Ask HN: Are irrelevant degrees at all useful?

I've seen discussions on HN before on the question of "is a degree neccesary for career advancement", and given I'm happy with where I am at age 20, without a degree, I'm of the opinion that while a degree might help, it certainly isn't always a requirement.

However I would like to go to University (I left school at sixteen as I was bored and wanted to sink my teeth into something more useful), and am looking at working towards a place at Oxford starting September 2012.

Here's the thing: the subject I would really like to study is Music, rather than one of the many degrees that is actually related to where I currently work and where I hope my career will lead me (CS/Business/Marketing/etc).

Can anyone give me any thoughts on how you would feel if you were looking to hire someone in that kind of area, and they held a Music Degree from Oxford? Obviously I understand that it wouldn't be AS useful as a relevant degree, but would it at least serve as a demonstration that I'm not completely dim, that I know how to apply myself, and that I can achieve what I set out to?

Thanks, Corin

First off, I don't think the lack of a degree brands at all someone as dense or slow. Also, depending on the degree and school it's received from, the holder's persistence and/or determination can be generally deduced.

However, I would not choose to hire someone who didn't have a clue about the general area the job offer was on, regardless of what the job specifically required. I would rather try and judge her suitability from a personal interview, instead of a few lines on her resume. For technical tasks, you don't have to be a CS grad to solve them. For research and development, I'd value a formal background on CS more.

Got for it - if you have the drive to get into Oxford and through the degree then, to be honest, I suspect the exact content of the course isn't that important. (I know very successful people who did degrees at Oxford in classics).

Actually, I personally would look on someone who does a music degree rather positively as it is the kind of course that only someone who has a passion for the subject is likely to do, rather than doing something purely for the career/earning prospects.

An irrelevant degree takes some years that you could invest into a working experience, and more importantly, it delays maturity. But it can give you a valuable knowledge (of course, if you earn grades for real things, not for imitating some nonsense). This is hard to learn in everyday life.

I program in Python and earlier was a DB developer, but have an economics masters degree. The most useful thing of this degree was maths and games theory that surprisingly comes to conclusions on things like morale, honesty and dignity, and shows that they're not relative as the classic economics implies.

At most Universities you can do a double major. If you know what you want early on, this usually won't add much length to the time it takes to get your degree.

If the double major doesn't work out, consider minoring in Music. My real passion is history, so I did a major in Computer Science and a minor in History.