Ask HN: Experience vs. Education?

Lots of people will have "bat boy" syndrome...a baseball team can make it to the World Series, and the bat boy gets to go with them, but doesn't provide any value on the field. These are engineers that were associated with projects, but didn't actually do any of the work. They just happened to be in the room when it was done, but put it on their resume anyway.

That said, if you're relying on experience to open doors, I'd make sure that you can actually show people what you've accomplished. I have 5+ years experience at a very reputable and challenging company, but all the work I've done is proprietary. So people have to take me at my word,and it's difficult to convey how much you're capable of in an hour long interview.

I think education will actually open more doors more easily. Another way to look at it: You're always getting experience(there aren't many gate keepers), but getting a degree can provide you access to lots of opportunities once you have it.

People can cheat in their formal education and still get the degree. It is a little harder to cheat their way through a job.

Google, Facebook and Amazon do not require degrees and some of them rely almost exclusively on their interview process.

If you do college right (go above and beyond class work, absorb everything) you can come out with the equivalent of ten years experience in four but if you do it wrong (coast by) you can come out with negative return.

College also exposed me to a lot I wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise like operating system design, AI, physics, statistics, calculus, and compiler design.

I also got a high-profile internship through my school and THAT looked extremely good on my resume.

However, as a hiring manager I almost never consider the degree when hiring. The candidates get the same questions no matter what.

In fact, a doctorate is almost always a negative signal. I have never hired someone straight out of a doctorate. In my case they have always spectacularly fail the coding part of the interview.

In short: you get what you put in. If you can afford to spend four years with little to no pay it is an awesome experience (in my opinion). But it doesn't make or break you.

I will say as a job searcher, the degree is pretty important, especially in bad job markets. In good markets, hirers are willing to overlook education more readily than in bad markets when they can be more selective.

Finally, I understand everyones experience is different, but I absolutely loved some of the projects I was able to work on while getting my degree. They would be frequently inappropriate outside of academia so you are unlikely to get those opportunities in industry. For me, working on academic projects while I was there was nothing but fun and it largely prepared me as well for moving into industry as anything my peers were doing.