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A CS degree is better than teaching yourself how to code?

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Re: A CS degree is better than teaching yourself how to code?

#91

Post by tanilama »

honkycat wrote: post #83

People REALLY hate college degrees on this site. I think my degree was a great decision. I've met a few decent self-taught programmers. Most are awful. Over and over again the bootcamp grads and people who have never attended school end up being the worst performers on my team. A LOT of the people I have worked with who do not have degrees have bad attitudes and are hyper-vigilant about "no degree" microaggressions.…

It is easy to see why having a degree is not popular here in this forum. It is probably acting as a hard barrier for some to get a job. Thus people don't like it.

Per my experience working in a big tech shop, most of the engineer-kind co-workers DO have a STEM degree. I don't think a CS degree is required in that sense, as long as the background is relevant. Only one of them came with no college degree, but he fits in well and decent in his work.

Hiring is difficult as always, degree is indeed a powerful indicator. When the amount of candidates is not that tight, and the hiring process is increasingly streamlined, its importance will only grow.

Re: A CS degree is better than teaching yourself how to code?

#92

Post by thethirdone »

jcims wrote: post #82
czbond wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you; I have a CS degree, and when I work with those who learned the programming mechanics (aka making code work) - are often skipped other topics that came in handy for me making other decisions. I can understand why code is slow (eg: BigO for cpu or memory), what structures and algorithms to use in different scenarios (Data Structures & algos), how things are working (Computer Architecture, Programming…

Is there any part of a CS degree that educates students on how networks operate or what a protocol looks like on a wire? Most of the new grads I work with seem to think of all of that as a black box and are completely stuck when things aren’t working.

There are certainly classes that cover networking.

IP, TCP, DNS, and HTTP were covered in classes I took.

As for actually on the wire. I haven't studied anything about how ethernet actually works. I assume its kindof like i2c, but I don't know more than that and haven't needed to.

Re: A CS degree is better than teaching yourself how to code?

#93

Post by roywiggins »

jcims wrote: post #81
rayiner wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll agree with your disagree. Other than APCS in high school, and some discrete math and number theory in college, I learned to program myself. By reading a lot I picked up most of the things on your list above. But where I really perceive my limitations from lack of formal education is where math comes into play. I get the gist of how cryptography or machine learning works, but I don’t think I’d be able to work in…

Do you think most people with a CS degree retain sufficient skills in this area to be effective? Maybe PhDs.

Exposure to the CS curriculum at least gives you a leg up in asking questions and working out the shape of your lack-of-knowledge.

Like, knowing that automata and complexity theory exists and remembering roughly how it works means that if something that needs that comes up, at least you have a sense of what you forgot about it.

For instance, having taken a database class where we worked in the relational algebra has helped me fluently write okay SQL even if I couldn't write out a sentence in the relational algebra to save my life.

Re: A CS degree is better than teaching yourself how to code?

#94

Post by roywiggins »

jcims wrote: post #82
czbond wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you; I have a CS degree, and when I work with those who learned the programming mechanics (aka making code work) - are often skipped other topics that came in handy for me making other decisions. I can understand why code is slow (eg: BigO for cpu or memory), what structures and algorithms to use in different scenarios (Data Structures & algos), how things are working (Computer Architecture, Programming…

Is there any part of a CS degree that educates students on how networks operate or what a protocol looks like on a wire? Most of the new grads I work with seem to think of all of that as a black box and are completely stuck when things aren’t working.

My undergrad had a good computer architecture class, but it didn't cover networking. That's definitely a pretty big hole in my knowledge. A networking class would absolutely have slotted in quite easily to the CS curriculum.

Re: A CS degree is better than teaching yourself how to code?

#96

Post by roywiggins »

lowercased wrote: post #9

"College degrees far outweigh teaching yourself to code (Or coding bootcamps), as they provide you more skills than simply knowing how to code." But the majority of the skills listed are not intrinsic to computers, computer science, or software at all. "There are many skills that Developers now require besides just coding. They need time management skills, organisational skills, people skills, translating skills, neg…

College was pretty awful at teaching any of those soft skills. I was good at mostly turning in Algorithms homework on time and not failing tests, so I did fine. You totally can graduate with decent grades from a good school without making much progress on soft skills.

Re: A CS degree is better than teaching yourself how to code?

#97

Post by ShadowKitten »

czbond wrote: post #45
rvz wrote: post #13

> These skills are often gained through completing an undergraduate degree. Disagree. An apprentice or even a bootcamp grad can learn these skills in their current job or in a online MOOC course without a degree. What the author fails to mention is the amount of student debt that comes with the CS degree. In some cases a CS degree isn't worth the debt if the curriculum doesn't align with the market or if the universi…

I - disagree here. My CompSci background gets me called in to deal with the hard stuff that others skip bc the theoretical parts of CS are not present. As mentioned in a further comment below - I can understand why code is slow (eg: BigO for cpu or memory), what structures and algorithms to use in different scenarios (Data Structures & algos), how things are working (Computer Architecture, Programming Languages [theo…

> I know what is happening at a network layer, OS layer, memory layer, application layer, and system layer, and code layer.

Yep. For me, the biggest reason I think a degree is necessary is because it is comprehensive. Self taught people are going to inevitably have multiple holes in their understanding. And worst of all, they will be ignorant of where those holes lie and how large they are.

Re: A CS degree is better than teaching yourself how to code?

#100

Post by ggambetta »

honkycat wrote: post #83

People REALLY hate college degrees on this site. I think my degree was a great decision. I've met a few decent self-taught programmers. Most are awful. Over and over again the bootcamp grads and people who have never attended school end up being the worst performers on my team. A LOT of the people I have worked with who do not have degrees have bad attitudes and are hyper-vigilant about "no degree" microaggressions.…

People with no degrees hate degrees. People who can't pass FAANG interviews hate FAANG interviews. It's a defense mechanism, along the lines of "I'm not a bad student, the teacher hates me".
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