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Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

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Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#31
post #20

I think you should ask yourself two related but separate questions: 1. Will the CS degree increase your knowledge and problem-solving ability faster than you could without it? 2. Will the credential add substantially to your credibility for hiring managers? The answer to 1 is mostly about your level of self-discipline and ability to learn independently. If you need the stimulus of a structured environment and a peer…

1. no. My CS fundamentals could always use work, but I know enough to know how to improve them on my own if and when I need to. 2. yes. this could just be my cynicism talking though. I'm not looking at any unaccredited program. I already have one of those under my belt.

Your answer to 1 troubles me. A CS degree program greatly expands your toolbox BEFORE you need those tools. The problem I have with "when I need to" is how do you know now is the time? It's a chicken-and-egg thing. If an employer hears "I'll go learn that and get back to you" too often, you will not work there for long.

For 2, fair enough. What school will give you a BS degree for <15K?

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#32

I have a CS and Business Management degree. What got me hired was my knowledge and experience, and I worked with coworkers without degrees. You have to prove that you can do the job. Then again, I've seen $15/hr jobs that require a Master's in CS. That management is crazy.

What was the role? What region was this in? Outside of a PhD student or something similar, I can't imagine this would be in the US, Canada, most of Europe.

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#33

As someone who has interviewed candidates for a FANG company in the distant past I can't say that degrees matter, but I can say that people I interviewed with degrees generally did better. There's a hidden bias in that this is only people who got through recruiters and recruiters are their own filter. Strong referrals usually guaranteed a phone screens. I think previous experience at a major competitor in the same ti…

I understand the concept of "liberal education". Perhaps if I lived in a country that values having an educated populous, I would go that route. The truth of the matter is that I am a 41 year old adult in the USA. It's not in the cards for me.

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#34
In the AAA games industry, a portfolio speaks much louder than a degree. Junior software engineers with five simple, well-coded games (such as Asteroids, Lunar Lander, etc) on GitHub stand head and shoulders above people fresh out of university without a portfolio in the recruitment process. Senior software engineers with experience developing large AAA titles are in much higher demand than those with a PhD in game systems, such as AI or networking, which is practically non-competitive. So I'd say the degree doesn't matter, at least in this corner of software engineering.

I entered the gaming industry a long time ago as a software engineer without a computer science degree. Later, I thought I'd get one online, just as you are considering. It was reasonably cheap compared to my income, and I thought I had the extra hours for an evening online course. But I found it to be very demoralizing. I'd be micro-optimizing containers in AAA game engines, shaving microseconds off operations by reducing CPU cache misses on target consoles in the morning, and earning a 60% grade on my JavaScript game in the afternoon, because I didn't follow the method shown in class. I also did poorly in CS math, especially with formal proofs, which were a lot of fun for math enthusiasts but grating for me, being an expert in game math and graphics math at the time. When my fourth semester rolled around, I found only one or two modules to be somewhat useful, while others, such as HTML web design, had no bearing on my profession. I dropped out about halfway through my degree, leaving me with a lot of money spent but nothing to show for it. I could have forced myself through it, but it would have been on pure discipline (which is easier for some than it is for me!)

My advice is: don't get a CS degree because it's doable. Get it if you need it for something, like if you wish to enter a specific industry that requires a meaningful academic experience, such as research. Your degree will then serve a purpose. Otherwise, you might feel like you're not getting much out of it, and it won't be easy to justify carrying through. Especially if you're already performing at a level significantly higher than what a degree puts you on. Or maybe the purpose a degree could serve for you is fun - perhaps the academics would be rewarding for you in a way that doesn't have to flow into your work, or you get networking opportunities that a good uni/college affords. But my view is: it's a significant commitment, so there has to be a meaningful, clear reason to do it. Otherwise, it will be all cost and no return.

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#35

Having made this decision myself here is my direct experience over the last 6 months being an out of work tech worker like you, no degree at all, that also lives on the US West Coast. Most places require a comp sci degree regardless of how good you are. It's rude to say that but I've found this to be true. I've also now realized that someone with a comp sci degree saying you don't need one, well they don't know what…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#36
post #26

At almost 45 i barely have 3 years of experience, because of mental health issues. I failed to get back a degree for the same reason. Also in France, once you're above 25, you can't go back to university, you need to do classes for adults, which are lower quality and delivered by the labor department. Most of those classes are for people who never wrote code. I tried to sign up some paperwork to get a degree equivale…

Is that actually true that you cannot to university after 25 in France? You could do Open University from the UK online; I think it is quite a credible program. It's open to almost anyone in the world as far as I know. If you are diligent, you can probably finish in 3 years even with a full-time job, but this depends on the person.

https://www.open.ac.uk/courses/computing-it/degrees

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#37
post #26

At almost 45 i barely have 3 years of experience, because of mental health issues. I failed to get back a degree for the same reason. Also in France, once you're above 25, you can't go back to university, you need to do classes for adults, which are lower quality and delivered by the labor department. Most of those classes are for people who never wrote code. I tried to sign up some paperwork to get a degree equivale…

Sounds like a difficult state to be in, perhaps you can consider one of the online programs offered by US universities like OMSCS by Georgia tech, or OMSC by UT austin, there are several others like that. They offer same curriculum as the in-house program but with online delivery and are flexible for working professionals

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#38
post #26

At almost 45 i barely have 3 years of experience, because of mental health issues. I failed to get back a degree for the same reason. Also in France, once you're above 25, you can't go back to university, you need to do classes for adults, which are lower quality and delivered by the labor department. Most of those classes are for people who never wrote code. I tried to sign up some paperwork to get a degree equivale…

Well, I'm 41, and have about the same amount of experience, so you're not alone. In the USA, the main barrier for education is whether you can afford it, or don't mind being strapped with massive debt.

It's not a great time for us, but freelancing has been a lifesaver. Have you tried getting on a freelancing platform? It's probably easier to get work as a C++ developer than have to compete with the thousands of Wordpress devs.

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#39
post #20

I think you should ask yourself two related but separate questions: 1. Will the CS degree increase your knowledge and problem-solving ability faster than you could without it? 2. Will the credential add substantially to your credibility for hiring managers? The answer to 1 is mostly about your level of self-discipline and ability to learn independently. If you need the stimulus of a structured environment and a peer…

1. no. My CS fundamentals could always use work, but I know enough to know how to improve them on my own if and when I need to. 2. yes. this could just be my cynicism talking though. I'm not looking at any unaccredited program. I already have one of those under my belt.

There are things you know, things you don't know, and things you don't know you don't know.

College is pretty good about the last category, but really if you went through syllabi, scanned through lecture notes, and paged through the reading materials listed, you're probably ahead of most students in that category.

That exercise alone will probably give you a good idea of the technical value of the education.

I would add that words don't have objective complete meanings. Words are indirect references to ideas and ideas are like raw marble in your head, carved into meaningful shapes by working with and manipulating those ideas.

If you bring out a word like "consistency", college is very much about shaping the idea behind that word into increasingly more crisp and formal meanings, especially meanings that can then interact with ideas behind other words like "atomicity" or "scale".

Re: Ask HN: CS degrees, do they matter again?

#40

As someone who has interviewed candidates for a FANG company in the distant past I can't say that degrees matter, but I can say that people I interviewed with degrees generally did better. There's a hidden bias in that this is only people who got through recruiters and recruiters are their own filter. Strong referrals usually guaranteed a phone screens. I think previous experience at a major competitor in the same ti…

> Many of the best co-workers that I remember had physics degrees. In fact, it was so pronounced I personally consider a physics degree to be a top tier signal of programming ability, but that's my own personal prejudice.

You're basically just using it as a proxy for general intelligence, the _average_ physics major's IQ is around 130.

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