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Ask HN: Should I get my degree or not?

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Re: Ask HN: Should I get my degree or not?

#21

Post by Loic »

Enjoy Norway as much as you can to get a good degree paid by your oil. Really, you should definitely get a degree because it is opening way more doors than what you can imagine. If you are so good, it means you also have time on the side to develop your ideas/projects. Enjoy it. Also, the best companies can hire the best people, if you have to compete against someone as good as you but he/she has a PhD, sorry to tell you, they will not pick you. Google is mainly hiring PhDs for example.

You are lucky to be able to get an education, lucky to be able to get it while having time and money to develop things on the side, lucky to build yourself a good network at the same time, lucky to do have all the doors open in front of you. Enjoy it now.

I created a company while getting my Master degree, then got a PhD and created a company afterwards. The network I was able to build within an insane number of companies while getting my PhD is so good that I can work for a lot of money 2 months in a year and develop my products the next 10 months without the need to worry about being ramen profitable too fast. I can do the right thing and companies are now ready to pay even more.

A degree is way more than a piece of paper or a line in your CV if you use all what is given to you. It will be an asset worth way more than money when you will try to get a job or creating your company.

Note for US citizens, in Norway education is not only free but you are paid to study.

Re: Ask HN: Should I get my degree or not?

#22

Post by fifteen3 »

If you only want to be a programmer, drop out. Anyone can learn how to program.

The unfortunate thing is that so many people believe that. As a result there is a saturation of poor programmers and weeding through the mess of poor programmers vs good/smart/intelligent/imaginative programmers is a pain in the ass.

Most people (not all) who hire, will weed out programmers who apply without a CS degree.

I am not saying a CS degree is better than 10 years experience.

I am saying you will have to deal with humans just like yourself who have their own perceptions and their own beliefs about what is or is not required to be hired.

So when you apply for that job and you don't have a CS degree or 10 years experience what do you have?

You have nothing to prove that you are the genius that you are.

Join an open source project if you are that eager to get your hands dirty.

Re: Ask HN: Should I get my degree or not?

#23

Post by hugh3 »

aldur87 wrote: post #13

You could try apply for a University Place in the US and study something more challenging, That way you could start working on the American Dream while studying.

Unlikely to be worth it, I'd say. His degree will be free in Norway, very expensive in the US.

Also OP if it makes you feel any better about the "hot California sun" thing it's cold and overcast out there today. Stick with your degree, kick all kinds of butt, and get hired by a big company, then you can transition to a startup (not many startups will hire candidates from overseas, it's too much trouble).

Re: Ask HN: Should I get my degree or not?

#24

Post by jasonlotito »

drRoflol wrote: post #9
hga wrote: post #4

Having a degree can make it easier to get a visa to work in the US, to governments credentials count, not real ability. Trying to do the degree you're doing is dangerous, as you've noted (although it does allow you to maintain your lifestyle and keep current in real software development). Is there any possibility that you can change to another major or school where you can get a real CS degree?

I'd have to move to get another option. I haven't done any real research into the whole visa-business, but I really should do that soon;) Is it not true that it's easier to get a visa if you already have a company that has agreed to let you work with them?

Get a degree. I've been in this situation (from the US to Canada), and having a degree helps. It's easy to have a company say they want you to work for them. The thing is, visa's aren't just approved because a company says they need you. They also need to demonstrate why they need "you" in particular, and why someone local can't help them. Why can't they hire an American, or a Canadian? Why are they hiring a foreigner? These are questions that need to be addressed. Having a degree goes toward helping demonstrate that.

To put it another way, I've never seen education shut doors for me. It has, however, given my opportunities I wouldn't have had otherwise.

Re: Ask HN: Should I get my degree or not?

#25

Post by lee »

You don't need to move to Silicon Valley to create a startup. You can bootstrap one right now!

You're in an ideal situation where your only obligation is to do a couple hours of school work (and still get top grades). If you do as PG suggests, and eat ramen instead of steak (or even move back in with your parents), you can forego work and focus on bootstrapping your startup.

With an incredibly low burn-rate, you'll have a very long run-way... all while getting your degree.

Should you get a degree? Absolutely... unfortunately that piece of paper can open doors for you in ways you can't foresee right now.

Re: Ask HN: Should I get my degree or not?

#27

Post by timwiseman »

rythie wrote: post #10

A degree makes it easier to get a tech. job, at some point you will care about how much you earn and having a degree will affect that. Getting a degree later in life will be much harder, I know from friends who later decided they wanted one. There is really no rush, you should realise you'll be working for the next 45ish years, so a year or two here or there doesn't make much of a difference. Part of getting a degree…

I second that. You can have a successful tech career without a degree, I have a close friend doing it now, but not having one will get you instantly excluded from many big organizations.

Also, even organizations that will happily hire programmers without a degree may balk at letting them become managers or even more senior level engineers. Even if you think right now you will never want to be a manager, it is probably a good thing to keep open. You may very well change your mind later.

If the problem with college is boredom, then perhaps I can suggest two answers which are not mutually exclusive so you can do both:

Work with your University to substitute something else for the classes you think won't teach you anything. I know it it is an institution by institution question, but my undergrad college was very accommodating at letting me substitute upper division classes for lower division ones when I balked at taking things like "intro to programming".

Take the extra time you have from finishing the homework so fast to work on other productive things. Technical certifications come to mind. I know many people mock them, but they really do open doors when you have to navigate HR departments or hiring managers that have MBAs and no technical skills. Open source software is nanother great one.

Re: Ask HN: Should I get my degree or not?

#28

Post by fuzzymech »

Get your degree! - In the US, no masters degree means no job period. Unless of course you can demonstrate your capability with top level involvement in an impressive open source project, and massive presence in the social networking sphere etc, then your hopes of coming here and diving into a cool organization are unlikely.

The competition is tough, Not to mention the immigration laws.. The US is not making foreign visa holders very welcome right now.. Unemployment is very high!

Besides the american dream is getting old, and from a startups perspective can be a somewhat overrated experience, unless your aiming to get fat, acquire diabetes, high blood pressure etc with very expensive medical cover.

Besides your young, drink beer, write cool open source software, contribute to a linux distro, learn robotics and electronics, go to conferences and perhaps meet people who can be mentors and colleagues. Learn to write, and do public speaking! Hell the world is your oyster, the US is not the only place with great beaches - try Cape Town, South Africa, after the world cup. With your skills you can be a world citizen!

And btw - exercise like your life depended on it!

Re: Ask HN: Should I get my degree or not?

#29

Post by vital101 »

nudge wrote: post #14

"Because I don't really need to work on things I sometimes forget that I have assignments to do, and that resulted in me only having one of the three exams I was supposed to this spring, because I missed two hand-ins." Danger! I got some great advice from a high school teacher once, when I was in a similar situation (questioning the usefulness of the curriculum): You only get to say it's substandard once you ace it.…

I can't stress this point enough. I know a lot of people here on HN probably felt the same way while they were in college. In my experience, college is what you make of it. I didn't feel challenged, so I took graduate level classes. When that still wasn't cutting it, I started freelancing and helped a friend start a company.

Also, if you have such ample free time, do something cool with it. Make a start-up instead of working for one. Once you're out in the "real world", it will become much harder.

Re: Ask HN: Should I get my degree or not?

#30

Post by rasmus4200 »

drRoflol wrote: post #12
mechanical_fish wrote: post #5

If your degree in CS is too easy and feels useless study something difficult. If money up front is not an issue you want a university degree. Even if considered as nothing more than a meaningless credential, university degrees pay off over time. More now than ever. But it needn't be a mere piece of paper. If your classes are teaching you things you already know take different classes . When you've studied physics up…

I can't, my university won't let me take harder courses. I've taken the hardest courses I can. And I've talked with the councilors, and they tell me to just wait till next semester - "that's when the real fun starts" - but I don't think so.

One trick I used at university was if there was a course I wanted to sit in on, I would just show up, sit in the back and listen.

Most classes are so big you can slip in there under the radar.

Dont wait or let some professor tell you can't take a course.

Get the reading material, do the assignments, and learn what you want.

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