How Important is a Well-Known CS Degree? 1280
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?"
Something I wish I had known. (Score:4, Interesting)
Youre not in college to get a degree.
Youre in college to get a job. Which normally means you need an internship or some useful contacts for when you get to the work world.
Most good employers don't have to hire someone with out experience, people want to work for them. So get some experience soon!
Re:Trust your Instincts (Score:2, Interesting)
When I graduated, my ivy league degree opened exactly zero doors for me. I became a junior programmer under a Bulgarian guy who went to some university no one ever heard of but who could program like a fiend. He's writing his own programming ticket now, and I'm teaching math to high school kids (fun but not lucrative!)
Ditto on grad school -- save your money on the undergrad degree, get a good gpa, do subsidized research in a prestigious grad school, and you come out on top in a big way with little debt!
Re:Experience is key... (Score:4, Interesting)
Demonstrate by doing (Score:5, Interesting)
What led me to my current position was a lot of persistance and being able to demonstrate that I was a smart, capable person. I started as an entry level programmer (mostly hired to teach the occasional Access class), caught the whole "web application" wave, and ended up in a well-paying position some eight years later.
The trick in many cases is just getting in the door. For that, being able to say you're certified with a particular skill or have a degree is good enough. Once you're hired, the key is to show that you really know your stuff and can make your customers happy.
Get a Masters (Score:2, Interesting)
Choose Brand If You Can (Score:1, Interesting)
1) If your resume mentions that you majored in CS at an Ivy, MIT, Stanford, Caltech or Berkeley, you get an in-person interview, no matter how little job experience you have.
2) If you do not have a degree in CS from one of the above schools, you get an interview if you have five years work experience in the particular area we're hiring.
We know that many smart people go to other schools, but it's difficult to do the narrowing down for hiring, so we use a school's brand as a proxy for who to talk to.
This is pretty common hiring practice in certain areas of corporate america. For instance, people who are accepted to Harvard Business School are not allowed to take paying work from other companies while they are in school -- the reason is simple: Companies care more about the quality of person that Harvard attracts and gets to attend than they do the particular classes these students take in Business School. They'd be happy to hire someone who was accepted, even if they haven't attended the classes yet.
In summary, do something that will make you happy.
But, don't kid yourself -- a better college brand will open doors to you that may stay shut otherwise. Keep this in mind reading posts from people who either went to a low-brand school (and therefore may not be aware of closed doors), or those who are currently going to a high-brand school (and therefore do not have substantial job market experience).
I suppose you'd want to weigh this against the connections that your professors have at your local school, and their willingness to recommend you as a 'star' to the people they know.
Best of luck!
Re:Not very when I graduated... (Score:5, Interesting)
While experience is probably the most important reason for success, I have found that developers who believe that they "learned nothing of value in class" tend to write poor code. Two people with the same degree from the same university writing the same program: The one who values his degree will write much more maintainable and smaller code.
Computer Science degrees are "learn by example" degrees. While you're in all those classes learning about Networks, Vision, Robotics, etc., you're supposed to be learning how to write good software by seriously thinking about your professors' comments and critisism. Those who don't value their degrees tend to be those who didn't value their professors, or listen to them.
Death by Anecdote (Score:3, Interesting)
Short version: I've got an A.S. in Computer-Aided Drafting from the local community college, but due to luck for sure, skill I hope, and good management, I'm a senior systems analyst for a company that writes tax software -- the most steady programming gig possible. Go figure.
I was planning for an Electrical Engineering degree, but I had near-zero study skills. I spent a semester at Okla State and quite utterly failed to distinguish myself.
After a summer delivering pizza, I got a job through Manpower -- proofreading phone books. But instead of just marking errors, I figured out the patterns, and got hired.
Next was the big lucky break: Texas Instruments, flush with Cold War defense contracts, had a program where they put folks through school to become CAD draftsmen. I applied and got in. Got paid to go to school for a semester, then worked full time with a full-time school schedule. By the time I got my A.S. in Computer-Aided Drafting, I was the software support person for the drafting group, writing Lisp extensions for AutoCAD.
Cold war ends. Layoffs begin. I bail out for American Airlines... start out as 2nd level support, taking calls from Australia and Japan in the evenings, the Middle East at midnight, and Europe in the wee hours. Transferred around, picked up VB, ended up leading a small project. Bailed out in the mid-90s and just missed the downturns.
Got the current job when it was a family-owned company with a tradition of "get it done" over "show me your diploma". The owner also didn't like to lose talent, so they kept up with the dot-com boom wages. Owner sold to a conglomerate, but clueful management remained in place.
So here I am, a high-level programmer, with an A.S. in Drafting from a community college. Put that in yer pipe and smoke it.
STAY! (Score:5, Interesting)
I was in a similar situation; my school wasn't terribly noted for engineering, so after 2 years my mom convinced me to transfer to Virginia Tech. The biggest reason is that I was looking for a co-op job and no one would hire me from the previous university.
VT was very different from my old school. It did seem like the program was a little better academically, and the school definitely had a much better intern/co-op department which made it much easier to find internships. Also, I think the big name on the resume does help a lot in your first job or two; this may be more important now with the terrible job market than it was when I first got out of school in '98.
However, I paid a terrible price for the change. First, it was much more expensive. My family wasn't exactly rich, so while I was doing ok at my first school, where I paid in-state tuition, costs went up greatly at VT, leading me to build up a large debt in student loans. Secondly, and possibly more importantly, I never managed to build a network of friends at VT like I had, and lost, at my first school. Being a not-terribly-outgoing person, I had a very hard time finding any new friends at the new school; I found that I believe that most relationships are made in one's freshman year, when you're living on campus and everyone is new. After everyone's been there a few years and has a circle of friends, it's not so easy to break in. And maybe it's just me, but the engineering students at Virginia Tech seemed to be a bunch of snobs compared to the students at my old school. Not having many friends in college isn't bad just because of the social aspect, but those relationships can also be rewarding to your career: look how many companies were started by people who were friends in college.
So, in summary, if you're happy where you are, don't screw it up. Personally, I don't believe in making changes to anything unless there's something wrong, or there's something else that's obviously better in sight. I don't see any posts here so far in favor of big-name schools (unless maybe you have your sights set on politics).
Re:Experience is key... (Score:1, Interesting)
It also depends some on what you want to do after school. If you want to go into the workforce the state college degree will be plenty. If you wanted to go on to become a professor and teach CS the big name school behind your name will help.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:5, Interesting)
I currently have a pretty decent job- without a degree, but with about 7 years of solid experience.
But I know if I want to move into management (which I do) or if I need to change out of my 'specialty', my chances without a degree are very slim. But, with a degree, and my experience, I can move around a lot more.
Since I am only going at night, I still have quite a few more years to go. But I'm hoping that I finally finish my degree the day before my head explodes because I am sick and tired of writing code. Then it will be my chance to be the clueless boss who assigns impossible projects without any clear objective, reasonable timeline, or decent support.
Re:I doesn't matter in 99% of the cases. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Experience is key... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Experience is key... (Score:3, Interesting)
I pursue CS interests as a hobby, but my degree is in EE and I work in the aerospace industry (satellites), so my situation is a little different. Nonetheless, I think there is some commonality in the work world.
I went to M.I.T. I wouldn't say I had a lot of fun compared with what I expect ASU would've been like. However, I think it is telling that even now, 20 years into my career, (a) I still get "Wow, that's impressive" whenever someone learns I went to M.I.T., (b) it stands out on my resume, and (c) people regularly think I have a Master's degree even though I only have a B.S.
Granted, the latter item may be due to my experience and how I present myself, which, ultimately, will always make the biggest impression on prospective employers, but there's no disputing the positive of a higher-powered credential.
I think the bottom line is: If you have an opportunity to get the better credential, you may regret it later on in life if you forego it; I would recommend you go after it. If, on the other hand, money is an issue (or whatever), then go with the best you can afford and work from there.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:5, Interesting)
I see a ton of resumes in my job as IT VP and the militarily experienced always earn less than their otehrwise educated counterparts because they end up in dead-end regimented IT shops and they start their careers at a later age.
Of course, the IT industry as a whole is going to the drone model, so maybe that disparity will change. Right now, a tour in the military is worth -$10,000 to -$15,000.
Re:Computer Programming != Computer Science (Score:1, Interesting)
experience == EVERYTHING
Re:Computer Programming != Computer Science (Score:3, Interesting)
While I agree that there is a major difference between programming and computer science I diagree with your statement that a good university will not teach you to write code.
In my opinion a bad university is one that:
The problem with not teaching people how to code is that people will end up writing code that only they can read, and in my experience would not be able to read after a 2 week break.
I did a Computer Science degree and found that it taught a good mix. We were taught how to program and the principles of programming as well as all the other stuff. I say all the other stuff because I have not used any of it since leaving university.
I think that there is more need for good Software Engineers than for good Computer Scientists as everyone I know who did a Computer Science degree is no working as a Software Engineer.
On the point raised. In my experience (admitidly in the UK) the only person who cared about my degree were the HR department of the company that hired me. The decision to hire me was not made by the HR department, and they made more of a fuss about it than anyone. Although I cannot prove this I suspect that had I then failed to get the degree no one would have cared.
Re:I doesn't matter in 99% of the cases. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Oft heard, but bullshit: Experience is key... (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's my experience . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
1. "Work Experience" - This is in quotes, because most people would not consider what I put down on my resume as work experience as work experience. I put down various side jobs that I had done in high school such as adminning various small web hosting provider boxes and shell hosts for free, or creating programming projects for myself such as ODS [ods.org]. Why admin someone else's boxes for free? I did it because I enjoyed it. Little did I know that it would help me a couple of years down the line to land my first job (at IBM of all places - full time job at age 16.)
2. It was a very good time to find jobs in the technology fields. This was 1999. That alone should be enough to give you an idea.
Once I had IBM on my resume (in addition to my other less accepted "Work Experience"), getting the second job (which paid twice as much) was a lot easier. It still took a little bit of searching, but it worked out. And now, I have 4 "real" jobs that I can put down on my resume. In fact, finding this last one took less than 1 week from the day I put my resume out, to the day I received an offer that I liked. That was in March of this year.
To sum up. In my experience, work experience is king. I think all a degree helps people in our field with (unless they are doing research or teaching) is to get their first, and maybe second jobs. If you can manage to snag that first job by yourself, and you have the knowledge and drive to do the job they give you, then everything else will fall into place. After the second or third job is when it really starts getting easier.
Regards,
-JD-
Re:Oft heard, but bullshit: Experience is key... (Score:4, Interesting)
Data point: At my Fortune-100 company, I have interviewed many candidates. I have never seen a candidate without a degree of some kind. Dunno if HR is just tossing out resumes without degrees, or people without degrees just don't bother applying.
Also, I assume some minimal level of compentency from someone with a degree. I never assume that someone with a degree from an Ivy League is better than someone with a degree from East Podunk City University. I have mysterious ways of finding out candidates' skill levels :)
--Rob
Re:Experience is key... (Score:3, Interesting)
Even though I didn't get the formal CS training in college or university, I have learned my trade from the masters (you should see my book collection) of various disiplines and languages.
Contrary to popular belief, being a good programmer is mostly about knowing how to program, not whether you can code in Perl, C, Java or some other language. Once you know how to program, you can learn new languages. I personally know Basic, Pascal, 80x86 Assembler, C, C++, Java and Perl (and am learning Python), and with the exception of one college course in Basic (to keep my GI Bill going over the summer), all of them have been self-taught.
On the other hand, getting your CS degree, from a well known school or not, can help you get your foot in the door. There are times when I wish I had at least minored in CS, but with 22 years of programming under my belt, it's my overall experience and knowledge of systems and languages that land me my jobs.
INTERNSHIP ANYONE?? (Score:4, Interesting)
UC Berkeley Master's (PhD dropout) was invaluable (Score:2, Interesting)
When I got there, it was a trial by fire and I practically flunked out. Since then it's been 12 years, 5 startups (3 IPOs), and many product releases. Virtually all of these "hot" startup opportunities came through connections originally made through Cal contacts, either in the CS department or business school (where I did a minor).
By comparison, you can look at my friends from undergrad and compare our careers-- hands down, I've fared the best:
- the Berkeley name opens lots of doors: I can cold-call companies and they will take me seriously.
- concepts, keywords and communication styles I learned at Berkeley are widely respected as The Standard. For example, I recently joined google as a manager (i.e. survived their insane, 6-round interview process), something that would have been impossible without Cal, even with industry experience.
- the Berkeley network is incredible: see above, but interestingly, though Berkeley I'm friends with Turing award winners, CEOs, CTOs, VCs, VPs, etc. -- but also hundreds of people who do the real work, including key product and engineering managers for tivo, palm, google, microsoft, amazon, ebay, etc.
Of other top CS schools, I see this same effect for MIT, Stanford and CMU, with the others important for specific fields, but not the same impact.
Obviously, your school is not a career panacea: I have friends who went to cal (and finished their PhDs) who struggled after school. Some other key elements: write useful working code, learn how to be a good team member, learn systems architecture (OSs, databases, networking, programming) and keep reading. It helps to avoid being egotistical or jerky-- remember that you need people more than they need you!
My degree to real world experience (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, they can. I took one class that think got me a job out of college - software engineering. I got my CS degree in '93, so the environment may have been a little different, but not that much. I attended an Illinois university that was better known for its party atmosphere instead of academics, but the CS program was pretty good. I took a class in software engineering my senior year. There was ZERO coding. It was learning about requirements, budgets, planning, testing, mockups, etc. We worked in teams on projects, which was a whole new experience. One thing about going to a bigger university is the job fairs. Mine didn't have a very big one, but I had friends who went to U of I in Champaign. I took off on a weekend and drove up there and took about 100 resumes. I gave them all out. I got several interviews out of it, and it was how I got my job. I ended up in the Chicago area for Motorola. When I interviewed there, I brought my senior project for the software engineering class. While talking to the first interviewer, I showed it to her. She said "show this to every other person you talk to today". I went through 6 other people, and I found out later that that project impressed them. They said everyone else just had programming experience, but I had at least some experience with the software development lifecycle. I didn't realize how important that was at the time, but man have I learned it since. I am not currently in programming, I made the choice to go into software testing instead. But my software development background has served me well. My bottom line would be - don't just learn programming! Programmers are a dime a dozen. Learn about the software development lifecycle and what goes into it. In most companies, programming is just a small part of software development.
Re:INTERNSHIP ANYONE?? (Score:5, Interesting)
I interned at my current workplace (summers and winter breaks, with a 9 month full-time stint) starting in 1999, and when I graduated in 2002 I was immediately hired full time at a very respectable salary.
If I hadn't had my foot in the door, I really have no idea where I'd be at right now.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you work for a company that doesn't do much federal contract work, but does some, it still impacts their hiring decisions - if they can put you on private contracts 80% of the time, but for 20% of the time you're billing on a federal contract at half the rate that your coworkers are, you're likely not going to be profitable at the same salary, and they probably won't hire you. Consider most contracting firms get between 10 and 20% profit of the hourly wage they charge for T&M contracts - with that 80/20 model mentioned above, at the same salary as everyone else, that 20% of your time reduces their margin so that they barely break even on you for your work for the entire year. Unless you have a particular skill they are in desperate need of, they'll fill the empty desk with someone else, or they'll offer you a much lower salary.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:School more important than the degree (Score:3, Interesting)
At no point will I ever fault someone for taking the initiative to go to college. It is a HUGE financial undertaking even with financial aid. I tell people in college to look at it as an investment in their futures. Get out of it what you can, learn both material and how to think and then apply it.
One of my co-workers is very bright and a very hard worker. However, due to reasons beyond his control, he was unable to attend college. He knows he is now at a disadvantage in the industry we're in.
--Mike
Re:Experience is key... (Score:3, Interesting)
In IT, results, soft-skills (communication) and service are what defines the top performers and those who move up. No one has even asked why I don't have a degree - and that's assuming people have even noticed that I don't have one. It's simply a non-issue for me, and while I've expected to be "capped" at some point, instead, I've found myself on the fast track.
Perhaps I'm a rare case, but from what I've seen, it's all about experience, ability and results.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Experience is key... (Score:3, Interesting)
Do they actually appear in said lists? Do they mention submissions? How do they reply to criticism to their submissions? Not to mention the fact that you could just as easily contact project maintainers for information about the developer. It's not as if OS projects all lack deadlines, goals, etc.
As for reliability, considering that OS work is completely voluntary I'd say that that at least implies a passion for programming. Though whether they can show up every morning at 8:00 is another story. ;)
But to answer the original question, I think that in many cases you can get a better education at smaller universities. The smaller classrooms mean you can ask your teacher directly, as opposed to waiting until a grad student can take the time away from grading the prof's 200 tests for him to answer something he really could care less about.
More important than name, equally (it can be argued) important to real-world experience, is networking. WHO you know matters immensely. In college I always eschewed this mantra, holding to the dream that my innate talents would shine through. It didn't work so well as I had planned, as I graduated during the bubble burst.
Anyhow, I would say that right now, ending your sophomore year, you should be running around collecting phone numbers and email addresses of CS seniors. By the time you graduate in two years they will have secured positions all around the area and will be great for getting your foot in the door of various companies. DO IT NOW. Next year will be too late, the seniors then will still be considered "green" and their comments of "hey I have this buddy..." won't carry as far (they won't have as much influence or won't perceive they have much influence) after only one year.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hear hear. I'm a Computer Engineering Technology student at Northeastern University in Boston (CET is kinda between CE and CS in terms of material). I've had some no-ops (co-op terms with no jobs) and some completely irrelevant co-ops... but then I landed one at Red Hat.
My (so far) 6 months at Red Hat and my ongoing Debian work have overall taught me more than all of my college education has. And from a career side... well, let's just say it's nice to have my foot in the door with a worldwide Free Software company. Especially since I've been toying with the idea of leaving the US since high school. They've extended this co-op by a couple months, and they want me back the same time next year. Plus I personally know everyone who is likely to interview me for a full-time position when I graduate.
Do go to a co-op school. Do not expect them to find jobs for you. Do bust your ass going after that no-fucking-way perfect job.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:2, Interesting)
A day later the resume arrived with the field in question misspelled twice. I suggested he look for work where attention to detail isn't as important.
Re:School more important than the degree (Score:3, Interesting)
This is only very slightly true but for all the wrong reasons. The types of people who are easily impressed tend to be shitty employers in the long run. They care more about politics than substance. The only other times it is true is if you walk the alumni network, but, then, the expectations are pretty high. They are doing you a favor by giving you a job and the social pressure is awkward at least. Unless you really think you can be buddy-buddy with the guy that gave you your job, then it's best to go somewhere else.
If you can't make it in the alumni network, then having a prestigious name on your diploma is actually a drag. People who go to "lesser" schools think you are an elitist, morons think you are some sort of god. It is just a lot better to be "average," because all your co-workers will be on a level playing field.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:3, Interesting)
I've worked hard to keep my skillset limber -- I work a variety of positions inside every company that I'm at, and do assorted side projects (in my copious spare time) as well. Consequently, I'm the guy who knows a little bit of everything -- respected by the suits as a source of technical advice and considered handy to have around by the more specialized tech staff. Makes the job interesting, too.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:2, Interesting)
While I have however read through a lot of those lists, I can count the number of OS devs on about 2 fingers that I'd hire after seeing their typical responses.
Imagine however, how those responses would differ had they known employers were combing through them looking for potential hires. Heh
Re:School more important than the degree (Score:3, Interesting)
I think perhaps you are too quick to judge schools you might not know so much about (or perhaps you do, but then I don't know where your information comes from). I have friends at both UCs and Calstates and I'd have to say it doesn't matter which school you go to, you will find PhD's teaching the courses just about everywhere, and only things like discussion sections that are led by a grad student (I believe most if not all are those on their way to a PhD).
So far at UCI, the only bad TA I had was in the one CS class I took, and that was only because I was pages ahead of the rest of the class and I could tell that, while he knew his focus area, his general CS knowledge (how to compile Java on anything besides Windows, etc) wasn't as good as mine. In the rest of the classes, TAs are an exceptional resource, are very intelligent, and their accessibility can often make them better than the professor for various reasons.
Friends of mine at CSUN (all CS) are having trouble because their professors aren't very clear sometimes and it seems to be harder to get in touch with them (in comparison to my personal experience). I also know their education dept lacks quite a bit, since I work for LAUSD and I can compare those who got their degree at a Pepperdine vs CSUN.
What does this mean? Probably nothing. I figure everyone makes their own experience. If you're smart, you'll go far anywhere. If you make the effort, you can have a lot of contact with professors. The research you do at any university depends on your advisor professor and what he's interested in. I think going to an MIT vs a Calstate all depends on the school that most appealed to you. I know people who could have gone to MIT and went to other schools (less known) and the reverse.. people who managed to fake their way into the better schools only to do horribly because they were never good students.
I apologize for the long rant, however I don't believe saying your education was "FAR better" had as much to do with the school as it did with your personal studies.
And maybe you shouldn't be so quick to judge students by the name of their university.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:2, Interesting)