Would a CS Degree Be Good for Someone Over 30? 166
mbuckingham asks: "I'm 39 and have been programming for 20 years. By 'programming', I'm talking about the usual business applications type of stuff. Easy stuff really. I went to college for a while, but never got my degree. It bugs me that I've never completed my degree, but since I've always had decent jobs, it hasn't really mattered too much. I'm really bored with what I do every day, and I'm thinking about going back and getting the degree, because I think it will make it possible to move towards doing some more advanced, system-level type stuff. I know I don't want a MIS degree, because that would be rehashing everything I'm already bored with. Does this make sense? Would a CS degree or a Computer Engineering degree be better?"
I'm in a similar position to you. (Score:5, Insightful)
And it does lead to more interesting job offers.
The trouble is, moving from doing business logic type boring stuff to interesting CS type stuff is that you have to take a $40k a year paycut. (and that's after you've had no income for the time it takes to complete your degree).
Its worth thinking about how important money is for you. In the end, I have my CS degree (and I feel good about it, dont mistake me), but am doing the same work mostly.
But I don't mind doing boring work for 6-9 months a year if I can take another 3 months to travel / do charity work / etc.
Re:I'm in a similar position to you. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm in a similar position to you. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm in a similar position to you. (Score:5, Interesting)
Your salary doesn't start again at the lowest grade just because you get a degree!? Maybe when you are 24 and just get out of Uni with your little bits of paper, you would be on $40k less than he is now, but in your example he would STILL have 15 years experience. That counts for a lot. Not as much as the degree AND experience, but a lot anyway.
If he can get decent jobs already without the CS degree I'd wonder if it was worth getting, although I've been thinking the same thing - it doesn't make the job you're in any easier (most CS after so much experience is stuff you've done before. I did all the project management and general "Computing" stuff during my GCSE/A-Levels and learnt to code off my own back. It's not failed me yet and all the jobs I've been in have been on experience and general talent.
At least at the University I worked, there were two pay grades; academic and technical. If you didn't have a degree you were confined to technical. It paid less and you were automatically given less responsibilities. By the time I got out of the job I was earning as much as the incoming academic grade employees (and no student loan debt!). Now that I think I could run a CS degree in my spare time in quick time, I might. If anything, his pay should go up for his next job, just because they will be more sure of him because of the degree - when there is a range of starting salaries, you start from the degree and ramp up based on experience. Instead of them offering you the lowest amount for that position (either as a graduate student or as uncertainty and insurance for them if they can't quantify past experience to the new job) they will start higher because of the added experiene.
It won't make any job you're in more complicated - the current employers won't think "he has a degree now let's move him on to harder stuff" - they already know what you can do, you won't be asked to do anything more than you know.
I have 10 years experience at least on my part, I used to work in the CS department in a University, ironically after I left school and couldn't be bothered to get a degree. I determined I would rather have the money and not be bogged down with loans and homework, I valued my social life more than any student could manage without flunking, and the work they did on a CS degree then was.. really a bit much. Now, I look at the work some of my friends and colleagues are doing for CS degrees, and I end up helping with their homework and explaining past exam questions to them. It's SO easy to get one, especially if you've got the experience and been doing that for years.
It will do nothing but make the job hunting process a little easier; you can't evaluate experience past a certain point, but the degree will make prospective employers at least consider you a baseline of knowledge based on the degree or certification. Oh, and if you go the whole hog you can have letters after your name in 3 or 4 years, without even flinching.
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Of course there are s
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Plenty of companies market Linux perfectly well. It has a larger server share than Windows does. RedHat hasn't gone bankrupt yet
There's no correlation whatsoever between business development programmers, and systems level programmers, and the sales of their product. You're talking about marketing.
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There's no precedent for businesses who use technology to pay more than businesses that are IN technology either. It depends on the workload, and how useful the stuff is. The chef at Google cafeteria probably gets paid more than I do; however I am fairly sure I am being paid more still than the guys I used to work with who used Crystal or Delphi RAD crap.
A lot of people who invented and trailblazed all the stuff we'
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Many employers think that hiring fresh college grads is cheaper than hiring vets. There are a few Nuke Plants in my area and my friend's dad lost his job at one after 25 years because it shut down, and has been unable to get a job at any of the other for even close to the same salary because they don't want to pay anyone that much if they don't have to, and they don't. This happens in all fields, not just computers or nuclear.
If you have a really well payin
Re:I'm in a similar position to you. (Score:5, Informative)
But for R&D of new products, there is definitely no pay cut. I have been working on high end networking gear and there is definitely not that kind of pay gap here.
Most people forget that there is way more to computer science than just coding. I have been working as a tester of complex networking and telcom products, and I am on the same pay scale as the programmers. We deal with the same complexity, it is just at different levels. Then there is the technical support (not the stupid help desk kind), sales engineers, training, marketing, and documentation. All of this is necessary for a good product, they can all be technically challenging, and none of it involves coding. I've worked with brilliant people in each of those positions.
But the really important thing is doing what is fun. I'm about to take a break from working and get a masters degree because it is something I really want to do. Will it help my career? I don't care. There are a lot of topics I want to study in depth that I just don't have time to do while I am working. It definitely won't hurt my career, but since I have a lot of good experience it might not open any doors that aren't already open to me.
Having said all that, I do think there is overwhelming evidence out there that getting a bachelor's degree helps your career. When almost everyone else in the industry has a degree, it really sticks out when you don't. It may not be fair, but it is reality.
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-matthew
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well (Score:5, Funny)
That depends. How are you at headshots with an AWP?
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I am in a similar situation (Score:3, Insightful)
Being 21 I find it IS worth going back to classes,even if its only part time. Unfortunately I found out the hard way no matter how much you know, without that little square of paper, they will not even look at you 90% of the time.
Now if you know someone who will open the door for ya great, but if not, at least grab some certs. They will at least look at you that way.
Re:I am in a similar situation (Score:4, Funny)
You ARE crazy. How the hell do you fit a street address through a tube? Dont you know anything about the internet?
Geez, kids these days!
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I believe you meant "the interwebs".
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I am not sure I follow your line of reasoning, as much as there are a few interesting comparisons between IP addresses and street addresses (with this paradigm it's easy to explain NAT as a number of different people living at the same address), still a street address has a certain implied sense of locality, while in general terms nowadays even being in the same class C does not guarantee a
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Re:I am in a similar situation (Score:5, Funny)
He should have said you were fucking stupid. And then he should have told you to shut up.
There's no point in wasting his time and your classmate's time with such pathetic, petty "debate". A phone number is a much better analogy, especially when considering mobile phones (which is the only phone that many people have today).
Unlike a street address, but like a phone number, IP addresses are not fixed based on location. On an internal network, you can use whatever IP addresses you want, regardless of where your devices are, or where they might happen to move.
We could go on, but I don't know if you'd really understand such concepts. I mean, you couldn't even make it past your second year of undergraduate studies.
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Yeah, clueless. It's been a long time since either a phone number or an IP address was like a street address.
The distinction is how "locative" an ID is. Seat numbers in a stadium are locative. But few other IDs are completely locative any more.
At one time, phone numbers really were locative; the first three digits specified the central office, or for larger offices, the switch within the CO, and the last four digits were the line number within the switch. That dates from the era when phone numbers
You're a cockbaiter. (Score:5, Funny)
No, the 'cock' portion of that word does not refer to penis. It refers to your cockiness. You know, the way you always think you're correct, when actually you're a fucking moron.
The 'baiter' part refers to how you, driven by your endless supply of cock and a need for attention, must constantly harass professors when they make straightforward analogies. You try to bait them into a debate, which in turn only wastes everyone's time.
Such people rarely lasted past their first year, and were surely gone by the end of their second year. I see that was the case with you. You came into the institution with all the cock in the world, and then reality smacked your sorry ass down, and you become a pathetic drop out.
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Looking back did I go about things wrong? maybe. maybe I shoulda taken the post belows advice and just sat back and read. However if i am paying 15Gs a semester for school, I want to be taught something. This is slashdot, you cannot tell me you have never tried to "educate" a teacher on a subject you felt he was wrong on. and BTW when I am p
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I very seriously doubt it. Your parents may have been paying that much, but I find it hard to believe you had that kind of money at that age.
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Most classes suffer because the students sit like bumps on a log, and don't even respond to direct questions. I'd say ask the questions that occur to you, but keep them brief, and germane, simply out of respect for your fellow students. They are all paying 15G a semester too. If you already know the material in a class, then for gosh sake, see if you can challenge it or test out of it.
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Of course, they do have license plate numbers - but I think that would be a better analogy for MAC IDs.
-chris
Worth while? For you, or your employer? (Score:4, Interesting)
Note: 20, still in college, basing solely on conjecture and experience of colleagues and alumni.
Re:Worth while? For you, or your employer? (Score:4, Informative)
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Some of them teach that as a business or process-centric major, rather than one centered around technical skill. For example, SE majors at my old college only took three courses that required significant amounts of programming: Intro to CS I, Intro to CS II, and Operating Systems. The result was that they could write superb requirements documents and make very nice looking UML diagrams (things that many of us learned on our own anyway), but couldn't write programs of any useful complexity.
I felt bad for t
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Re:Worth while? For you, or your employer? (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a Software Engineering Degree (Bachelor's), and 12 years worth of experience in the industry. One of my team leads currently has *NO* college degree. Where was that glass ceiling again?
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How long has he been working for the company and how many people are above him?
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No.
How long has he been working for the company and how many people are above him?
If I'm reading the org chart right- there's at least 5 levels of people above him (nothing like government for adding layers of management). Underneath him are several well-educated people, even people with Master's degrees- so the point is that the glass ceiling is only partially based on education.
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How long has said team lead been with the company? Usually, when a company is young, they'll hire anyone who's competent, regardless of their formal education. The real question is: If this team lead were to get fired tomorrow, how easily would he find another position similar to the one he currently has?
If you already have a stable job, getting a degree doesn't do you much good unless your employer has some kind of education incentive. The "piece of paper" really proves its worth when you try to change
When did your team lead get into the industry? (Score:2)
There have been times in the past two decades when it was extremely easy for people with little or no schooling to get their feet in the door. That time has passed. Now, while there are always a few who still manage this, it's MUCH harder to get into the industry without SOME sort of qualifications.
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Social skills are required in virtually any job - even geek jobs - because interacting with people is part of the job. There aren't many jobs where you get a spec, shut yourself in a room, then email the result off after a few weeks. Mostly, people have coworkers and they have to work with them. Social skills make those interactions more effective and efficient which makes the team as a whole more effective and efficient.
If you don't have them naturally to any great extent (I don't) you have to learn. L
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But then again, from that point of view, the idea that the United States is a meritocracy is a lie.
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A lot of majors vary by only a few classes, so do some investigation on the differences. Look at your different options for schools too. I know several people who have completed their degre
CE =/= Computer Engineering (Score:2)
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Find a college that takes life experience (Score:2)
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Re:Find a college that takes life experience (Score:4, Insightful)
Thousands of people are paying bills online now too. A concept unheard of seven years ago. If you can trust an online bank, why couldn't you trust an accredited online school?
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It Depends on What You Want to Do... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have hired staff members with CS degrees who would be better off as real-estate sales staff. Conversely, I have one programmer with a history degree who is excellent at his job.
I am thirtysomething as well, and have no plans to go back to school for a CS, MIS or even a MSIS degree. In my opinion, the degree just gets you "in the door" as it were. Once you've got some (hopefully good) experience behind you, the degree becomes less important.
Keep in mind, too, that even as a manager, I get to write queries against SQL databases with 140M records - that impresses some of the young'uns.
Indeed, get a math degree (Score:2)
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I would disagree. More education is never worthless. Of course at 30 what you pick to study and how you go about doing it is much more important than at 18. At 30, with years of experience, should you go back to school and do intro to computers? Um no. But, I'm sure there are many topics that you've never come across in your experience that would be fun and useful to learn in a school setting. Some schools may ev
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When did 140M records become big? Maybe if that is 1 table :p
Actually it is big. I don't recall running into to many places where I would have such large numbers in a table.
Well, let's see....
One of the tables has 39,867,766 records...
It kind of goes downhill from there. :P
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442,573,477 records in the fact table.
I can start looking at the dimensions, but you get the idea. I didn't mean for this to get into a 'my data is bigger than yours' debate
BTW, what dbms are you housing your data in?
I've been going through the same dilemma (Score:3, Interesting)
Not sure what ... (Score:5, Informative)
System administration, or embedded programming? Or just challenging programming in C, or C++?
If your close to finishing your degree, I'd go for it. Typically, our company hires more on experience and skills than education, but that said, we have a tough time finding people in general.
You might want to do some functional interviews - find companies that do what you are interested in, and go in and talk to them. Find out if it's really what you are interested.
Once you find what you are interested in, tailor your courses to make you a good candidate for the position. IE if you are interested in embedded, real-time development, avoid "Ethics in Computer Science" and take the real-time programming courses. If your school is any good, they'll be very challenging.
A degree also gives you management potential; as you get older, you might want to get out of the grind, get an MBA. I keep reading that business+technology is very in-demand.
One final benefit of a degree - if you want to travel and work (ie move to Australia and work there for a year), a degree is almost mandatory for getting the visa.
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You might want to do some functional interviews - find companies that do what you are interested in, and go in and talk to them. Find out if it's really what you are interested.
Absolutely correct. Talk to your peers who are doing other things too. Join a professional society. It's all about networking.
I switched to software development after about 20 years working as a research chemist and as a chemical engineer. Since then I've done web development, operational support system development and am now working
I don't see why not... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you do the degree at the right school, a key benefit will be the availability of the career placement apparatus of the school, which is one of the easiest routes to a quality job with major industry players at the end of the process.
I agree with the person who noted that the more CS'y jobs pay less. I do datawarehousing/data mining/predictive modeling, and make much better money than the average Java/C#/C++ dev, based on watching the job boards. My work isn't as -cool-, but it pays well and I find it interesting. Sure, it'd be cooler to be a game programmer or device driver hack, but I like to play with my kids and golf, and if I have to write SQL and Crystal Reports stuff to make that happen, that's fine with me.
It's also fun to go back to school and babe watch.
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Sure, it'd be cooler to be a game programmer or device driver hack
From what I've heard, a lot of game programming is pretty uninteresting stuff (i.e. low-level mundanity implementing other people's designs), with lots of hard work. Plus, there are relatively large numbers of kids whose dream it is (misguided or not) to get into writing games, so I doubt that the pay is the best either (though I might be wrong there, so if anyone out there is interested, best check that out).
EA in particular looks like a notoriously crap place to work...
what's your true goal? (Score:5, Insightful)
i can't tell whether you're looking to use a degree to advance your career or not. on one hand you say you've not needed it so far, and on the other you say you think it might open doors. it doesn't sound like you have a specific goal for which a CS degree is a requirement, so lacking that, I'd say don't get an inferiority complex.
ask yourself, "do i enjoy dealing in underlying academic theories, or do i prefer concrete applications to real problems?". if you're tired of dealing in the latter, intellectually curious about the former, or want to gain some specific skills, go for it. if, however, you're just having a vague feeling of "missing out", i'd say don't. degrees are best attained with a purpose in mind, and it sounds like you're doing fine as-is.
if you're still not sure, why not try to find an appropriate class to take without committing everything, as a test of your own enjoyment/committal.
as someone who did the opposite and started with much schooling and less practical experience, i'll tell you i look over the fence at your green grass now and then too. i don't utilize the theory i've learned nearly as much as the more practical knowledge. the rare circumstances i do utilize the theoretical learning are fulfilling tho.
Take Paul Graham's Advice (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html [paulgraham.com]
Maybe a math or applied math degree?
You might consider a REPUTABLE online degree (Score:3, Interesting)
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Neither (Score:3, Interesting)
You're obviously not unintelligent. So think of what you would really like to do, and then teach yourself the langauge that would be most useful in that position. And then USE IT. Not for pay, but using it in the real world is the only way to really, really learn a language. For example, if my end goal was to be soemwhere it would pay to be known as an accomplished C progammer, I would teach myself C and then do something utterly crazy like start making simple contributions to the Linux kernel. Point to that sort of thing in an interview and you will already have established yourself as knowning (and having proved that you know) more than any other candidate.
Sure, this will be hard, and especially if you keep a full time day job it's going to be a pain and take a year or two. But you'll end up in a far better place than if you go the "normal" route.
No, this advice is not theoretical. You're welcome to ignore it, but don't do so because you don't think it would work. It does. There's a whole generation of well-paid people rather older than you who never had any formal computer training but got their feet wet in exactly this kind of way.
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The problem is that now there are many people on the market that do have a CS degree. Which do you think HR will look at first: someone with a degree or someone with experience in some Unix-blabla? That's how a non-techie will look at your resume.
Naturally it all boils down to what you want to achieve. Experience in open-source projects does he
History (Score:3, Interesting)
When you have complete knowledge of the system you're working in, you can rely on the basic analytical techniques taught in all scientific disciplines. Most often, though, you have a complete understanding of limited parts of the system and have to rely on instincts and guesswork for the rest. That's when a knowledge of history comes in handy, if only to help you generate a list of things that could go wrong. A basic background in CS also helps avoid the situation where you get carried away with an awesome "new" idea you just thought up that has actually been around for twenty years. Spending your time rediscovering the limitations of a twenty-year-old idea is fun, but basically a waste of time. There are enough unsolved problems that you can cheat on the solved problems without worrying that computing will be too easy :-)
(Note that I'm not saying you should skip the problem sets. Quite the opposite! The problem sets are designed to impart skills and knowledge, not artificially slow you down.)
Both the applied classes and the theory classes teach you a standard vocabulary that makes it much easier to communicate your ideas to people who share that vocabulary.
Back to school ! Yes! (Score:4, Interesting)
You might enjoy it (Score:2, Informative)
I really enjoyed the classes involved, and it did a good job of exposing me to new (to me!) topics, such as A
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Boots on the ground (Score:2)
CS Knowledge Yes, CS Degree No (Score:2, Interesting)
Here you go (Score:2)
ended up coding and found that I liked it and was good. After a decade, I went back for a CS degree thinking that I had good knowledge already. I found out that having the coding and logic down allowed me to ace all the classes in CS. BTW, I learned a LOT. What I found out was how to code efficiently and how to think beyond experience. The typical [CM]IS degree is severely l
What about another job (Score:2)
The only thing that will get you more interesting work is another job. I was also doing lots of Java programming in a business environment. I got tired of it and applied for a job at a space/climate research organization. It was a difficult interview, but I was very frank about my abilities and I got the job. We'r
Followup - Best online Master's Degree in CS? (Score:2)
I am also extremely curious about which schools provide a worthwhile master's degree in computer science. I've thought about going after this from time to time, because I've had a lot of informal exposure to compiler theory, file processing, operating systems, etc over the years but have never had anything formal and don't have the official degree.
If anyone has any real-world experiences with schools that have an online master's degree in computer science, please share your experiences. It's hard someti
Get a degree for you, not for your employers (Score:3, Interesting)
A degree is good for everyone, no matter whether you are 30, 50, 70, or 90, and no matter whether you can actually use it for a career. The purpose of a degree is to broad your mind and make you think better and become a better human. Degrees are not designed to help you feed your stomach; this is what a job is for. While a degree that can be useful for jobs is of course better, I think you should pay attention to your mind and your education first (especially considering that you have successfully penetrated the job market), and not surrender your education to your employer's needs. Of course, if you can find a degree that is good both for your education and your career, it's better (as all win-win situations).
In choosing a degree you have to take into account:
I recommend Oxford's Software Engineering [ox.ac.uk] programme and the Open University [open.ac.uk] (UK). If you decide to take the certification route I would suggest to take university certificates in addition to professional certificates (like Cisco's CCNP). For example I have found this company [online-learning.com] and O'Reilly Learning [oreillylearning.com] offer vocational training programmes with non-academic continuing education certificates issued by real universities.
Bored? (Score:2)
I'd say you could try joining a remote university, i.e. doing everything from home via mail. You can use the evenings to work yourself all the way up to a Ph.D. (looks nice on a card, and you'll feel good about it).
A 'real' university, while great fun, would cost you a heck of a lot of money - even if you do it here in Germany, wher
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So much for teaching how to think... at most you've been in the "field" for 23 years, that's less than a quarter of a century... So much for AI.
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mark
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Together with the 'querter' of a century I actually meant "since '81, commercially since '84"...
So it *is* > a querter of a cantury...
CompE vs. CS vs. SE (Score:2)
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A two letter answer: HR (Score:2)
In the early nineties, I and my late wife worked for Radian Corp., in Austin. After nearly nine years, she got *dumped* on a Friday afternoon, and in that Sunday's want ads, they were looking for someone to do *exactly* the same job,
Location? Programming as a career? (Score:2)
Nobody's asked about your location, we assume you're in the U.S. I guess.
Is programming still a good idea as a career in the U.S.? Aren't people still looking for backup careers in fields that require physical presence? Certainly, getting a feel for the future of the field matters when trying to decide about spending time and money on training therein.
What are you interested in? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm replying a bit late, but what the hell...
I think you should go for the CS degree, but only if you're genuinely interested in some CS topics like algorithm analysis, language design, advanced data structures, distributed systems, machine learning, etc. If you like that sort of thing, then you'd probably enjoy the CS program and the kinds of jobs you could get with the degree afterward. But if you're thinking of going back for the degree just so your resume looks better, I'd recommend against it. Your years of experience as a developer should matter more than a degree for most jobs, at least at companies that you'd want to work for.
In a past life, I was a manager at IBM for a while, and I had a very good team of engineers. About half of them had a CS background, but the other half had degrees in things like percussion and philosophy. My degree is in geophysics. And one guy on the team was still working on his associates degree. A person's degree didn't seem particularly correlated with how smart they were or how much they got done. The percussionist and philosopher ended up writing some of our trickier, more algorithmic code.
On the other hand, here at Google where I work now we seem to have a pretty strong emphasis on degrees, especially for people without much industry experience. It makes some sense, given the huge volumes of data we work with and the interesting algorithms we have to use to do it. But still, it's possible to get into even this kind of environment without a CS degree if you have some knowledge and experience in the right areas.
In my experience (Score:2)
In my experience: I entered my 4-year CS program with significantly more programming experience then my peers. My senior year was the most valuable because I picked up on good theory that I can apply to real-world jobs. As a result, I can design better databases, and I better understand how to design classes. Basically, I can write larger programs with less cruft then I would if I left halfway through my education.
I always like to joke about how I took "Technology of Alpine Skiing" thinking it would be
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If you have PhD's programming for you, then you aren't a very good manager.
PhD's are good for focused research and creating leads for people skilled in programming.
You don't get a PhD in "coding". You get a PhD in things like Information Retrieval or Distributed Systems. You then use these people to come up with ideas and create and invent systems for others to program.
In my mind, half of a PhD is lea
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First off, it makes no sense to hire a PhD as a junior programmer. PhD's aren't coders. They are researchers... "idea people". It is sort of like hiring Picasso to paint your house.
Second, you don't seem to have a good grasp of logic. Your argument boils down to the following:
Large companies require degrees -> Large companies are boring -> Degrees are useless
Small companies accept "equivalent experience" -> Small companies are exciting -
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But for every one Google there are a hundred other companies that just want someone to maintain a shopping cart.
Getting back to the original Ask Slashdot topic, I would venture to guess that your type of work is exactly the sort of "usual business applications" that the submitter is bored with. It's sort of like the difference between a car mechanic and an automotive engineer. The mechanic may be very experienced and really good at his job, but there's no way he would get hired as an engineer. Similarly, it may be hard to land a job doing the more interesting Google-type stuff if your experience is in maintaining sh
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