While you are in your prime "coding years", it doesn't matter. The problem with dropping out won't hit you until you hit the middle age inflection point: Go into management or career change or jump to a start up. Your competition that started with a B.S. at the same age or even a few years later probably didn't stand still and now have Master's degrees or MBAs. That's what you'd be up against. With the slow job market, not only are many 20-somethings hanging out in graduate school but many (if not most) immigrants enter the market with offshore B.S. and U.S. Master degrees. So, my advice to drop-outs is: Build your experience and bankroll for a couple of years then settle into a job where you can finish your degree part-time. Then, when you hit the middle-age transition, you can go for the 2-year MBA to stay competitive.
Dropping out - how does it affect you later in life?
31–40 of 80 posts
Re: Dropping out - how does it affect you later in life?
#32I can't tell you whether staying in school right now is a good idea for you or not, but maybe my story will give you an interesting case study. I went to Columbia straight out of high school in 1994. My birthday is in October so when i started i was 17. In my first year i had to take a lot of required courses that i wasn't that interested in and my grades were not very good. My dad liked to complain to me about the cost of my school and although he never bothered me about my low scores, i felt pretty bad about it. Meanwhile, i met this guy while i was in high school and his father was ceo of an old software company in new York so he got me a job there for the summer, and i continued working part time while in university as well. I was testing a windows app that was written by a team of 10 developers. My performance at work was much better than at school, so I found it more rewarding. As it turns out, the automated testing software we were using was a hot technology and someone told me i could get a consulting gig at ge capital if i dropped out. So i made the decision to do that after completing only 3 semesters. My mother was pretty upset , but my father didn't really mind too much. Unfortunately, that consulting gig was canceled pretty soon after i started but i had made some contacts and i got a real programming job at a different ge company. This was 1995 and i was 19. I continued contract software development at a bunch of big and small companies for the next few years with few issues about having dropped out. In 2000 i left a secure contract at Goldman Sachs to try a startup on my own. When that didn't work out, it was the depth of the NYC job market downturn in 2001 and it took me 4 or 5 months to find a job. Having been a contractor and business owner i was not eligible for unemployment. I don't know if having a degree during that time would have helped me get a job faster, but i did hear about it from recruiters and think about it a lot during that time. My next job turned out to be with good people so i switched to full time and they paid for me to go back to school at night and i got a degree from the CUNY ba program in 2005. I haven't been out of work since then but mostly that's because i lucked out being at a mortgage company that failed right at the begining of the crisis in 07 and my next shop has been very successful in weathering the downturn.
I see a lot of comments here about how if you know what you're doing and you're a good software engineer then you will always have an easy time finding work. This is just not true. When supply of software engineers outstrips demand in the market where you are looking for work it becomes difficult to get a job. It is during these times that you may have trouble since you don't have a degree. Also, if you get to a point where you want to advance beyond software development into a business side or management role, you may have trouble based on your lack of credentials.
The other point to understand that is directly related to your question is that as you get older you demand a higher salary. This makes it harder to get work. There are fewer jobs for people at the higher salary levels so again, your credentials may come into play more when you're 10 - 15 years in, seeking new work and asking to be paid significantly more than someone with 5 years experience.
Re: Dropping out - how does it affect you later in life?
#33You typically don't notice the advantages/disadvantages of having a degree from a good college. It's very silent, much like racial privilege. Very few jobs will openly reject you for not having a degree, but if you have a degree from a good school people recommend you more, and tend to assume you're smarter. They're more likely to value your opinion, more likely to brag about having you on their team. A lot of companies, even on the West Coast, will automatically grant you an interview for having a degree from a good school, or automatically deny you an interview for not having a degree. You gain access to a massive network-eg, if you contact someone from your same school, odds are high that they will take time out to talk to you. And so on.
This is probably less relevant for programming than it is for other professions, but in my observations it's a huge difference.
Re: Dropping out - how does it affect you later in life?
#34A company advertises a job. They'll list some criteria in the advert. They'll have a minimum wage secretary opening all the applications, and any that don't meet the minimum requirements go straight into the "reject" pile. Unless you have a name of someone else inside the company to get over that initial hurdle.
Re: Dropping out - how does it affect you later in life?
#35If you're an engineer, and you drop out and you work for 4-6 years, nobody is ever going to care, or probably know, that you don't have a degree. My personal experience was that I got a hell of a good job when looking for a summer job, and I just kept at it. I'm in my 40s now, and in my career, not having a degree has NEVER been the slightest problem. I was in such demand that I started limiting how many interviews I…
"I think its wrong of people who do discriminate against those who don't have a degree-- engineering is about having the skills and the mind." there are certain areas of software engineering where a real understanding of the subject takes years of focused study. for example, understanding encryption requires graduate level math courses to even read some of the standards produced or understand how the algorithms work.…
> there are certain areas of software engineering where a real understanding of the subject takes years of focused study. for example, understanding encryption requires graduate level math courses to even read some of the standards produced or understand how the algorithms work. i have never seen this happen outside of school simply due to the time restrictions of having a job preventing the full-time study necessary to reach that level of mathematical sophistication
I agree with you. But there are some places where that study can happen without a degree.
Clifford Cocks, for example, was recruited by GCHQ before he finished his degree. I accept this is an edge case example.
Re: Dropping out - how does it affect you later in life?
#36A big thing that no one has mentioned: if you ever want to work in a field outside of tech, you'll probably need a degree. I don't know about your personal situation, but I sure as hell didn't know how I wanted to spend the rest of my work life doing at 18 (and I still don't 4 years later.)
Not going to college would have only stunted my growth and left me staring down the same potential paths. College forces you to be exposed to the world in ways that a typical job can't.
The question shouldn't be: to go or not to go to college? It should be "when?". Taking a year off to travel or volunteer is an excellent idea; going to work for some random startup isn't.
EDIT: some more thoughts:
- programming as we know it today may not exist in 20 years. The 100k+ salaries and limitless job openings won't last forever, and you may be stuck with nothing but work experience in a field that's changed significantly.
- college isn't that difficult. I'm not sure what schools you can get into (or are planning on getting into) but unless it's Stanford, MIT, or Ivy League (or other top 20 schools), you'll probably be able to build a startup on the side. If you can get into a top 20 school, go, no questions asked. A little startup isn't worth screwing up that experience.
Re: Dropping out - how does it affect you later in life?
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
People who skip college start out financially ahead of those who get a degree-- they spend 4 years getting work experience and hopefully saving that money. One of the major things about compounding is that the more you save early on, the bigger the impact than saving the same amount later. So, you avoid-- what $200k?-- in college tuition cost and instead earn something like $200k over those four years, and if you're…
If you don't have a college degree, it's highly unlikely that you will get into a reputed company, assuming any company is willing to hire you. This means lower experience and probably lower pay as well. So this means you will spend about 4 years not working to your maximum potential. A person who graduates will easily catch up 6-8 years after graduating. There are, of course, exceptions to the scenario described abo…
Let me guess, you're in college?
>If you don't have a college degree, it's highly unlikely that you will get into a reputed company, assuming any company is willing to hire you.
That's just silly. I have worked for Microsoft and Amazon, and HP and lots of other reputable companies. Google was pursuing me like crazy for months until I finally told them in no uncertain terms that I had no interest in working there.
>So this means you will spend about 4 years not working to your maximum potential.
The first year or you're not at your maximum potential, but by the second you are and those capabilities grow by the third and fourth... meanwhile, college graduates are just having their first year in college being babied because they don't know how to be professional yet-- and you're the one managing them.
>usually I think what's described by me is most likely to happen.
It isn't, but there's a huge industry in college- and their tuitions are growing several times faster than inflation, and that industry is wholly dependent on people believing they have value, even while they hollow out their curriculum in order to support football and to keep a cadre of professors in the liberal arts employed.
Hey, you go to MIT or CalTech, I'll respect that. You got to Podunk U, and I won't be prejudiced against you (The way you are prejudiced against those who didn't)... but someone who spent those four years building a startup, is going to have a leg up!
Re: Dropping out - how does it affect you later in life?
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you don't have a college degree, it's highly unlikely that you will get into a reputed company, assuming any company is willing to hire you. This means lower experience and probably lower pay as well. So this means you will spend about 4 years not working to your maximum potential. A person who graduates will easily catch up 6-8 years after graduating. There are, of course, exceptions to the scenario described abo…
Let me guess, you're in college? >If you don't have a college degree, it's highly unlikely that you will get into a reputed company, assuming any company is willing to hire you. That's just silly. I have worked for Microsoft and Amazon, and HP and lots of other reputable companies. Google was pursuing me like crazy for months until I finally told them in no uncertain terms that I had no interest in working there. >So…
Let's be honest now: if Google was pursuing your for months, and you've worked for Microsoft and Amazon, you aren't the average college student. Most people can't get a job for 50k+ out of school.
And that's not even mentioning the fact that this is limited to consumer tech companies.
Re: Dropping out - how does it affect you later in life?
#39A big thing that no one has mentioned: if you ever want to work in a field outside of tech, you'll probably need a degree. I don't know about your personal situation, but I sure as hell didn't know how I wanted to spend the rest of my work life doing at 18 (and I still don't 4 years later.) Not going to college would have only stunted my growth and left me staring down the same potential paths. College forces you to…
>you'll probably need a degree
You may be right, but I see the phrase above as code for "college graduates discriminate against people without degrees". Notice you didn't say "You'll need the skills a degree gives you". The reality is, you can get skills in a variety of ways. Most people who switch careers don't do thinks they have no skills in, they find a better use for the skills they do have.
I don't see how college forces you to be exposed to the world, as in college you're just continuing the insular educational perspective of high school. Sure, its a little broader, but its still the ivory tower perspective. Going out and getting a job and being responsible for your monthly rent is the splash of cold water.... and also exposes you to all kinds of people you won't meet on a college campus full of students and professors.
I agree with you on the year off to travel, but working for a random startup for that year would be hugely rewarding as well.
>programming as we know it today may not exist in 20 years.
If the way we know it today it doesn't exist in 20 years then you'll be no worse off than the college graduate who now has a useless degree and 16 years of experience.
>A little startup isn't worth screwing up that experience.
Until you've started a business, you don't really know what business is really like. A "little startup" is the experience, if you want to be an entrepreneur. Doing on one the side in college is fine if you want to have it go both ways.
Its only the first job out of college where they care about your grades.
Re: Dropping out - how does it affect you later in life?
#40Possibly I'm an old fart about this (though I'm not really that old) but I'd discourage anyone from dropping out absent remarkable circumstances.
Here's the thing:
Personally, as an employer, hiring manager and co-worker not having a degree in and of itself doesn't mean a whole lot to me. Specifically, I've hired people with professional-level jobs--the kind you usually "need" a degree for--with little regard for whether or not they have a degree. Sometimes I've hired (or promoted or given a raise to, or, for that matter, laid off) the person with a degree. Sometimes I've hired/promoted/fired the one without a degree.
But here's what I've seen:
If you're _very_ successful, it doesn't matter at all. But you need a truly remarkable accomplishment to reach that state. Otherwise it _will_ hurt you, at least with _some_ people, at least _some_ of the time.
In particular, it will hurt you with:
- HR departments when they are deciding whether or not you meet the base requirements of the position, or what pay you should receive.
- You direct managers as they fight with HR about things like requirements and pay (or if they choose to fight for these things) at both hiring-time and promotion or annual-review time.
- Supervisors and middle/upper management as they consider which employees are likely retention/flight risks, and which are not. (and therefore which are likely to get perks as an incentive for staying and which are not-likely to get those perks, because they at least a little more "trapped" in their position).
I have seen all three of these things happen more than once. I've seen really good and smart and (largely) productive people get shafted over the long haul: not because of any one major decision that didn't go their way but because of a series of little ones over a period of years--decisions where they were disadvantaged, however slightly, but not having a degree. These issues come up for at least the first 15-20 years of one's career, in my experience.
Having a degree, if nothing else, demonstrates a certain amount of "stick-to-it-iveness". I'd guess that most people forced to make a a hiring or investment decision would at least pause to consider why candidate dwong didn't complete a degree program.
Unless (a) the thing you dropped out to do is pretty obvious and (b) in retrospect that was pretty obviously a smart decision,or (c) you've done something in the interim that overwhelms these other questions then many people when faced with hiring/investment decisions are going to at least pause and consider whether you have sufficient drive/commitment/ability to overcome obstacles over the long haul.
You may be more or less likely to run into people that care about the degree in some fields, but you'll run into a least some of them in every field. You may be able to accomplish something remarkable enough that no one cares about the degree question at all, but "I founded this web-based start-up. We did OK." isn't remarkable enough. You may be able to build a career for yourself (as an employee or an entrepreneur) where the opinions of the people that care don't matter, but bear in mind that until you reach of point of literally independent wealth everyone has a "customer" of some kind that they'll need to keep happy--a boss, an investor, a board, a patron, a client, etc.
I'd think really hard about whether the thing you are dropping out of a degree program for is truly worth it. It's not the end of the world. It doesn't even really close any doors for you. But it does make some doors a littler harder to open (and some a lot harder to open). Is doing your alternative to college right now and possibly limiting your options for the next 10-20 years worth more to you than delaying your alternative for a year or two and finishing school first? That's not a rhetorical question--I honestly don't know what the answer is for you. But I don't believe the people who say it simply doesn't matter at all. There really are some negative repercussions of that decision (just as there are negative repercussions to the decision to stay in school as well). You just need to figure out if the good outweighs the bad.
I'd also think really hard about whether "dropping out" and "not dropping out" are the only two options. Can you take a sabbatical/leave-of-absence/year-off/semester-abroad? Can you moonlight on whatever you'd otherwise be doing? Can you do school part-time? Switch to a different school? Switch programs? Find a program more in line with you passions? Go all-in and finish school faster?
(There is also value in the college experience and liberal arts education, but I'll leave that argument for another day.)
As practical matter, it really is _generally_ a bad idea to simply drop out entirely. If you were my friend or my kid, I'd strongly encourage you to demonstrate problem solving skills and find a way--however non-traditional that way might be--to make it work instead.