Its been my experience that a non-degree developer can crank out CRUD apps quickly whereas a developer with a CS or engineering degree will struggle with the idea of a CRUD app since its never taught in school from a modern perspective. That being said, the theory learned in school can help a developer see the bigger picture and provide them with tools for creating solid code with few performance issues while those that are self-taught or went through the boot camp will probably have to Youtube and Google their way out of trivial or ambiguous problems, such as null-pointer exceptions and data type mismatches.
Do Developers Need College Degrees?
81–90 of 198 posts
Re: Do Developers Need College Degrees?
#82We are such a weird profession. What other industry is like "Hey, you can do my job. It's easy, here are lots of extremely detailed courses, documentation and guides on how"
Well, that's because companies can't afford to be as picky right now. Once everyone "learns to code." and there is a glut, you'd better believe degrees become more valuable.
Re: Do Developers Need College Degrees?
#83I'm someone who graduated with a non-cs engineering degree (and worked professionally as an engineer) whose now in a MSCS program after trying my hand in the job market. Not for a lack of trying, but my experiences definitely relate to an uphill struggle just to get even noticed. And before anyone says "you should do x|y|z", I've done my part pretty well. A few decent sized personal projects, constant studying, meetu…
Just to share my experience:
Like you, I also didn't have a CS degree (I did take foundational CS coursework in undergrad, and also had an MS in something akin to HCI). I was hired for my first software engineering job in SF by a couple not-very-technical founders--both of whom were rather taken with a game I had designed/developed--after completing a week-long contract job for them. No CS fundamentals interview process.
After that first job, it was very easy to get interviews, although I had to prep a bit for those CS questions. I'm now interviewing for my third job, and feel like I've taken on too many interviews, many at big name startups and big corps. Among 18ish cold applications, I've only been turned down without so much as a recruiter call twice, likely because I was missing some keyword on my resume or something.
Re: Do Developers Need College Degrees?
#84I did it my way, but I wouldn't wish that path on anyone. Stay in school kids!
Re: Do Developers Need College Degrees?
#85Succeed personally: no. Some dev jobs obviously require a lot of foundational knowledge. I wouldn't want to have a colleague who didn't know linear algebra, simply because that's important in my field. That's not important for making Wordpress sites. I think there are things "every good developer should know" such as knowledge about how cpus work, how OS'es work, how some important algorithms work, some basic set the…
With everything that's available in documentation, on YouTube, in forums, and in boot camps and other trainings, doesn't it seem like there are much more efficient ways to get the foundational knowledge that don't require four years of expensive college courses?
> With everything that's available in documentation, on YouTube, in forums, and in boot camps and other trainings, doesn't it seem like there are much more efficient ways to get the foundational knowledge that don't require four years of expensive college courses?
Sure, but the risk of getting led onto an inefficient, time wasting path that doesn't give you a good grounding in the foundational knowledge is also high.
The skill to evaluate approaches to learning the information and the set of information you need to learn is not something you are likely to have without having studied the information, and there are lots of people with pet theories or financial interest in your actions trying to promote different approaches.
Re: Do Developers Need College Degrees?
#86We are such a weird profession. What other industry is like "Hey, you can do my job. It's easy, here are lots of extremely detailed courses, documentation and guides on how"
The idea of "open source" is also unique, I can't think of any other professions that have something analogous.
Cooking and music are two professions that come to mind.
Re: Do Developers Need College Degrees?
#87'a Boolean search for “degree OR bachelor OR BS OR BA OR B.S. OR B.A.” yielded 1,760 matches.'
Thus missing jobs that include "Masters" or "Phd". In certain fields, (such as compilers) jobs that require an advanced degree are quite common.
Re: Do Developers Need College Degrees?
#88Succeed personally: no. Some dev jobs obviously require a lot of foundational knowledge. I wouldn't want to have a colleague who didn't know linear algebra, simply because that's important in my field. That's not important for making Wordpress sites. I think there are things "every good developer should know" such as knowledge about how cpus work, how OS'es work, how some important algorithms work, some basic set the…
One of the much-downplayed things that degrees are more likely to indicate than personal projects is foundational knowledge. When you work exclusively on Wordpress sites, this is irrelevant. When you work on distributed systems or cryptography, then foundational knowledge gets pretty important. It is completely possible for any person to learn foundational knowledge outside of a formal instructional setting. I person…
What do you think of this curriculum? https://github.com/open-source-society/computer-science
I'd say that these days it's easier to gain all that "foundational knowledge" without attending a university.
Re: Do Developers Need College Degrees?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
With everything that's available in documentation, on YouTube, in forums, and in boot camps and other trainings, doesn't it seem like there are much more efficient ways to get the foundational knowledge that don't require four years of expensive college courses?
> With everything that's available in documentation, on YouTube, in forums, and in boot camps and other trainings, doesn't it seem like there are much more efficient ways to get the foundational knowledge that don't require four years of expensive college courses? Sure, but the risk of getting led onto an inefficient, time wasting path that doesn't give you a good grounding in the foundational knowledge is also high.…
Re: Do Developers Need College Degrees?
#90We are such a weird profession. What other industry is like "Hey, you can do my job. It's easy, here are lots of extremely detailed courses, documentation and guides on how"
The idea of "open source" is also unique, I can't think of any other professions that have something analogous.
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