How Important is a Well-Known CS Degree?

syynnapse asks: "I've been interested in computer science since my mother taught me how to program in QBASIC when I was eleven, and I've wanted to be a developer ever since I learned C++ in AP Computer Science while in high-school. Now I'm in my sophomore year of college studying CS at a state university that isn't particularly known for its CS program, but I'm quite happy and personally think I'm learning plenty. My father thinks otherwise, and the deadline for transferring successfully is approaching quickly. What chance do I have in the real world with a not-so-prestigious degree? Am I likely to be learning what's important? Am I looking at a series of awful jobs if I don't transfer?"

CS

[carninja]

They make Counter-Strike Degrees? sign me up!

I've got a top knotch CS degree

[phats garage]

this allowed me to get a job at the best convenience store in the state. Highly recommended!

Go to Med School

[Anonymous Coward]

You can learn a lot and have a challenging career in Medicine. You need an advanced degree to practice medicine.

You can pick up all the skills you need in computers by working hard at a paying job. You don't need a degree.

Re:I've got a top knotch CS degree

[jandrese]

You CS types are stealing the jobs normally held by English and Philosphy majors! Shame on you!

Re:Experience is key...

[eeg3]

You're right. Which is why joining the military is a good start to your occupation. It looks great on resumes, and you get lots of training. Not to mention, they pay for college.

Most people that enter the military make much more than the average person, when they leave and enter the private sector.

Re:for the most part

[Zorilla]

I heard the section on crate-bashing at MIT proves to be quite handy in the real world. Maybe that's what you're talking about.

Re:Experience is key...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you trolling or just fucking retarded? He wants to have a career, not a front-seat ticket to the apocalypse. If he stays in school, he has a much better shot at getting into one of those cozy radiological bunkers with canned food and all the recycled urine you can drink.

Re:Bah!

[lpp]

it's what you know

...about the boss, various photographs, certain individuals in risque positions, clothing optional vacations on the company dime, the boss' wife, her lack of knowledge of these events, and any correlation between this knowledge and how it might affect your standing in the company.

Indeed, it is most definitely what you know that counts.

Re:I doesn't matter in 99% of the cases.

[Anonymous Coward]

I found a good starter job when I gradiuated

I hear the spelling program is not so hot though.

Re:Experience is key...

[Dioscorea]

Most people that enter the military make much more than the average person, when they leave

You mis-spelled if. HTH

Re:Experience is key...

[Bastard of Subhumani]

People fresh out of

collage

I find that they often aren't cut out for the job. Some are too stuck up, or I've felt they're too attached to their backgrounds. Others were only interested in material things. [That's enough - Ed]

Re:Computer Programming != Computer Science

[HarveyBirdman]

Not that there's anything wrong with this; the world needs plumbers and electricians (and computer programmers)

Ooooo! Cliff, you have been served!

A good university will teach computer science, and expect you to work out how to write code on your own; a bad university will teach you how to program, and not even admit that there is anything more to learn.

Well, in a better constructed reality, a good university would teach *both*. I taught myself to program when I was in my teens (Atari BASIC!), but I could have saved some grief early on by taking at least one course. They didn't teach programming in Junior High back then, though.

Re:CS

[Mr. Bad Example]

> They make Counter-Strike Degrees? sign me up!

I graduated summa cum OMGWTF WALLHACKING N00B.

Re:Oft heard, but bullshit: Experience is key...

[Anonymous Coward]

because everyone knows that schools do not prepare programmers for the real world

Yeah, everybody but the goons in "Human Resources" (you know the ones: they're the ones with degrees in Human Resources...)

Re:CS

[yafujifide]

Yes, but it's a BS degree

Re:Experience is key...

[Cyn]

Then it will be my chance to be the clueless boss who assigns impossible projects without any clear objective, reasonable timeline, or decent support.

Sounds great, when are you hiring?

STAY IN SCHOOL!!! Don't drop out!

[i41Overlord]

Whatever you do, stay in school.

Do you want to be successful like John Smith? How about Robert Jimmyjoiner? Sam Francisco? Well you better stay in school. You'll go nowhere fast without a degree because that piece of paper validates you and determines your worth as a human being.

If you drop out you are destined to become a small time failure, keeping company with such delinquents as Paul Allen, Larry Ellison, John D. Rockefeller, Thomas Edison and some other guys you've never heard of.

Don't be Bill Gates- stay in school.

Re:School more important than the degree

[Anonymous Coward]

And anyone who uses goto in anything but the most brain dead of situations gets a swift kick in the junk. I don't give a shit who the person is, someone is going to have to read that code, goto generally doesn't help.

mothra:/root/linux-2.6.9> rgrep goto * | wc
28672 91326 1185844

You're right. Those kernel dumbasses don't know what the fuck they're doing.