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Four Steps to Google, Without a Degree

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Re: Four Steps to Google, Without a Degree

#81

Post by dkokelley »

Techasura wrote: post #80
robomartin wrote: post #58

Fantastic. The OP scored. As for you, the average reader, go/stay in school and get a degree. Life throws all kinds of curves at you. At 20-something it might be cool and trendy to be a modern hippie-techie drinking latte's and coding for Google, Facebook or whoever. One day you might wake up in an entirely different landscape at thirty, fourty or fifty years of age and regret the fact that you did not take the time…

I don't have a college degree, i work for one of the new and successful startup today. Yes, i do regret about not having a degree sometimes[when i'm drunk]. But most of the times, my life is exactly what the OP has written. Life is fantastic for me today. i'm having 5 years of beautiful experience working on amazing things. Having a degree, you are constricting yourself to one thing. But for me, i'm free to try anyth…

> Having a degree, you are constricting yourself to one thing. But for me, i'm free to try anything provided i have people and their support, which i have actually got over the past.

I will tell you right now that having a degree will not guarantee you even get to try that one thing. Likewise, not having a degree does not free you to work on anything your heart desires. Earning a degree is one way to grow your strengths or fill in your weaknesses in a field. I can't see any situation where having a degree in any subject will make you worse off than not having a degree. It just has to be worth the time, effort, and money to the person in question.

Re: Four Steps to Google, Without a Degree

#82

Post by curiousDog »

spaghetti wrote: post #41
ultimoo wrote: post #8

I believe I am a good engineer, I have heard generally positive things about my professional work, have a college degree, etc. I am however terrified of programming challenges (topcoder, spoj, interview-street, etc.) I have tried solving some problems there using Ruby (back when it was 1.8.x, too slow for these kind of problems) and given up. Maybe I should give it a shot with C. Any ideas how to start, considering t…

My experience participating in TopCoder SRMs (quick algorithm development competitions) has payed off quite a bit when it comes to white board coding style interviews (both as the interviewee and the interviewer). Just thought I'd share a few pointers: - participating in SRMs is great practice for interviews because you're forced to learn to think clearly while under intense time pressure. - The TopCoder tutorials ar…

I believe Petr has switched to Java now though

Re: Four Steps to Google, Without a Degree

#83

Post by randomdata »

aortega wrote: post #73
alberich wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why the downvote? Donald Knuth himself describes programming as an Art.

It was when Donald Knuth wrote that, 50 years ago. Nowadays it is engineering. It is desirable for a programmer to build software, within a specific time, specific cost and certain specs. 100% Engineering. Now this is valid for 99% of software jobs out there. You will always find some company that does software research, but it's the 1%.

I do agree that software development is many parts engineering, but I believe that farming is engineering to the same extent (I do both, so I have an intimate knowledge of how they compare). Imagine a farmer calling himself an agricultural engineer.

It is part of the nomenclature now, so it is what it is, but I don't see what was wrong with the previous "programmer" or "software developer" titles. The engineering part was already implied.

Re: Four Steps to Google, Without a Degree

#84

Post by ikonst »

lsc wrote: post #66
robomartin wrote: post #58

Fantastic. The OP scored. As for you, the average reader, go/stay in school and get a degree. Life throws all kinds of curves at you. At 20-something it might be cool and trendy to be a modern hippie-techie drinking latte's and coding for Google, Facebook or whoever. One day you might wake up in an entirely different landscape at thirty, fourty or fifty years of age and regret the fact that you did not take the time…

>Not everyone is going to drop out of high school or college and launch a billion dollar company. Neither did this guy. Most of us without degrees did something similar to what this guy did; do a high dollar job for a while for a low-dollar wage, and eventually you build up enough reputation that you can get paid market rate. >As for you, the average reader, go/stay in school and get a degree. Life throws all kinds o…

The common opinion is that your mental capacity for learning is at peak when you're young and gets worse with age. You might find an engineering degree more frustrating with age.

Also, you might feel out of place in a regular college.

Not that I recommend schooling for the sake of schooling. I'm now doing it myself at the age of 29 (nearly done), and I keep wondering whether I'm doing something wildly irrational.

Re: Four Steps to Google, Without a Degree

#85

Post by randomdata »

robomartin wrote: post #76
randomdata wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> American secondary/high-school education, outside of schools and communities outside the norm, is horribly bad. I'm not sure it is that simple. I recall a recent article that said Canada has one of the best education systems, but, if I recall correctly, 70% of Canadians fit a certain demographic. If you observed only that same demographic in the US, the students in the US actually did better than their Canadian cou…

I am proposing that a degree becomes more important later on in life and that this is why one should obtain it as early as practical.

I suppose we half-agree then. I always figured that retirement was the perfect time to obtain a degree. Wise enough to respect the teachings and old enough to (hopefully) have the time and money to spend on such luxuries.

Re: Four Steps to Google, Without a Degree

#86

Post by bostonpete »

robomartin wrote: post #58

Fantastic. The OP scored. As for you, the average reader, go/stay in school and get a degree. Life throws all kinds of curves at you. At 20-something it might be cool and trendy to be a modern hippie-techie drinking latte's and coding for Google, Facebook or whoever. One day you might wake up in an entirely different landscape at thirty, fourty or fifty years of age and regret the fact that you did not take the time…

> A friend of mine was rejected for a sales engineering job...

Seems like he wouldn't have even made it to the interview phase if the BS was a hard requirement imposed from above. Are you sure your friend wasn't just rationalizing why he didn't get hired?

That said, I agree with your message -- get a degree folks...

Re: Four Steps to Google, Without a Degree

#87

Post by flatline »

lsc wrote: post #66
robomartin wrote: post #58

Fantastic. The OP scored. As for you, the average reader, go/stay in school and get a degree. Life throws all kinds of curves at you. At 20-something it might be cool and trendy to be a modern hippie-techie drinking latte's and coding for Google, Facebook or whoever. One day you might wake up in an entirely different landscape at thirty, fourty or fifty years of age and regret the fact that you did not take the time…

>Not everyone is going to drop out of high school or college and launch a billion dollar company. Neither did this guy. Most of us without degrees did something similar to what this guy did; do a high dollar job for a while for a low-dollar wage, and eventually you build up enough reputation that you can get paid market rate. >As for you, the average reader, go/stay in school and get a degree. Life throws all kinds o…

I went back in my mid-30s, with one kid. I had flirted with a variety of work/school balances up until that point, but working full time and doing school part time was going to require about 8 more years of sustained effort to finish a B.S. With a kid, full time school pretty much precluded me working, as my spouse works full time, so I ended up taking on much more debt than most undergrads, which brings up the next fundamental problem of opportunity cost. I left a $100k/yr job to do school, so that loss of income on top of paying for things like daycare and a mortgage made it a much more expensive proposition than when I was in my early 20s. I don't regret doing it at all, I'm very glad to have finally finished the degree, but there are lots of extra costs and obstacles that come up when you have other substantial responsibilities.

That being said, the actual schoolwork was way easier in many ways than during my first foray from my 20s. I had time management skills, a supportive wife and stable home situation, and years of experience in the software industry that gave me a reasonable baseline of knowledge.

Re: Four Steps to Google, Without a Degree

#88

Post by coliveira »

anxx wrote: post #10

My Google interviewer was a HS-educated guy. My parents couldn't believe it. I tend to think - if he is as good at the job as me, what does his education matter? Why should I be offended that a HS-educated guy is in the same room with me? Education is meant to produce a difference in job performance; it's good for the worker, not directly to the employer. If I with my college degree can't get a better job than a HS-g…

You shouldn't necessarily care about this at a personal level, but this has some deep implications, which might be a reason for concern for your parents and/or the society:

1. The company doesn't value education. It only cares if somebody can do the hard work and maybe pick up what he/she needs to perform at the same level of other people who have degrees.

2. The university program you attended did not give you any skills that can provide a differential in the market. It is clear that several degrees give that differential, such as psychology, electrical engineering, medicine, just to mention a few.

I think both issues are true for CS degrees. Companies are too interested in getting bodies to do their programming jobs, and don't care if the people have the right kind of education (especially at big companies like Google). Universities, on the other hand, are doing a lousy job of preparing people for the profession.

Re: Four Steps to Google, Without a Degree

#89

Post by lsc »

flatline wrote: post #87
lsc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not everyone is going to drop out of high school or college and launch a billion dollar company. Neither did this guy. Most of us without degrees did something similar to what this guy did; do a high dollar job for a while for a low-dollar wage, and eventually you build up enough reputation that you can get paid market rate. >As for you, the average reader, go/stay in school and get a degree. Life throws all kinds o…

I went back in my mid-30s, with one kid. I had flirted with a variety of work/school balances up until that point, but working full time and doing school part time was going to require about 8 more years of sustained effort to finish a B.S. With a kid, full time school pretty much precluded me working, as my spouse works full time, so I ended up taking on much more debt than most undergrads, which brings up the next…

>I left a $100k/yr job to do school, so that loss of income on top of paying for things like daycare and a mortgage made it a much more expensive proposition than when I was in my early 20s

Why did you decide to go back to school if your income was already that high? did you change careers? or was this just a social status/personal enrichment project?

Re: Four Steps to Google, Without a Degree

#90

Post by therandomguy »

robomartin wrote: post #58

Fantastic. The OP scored. As for you, the average reader, go/stay in school and get a degree. Life throws all kinds of curves at you. At 20-something it might be cool and trendy to be a modern hippie-techie drinking latte's and coding for Google, Facebook or whoever. One day you might wake up in an entirely different landscape at thirty, fourty or fifty years of age and regret the fact that you did not take the time…

Yes. Exactly this. Please get a degree. You will have a great experience doing it and get a piece of paper that will make you employable at much higher salaries. Worst case you won't enjoy your time in college. Do it any way. Life is not about having everything your way every minute of your life. It is a marathon. Prepare yourself for the long haul.

If you are worried about the debt there are plenty of great universities which are not all that expensive. Many schools also have the option of GA/TA where your tuition will be completely or partially waived off.

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