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Computer Science Degrees Aren't Returning On Investment For Coders, Research Finds (theregister.co.uk)
According to a new survey, coders with a bachelor's degree in computer science only earn 3,000 British Pounds (BP) more a year than those who don't have one. The survey of 4,700 developers in the UK was conducted by Stack Overflow, a community site frequented by developers for answers to technical questions. The Register reports the findings: This is despite the average degree now costing 9,000 BP a year in tuition fees alone. Average student debt is now more than 50,000 BP, according the Institute of Fiscal Studies. The research found that the median salary of those who did not have higher education was 35,000 BP per year, while those who gained a bachelor's degree earned 38,000 BP and postgraduates took home 42,000 BP. It found that 48 per cent of developers with less than four years of professional experience currently hold a Computer Science-related undergraduate degree, while 49 per cent had completed an online course instead. The research also found that JavaScript developers were most in demand, with almost 27 per cent of jobs advertised on Stack Overflow now requiring this skill, followed by Java (22 per cent), Python (16 per cent), C# (15 per cent) and ReactJS (9 per cent).
A degree provides an assurance of a *very low* skill level. Some people are very highly skilled at getting degrees they definitely don't deserve.
That said, the degree is not worth very much. Ideally the knowledge gained on the road to getting that degree is very valuable. Many people don't actually retain (or never acquired) this knowledge, and therefore are not getting a good return on investment.
How are a CS major and understanding big O efficiency related? A smart person will quickly grasp this concept. End of story. If you NEED a CS major to get such a simple concept, I really don't want you writing code.
You might think so, but in my experience this is simply not true. I've met many many many people who write code that purport to understand these topics (who can answer simple interview questions about this as well) but then write code that clearly indicates that they don't. CS majors with experience is the best filter I've found for understanding this topic and even that's a bit weak depending on the school. My hypothesis is that there is a certain number of iterations you need to do before you understand most topics and being self taught somehow doesn't ensure those number of repetitions. I do know however that the most efficient large pieces of code I've ever seen were all written by people with CS degrees and experience.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
Blame HR departments and anyone responsible for hiring.
They all wanted an easy way to trim the hundreds of resumes they received for a job posting down to a handful. So the first thing they did was start making it necessary for a college or university education for EVERY damn job out there. No college....resume went into the garbage.
Luckily I'm on the downward slope towards retirement because I'm very certain that within the next 10 years, you are going to see those same people in charge of hiring raise the bar to a Masters degree at minimum....again for EVERY damn job out there. Got a college degree but not a masters? Ooops...too bad...go back to school and try again.
I noticed the same thing. In the CS area, I think the mechanism is pretty clear though, all those no/wrong-degree coders are trying to make sure they are not seen as inferior (which they are, often grossly so, with a tiny number of exceptions). I run into this all the time with personnel of customers.
The really problematic thing is that you usually only understand the worth of a degree several years after you have gotten it. That allows the anti-degree people to claim that those with degree are just lying about it and do not want to admit having wasted their time. In actual reality they are simply blind because they lack that experience and they are unwilling to believe otherwise. A Dunning-Kruger type of effect is at work here. Also, as they would have to acknowledge being wrong and possibly being inferior in the relevant skill space, it is quite understandable that many are unable to come to grips with that. Hence they claim "degrees are worthless" and such things.
This is strong with self-taught coders here on /. as well. They are blind to their limits and claim these limits are irrelevant or do not exist. Do not listen to these people! Sure, a degree will not turn a dumb person into a smart person, and hence there are quite a few incompetents with degrees out there, but a lack of degree will severely limit even a smart person and that is a real problem.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.