This has been the biggest question I have faced in my life.
Is a university Degree really worth the money?
I mean what do you get out of it? Is it going to help me in the real world?
Well i have some partial answers that you might agree or disagree with.
I think ill start out with non-educated people vs educated people.
Now, If your a CS Student or CE student, and you walk into a job interview with ONLY your CS/CE Degree, the chances of you getting that job are 0.
Now if you were a non-educated programmer, who walks into the job with a portfolio with 6-7 projects in it...Yea your going to get the job.
Limitations of the walk-in, with projects is that he/she is going to lack the theoretical background to understand the "big" picture.
I always liked to think the educated people are Big Picture thinkers. They have the ability to understand and relate to where everything fits in.
The Educated person has the upper hand in the long-run, as they will be able to adapt to new changes in the CS environment. Not to say the un-educated person will not.
Basically it comes down to 1 thing in the real world.
EXPERIENCE
If you come out of a degree program with 0 experience, nothing in your portfolio...hell ya you are going to have a difficult time getting a job.
So for all of you reading this taht are currently sitting on your butt, and do not have side-projects, i highly suggest that you get off your butt and find some work.
Webpages, basic databases...anything like that.
You would be suprised how local businesses, actually run their business. There are a lot of good opportunities for students to come into a business setting and pitch better ideas for data-organization.
I have worked with several companies re-organizing different aspects of their business for a reasonable price:)
This type of work is invaluable, especially when it comes to getting your first job out of university.
So does the degree reallllllllly help you get a job? No.
Unless you have experience using your degree-IE Portofilio...Then you are most likely not going to score your dream job.
However the degree does give you all of the knowledge to understand and design code with more structure.
For example, most of you will take 2-3 courses in data structures...Binary Trees, Heaps, Queues, Stacks...stuff like that...
You are also taught when to use those structures.
However an uneducated person most likely will not have formal training in datastructures...so that they might find other ways of doing things in a more complex way that takes longer time.
I am only in 2nd year, but i can still tell successful CS students from non-successful ones. Most of you can probably relate. Educated people ask different types of questions than un-educated.
This is the difference...The CS or CE Degree that your doing now, is providing you another level of knowledge. This is why you are doing your degree, because you are not satisfied with the teacher just telling how it is, you seek true and full understanding of the whatever concept. By knowing everything there is to know about something...if another technology comes out based upon that concept then it is easy to understand.
The CS/CE Degree is all about the future...By having this degree it is ensuring that you will be apart of the computer community for a long time to come as the basics of computing have not changed alot.
its still only 10's,
just as the good saying goes...
There are only 10 types of people in this world. Ones that understand that and ones that dont;)
Glenn Eggleton
Slashdot Mirror
This has been the biggest question I have faced in my life. Is a university Degree really worth the money? I mean what do you get out of it? Is it going to help me in the real world? Well i have some partial answers that you might agree or disagree with. I think ill start out with non-educated people vs educated people. Now, If your a CS Student or CE student, and you walk into a job interview with ONLY your CS/CE Degree, the chances of you getting that job are 0. Now if you were a non-educated programmer, who walks into the job with a portfolio with 6-7 projects in it...Yea your going to get the job. Limitations of the walk-in, with projects is that he/she is going to lack the theoretical background to understand the "big" picture. I always liked to think the educated people are Big Picture thinkers. They have the ability to understand and relate to where everything fits in. The Educated person has the upper hand in the long-run, as they will be able to adapt to new changes in the CS environment. Not to say the un-educated person will not. Basically it comes down to 1 thing in the real world. EXPERIENCE If you come out of a degree program with 0 experience, nothing in your portfolio...hell ya you are going to have a difficult time getting a job. So for all of you reading this taht are currently sitting on your butt, and do not have side-projects, i highly suggest that you get off your butt and find some work. Webpages, basic databases...anything like that. You would be suprised how local businesses, actually run their business. There are a lot of good opportunities for students to come into a business setting and pitch better ideas for data-organization. I have worked with several companies re-organizing different aspects of their business for a reasonable price :)
This type of work is invaluable, especially when it comes to getting your first job out of university.
So does the degree reallllllllly help you get a job? No.
Unless you have experience using your degree-IE Portofilio...Then you are most likely not going to score your dream job.
However the degree does give you all of the knowledge to understand and design code with more structure.
For example, most of you will take 2-3 courses in data structures...Binary Trees, Heaps, Queues, Stacks...stuff like that...
You are also taught when to use those structures.
However an uneducated person most likely will not have formal training in datastructures...so that they might find other ways of doing things in a more complex way that takes longer time.
I am only in 2nd year, but i can still tell successful CS students from non-successful ones. Most of you can probably relate. Educated people ask different types of questions than un-educated.
This is the difference...The CS or CE Degree that your doing now, is providing you another level of knowledge. This is why you are doing your degree, because you are not satisfied with the teacher just telling how it is, you seek true and full understanding of the whatever concept. By knowing everything there is to know about something...if another technology comes out based upon that concept then it is easy to understand.
The CS/CE Degree is all about the future...By having this degree it is ensuring that you will be apart of the computer community for a long time to come as the basics of computing have not changed alot.
its still only 10's,
just as the good saying goes...
There are only 10 types of people in this world. Ones that understand that and ones that dont ;)
Glenn Eggleton