Tech Jobs without a Degree

There are many, many ways one can accomplish this. And to a great extent, it's becoming more difficult to broaden one's idea exposure on college campuses. For example, I believe I learned more about myself and life in general from the U.S. Army than I did from college.

> College forces you to interact with people and ideas that you either disagree with and/or were completely unaware of.

So does a job (or an apprenticeship, or just participating in society at all). And a job is typically a less forgiving environment - there are fewer safe spaces where you can insulate yourself and your views from others.

Looking back on my college experience - it was a way to continue to coast along without having to face the pressures of making a living. The cost of that coasting was deferred to later in life, and was definitely not worth it.

The only thing I honestly regret from my college years is not partying more - not taking advantage of the myriad of socialization opportunities.

Ok. I went to college because I wanted a brighter future than my parents (read: I wanted to make more money than them). So from that perspective college has not been very valuable at all.

I don't think I'm in the minority in that way at all.

"College forces you to interact with people and ideas that you either disagree with and/or were completely unaware of. It's the single best way to reduce the number of "unknown unknowns."

So does getting a job, volunteering, traveling the world, doing a mission trip, serving in the armed forces, etc, etc.

There is a social cost to having people spend 4-6 years in college. And colleges are increasingly becoming government-subsidized vacation from the real world. We should ask whether the core benefits of college that we want to actually subsidize - education, training, etc. - can be done cheaper and faster through other means. Cut the cruft.

Look, I was a humanities major in college and I loved it. But looking back, the four year experience seems like an extremely expensive exercise in upper-class cosplay. It was a luxury that the taxpayers, in effect, paid for.

This is mostly a US issue, though. In many European countries, for example, you can get a decent education without being left in large debt.

I prefer to live in a society where, when in doubt, people are usually more educated than they actually need to be. This is far better than the reverse.

The bad thing is the debt, not the college.

I think a gap year is great for people who have some direction, like you. You were self-motivated and you taught yourself a lot of programming so you had the skills necessary to get a job. But not all people have the same kind of motivation, and I think some folks still need just a little more "time" to wander around in a traditional academic setting before deciding on what they want to do.

I think maybe the better advice might be to go to community college or a trade school. That'll give people the same type of structure they might need to learn without the price tag, and also still allow them to develop a lot of core social skills required for adulting.

You sound kinda like myself when I was your age (I'm 44 now).

A week after I graduated high school, I moved out of my parents house to another state to attend a vo-tech school for a 1 year associates. Six months prior to graduation from that school, I had started my first job in software engineering. I graduated, and continued to be gainfully employed.

Today I wish I had gone to college to obtain a degree in CompSci. I'm not certain, but I am pretty sure I could have obtained an MS, if not gone further. I base this on my fairly recent experiences with my understanding and abilities vis-a-vis with MOOC courses for ML/AI. They have shown me that I have an aptitude for understanding this more advanced stuff - and likely always have.

Had I gone to school then, things would likely be better today. I'd probably be earning more, or have even gone down the startup route (I recall asking the owner of the company I first started at how he started the company - so there was interest there, and still is today to an extent - though I understand more about myself as an adult to know that I would probably be a poor business owner). More than anything, though, I would have a much better understanding of the deep and theoretical underpinnings of computer science, plus the knowledge of the math behind it all.

Today, with the MOOCs and other methods I am trying to make up for this lost time. I don't believe that it will change my salary or life; I don't think I will be likely to publish any papers on arXiv advancing the state of the art or anything, but I do intend to make some changes. If I'm very lucky, I might even manage a BS.

I don't think the years of work missed in my career nor the debt would have been that large of a burden in the grand scheme of things (granted, back then it was much cheaper to go to college than it is today); for me, the tradeoff for the knowledge would have been worth it.

My problem then and today is that I am lazy by nature (another reason I wouldn't be a good business owner); I did not want to spend more time at a school doing a ton of homework and such. That attitude has likely cost me a lot in missed and lost opportunities.

What doesn't make sense to me in light of that, though, is that I love to learn and I seek out opportunities and means to do so. I guess what I don't like is rote busywork; let me learn something, give me some examples, let me try my own hand at it, and once I am comfortable with the knowledge, let me move on.

High school doesn't do that, and I didn't realize I was like that until much later, and nobody told me that college doesn't work like high school. I know these things now, which helps me to tailor my self-studies better. But while I might have not listened back then, I also kind of wish somebody had told me and guided me better.

/working with what I have, and doing well at it, though...

This seems more like a re-hash of the questions that have been asked hundreds of times already. There's not much critical thought beyond

>"I would recommend taking a few humanities and social science courses, even though most tech employers do not list them as job requirements."

I think at this point most people are skeptical of the viability of a traditional 4 year degree and the debt it creates. Non-traditional paths have been peddled and marketed extensively. Bootcamps, community colleges, DIY approaches.

It's been made clear that companies are willing to hire non-traditional students. The biggest question, in my mind, is what is cap for these types of students? Where does the career trajectory end, and how does that stack up to regular 4-year-degree holders?

What is the real value of college these days? Connection building? Prestige? It certainly isn't job security or prospects. Not to mention the dollar-cost trade off of average debts.

That's a good question.

I believe that a lot of people see not having a degree as an impediment to getting a job "in tech", and therefore never set out down that path. In my experience, the reality of that is much different: I don't have a degree and I know many others in my situation. What I do have is professional experience. I don't think my lack of a degree has held back my career or limited my earning potential.

For me, at the moment, it's a "Loading ..." board. Nothing shows up.