Poll: What is your highest educational qualification? • Hacker News Board

Re: Poll: What is your highest educational qualification?

#41

Post by _pius » Wed, May 06, 2009, 2:47 PM UTC

erlanger wrote: post #19

falien wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a person who doesn't need a university program, then you're a person who can get an incredible amount of value out of one as well. No school gives you anything, but you can take a hell of a lot out of a halfway decent program.

Unless you'd rather be in the working world than talking homework with a bunch of rich, naive kids.

I have a bachelor's degree and, thank God, my school was (and is) committed to need-blind admissions and gives every student a financial aid package that covers 100% of their calculated need.

Without their generosity, it would have been very difficult to pay $40k/year to go there.

Re: Poll: What is your highest educational qualification?

#42

Post by metatronscube » Wed, May 06, 2009, 2:48 PM UTC

Got a B.Eng (Hons) and MSc (Distinction), the first one was a joint degree between CS and Electronic and Electrical Engineering and the last was straight up CS.

Its interesting to see the number of PhD's here. Always considered doing one but was put off when told that I had to defend my PhD 4-5 times a year and the PhD I was offered sounded very interesting but not quite my cup of tea (it was Planning in AI)

For the PhD's out there, was the experience worth while? Did you enjoy it?

Re: Poll: What is your highest educational qualification?

#43

Post by stan_rogers » Wed, May 06, 2009, 2:48 PM UTC

tjr wrote: post #35

_pius wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's little that college gives you as a developer I hear this fallacy a lot. A lot of people seem to give it a pass and nod along with it, maybe because it makes them feel better or maybe because it seems like the politically correct thing to say in a room full of talented hackers, only some of whom went to college. While you in no way need to go to college to be a developer, I think people should be highly skepti…

I have a bachelor's degree in computer science. I probably learned some topics better than I would have on my own, thanks to being forced to dig deeper for the class. But I was an avid self-studier of computer science, and I learned a whole lot on my own. For the amount of computer science knowledge I need to do my real world work so far, I'm not convinced getting the formal education made a noticeable difference. Th…

And therein lies the real advantage, I think. I may be unschooled, but I am educated. Unfortunately, it's taken me the better part of fifty years to get there. These days my own abilities are severely restricted by Lewy Body Dementia, so I spend my time and energy mentoring young folk -- and none of them will hear me say that a liberal eduction is a waste of time. (And yes -- Jelly Roll, the Cabster and even His Royal Hipness hisself are part of the program.)

Re: Poll: What is your highest educational qualification?

#44

Post by icey » Wed, May 06, 2009, 2:49 PM UTC

_pius wrote: post #17

erlanger wrote: post #7

Pst. Don't exclude people without college degrees. They're often far more resourceful, in my experience, and there's little that college gives you as a developer. Hire the person, not the school.

there's little that college gives you as a developer I hear this fallacy a lot. A lot of people seem to give it a pass and nod along with it, maybe because it makes them feel better or maybe because it seems like the politically correct thing to say in a room full of talented hackers, only some of whom went to college. While you in no way need to go to college to be a developer, I think people should be highly skepti…

I've seen really good AND really bad developers with and without degrees. It really does seem to be more the person than the training.

Successful people without college degrees tend to take a few more years to move up the development food chain, they're basically opting to do on-the-job training.

Successful people with college degrees tend to have a stronger foundation in theory, which is useful; whether or not people want to admit it.

I don't believe they have the same skill sets, but they both bring something to the table.

Disclosure: My highest level of education is High School. I dropped out of college in my second semester to go work as a programmer. Over the years, I've hired lots of developers for various companies, and worked with hundreds of developers as well - with and without degrees.

Re: Poll: What is your highest educational qualification?

#45

Post by edw519 » Wed, May 06, 2009, 2:50 PM UTC

narag wrote: post #30

edw519 wrote: post #8

1 million lines of code written and deployed into production. I'll match that against anyone's degrees (including my own).

Assigned too many times to maintainance projects, I think I've deleted as many lines as I've written.

LifetimeLOC = LOCWritten + LOCDeleted

Think about it. In order to write 300 good lines of code, you probably wrote 1,000 lines of code before refactoring. Same thing, just that someone else put in all the refactorable lines before you got there.

Re: Poll: What is your highest educational qualification?

#46

Post by rjett » Wed, May 06, 2009, 2:51 PM UTC

jaxn wrote: post #32

jaxn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't have a college degree.

Why would this get down voted?

You're not adding anything to the conversation. If you had said, "Yea I don't have a college degree and I've taught myself six different programming languages and I'm working on x, y and z right now," that would have been a (marginally) better response to the parent than what you wrote.

Re: Poll: What is your highest educational qualification?

#47

Post by papersports » Wed, May 06, 2009, 2:56 PM UTC

Other = Law (J.D.)

Re: Poll: What is your highest educational qualification?

#48

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 06, 2009, 2:58 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #25

josefresco wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is pretty clear, and the 'high school' result should show those that are currently IN college/university.

The point is that it doesn't differentiate between people who simply never finished/went to college, like me, from people who are still in college, which is an interesting data point.

[deleted]

Re: Poll: What is your highest educational qualification?

#49

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 06, 2009, 3:03 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #25

josefresco wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is pretty clear, and the 'high school' result should show those that are currently IN college/university.

The point is that it doesn't differentiate between people who simply never finished/went to college, like me, from people who are still in college, which is an interesting data point.

[deleted]

Re: Poll: What is your highest educational qualification?

#50

Post by davidw » Wed, May 06, 2009, 3:05 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #48

davidw wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that it doesn't differentiate between people who simply never finished/went to college, like me, from people who are still in college, which is an interesting data point.

[deleted]

> completed (i.e., met all requirements and passed)

That sounds 'formal' to me, in the sense of either you have a degree or you don't. I took Italian in college, and having lived here a number of years, probably speak it well enough to teach it, know the grammar well, etc... but I don't have a degree in it.

Whatever though... these things are kind of pointless. I think it's best to do what you want in life and get on with it and not worry too much about what other people do.