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Ask HN: Does a formal education in CS matter?

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Ask HN: Does a formal education in CS matter?

#1

Post by jnac »

I am attempting to complete a MS in CS part-time and am struggling with the workload alongside a full time job and hobbies. The main issue is I am not sure if this is a worthwhile endeavor at this point.

I am young, and my job role is already lightly CS-related (data). I have an undergraduate minor in CS, so I have taken Data Structures, Discrete Structures, AI, etc. I don't think I want to be a SWE, I am mainly pursuing this degree for personal knowledge (to enable side projects and satisfy interest) and to make my profile more appealing to large tech companies and startups.

Is a masters worth it? Or would it be more worth it to try to build knowledge through side projects / a blog if I can trust myself to remain committed?

Re: Ask HN: Does a formal education in CS matter?

#3

Post by BergTheBold »

matt321 wrote: post #2

I knew how to code before going to the university to get a CS degree. Formal education taught me a lot more about the field than just coding. I wouldn't hire a person without a degree.

This is a pretty serious line in the sand. My company has definitely hired many people without CS degrees (myself included). What field do you work in?

Re: Ask HN: Does a formal education in CS matter?

#4

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

The answer is the same as the answer to whether you should consider purchase of an electron microscope or some other really expensive and esoteric tool. If you have something you plan to use it for, it's worthwhile; if you don't, it isn't. Education is a tool.

Employers only care about your education to the extent that it enables you to do something that they need. If you're mostly going to be a web front- or back-end developer, the skills enabled by a MSCS may not be of that much interest to them.

Re: Ask HN: Does a formal education in CS matter?

#5

Post by dyingkneepad »

I once tried to hire a guy that was basically a genius, but he didn't have any degrees. I had worked with him for 2 years at a previous company, so I had a very high confidence in his ability to perform in the team. My manager at BigCorp simply did not allow me, regardless of all my experience with him. But except for this guy, I would actually never try to hire people without CS degrees. So yeah, even if you can prove you're a genius and are at the same level or even above people with a CS degree, you may face some roadblocks.

At another company, I had worked with some programmers without computer-related degrees (most of them were Mechanical Engineers) and they were not very fun to work with, they got confused on even some basic stuff. Would not recommend. CS degree does make a difference.

If I wanted to hire someone for to do work that that is more scientific, like someone to do performance analysis and tuning, I would absolutely prefer someone with a Master's degree than someone without.

Re: Ask HN: Does a formal education in CS matter?

#7

Post by groffee »

BergTheBold wrote: post #3
matt321 wrote: post #2

I knew how to code before going to the university to get a CS degree. Formal education taught me a lot more about the field than just coding. I wouldn't hire a person without a degree.

This is a pretty serious line in the sand. My company has definitely hired many people without CS degrees (myself included). What field do you work in?

The problem when you don't have a formal education is that you don't know what you don't know. A degree is definitely worth it.

Re: Ask HN: Does a formal education in CS matter?

#10

Post by otras »

The main question is your main motivation and the tradeoffs with respect to time, energy, and money. I think it would be helpful if you could expand on your motivations a little more.

For your personal knowledge: do you find that classes enable you you to learn better? Have you tried self-teaching things or taking MOOC classes on your own? Does the structure help? What do you want to know that you don't know now (unknown unknowns notwithstanding), and how do you think classes would help?

For making your profile more appealing to companies: what kind of work do you want to do? For example, if you want to do PhD level research work, you'll probably need a PhD. For that work you're interested in, have you found your current profile is limiting you? You mention you don't want to be a SWE, so it would be interesting to hear which work you _are_ interested in.

Source: I went through the process of doing a part-time MSCS while working full time as a SWE (details at https://alexanderell.is/posts/mscs/ if you're interested) and have way too many opinions about it.

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