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Completing a computer science degree on Coursera

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Re: Completing a computer science degree on Coursera

#131

Post by trinix912 »

apsurd wrote: post #35
yodsanklai wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nowadays I wouldn't recommend anyone to get a tech degree in a university unless it's a world class one. I'm in Europe where education is mostly free or inexpensive so it may be different in the US, but it sounds like terrible advice. In most fields, it will be virtually impossible to get a job without a degree, and even in tech it'll be hard. I work in a big tech company, and as far as I can tell, most SWEs do hav…

causality direction violation. is it because of the degree that people get jobs or is it because everybody tells everyone that they need a degree that they get a degree to permit themselves to apply to get the job? the productive takeaway is that of course its safer to come with a degree but it’s hardly proof that one needs the degree. Nobody is going to risk their or their kids livelihood on being the variant for th…

Depending on the country in question, SWE jobs might be quite scarce, so companies can afford to be picky about the candidates.

You have outliers in both ways (companies that don’t care and companies that will ask you about your uni grades) but the general sentiment in my (EU member) country is that you do need at least a two if not a three year degree to get a decent SWE job. Most of the time it’s explicitly listed as a requirement in job listings too.

Re: Completing a computer science degree on Coursera

#133

Post by sublimefire »

I did masters in a similar way, just to get some credentials and fill in the gaps and learn something new. There is an idealistic part to it which is quite romantic as you spend the nights learning and doing the assignments. The structure of such online based learning systems is great for a determined person. However the “other” part of such courses are cheating and ai use. It is depressing to know that the specific credentials prove little because of it. So the only valid signal is: this person did not quit and they know how to write a report, use references. You’d need to test them to fully validate the credential.

Re: Completing a computer science degree on Coursera

#134

Post by CrimsonRain »

bfung wrote: post #32

Congrats! > Group projects were also a common complaint. You were randomly assigned a group, but it was often unclear if the participants were even doing the course - many people were in completely ghost groups. I see that nothing has changed in 20 years. Even when attended the courses physically in person, group project usually had 1 or 2 people doing all the work and the rest nowhere to be found, or just hanging ou…

I still remember in a varsity project, we're a group of three. I took over the design and coding. Another guy was bad at coding, so he took over all the documentation etc. The last guy was doing db design and write some basic SQL for the CRUD.

We were supposed to integrate everything a week before submission. Project was assigned about 6 weeks before submission. The last guy kept saying he's working on it and we don't have to worry.

Then a week before submission, he has nothing to show. Didn't type one word.

I had to scramble and get it done myself. Time was not enough anymore; we got B instead of A. I was already known to get A grade in every project where teachers would give me A++ if that was a grade. The teacher of that course was so disappointed...

Since then I did all projects solo. Had to fight a little with some teachers to get that approval; esp when there were really big projects for 5/6 people group. Still did solo and got rated as best project in every single one of them.

Re: Completing a computer science degree on Coursera

#135

Post by LtWorf »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #94
alemilos wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently finishing my bachelor in CS in Rome, and have been feeling this often. I'm 24 and feel a bit lost. When I started 5 years ago I had never programmed (in my high school we studied latin for 5 years, and I don't remember a single word), and basically had to teach myself Python for an exam, delaying the others, (we had 4 exams per semester, and couldn't keep it up). Then I had the opportunity to start work…

> basically had to teach myself Python for an exam, delaying the others, (we had 4 exams per semester, and couldn't keep it up). How did this work? They actually waited for you before holding an exam?

lol. He means he just failed the other ones because he didn't manage to keep up (which is somewhat normal in italy)

Re: Completing a computer science degree on Coursera

#136

Post by LtWorf »

alemilos wrote: post #77
angarg12 wrote: post #10

I got a Bachelor, Master, and PhD in Computer Science, with a total of 11 years of education. It's the biggest waste of time of my entire life. As I progress in my professional career I'm more convinced that pretty much everything in tech is on-the-job learning, and universities are little more than a social club. Nowadays you can learn everything you do at university and far more online and for free. Universities (e…

I'm currently finishing my bachelor in CS in Rome, and have been feeling this often. I'm 24 and feel a bit lost. When I started 5 years ago I had never programmed (in my high school we studied latin for 5 years, and I don't remember a single word), and basically had to teach myself Python for an exam, delaying the others, (we had 4 exams per semester, and couldn't keep it up). Then I had the opportunity to start work…

I'd focus on security if I were you. I've seen AI's code and it's so full of holes that fixing those should be a career.

Re: Completing a computer science degree on Coursera

#137

Post by LtWorf »

austin-cheney wrote: post #28
angarg12 wrote: post #10

I got a Bachelor, Master, and PhD in Computer Science, with a total of 11 years of education. It's the biggest waste of time of my entire life. As I progress in my professional career I'm more convinced that pretty much everything in tech is on-the-job learning, and universities are little more than a social club. Nowadays you can learn everything you do at university and far more online and for free. Universities (e…

I have always recommended people get an MBA and self teach the development skills. There is a value to higher education: Bachelors - You can communicate in writing. Masters - You can plan and prepare business documents for planning and proposals Doctors - You can do research To me uneducated people can still have skills, but their utility into management becomes questionable even though education certainly does not m…

I have worked with self taught programmers and the fact that they don't know the first thing about the most basic and well known algorithms makes cooperating with them painful.

Re: Completing a computer science degree on Coursera

#138

Post by LtWorf »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #51
angarg12 wrote: post #10

I got a Bachelor, Master, and PhD in Computer Science, with a total of 11 years of education. It's the biggest waste of time of my entire life. As I progress in my professional career I'm more convinced that pretty much everything in tech is on-the-job learning, and universities are little more than a social club. Nowadays you can learn everything you do at university and far more online and for free. Universities (e…

It is true that most software development jobs don't need much CS knowledge to perform. The majority of developers simply kludge together common libraries, frameworks, and software packages without needing to understand all that much about the internals. It is also true that the software development jobs that don't need much CS knowledge to perform are the ones most vulnerable to being automated away by LLMs. If a kl…

People who don't know how computers, compilers and operating systems work make terrible code and are normally completely unable to figure out issues if they arise.

I've found bugs in compilers, in the jvm, in libc header files.

Re: Completing a computer science degree on Coursera

#139

Post by austin-cheney »

LtWorf wrote: post #137
austin-cheney wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have always recommended people get an MBA and self teach the development skills. There is a value to higher education: Bachelors - You can communicate in writing. Masters - You can plan and prepare business documents for planning and proposals Doctors - You can do research To me uneducated people can still have skills, but their utility into management becomes questionable even though education certainly does not m…

I have worked with self taught programmers and the fact that they don't know the first thing about the most basic and well known algorithms makes cooperating with them painful.

Yeah, I have never bothered with memorizing patterns myself. I always found that to be a waste of time.

Re: Completing a computer science degree on Coursera

#140

Post by stonecoldman »

theflyingpigeon wrote: post #96

I have a similar trajectory. I attended two very competitive military schools in Brazil but never finished and moved to America. Today I’m a senior software engineer at a FAANG company. The lack of diploma has never been a barrier and I progressed very quickly in the company from junior to senior (4 years). But this has always been a perceived pain point and limiter for me so I decided to get a CS degree during COVID…

So you got into one of Faang before 2020’s hype? Not surprising that you could do that without any degree. Nowadays there are so many smart guys from unis and colleges like Standord or MIT who couldn’t get into even a small company. “No degree but no problem” sounds like totally ignoring your own luck.
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