demonstrated that drive to better themselves and their career? Yeah, I'd take the time to go look up the online program, any graduation statistics it published, etc.
Online engineering courses aren't going to mean squat. But if you have a degree from an accredited university, it will count in the minds of employers no matter how you obtained it.
Been there, done that.
how do employers view degrees/advanced credentials obtained online, when compared to the more typical in-person education? Does anyone have specific experience with this situation? The eventual degree itself will have no indication that it was obtained online, but simple inference will show that it was not likely I maintained my employment on the east coast while attending school in-person on the west coast
No one cares. If you get a job, it'll be from contacts and portfolio, more or less. HR won't care as long as the checkbox is checked off and they get a transcript.
I went to a "regional" U with multiple sub-campuses (campii?). I attended only online classes, although there was a sub-campus maybe only a half hour drive away. No, I did not commute 2 hours each way every day to the main campus. Maybe they'll get the same idea about your school?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
So there needs to be a better way for "experienced" people to pick up new skills in faster way then going back to college for 2-4 years and some times even having to retake gen edu's + filler classes. No there should be stuff like other trades where you can go to a trade school and drop into classes that will get you the newer skills.
Also there lack of courses at night in most colleges. Now is that engineering school a tech / trade school? so that is also a issues as HR takes a poor view of some tech schools even when they are more on point and have better class times then a older college. But on the other side I have heard on jobs paying there workers to take University of Phoenix classes. So this is a HR issue and a issues of trying to fit the old college system into today's tech word.
Also some colleges make you buy meal plans and some time room and board now why should some who has there own place and is working have to pay for all of that as well?
Now continuing education should not just be BA, MA, PHD, MBA, POST DOC it should be drop in classes with not makeing you retake gen edu's or have to take a load of filler classes.
It's probably viewed better if you have a good reason not to do it in person, such as doing a prison term. For white-collar crime of course :). Yes, I'm serious. Just list Enron Accounting before your online degree and it will all fall into place, you will get a high-level engineering job your pre-online-engineering-degree-having ass could only dream about :)
There's going to be a range of responses. Some will completely discount online learning, possibly even round-filing your resume for taking such a stupid course of action. Others will see a self-improvement motivated self-starter and salivate at the thought of hiring you.
I suggest you aim to work for the second kind.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Any sort of extra education is great, I encourage everyone to get smarter, but getting your PE stamp would do the best for your career, that's something that NO employer can disregard.
I'm not suggesting that it's "one or the other", I'm suggesting that you use any online or offline education to get a professional credential that's recognized by states or professional societies. For the ME, it's getting your PE stamp. Like a lawyer passing the bar or a doctor passing their boards, the PE is something that no employer can ignore.
At one equipment manufacturer that I worked for, only a couple of the engineers had their PE, and they were usually moved up to "senior engineer" or "vice-president of engineering" pretty quickly, the rest of us were kept down and encouraged not to get too uppity...
Mod parent up. As an employer at a small business, if I value a four-year bachelors degree at a university at, say, a 10, then I would value a degree of the same name obtained online as about a 2, partially because of introp's observation that the quality is all over the place and is an unknown; and partially, I admit, due to personal unfamiliarity.
My experience (which may have worked only for me mind you) is that employers don't give a toss about how much you know about stuff, but how flexible, adaptable and quick to learn you are.
In the 20-so years I've worked, I've held 4 positions in fields that have absolutely nothing in common. I worked as an employee, I worked self-employed, and I have my small business on the side.
Whenever I meet a potential employer, I am proud to say that I can learn anything quickly and become proficient on my own, and now I have a fat enough resume to prove it. Yes, I have an engineering degree, but the only thing it proves is that I'm patient and dog-headed enough to sit through years of boring classes, and that I'm clever enough to understand how teachers want the exam questions answered (which is not necessarily the correct answer). The rest of what I did in my life was self-taught, and employers seem to appreciate that much more than what I learned at school.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Business (HR specifically) doesn't give a shit about your degree. They care about a) that you have the checkbox, b) who you worked for previously and are not lying about it, and c) whether it looks like you aren't a total fuckup who will cost them. It's about risk avoidance.
The actual team you interview with (if it wasn't an HR drone) cares that you look like you know your shit and can carry your weight.
Engineering and especially computer degrees are such a total crapshoot on the skills you get in a candidate, that they don't know how to weigh your degree. Even degrees from badass schools sometimes come with folks who still can't code their way out of a wet paper bag. Besides, most of that senior level theory stuff in the degree won't help you much in a real world job until the late stages of your career, and will piss off your peers who don't have the same background, and definitely piss off management, who barely understands what a linked list is.
The quality of in person versus remote will depend on your learning style, and whether you actually would make use of those in-person office hours anyway.
Ultimately, it matters more what you can do. Education, past job experience, etc, everything on a resume is nothing more than an indication of what you can do. Prospective employers will look at it and think, "can this person do the job I want done?" They don't actually care about your school (unless they wen't to a weird frat).
I looked at four resumes in the last week, and I didn't look at education for any of them. I can't even remember if they listed it. But one of them had a lot of job experience doing lots of interesting things, and another one had some mediocre job experience, developing skills we didn't need.
The point is to write your resume in a way that shows what you are capable of. At first this is a little difficult, because all you have is college experience, but as time goes by, it will become easier and easier. Because you will have used your skills more and more.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
In my mind, the fact that you were able to maintain employment as an engineer AND work towards a degree at the same time more than outweighs the downside of an online education.
What are the downsides?
* Some lab-work and project-work simply cannot be done online.
* While it's critical to know how to collaborate totally online and over the phone, it's also critical to collaborate in a face-to-face situation. I want evidence any college graduate can do both well.
Since you are already working in the field, that's going to fill in many of the holes that an "online only" degree might leave.
Students fresh out of college and those transitioning from stay-at-home parenting or a totally-non-engineering career have much more to be concerned about in the "online vs. in-person degree" decision than someone like you.
In short, don't worry too much about taking most or all of your program online-only. If there is a particular class that you think would be better taken "in person," look at a local university and see if you can take that class and transfer it. Most graduate programs allow 1 or 2 classes to be taken elsewhere and transferred in.
You may also want to do the "take a class and transfer it" route if you want to get a particular local-university professor to write you a letter of recommendation.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Stupid Companies: Will hold it against you because it challenges the obsolete Ivory Tower mindset. You don't want to work for that place anyway.
Smart Companies: Will value it/you because not only do you already have a degree, and additionally you pushed yourself to get yet another one, even though most people just rest on their laurels at that point.
Just stay out of the mind trap where you think that you should be paid more JUST because you have an additional degree. Using the knowledge acquired from that additional degree to make yourself more valuable - that's the proper mindset.
I had an employee that tried that with me, he was really shocked when I informed him that I don't put a whole lot of value on degrees, as myself have only a GED and some college. It's what you do with your innate talents that counts for me.
If we were specifically looking for someone with a master's or a particular certification, we would almost certainly go with an applicant who got their degree/cert from a brick and mortar school over the person with the online credentials (all other qualifications being the same). On the other hand, if we were looking for someone with a bachelor's and one applicant had a master's from an online degree, they would probably be in the forefront. Of course, they probably wouldn't be compensated beyond having a bachelor's given that that's all we had written out in the requirements.
If the credentials match the jobs you're applying for then it matters. Someone with a resume showing a degree from the University of Phoenix is definitely going in the trash. But if you're applying for a software position, have degree in philosophy and a bunch of certificates in programming then that's enough for an interview. Ultimately you're ability to perform on the interview is going to be much more telling.
If you want to study subject X because you are curious about X and want to learn more about X, then it will be valuable to you.
If you want another piece of paper to impress people who care about such things...may or may not be valuable.
lololol, you Europeans are so naive.
Or maybe, in some cases, their employers just aren't idiots prone to knee-jerk reactions like the one in your example.
The post was intended as satire.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
"degree."
Why the quotes? They're all pieces of paper.
The degree is only as valuable as the accreditation and reputation of the issuing institution.
1. Are you taking the additional classes to learn additional material because YOU want to?
Then it does not matter how the school is viewed. You're in it for the material.
2. Are you taking the additional classes as a "stepping stone" to an additional degree / classes that you want to take?
Again, you're in it for the material so don't worry.
3. Are you looking for something to build up your resume?
Then look for what schools have the best reputations and work around their requirements. You're in it for the school name in that case.
But don't confuse any of those items. If it HAPPENS that your choice will fit more than one category, great. But if not, then keep your focus on your primary goal.
And to reiterate the parent post, once you have your first job your work history matters far, Far, FAR more than what courses you took (are taking) or what your GPA was (is).
And since you've already stated that you have your first engineering job ...
when taking the online tests, if you didn't know the answer, you could cut and paste the question into google, and the results page was full of sites that would immediately sell you the answer for about a buck.
I've personally been *demoted* for asking about funding continuous education!
My manager was OK with it, he even submitted the request to HR, who then submitted it to his boss for approval. His boss had an issue with it, and came to me and said, "If you think you need additional education, you're not as sharp as we need you to be." and then, since Texas is an at-will state (as in, they can fire you, at will, for any reason any time), I was summarily dismissed.
I'm sure this happens everywhere. I read your post as Insightful, not Funny. Your WHOOOSH was just disappointing.
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
If you're serious about furthering your education, going to a reputable school, full time, in the day, is not "not an option", it's "your only option". Otherwise you will be overshadowed by people serious enough to make the sacrifices to attend a legitimate, day time program.
I will be graduating with an engineering degree this May and will most likely be starting in an entry level position soon after. I also applied as was accepted to Purdue to get my Master's. They have an online option that I would think about pursuing while working. Would this help my resume? It is a well respected institution, do you think employers would hold that degree in higher regard than other online engineering degrees?
Some companies actively have an internal policy of helping you pay for online courses, check if your's has something like this. And, they also sometimes have a preferred institution that they like to use, probably because they're getting a discount. Just a few days ago I was sent a email from H.R. giving me the login details to purchase any course at a University of their choice. The website didn't load in Chrome, so I gave it a pass. I have a degree already and a lot of experience anyways, and getting high paying jobs hasn't been a problem for me. Worth noting, though, is that I didn't enjoy going to college and I prefer to self-teach myself. As a result, I didn't get a great G.P.A while I attended University and it has hurt me only a few times while job hunting. Specifically, there were two companies, both financial companies, that required a G.P.A. during the job interview process. I asked why it was necessary and they informed me that they weren't going to judge me based on it, but that it is company policy to require one. I gave them my score of 2.6, and they immediately turned me down. Though, to be fair, you would not want a complete idiot developing something so important. However, I feel that based on my vast experience they should have at least given me a chance to prove myself. I don't mean to beat my own drum, but anywhere I work I'm always all-star quality. Their loss I guess. I suppose I could go back to college and try, but I'd have to do the online route like you if I wanted to keep working. I'm not that hungry for the financial jobs though, because I make almost as much as they would have been willing to pay anyways already.
Howdy.
I'm a VP of technology for several companies, and have been in a position to hire software, network, and system engineers since at least 1997. In all honesty, neither I, nor any of the people who've reported to me, ever paid much attention about where someone went to school, what their actual degree was, or whether they had earned some honor -- as long as the guy could deliver. From certs to prestigious schools, we never really bothered. Eventually I found out that I had a couple of MIT grads and at least one Stanford kid. I also had a pile of people whose degrees were awarded by foreign universities (including my own) and really... nobody really cares.
If you have the skills and you have the work experience, then you should be fine.
Right now I sit on the tech board for a couple of companies in Europe and the US, and I'm driving the technology at a very large social network with dev operations in the UK and Russia. I do notice that Europeans pay more attention to "schooling" and "degrees" and "titles" than US companies do, but not by much. My former employers and clients include some of the largest companies in Silicon Valley, rest of the US, Europe, Japan, and Mexico. The only occasions when I had to produce some kind of official proof of education were:
* When getting my US labor certification (1991... long time ago...), and when getting my Russian labor certification (last year) -- bureaucrats just love the fsck-ng paperwork
* When applying for a US federal job -- even then, they clarified that all they care about is whether I completed the degree or whether it was accredited, the date, and some accreditation equivalence since my degrees are from foreign institutions
Pro Tip: see if your employer will pitch in for part or whole course. Tech departments have educational budgets ranging from a couple of hundred dollars/year for books per employee, to full scholarships. I've auth'd books, on-line courses, conferences, PIM, and university courses for my peeps many times in the past. Check that out with your supervisor or with HR. A lot of people don't realize the option might be there -- and, if others in your group aren't taking advantage of it, your manager may be amiable to extend your budget a bit more (since money she doesn't spend is money she may have to cut next year).
So -- get your education wherever you can as long as they are legit, kick some butt, take names, and good luck in your career advancement!
Cheers!
http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
I can only talk from what I have seen and done, but in the UK we have a online university called the Open university which is generally well regarded. That is not to say that all employers will provide the same respect as say a MSc from Oxford or Cambridge(Actually a side point, a MSc from Oxford or Cambridge is generally worthless since they will award you one for just staying alive after your BSc), but a lot of managers I know got their MBA's from the Open University so they know its value.
Generally most qualifications especially technical ones really show nothing about once you left university Any attempt to continue your education and extend your skills and knowledge should be valued by your present and future employer. If not you are working for the wrong company.
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
If it's a "do you have your ticket punched" situation, it depends on who's looking at the ticket. Some places (the job equivalent of "highly selective colleges") want to see that Masters or PhD from a "name" school. Others, where there's some functionary just checking the box, it probably doesn't matter.
If it's a "I want to show that I can execute a course of study and do a thesis" AND the person asking about it will actually be looking at the thesis, it matters more what you do than where you do it. This is "educational institution serving as stand-in for work experience" sort of thing: the "first job" scenario... once you have actual meaningful project level work experience, that will usually be as useful, if not moreso, than the thesis and coursework.
Online vs inclass - there's also a variation in on-line.. some are classic "distance learning" like back in the days of analog microwave links and such, where there's actually interaction between class members and the professor in real time. Others are basically "correspondence courses". I think there is potential value in the "in-class interaction" in two ways: one is that you get to discuss/argue with class mates, which improves your presentation and interaction skills. The other is that the instructor becomes a potential reference/writer of recommendation letters that is independent of your employer (and typically, in academia, professors are MUCH more candid than the HR department at your employer, who might have a "dates of employment and title only" policy)
Evening classes are actually great (my wife went through a MBA program that way).. because you are typically interacting with about half the class who are "fresh out of bachelors" and the rest who have been out in the workforce for 10 or more years. That diversity of experience is very, very valuable, to say nothing of the "networking" opportunities that arise. If you are in a daytime, fulltime program, your classmates will all be just graduated and never actually worked in the real world types. So the evening class is great... the old hands get to see what the new people coming out are like and vice versa. As far as "value to an employer" goes, that kind of experience is very useful although tricky to convey in a check off the boxes resume form.
If the online thing is basically a single person in their basement filling out workbooks kind of thing.. nah, that's not worth a lot.
Certificates, in general, are worthless. Most employers have been burned enough over the past 10 years by the proliferation of certification organizations, be they corporate (Novell, Microsoft, Cisco) or industry organization (PMI) and the certifications they grant. THey're ok if you've never had a job before and you need to demonstrate that you actually might have some competency, but no employer will trust just that. They'd rather you have 2 years practical experience (even unpaid, but meaningful, with credible, non contrived references) than some cert.
If you're talking certification in the sense of professional licensure (e.g. Professional Engineer, or EIT).. that's worth something, *in the correct industry*. I don't think my having a PE license would carry a huge amount of weight if I were applying for a database architect job.
I agree to a degree (no pun intended), however I have some observations.
... but most of all I enjoyed seeing how ignorant and misinformed I had been about business perspectives and business school. For example marketing was not about snake oil and psychological cons as my inner engineer would have expected, it was about how to conduct a survey to get real rankings of customer preferences (which may differ from self identified preferences), how to construct a mathematical model of the existing market, how to introduce a new product with new features into that market and see how the market adapts, etc. In other words how to develop an educated guess at expected market share of something new, I used to believe they just pulled such numbers out of ... the air. This is just one example of many.
Getting a Masters in the same field as a Bachelors may not be worth it **unless** you work or hope to work in the area you do your research. Personally I have no regrets getting a MS Comp Sci but my employer paid for everything except parking and we were located literally next door to the university.
Are you targeting a specific employer? For example if you wanted to work for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is Pasadena, California it may be very advantageous to work on a Masters at the neighboring university, Cal Poly Pomona. Your department may have professors affiliated or consulting with JPL, JPL interns or otherwise employs students from the university, etc.
As an undergraduate I had the conversation about getting a Masters with a fellow Comp Sci major. I was undecided. He commented an MBA would be far more useful. I laughed and couldn't imagine doing that. Many years later I did go to business school, again next door to work (the university is well ranked) and with employer support. After many years on the job focusing exclusively on engineering and technical issues I really enjoyed learning new and different thing, understanding other parts of the organization, understanding their perspective and concerns so that I could communicate more effectively with them
I'd recommend looking into an MBA. Its probably not at all what one expects and it probably is more valuable to scientists and engineers than more degrees in their existing fields. As you become more senior you need to interact, understand and effectively communicate with others outside of science and engineering. I think an MBA helps in this regard.
I've been working towards my masters of science in computer science degree since 2007 (one class at a time takes forever). I started taking classes remotely at a remote television site at my employer. I later left that employer and got a job somewhere that didn't have access to those remote television sites, so I started taking the classes online. Since I started, I'm now at my third company, and all three have been more than willing to pay for my courses. In fact, that's probably the most telling point for whether anyone is going to take your courses seriously: is your company willing to pay for the classes. My advice is only take classes from a public or private university with a real physical campus, and only universities you would consider attending in person if you lived nearby.
Now, having taken courses remotely for several years, let me forewarn you about online learning:
Now going online also puts you in the driver's seat when it comes to choosing your institution. You get to pick from many more universities than are likely to be proximate to where you live. You can watch lectures multiple times, rewind to the part where the prof started speaking gibberish and watch it until you understand what the heck he's talking about. You can also choose a university where the courses are taught by professors and not TAs. I've had all of my classes taught by the professor. If you choose to pursue a degree either in person or online, good luck!
something clever
Although I do my academic work in my personal life, rather than my employed life, so far, it seems to be well received by my employer's senior management (FTSE 100 company)— a couple regularly ask me for the papers I have written, and ask questions which indicate that they have at least skimmed the contents. They have been very supportive indeed, even to the extent of helping me revise my role, to enable me to work four days a week, so I can spend a day doing my own academic work.
That being said, I am doing it to increase my knowledge, and because I enjoy studying, rather than for the value of the end certification in itself, though — I am not sure how much value there is in being seen to hold a masters. That would be a bonus.
A side effect, however, might be an ability to demonstrate clearly your time management skills, as studying alongside a job may not be an easy task — if you do go for it, make sure you factor the time commitment into your life. In this regard, studying part time and once you have some experience under your belt may well be considered more of an achievement than taking another year straight after the undergraduate degree — the subject matter might be less relevant.
If you enjoy studying, and will stand to learn more by doing it, it's hard to argue against doing it, though, even if, in itself, it does not help you advance.
Did you do your online studies from India/The Philippines/Russia/China/anywhere other rhan the U.S.?
Great! You can start as soon as your H1B paperwork is processed.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Join ASME and take advantage of their course offerings in your specialization (or in a field that interests you). That impresses me more than someone just wanting to put more letters after their name.
I really appreciate the approach that you guys take when making hiring decisions. Managers like you have been nothing but beneficial for me.
You guys, having no degree or formal education yourselves, are completely intimidated by anyone with a degree. You fear hiring such people, because even a new graduate will quickly show how little you truly know. Sure, you'll spew out nonsense about people with degrees being "unmotivated" or "having money to waste" or some gibberish like that. But in reality it's because they are better than you, and you know it, but you're so damn scared to admit this.
So when it comes to building your team, you hire PHP "programmers" and Ruby "software developers" with no formal training of any sort. They'll create huge messes rife with performance problems, security flaws, poor design, and end-user inefficiency. Usually, the startup quickly goes under. In the rare case when the startup succeeds, it'll quickly become apparent that you and your team are causing more problems than you're eliminating.
Sensible upper management will then can you and your team, and bring in a consultant like me and my team, usually at a premium. Given that we are professionals with real education (yes, that means at least a bachelor's degree) and training, we know what we're doing. We clean up all the problems that you have created. Lucky for us, by the time we're done doing that, you, or one of the other anti-education/anti-competence managers like you has gone and created a new mess for us at some other company.
Your incompetence is great for me and my colleagues. We make far more money fixing your mistakes than we would if we just did the work in the first place.
...the name of the school on the diploma doesn't really matter for technical positions. It's much more about the contacts you can make from the interaction with other students at the school or what contacts the instructors have because they also do consulting work on the side.
Actually, I say screw the master's degree in Engineering. If you want to get somewhere, get an MBA. It will be completely useless piece of paper, but it's how you show employers that an Engineer can also be a Manager.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The comment about an Oxbridge M.Sc. is not accurate. Oxford and Cambridge will typically award an M.A. to someone with a Bachelor's degree for "staying alive" a few years. (It's a practice left-over from the days when gentlemen were expected to continue their studies on their own after completing a first degree, and is continued today because ... well, the British like traditions.)
But an M.Sc. is a research degree, typically two years, but sometimes awarded as a consolation for someone who fails a Ph. D. (which happened to a good friend of mine.) Oxford and Cambridge are two of the few universities for which the MA and MSc differ greatly in intensity, and not particularly in subject area like "arts" or "sciences."
I encourage you to pursue the online coursework, whether or not you seek a certificate or a degree, if you enjoy the coursework.
I spent five calendar years taking online courses for an MS in a technology field, because I was unwilling to sacrifice time at work for in-person classes. My team at work - colleagues and supervisory staff - respected the discipline required to attend and successfully complete online courses (4.0), and my salary bump after the degree was granted was significant.
As long as the parent institution is accredited by an appropriate higher education accreditation authority, your hard work will pay off.
Good luck -
If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law;
That's somewhat unfair - people who are self taught can be excellent just as people can do a degree and not be able to code anything. I think the insanity is to look at a degree and think it tells you one way or another if the person is capable. Interviews exist for a reason. Degrees are a chance to obtain knowledge, and the end result is really just so the employer can make a few assumptions - they still need to check you are capable, because it could go either way.
I'm doing a BEng with the open university (in the UK) they have a very good academic reputation, and my boss is very supportive (possibly because he thinks he's getting post grad work for 'unskilled' rates) I get to take time off at short notice if I've got something due and my time management fails and generally it's working out very well for everyone concerned.
The poster could have posted this "ask slashdot" question without giving all the superfluous details about himself. It would have cut the summary text in half without sacrificing anything of value to the discussion.
I have noticed this pattern in many posts. People on slashdot LOVE to blather on about themselves.
I don't know about Engineering specifically, but most online Universities are laughed at by HR departments. There are a few exception though, such as WGU's MBA program which is considered among the top 10 to 15 MBA programs in the country even including non-online university programs. Really you just have to study each Online program and people who came out of it to see which ones have name recognition that matters.
That's a fair point. The PE gives you a significant amount of credibility. I often hear people say it's not worth much because there's no legal requirement in ME (unlike Civil), but I think the respect / trust / credibility it commands is underrated. Of course, that's not a short term option if you didn't take the FE or if you don't work with any PEs.
Analagously, my younger sisters were homeschooled. They had a good education, but they got a GED just in case someone was suspicious. They both went to the schools they wanted to attend, so whatever the reason, in the end it worked out like they wanted.
dude i work as an ME as well. a masters is worthless for the most part. just stop stalling and get your PE.
Many background checks screen out paper mills (which includes many online places) so you run the real risk of not having what you do online as counting at all.
I have worked with people who have no degrees, A.S., B.S., and M.S. degrees. Some in computer science, some not. What I have found is that there are good software developers across the entire spectrum, as well as bad ones. This is why I am strongly in favor of making a degree a soft requirement: prefer it, but when push comes to shove, let an un- or under-educated individual prove themselves. I believe in entrance exams for jobs, regardless of profession or level of employment. Look for people in three categories:
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
My employer does not differentiate between online or physical education as long as the online degree is from a reputable institution. Many great schools offer online degrees. I did mine at Georgia Tech and some of my coworkers got their online engineering degrees from Stanford or USC. These schools put the online students through the exact same classes and exams as the students that are physically there. The only difference is that the student watches the classes at home and gets a couple of weeks to schedule the exams. Online only schools may not carry the same weight.
As an Engineering Manager for the #1 Company in the world. Education serves very little in the final hiring decision. It only helps to get past the HR filter and the initial resume review. However, after I talk to someone on the phone, it means very little. The only bonus points I attribute to a candidate is if they went to a very tier 1 school (MIT, Stanford), past that, online or not and university mean very little. Better Schools don't make better people, they just filter out the bad ones to start (sometimes doing my work for me). However there are very smart people that go to state schools and get online degrees. Past that, if they are technically competent and more importantly a great communicator about that technical competency, I would hire them. Unfortunately the combination seems rare and our hire rate is at about 1% of the phone screens I do.
This is a good point. I have a friend who understands marketing and sales, and we both worked for the same astronomer one year. We both have contacts in several industries and have seen things from different sides. Most scientists suck at marketing. It's not that they need to push products on hesitant buyers, run price wars, or watch the average $/sqft of their retail spaces. Marketing is about understanding the overlap of what someone wants and what can be offered. Scientists who are successful in landing grants, who handle larger grants or multiple grants, are better at making their work known and explaining why it's relevant in terms that are interesting to the grant providers and other supporters.
One misconception common among many engineers and scientists is that career success comes from having a brilliant idea, then patenting it, start making it, maybe starting a company and selling it for profit, all one-way. In real life, it takes starting with the market, knowing what is needed, and always getting feedback along the way. This does not mean simply giving potential customers what they say they want - as Henry Ford noted long ago, if it were up to the customers they'd ask only for faster horses and carriages. A sharp marketer will note that what is really in demand is faster, easier, cheaper travel, and that certain engineers have contraption that, with development, could meet that need in some way. A great wealth-generating world-changing product might not even involve a 'brilliant idea' or genuinely fresh invention.
Marketing is the field in which we gain wisdom and practical skills in such things. It applies as well to fundamental science as it does to engineering.
In my experience, self-taught, uncredentialled programmers have an aversion to reading and learn by copying and pasting samples and looking things up on the fly. They are script-kiddies with very little perspective, but since they're "self-taught", they're egomaniacal. If someone highly respected recommended someone self-taught, I'd interview him. Otherwise, his resume goes into the trash no matter how many years of CRUD "experience" he has.
If Management is all pretentious pricks from Ivy league schools, then nothing but an Ivy league school has any value. Therefore Online Engineering courses have negative value to them, maybe even some "icky" factor as well.
If the place you work at requires a BA or BS degree for the receptionist position, They will see ZERO value in any online learning, or any education in general that did not have a high dollar amount attached to it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I don't particularly appreciate the tone of this post, there is some truth in it.
Once I was in a startup company as Manager of Software Development. I hired the smartest people I could find, and if I could find someone I thought was smarter than me, I so much the happier. But I had a colleague, who managed the IT group, and over time it became apparent that his team was inefficient and non-productive and caused more problems than they ever resolved. Thinking on the situation, I realized that what was happening was that my fellow manager would not hire anyone he felt would challenge his self-image. It became a real mess until the entire group was cleaned out. The jobs of the group were parceled out among the remaining groups. It was very unpleasant.
But I will say that in a 38-year career with 10 different companies mostly in Silicon Valley, I only encountered this situation the one time. It is nasty when it happens, but AFAIK happens rarely.
And there are tech school with IT skills that CS does not offer also there should be more trades like classes. Now how does BA, MA, PHD CS help you be a better IT admin / help desk / desktop guy? Vs doing real work?
Are there any comprehensive list of accredited universities that have online degrees? Anyone please share? Thank you.
Talk to your HR department.. Their policy is the only thing that will have any determination on whether a degree from a certain place (on or offline) is worth anything in terms of compensation.
My masters program was 60% classroom time, 40% online. We would meet one Friday and one Saturday per month, 8 hours each day. The rest was online with instructors discretion for how to teach the material. Full-time program (24 credits per year) over two years.
You say you don't have a nearby masters program. You don't need one with such a hybrid program. Round-trip flight and hotel would cover it. One of our classmates changed jobs and moved to Canada midway between the degree and would fly down to Southeast US each time we had classes. $250-$500 * 12 meetings per year can be an added cost, but, it does open up more options.
However, beyond that, truly think about whether a masters program is right for you. You don't get a masters because you want to advance your career, there are plenty of other ways to go about that goal. You want a masters to master a subject, and then use that mastery to your benefit (including to further your career ... yes, there IS a contextual difference). Also consider the time commitment per week. My program was an added 20-30 hours on top of an existing full-time job. Challenging, but doable over two years. Best of luck.
Unless they look into the course codes for your transcript, how are the employers even going to know whether a course offered by an accredited school was held in a "traditional" setting or online? Why would an employer care so long as it's a certified program of study with proper exams and coursework?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
If you have a masters degree from an accredited college with a physical campus, how would any employer know it was obtained through an online program? Does your resume say on it "Masters in Mechanical Engineering, Online"?
Don't sweat it. People who want to improve themselves naturally excel. Any employer petty enough care about online or physical campus would not be worth the time for a interview anyway. There are plenty of employers out there that are way more interested in the fact that you are growing, committed and capable of learning.
Might be over-generalizing just a tad there...
I taught myself to program in high school, mostly by reading the PDP-8 Assembly Language Handbook over and over until I figured out what the hell they were talking about. The only CS or programming class I ever took was "Introduction to Computer Science" my first year in college, where the language used was, believe it or not, Algol 60. I hated it mostly because I was much more interested in working on the retargetable assembler/disassembler system I had designed and the classwork was a distraction from that. The year after that I was assigned to a project to write the back end of a FORTRAN compiler for a MIL-SPEC computer, where I designed and implemented the register allocator and part of the code generator. The year after that I was assigned to a different project, where I wrote the printer subsystem for a block diagram editor. That I didn't enjoy much because once again I was more interested my own work, which happened to be a symbolic algebra library that could be easily integrated with various numerical analysis and graphics libraries. That eventually morphed into a commercial product.
I've published several articles on computer science, and I also contributed one of the exercises that appears in TAOCP Volume 4A (which references one of my articles).
I'm also a coauthor of the MIME standard. These days I my main job is architect of a high-end MTA.
Of course the plural of anecdote is not data, but several of the best architects and coders I know have a similar appalling lack of credentials.
If your employer thinks further education is a waste of time if taken in a non-traditional setting, I'd look elsewhere for employment. I took my entire bachelor degree from an online institution while working full time as a consultant. Basically since I was flying to client sites nearly 100% a week, that was the only way I could possibly complete the degree.
Just to give you some inspiration: I graduated from a no-name online university and went on to work at the #1 tech company and am in the CS graduate program of the #1 university in the US.
degrees.... they matter. they are the first evidence you can make a multi-year plan that involves a lot of work and follow through to completion.
brick and mortar for a bachelor's degree beats online in your underwear for obvious reasons. it's exposure to a culture you are selling. the degree says ' we share a common educational and social background.'
competence is an unknown in a fresh grad, and usually missing. experience is the only thing that fleshes out the holes in the new grad's curriculum and teaches real-world skills. the new grad is not valuable for his content... he is valuable for his process.
i've hired for raytheon, lockheed/martin, and a half dozen other outfits. at martin, we looked at the non-degreed last. the biggest pile, always dusty. HP wouldn't hire you as an engineer without a 4-year degree. AAS not enough. Didn't have to be in engineering, but they were brutal. Another outfit I worked for didn't invite a PE (registered professional engineer) to our annual engineering rah rah conference because all he had was a 2 year degree. Yet my assistant, a guy with two liberal arts degrees, was invited. I have too many examples to list.
this does not mean that you have to have a degree to succeed. i have many rich friends with no degree. what it means is that if you are the type of person who works for a company (i.e., the vast majority), you have to navigate reality. lots of firms discriminate based on degrees. if you are ballsy enough to work on your own or start your own business, who gives a shit what your education is? you call the shots. go get 'em, tiger! here, only performance matters.
(that said, i won;t let you design a bridge for me if you are self-taught. there are some market limitations in some fields.)
IME, the bachelor's is primary. anything beyond that helps. YMMV.
I would encourage you to pursue an online degree as you can work and study at the same time. Such online certifications provides you with the opportunity to study at your own pace giving you more time to attend to other work.I have done an online course on Piping Engineering offered by IIT Bombay (www.cepglobe.com) which is highly recognized in oil and gas industry here in UAE at the same time as my bachelors in Mechanical engineering..My advise is if you are about to pursue an online degree then check for its recognition and whether the degrees offered by the institute are held in high esteem.The certificate that was given to me does not show that it was achieved through studying online making the certificate more valuable as it shows you have done the degree in direct contact mode with the lecturers. Some of the online degrees are well devised and worth doing.
I too am in an area where to commute an hour one way (especially in the winter) for a class is just not appealing. I knew I would never push through, so I went the online route. Now, I'm talking about a school that has a physcial presence and helped pioneer online learning, not a 100% online school that even I consider to be 'lesser'. I worked my butt off, and no one can tell me that an accredited, reputible school is junk just because the work was completed online. If anything, I think it highlights my ability to manage my own time and my dedication.
I have my Masters degree. The diploma does not say "Online" on it, it is the same diploma someone who went after this degree on site at that college would receive. In turn, my resume says I have my masters from school XYZ and does not say 'online'. Sure, someone could look at my work history and probably line times up and then inquire - but guess what, at that point they're already talking to me and I can highlight the side of online learning that so many neglect to see.
I'm surprised at the lack of support for continuing education that many have mentioned here. My firm (Wall Street) REQUIRES annual education. If you don't do it, you get downgraded on your annual review. Nothing worse than people who let their skills ossify. Both I and my manager follow this HR directive closely. And the firm puts its money where its mouth is - it pays up to 15K per year for classes.
As to online degrees, I tend to value that much less than classroom-based schooling when I evaluate candidates. I just don't think it's as rigorous and at least a few online schools are just diploma mills. But in some circumstances (like the OP) I'd take into account the lack of local universities. Actually I'd consider it a plus. It would should initiative and hard work to have somebody complete a degree program like that while working full time. But I'd still likely quiz that person more stringently about the material compared to somebody with an Ivy / well-respected state U degree.
I graduated from UCF in Civil, but I hear their master degree programs for both Civil and Mechanical can be done online because the programs are geared towards working professionals, such as me. I plan on going back to UCF for a masters in Civil, but I also need to iron the details with my boss (and to see if the company will pay for some of the shcooling).
Good luck!
HR policy may vary from company to company and from personal experience, HR departments tend not to always understand "current times" -- instead adopting more traditional conservative methods and practices.
I recently hired an network engineer with no formal college degree, but because of the level I was bringing him into the organization, HR flatly disagreed with the candidate choice because of the lack of college degree. There's a certain amount of merit to some of this perspective -- the social growth and confidence attending college brings, but in terms of strict qualifications, the position I was hiring for did not require a degree -- just equivalent experience. We had to do a bit of battle with HR to justify the hiring of someone without the degree (but plenty of equivalent experience).
I guess my point is that your mileage may vary -- if you intend to grow within your current organization, work with HR and your manager to understand the policies (they may even pay for some of the cost!). It will help you move your career forward making informed decisions about partaking in the additional education and training you want to pursue.
I suspect the trend in the future might be to see much more of the online certifications in the job market and over time, HR departments in more traditional enterprise verticals may warm up to it...
"There *IS* no patch for stupidity" -www.sqlsecurity.com
You're kidding, right?
As a 20+ year software engineer who now does hiring and who graduated from a top notch cs school, I can tell you that this is complete rubbish. Most college graduates straight out of school know almost nothing needed to be a successful software engineer. In fact the know almost LESS than nothing because of the stupid crap they've gobbled up from their professors or TA's. Give me someone who has worked on a team successfully as an engineer, even with no college, over someone straight out of graduate school....I'd say 7 times out of 10.
You think formally educated engineers don't bring incompetence in DROVES to the front line?
Incompetence indeed....