Ask HN: Do I need a degree?

I'm 22 years of age, and live in New Zealand. I left school at quite a young age to pursue a career, and I now work as systems engineer for a successful technology start-up (~100 employees) where my team is responsible for scaling the platform as the company grows.

I had never considered getting a degree until about a year or so ago, when a family friend who works in senior management for a large hydro-power company told me it would be invaluable later on in my career, he described it as a 'ticket'. Since then I've been working towards a BSc in CompSci part time at a local university. It will take me another 6 years to complete.

I think I would be better of learning in a self directed way as I have up until recently. I used to spend my evenings exploring whatever seemed interesting at the time, and I attribute a lot of my success to this. Now when I get home from work I have to study, and by the time I'm done I have no energy left for self-directed study.

I've been considering withdrawing from the bachelors program, however I'm worried there's something I'm going to be missing by not having a degree. I'm particularly interested in start-ups, and would love to work in the bay area, or a similar environment at some point. That said, I'd also really like to work on my own business ideas, and think that my evenings would probably be better spent pursuing things I'm interested in rather than slogging away for a piece of paper.

Ultimately I'm concerned that if I don't get a degree I'm going to need it one day. Perhaps to get a MBA, or work in the US (visa requirement), or something else that I haven't thought of.

So HN, how important is a degree?

I don't know if there's a good answer for this. Or rather, there are many good answers, but they depend on your personality, field of interest, motivation, etc. Personally I'm not a big fan of school because I'm really motivated to learn on my own, and in school I have to redo a lot of stuff I've done several years ago. A lot of people I've met in school don't learn anything that isn't presented to them in class, so it's a valuable resource for them. Ideally, that divide would answer the question for you (shouldn't it be enough to just show you know what you need to know?), but the world isn't ideal.

I live in the US already, so this might not be as easy for you, but my impression is that as a programmer with good jobs and a portfolio (GitHub), I could probably get a job in silicon valley pretty easily. I might be able to get a higher paying job with a degree, but if I find something and work for a couple years, I'd probably be fine.

If you're looking to move here, my impression is you have to have a company sponsor you, and that is probably harder without a degree, but not impossible. Since you're in a college program, you might want to intern at a company here, and prove you're someone they want to bring back.

But finally, there's this: as a programmer, are you going to be homeless if you don't have a degree? I really doubt it. So I may have lied a little when I said I wasn't a big fan of school. I hate it. I wish I didn't, but I do. I thought I could go back to school for a year to finish up, and just deal with the unhappiness. Maybe I could if I really wanted to, but I don't. So maybe I'm making more obstacles for myself in the future, but the trade off is that I'm a lot happier right now.

So I guess I haven't really answered your question for you, but hopefully my thought process helps you come to a conclusion for yourself. Also, why not find out right now? Look up some bay area companies you'd like to work for, and apply. If you get in, then no, you don't need a degree. And if you don't, then maybe you do, but you can always keep trying.

Compsci is probably among the more time intensive degrees you could be shooting for. It's heavy on math requirements, which requires a lot of practice to fully understand. The degree is also relatively rigid in its structure of requirements. You need math classes throughout and they all build on each other. The compsci courses also build on each other. The math classes are also requirements for the compsci classes. It's real easy to screw up a semester (can't get into a class because it's full, have to drop a class, can't take all the classes you need because of the load) and throw everything out of whack. It's easy for a full time student to end up with a 5 year schedule, let alone someone who has to work full time.

If you are just looking for a piece of paper, then perhaps something Xbusiness would be better.

As to the value of the degree itself. I don't know. You have been on a career track without it and you have been fine so far. Having a degree probably opens up your options, but it's not the driver. There may be opportunities you can't pursue because of a lack of a degree. But as long as you still have options, then it's not a problem. In the tech field, it's more about what you know and your network rather than having a degree. A more important consideration might be getting a work visa for the U.S. I don't know if it's easier to get a visa while having a degree. This is something you will have to look into.

I don't know that self study would solve anything. You have to put in X hours to pass a subject and you probably have to put in that time either through self study or while taking an actual course. You could self study before the course to pass the course with less work, but you still had to put in the time before hand.

You might also need to take a close look at your study habits. Is there something you could be doing different? Is there a way that you could substantially reduce your work load in school? Maybe you could let your grades drop a bit in certain subjects by keeping up on the material but skipping certain time consuming assignments?

The bottom line is that you should have a certain idea of what you want to do and then do what you need to do to accomplish that. If you are starting a business which will require all your time, then something has to give. If the business is more important, then you will have to drop school. You have already made that decision once, what would be different in the future?

Edit: I don't know that going to the bay area and having a degree in compsci is a requirement for making an impact. Maybe it would be better to get knowledge of a field outside of compsci so that you can apply your development skills to that field. The best opportunities for start-ups are probably in things that a typical compsci grad living in the bay area probably wouldn't even think about because that person doesn't have that exposure. That's the area of unknown unknowns. Instead, you get a bunch of start-ups creating "me too" consumer apps that nobody cares about.

There are a lot of problems to be solved outside the bay area. The bay area may be a hub of tech activity, but just as important are the outposts. For example, Uber is a service which supports a limited number of metro areas in the U.S. while WhatsApp aims to service the entire globe. I live in the Philippines are there are lots of problems to be solved here that people in the bay area don't know about. Bill Gates would never have got his idea for his foundation if he had never visited Africa.

So, lots of approaches and limited time. Use it wisely. ;)

My understanding of the sponsorship system is that the company has to prove that they're unable to hire someone with your skill-set locally. To do this they have to prove you have a specialized skill-set, which means either a university degree, or 12 years industry experience.

I was approached by Facebook a while ago but nothing came of it as I didn't have a degree, it would be too hard for them to get me a visa.

I'm not too concerned with increased earning potential, or ability to actually get jobs. I earn towards the upper end of the pay spectrum for my field in New Zealand, and I've never had trouble getting interviews. I'm more concerned that I'm going to have issues moving into leadership positions and the like. Perhaps I'd have more trouble overseas though.

I actually started out doing a bachelor of business studies program, but switched to CS as I figured I would enjoy it a bit more. The math has been a lot of work, I don't have a strong math background.

The ability to get a US work visa is something that has worried me. I looked into this when I got approached about a job opportunity in the states a while ago, however it turns out I can't work in the US without a degree, or 12 years experience. That said, I'll have 12 years experience around about the same time I'd complete my degree, so it's probably not really going to help with that.

I think your edit is actually pretty spot on, I probably need to worry less about finding a start-up that's going to make it big and focus more on finding a problem that I can solve locally. The scale in NZ is quite small unfortunately, there are only 5m people here which is one of the reasons I figured I'd need to look overseas.. perhaps it just means there's less competition?

Lots to think about - Maybe I'll finish this semester and then spend the rest of the year working on one of my ideas and see where I get to, if I don't have any luck I can continue my BSc next year while I come up with another idea.