I have a non CS related degree and am about two years in to a CS degree. I have not taken any classes in about 6 months and do not know whether I will resume doing so. So...I put non CS related degree.
Poll: Do you have a CS degree?
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Re: Poll: Do you have a CS degree?
#32With or without a degree, if you spend any time doing freelance work, make sure to incorporate and pay yourself a salary. You might try this as soon as you turn 18, or as an undergraduate.
In my experience, HR departments can use these records for salary justification down the road. With policies like: 'experience may be substituted for education on a 2:1 basis' in effect, you may find yourself paid on par with people having advanced degrees, based only on your self-employment history. Your mileage may vary.
Re: Poll: Do you have a CS degree?
#33Dropped out out of frustration with ridiculous emphasis on calculus and extremely poor algorithms teachers. I don't regret dropping out, I regret wasting a couple of years fighting that.
But almost 15 years later I now find algorithms teaching in top universities completely out of touch with reality. Hardware changed drastically in the last decade and it seems they just gave up. It's turning into a cult of big-O theory with even tournaments with problem sets specifically picked to validate the books. Don't you dare point them to real algorithms, you'll get booed in a sec. This becomes worse in places like Google or fields like AI.
It's very sad, I'd love to see somebody taking the torch and teach concepts based on reality (measuring). Like they did back in the 60s. Mainstream sucks nowadays.
Re: Poll: Do you have a CS degree?
#34In progress. Currently a junior.
Re: Poll: Do you have a CS degree?
#35My first degree was in Economics, and I graduated in an economically depressed area of the US. I quickly figured out I wanted to try my hand at development, so I went back to school the next year for a CS degree.
I really doubt I would have been granted the interviews or handful of offers I received if I didn't go back. Even with the degree my 'unusual schooling choices' were commented on by virtually everyone.
Timing/location matters quite a bit. Having been in the industry for a few years now, some of the best coders I've worked with have degrees from other tangentially-related fields.
Re: Poll: Do you have a CS degree?
#36Computer Engineering, so I clicked "Yes".
Re: Poll: Do you have a CS degree?
#37Dropped out out of frustration with ridiculous emphasis on calculus and extremely poor algorithms teachers. I don't regret dropping out, I regret wasting a couple of years fighting that. But almost 15 years later I now find algorithms teaching in top universities completely out of touch with reality. Hardware changed drastically in the last decade and it seems they just gave up. It's turning into a cult of big-O theo…
One of the reasons I dropped out was also that the people there were out of touch how things worked "in the real world". It was just the same curriculum as it had always been (minus the things that were cut to appeal to more students who otherwise couldn't cut the mustard).
I was legitimately afraid that I would waste my time on things that would largely be irrelevant outside academia in the sense that I had to factor in a couple of years to learn how you realistically work and create something of value.
Algorithms are such a goddamn exciting subject, and it's a shame when someone manages to make it boring or unintelligible. I'd love to have studied CS at a good American university, but with visa rules and the slim chances of admission to a good college, I guess I have to find my own way - even though getting a work visa is probably going to be semi-impossible.
So it goes.
Re: Poll: Do you have a CS degree?
#38Dropped out out of frustration with ridiculous emphasis on calculus and extremely poor algorithms teachers. I don't regret dropping out, I regret wasting a couple of years fighting that. But almost 15 years later I now find algorithms teaching in top universities completely out of touch with reality. Hardware changed drastically in the last decade and it seems they just gave up. It's turning into a cult of big-O theo…
One of the reasons I dropped out was also that the people there were out of touch how things worked "in the real world". It was just the same curriculum as it had always been (minus the things that were cut to appeal to more students who otherwise couldn't cut the mustard). I was legitimately afraid that I would waste my time on things that would largely be irrelevant outside academia in the sense that I had to facto…
It's worse. The joke "MongoDB is web-scale" reminds me of this growing cargo-cult full of cocky CS graduates.
Edit: thanks for the anonymous downvotes validating my point; dissent must be suppressed.
Re: Poll: Do you have a CS degree?
#39I've got an EE degree. didn't do much with cs besides the mandatory C++ class. So i picked no-cs degree.
Re: Poll: Do you have a CS degree?
#40I ignored a job advertised in the paper once because it said it required a master's in CS. I had a bachelor's in mathematics. The job was for a Unix kernel and system hacker at a company making Unix workstations. This was around 1984, when Unix internals experience was not widespread. Several months later, a headhunter sent me to interview for that job, which was still open because they hadn't been able to find anyon…
I'm pretty convinced that those phrases are there to keep people that aren't qualified from applying.
I've always ignored them and it's never been a problem.