Look up degree hacking or get an online cs degree. I think it's worth it
Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?
151–160 of 246 posts
Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?
#152I'll share my own story and try to answer your question in that context.
I was working as an underwriting assistant at an insurance company and became interested in landing a job as a software engineer. I took a Visual Basic class in high school and a Java class in college. I dropped out of a biology degree late during my second year of college. I managed to get a job at my company's IT helpdesk, supporting a specific application on a level 2 team.
I did a 6 month coding bootcamp for node/react, which I left feeling like I had a good baseline in coding ability. While working on the IT helpdesk, I built a webapp that allowed external insurance agents to submit tickets online by integrating with our ticket system API, but I still couldn't get an interview for a dev gig. I eventually asked an internal recruiter why I was never hearing back, and they stated that they were only interested in hiring straight from our college hire program. I was pretty crushed. Out of the blue, six months after coding bootcamp ended, a project manager whom I had known in the past asked me if I'd be interested in a SQL-heavy systems analyst job. I happily took that, and while on the job, I did some internal instructor-led Java training.
While I was an analyst, I was able to start taking on some small pieces of work on a Spring Java backend. I was able to get employed as an engineer on my team after working a little over a year as an analyst.
I am currently working on finishing up a dual Comp Sci and Math degree. This is to better my long term job safety and career prospects. I am going at a pace where my entire degree will be paid for by my company, without me fronting any money. Ultimately I was able to get employed as an engineer having done a coding bootcamp without a degree, but I think that was only possible because:
- I was well networked at my company and maintained relationships over years with prior colleagues
- I had substantial domain experience, in insurance, in my company's systems, its business processes, etc
- I developed a career path that spanned multiple steps to get to engineer, with each role building on the prior
I don't think I would have been able to get employed as an engineer outside my company without some in-between steps
Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?
#153Education can never hurt.
True => "I am the only one in the company that has a degree (MSc compsci). I know stuff the others never heard of." -- RamblingCTO
Learning on the job will teach you part of what others know, and none of the rest. Learning on your own will teach you what you're interested in and none of what you hate.
I'm no shining example. My whole life has been a series of mistakes, but I've been happily unemployed 20 years as of July 7, 2025, after I quit my last job (in state government) after deciding that I'd rather die than to keep working there. I'm good at saving money, so I'm OK, and living in Ecuador now, which is nice.
The advice for decades has been to get to know people, and find work through your connections. I'd say now, looking back, as a pathologically shy person, that that sort of social engineering is probably the key, along with being helpful on the job and always appearing happy and upbeat. People really like enthusiastic people who are always cheerful, and that would be good for you if you can pile it on top of expertise, especially if it's accompanied by credentials.
Education is something that no one can ever take away from you. It's a tool you can use any way you see fit. What sort of education and how much are for you to decide. Me, I spent 10 years struggling after high school before finally getting a B.A in English.
Three years later, after deciding that I wasn't going anywhere, I started over and ultimately got a B.S. in physics and computer science with minors in math and chemistry, finishing that after 12 more years (with a big break in the middle to save up enough money to continue). And pretty much did shit work in state government for the rest of my working life.
If doing it over, I would be a LOT more aggressive and not hope that I'd get rewarded for doing good work. You have to go and grab what you need or fail boldly, I think. And you are the only one who cares how your life works out, despite what you might or might not hear from anyone else, let alone an employer.
A couple of interesting posts by David Heinemeier Hansson...
Why we won't hire a junior with five years of experience. (April 8, 2025) https://world.hey.com/dhh/why-we-won-t-hire-a-junior-with-fi...
We'll always need junior programmers. (April 24, 2025) https://world.hey.com/dhh/we-ll-always-need-junior-programme...
Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?
#154There's a story that goes: A man was tasked with hiring an employee. He got hundreds of resumes. His friend looks at the stack and asks him "how are you going to decide among all those?" The man grabs half the stack, throws it in the garbage and says "Simple, I don't hire unlucky people". Degrees matter when employers don't have the time and/or ability to make a reasonable decision for every candidate. They need ways…
WGU course content is a complete joke- I would look negatively on that if I saw it
Could you elaborate? I'm curious in which ways their course may be lacking.
Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?
#155I was self taught for 10 years in the field and found a program that offers a Master's degree with work experience accounting for the undergrad. I didn't take calculus or stats in my undergrad and that has caused some headaches in completing the degree, but the amount of stuff I was exposed to in such a short period of time was incredible.
Very quickly into the program I was stuck by just how unethical it was for me, with no experience and certification to make guarantees and promises to an employer who didn't know better. In most fields the knowledge worker could be held liable for making this kind of "contract" (think lawyers, electricians, doctors, etc.).
You can be driven and motivated. You might have learned a ton on your own. You cannot know what you don't know. People in these comments will trip over each other to explain that education is subjective and you won't use any of that stuff in the real world. They have stories about wasted classes and dusty academics. The reality is much more boring.
* Lectures are very effective ways of provide a curated bit of information.
* Structured practice and verification (homework and grades) are quick ways to ensure that the start of learning has occurred.
* Working with your peers will likely expose strengths and weaknesses in your existing understanding of the subject matter. This often helps everyone involved.
* Reading academic publications and textbooks helps to standardize the shared understanding of the subject and ensures that future efforts to expand the field or solve hard problems are more effective.
You said in your post that you're not sure where to go with your career and your opportunities aren't evident to you --- go to school and give yourself some deeper knowledge. It'll help you figure out how to navigate the field.
Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?
#156I'll say yes. I am the only one in the company that has a degree (MSc compsci). I know stuff the others never heard of. Your exposure to obscure things in uni are really worth the time for deeper topics. I focused on machine learning and had classes like operations research, non-linear optimization or complexity theory & approximation algorithms and I kid you not, I could make use of these things quite a lot to find…
That's something I found more and more as I get into my career
Stuff like programming languages, frameworks, tools all come and go throughout your career
Whereas the core concepts/theory you learn in a CS degree don't change from job to job
When I was in undergrad I wished we did more practical hands on work, but now later in my career I'm glad we didn't because its easy to self learn that stuff and it goes out of date anyway
Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?
#157As someone who has interviewed candidates for a FANG company in the distant past I can't say that degrees matter, but I can say that people I interviewed with degrees generally did better. There's a hidden bias in that this is only people who got through recruiters and recruiters are their own filter. Strong referrals usually guaranteed a phone screens. I think previous experience at a major competitor in the same ti…
That's funny, one of the best programmers I've ever know had a physics degree
I think those type of people just have really good analytical thinking
Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?
#158In the AAA games industry, a portfolio speaks much louder than a degree. Junior software engineers with five simple, well-coded games (such as Asteroids, Lunar Lander, etc) on GitHub stand head and shoulders above people fresh out of university without a portfolio in the recruitment process. Senior software engineers with experience developing large AAA titles are in much higher demand than those with a PhD in game s…
Speaking as someone in the games industry, I disagree with your take on portfolios. For reference, when I graduated college back in 2015 I had a portfolio of games, a successful and reasonably popular game mod and a bunch of relevant classwork. None of that even mildly got my foot in the door at any gaming companies, big or small or otherwise. Also of note, many software companies force you to sign an assignment of i…
The thing is, as much as portfolio is important, experience is still more important
Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?
#159You can get a job in times of plenty without a BS CS degree. I have many times. But, getting a job at a highly sought after company is quite difficult.
In lean times, every job is difficult to land and the coveted are ~impossible. Even getting to a phone screen.
Going back, I’d get the full BS degree. Even though they were teaching Fortran at the time.
Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Georgia Tech's Online Master of Science in Computer Science (GA Tech OMSCS) is really good about letting you go as fast or as slow as you want. If you are sufficiently motivated (and life circumstances permitting, granted), it's very doable as a nights and weekends type of thing.
I did it over 5 years and it would consume all my free time during crunch periods. Definitely make sure your family is supportive - it’s like having a second part time job with occasional overtime. Having said that - I believe many companies view OMSCS as a strong signal. It’s a difficult degree with high drop out rate.
How is the privacy on that? Have an aversion to being watched on camera, etc.