Ask HN: Are irrelevant degrees at all useful? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are irrelevant degrees at all useful?

31 pointscorin_56 comments

I've seen discussions on HN before on the question of "is a degree neccesary for career advancement", and given I'm happy with where I am at age 20, without a degree, I'm of the opinion that while a degree might help, it certainly isn't always a requirement.

However I would like to go to University (I left school at sixteen as I was bored and wanted to sink my teeth into something more useful), and am looking at working towards a place at Oxford starting September 2012.

Here's the thing: the subject I would really like to study is Music, rather than one of the many degrees that is actually related to where I currently work and where I hope my career will lead me (CS/Business/Marketing/etc).

Can anyone give me any thoughts on how you would feel if you were looking to hire someone in that kind of area, and they held a Music Degree from Oxford? Obviously I understand that it wouldn't be AS useful as a relevant degree, but would it at least serve as a demonstration that I'm not completely dim, that I know how to apply myself, and that I can achieve what I set out to?

Thanks, Corin

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Degrees are for signaling. If you want to signal that you're as smart as a typical CS or Business student, pick a program they would drop out of (Math instead of CS, Economics instead of Business). If you just pick music, it's not a strong indicator of your skills.

I used to work as a recruiter, and the candidate for whom I got the most interview requests ever had a triple-major: music, physics, and math. You don't have to go that far, but if you can minor in math at a minimum, it's a good idea.

Yes. Music plus a minor or double major in X, where X is something hard.

Not business -- you can pick that up in grad school if absolutely necessary; they have special graduate programs just for it.

Physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, statistics, engineering.

But this is the UK we are talking about and the university in question is Oxford - so the rules are somewhat different.

Thanks for the advice (and others suggesting the same thing), I think minoring in Maths is definitely something I'd consider, happens to be another area I'm interested in (though no-where near as experienced, would have to do a fair bit of pre-university learning to be ready to study it I think, having forgotten most of what I knew when I was 16)

This made me smile a little bit; I majored in Math because I thought CS would be too easy.

I was a math major too, but no way would I consider CS to be too easy.

Note the past tense.

If you love music and like the degree structure go for it. You'll be able to do plenty of things with your time and talents that will look good if applying to marketing or business jobs. Have you ever tried to organise rehearsals or land gigs? It takes a lot of work.

And if someone won't employ you because you didn't do management courses or some other silly criteria, trust me you don't want to work there.

The other way round is fine too. I know plenty of seriously accomplished musicians (at an Other university) who were chemists, mathematicians, historians, you name it. The orchestras and ensembles are of an extremely high standard - you won't be short of opportunities.

I haven't organised any musical events (though do have a lot of experience in music that I won't go into) - though for the company I work for I've organised two events which saw 40k-75k paying visitors through the doors over 4/5 days, and also done freelance event work for companies ranging from small 1-2 person projects up to a couple of (very small) events organised by News Corp, so I do have experience in that area.

As much as I love music, I don't want a career in that area, not any more, just looking to do the degree as something I've wanted to do since I was 8.

Music is a good major. You get exercise in creativity, abstract thinking, and problem-solving. Music requires discipline and practice, the latter in particular being something that programmers and IT people sometimes forget about. The actual act of performing and its associated pressures are generally not encountered in Csci and Math.

But music is definitely NOT a replacement for either. After discrete math, linear algebra, and algorithms, advanced music theory felt like elementary arithmetic. I've never taken any music theory class that was as mentally demanding as compiler design (although with music there is a lot of room to seek greater challenges on your own).

I don't know about business or marketing. But if you do go music I would definitely try and cherry-pick some good classes from those other majors.

The hard part will be getting past resume screens and other less sophisticated filters. If I picked up a resume and it was 80% about music, I'd probably skip over it, but if it was 80% relevant and had music, then I'd think it was interesting and read it more carefully.

It will also be vital for you to have a persuasive cover letter.

Finally, when it comes down to it, you have to have the required technical skills -- so take some CS classes, and perhaps find interesting ways to combine the two.

I'd assume that you would look at it a bit differently if you were in the music business though.

Got for it - if you have the drive to get into Oxford and through the degree then, to be honest, I suspect the exact content of the course isn't that important. (I know very successful people who did degrees at Oxford in classics).

Actually, I personally would look on someone who does a music degree rather positively as it is the kind of course that only someone who has a passion for the subject is likely to do, rather than doing something purely for the career/earning prospects.

>I know very successful people who did degrees at Oxford in classics

Isn't that like half of the UK cabinet for the last few hundred years?

I double majored in the two most irrelevant degrees, philosophy and mathematics. The main skill this has imparted upon me is superhuman-like bullshit detection. While useful, this has proven to be rather depressing, as bullshit is in no short supply.

If I could do it over again, I would have majored in music.

I would not classify mathematics as irrelevant. Math serves as the foundation for all of science and engineering. I would bet that most CS and Engineering grad students (and industry professionals) wish they had a stronger mathematics background ... even those with strong mathematics backgrounds ;-)

Can't talk about Engineers, but as a professional programmer of 9 years with many years of undergraduate and graduate (M.Sc) Mathematics education, I must say I rarely/never use any of the math I've learned (at least not something I wouldn't have learned as an undergrad CS major) at work.

I have heard your argument very often though, it seems about as popular as the one that states painters benefit from knowledge of Chemistry[1] ;)

[1] http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm#...

As a former automotive engineer, I can say I didn't use my math much either. In fact engineering in my experience was mostly project management, the degree just gave you the background to work with everyone else.

Clearly, it depends on what you do. My experience is quite the opposite of yours. I cannot speak for what you do, but, in my field (robotics) if you do not have a strong mathematics background, you will not last very long.

It was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I have never used anything beyond sophomore linear algebra in my work.

I did my undergraduate work in philosophy, and I honestly have found it really useful in CS. The ability to break down a complicated argument into small steps that are independently verifiable is very close to the ability required to break a complicated program or operation down into smaller components that are independently verifiable. In addition, philosophy improved the clarity and rigor of my thinking and writing on complicated subjects, and it made me better at presenting my arguments in an unbiased, rhetoric free way that helps get to the right answer, instead of just trying to convince people I'm right.

So while the actual content of philosophy classes is pretty much irrelevant to anything in real life, the process of philosophical thinking and writing (at least analytic philosophy) turns out to be very good training for CS and probably a fair number of other things.

I have had the exact same experience and I highly recommend it especially if you want to go on and get an advanced degree.

At my last job I worked with a guy who was a water walker when it came to software design and development. He had a bachelors in Philosophy and was still only 5 years in to his career. Was just a smart dude.

Real answer: Follow your passion. If music moves you, go for it.

Discussion: About whether or not it "helps your career", I think the counter-argument would be not so much that it doesn't help, but the opportunity cost of your time/money. What else could you be doing over that time.

In other words, compare "Music vs What Else I Could Do", and not Music vs Nothing

I currently have a job that keeps me mentally stimulated, interested and learning new skills on a daily basis, and I would be able to continue (either part time or, if I were to chose a relatively easy degree at a different university then possibly even full time, as a friend of mine is currently doing in Birmingham).

I'd love to get a degree in Music, but balancing that fact with the amount of time it uses up I'm on the fence, so really the reason for asking the question was to see how far over the fence people would push me.

Music is far from an irrelevant degree; it actually requires surprisingly sophisticated mathematics, and you emerge with a genuine skill.

Irrelevant degrees are things like 'asian studies' or 'art history', where you learn how to criticize without learning to create.

I've hired a lot of programmers, and a music degree from Oxford is something I'd view as a plus, provided you could demonstrate that you also have the necessary technical skills.

Personally, I was a philosophy major.

Personally, I was a philosophy major.

As was I, along with Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Physics.

Philosophy was by far my most important and relevant major. It taught me how to think and express myself logically and to identify specious reasoning - two things which are invaluable in life.

In fact, I know of at least one Philosophy major that Apple hired as an iPhone engineer.

They should really teach Philosophy in high school - it's a much better way to learn to read and write than English class, and the payoff is you learn to think for yourself and not simply quote authors like Shakespeare.

They do teach philosophy at some high schools, and that is probably the strongest part of the program at the high school I know best.

http://epgy.stanford.edu/ohs/courses/core.html

One of the things that high school muffs up is not having an asynchronous online forum for the students, who are enrolled from all over the world. That's crazy that the school doesn't have a pan-school channel for interaction among all the enrolled students.

Out of curiosity, where can you have four different majors? (We didn't have official "majors" at all where I went to uni, but I always thought they were something of which you only had one or two.)

If you're studying four subjects in your final year, how do you go into any depth in them?

I was on the 8-year plan...

I love learning, and couldn't decide on a single major. First I was planning on CS / Math, but wound up taking a physics course, asking the right questions, and the professor hired me to do research for him and put me on the honors track. As long as I was matriculated as a physics major, I had a scholarship and a pay check waiting. I also happened to love it. Because my University didn't allow more than two courses to overlap between majors, I wound up taking enough math courses to otherwise have majored in it, but it didn't count.

In my senior year, I took philosophy to satisfy a writing requirement. It was analytical philosophy. Logic and reason was valued above all. We discussed the problem of other minds, philosophy of religion, and a broad array of other things I had always pondered. In fact, I thought I must have been the only kid in kindergarten wondering how I could be certain that my parents were actually conscious beings and not just bags of molecules. How could I know for certain that they had a mind and consciousness in the same way that I did? When I found out that you could get paid to think about these things and teach people how to think, I was hooked. I decided to double major, and spent an extra year filling all of the requirements.

After graduating (the first time) I spent 6 months working at a local bookstore, deciding what track I wanted my life to take. I could teach high school physics, I could get a PhD in physics (though I was getting tired of seeing divs, grads, and curls every time I closed my eyes). I could become a philosophy PhD and later professor, which sounded like a dream job, but was difficult in practice to obtain.

Then it occurred to me that I didn't know much about biology and my own body. I would be stuck with it for the rest of my life, so I thought maybe I'd go to medical school. The problem was two-fold. I didn't meet the pre-requisite coursework for applying, and my grades were not competitive (I never handed-in homework. I studied things for their own sake and not for the grades.)

After watching a few UC Berkeley lectures on chemistry and biology, I decided I loved biology. I returned to my University to get a degree in some form of biology. I wanted to learn it very well, get great grades, and I chose the hardest sub-discipline with the fewest students: molecular biology and biochemistry.

I was amazed to discover that when I actually tried and cared, I was at the top of every class. I graduated again, with a 4.0 and applied to medical school.

Amazingly, even with these credentials, a large body of research, and a very competitive MCAT score I was still only accepted to a few schools.

I wound up getting into a combined MD/PhD program, which was an additional 3 years over regular medical school, but allowed me to conduct research. It also came with full tuition and a stipend.

I'm now in my third year and doing research at the NIH. I have five more years until I graduate for the final time.

In retrospect, I could have forgone almost all of college and just audited the courses that interested me. In fact, I believe that college is of only marginal value to most people. Most of the skill set I acquired I learned in high school, on my own, with books and computers.

Without college, however, I would never have gotten into medical school. It is definitely necessary for some things.

Agreed. I've hired a dozen programmers in my day, and I'd rather hire a music or philosophy or math(s) major than a IS or business major. To me, a CS major is neutral; I've seen too many people with CS degrees who couldn't code themselves out of a paper bag. (A CS degree after 5 years of production coding experience, on the other hand, would be a big plus.)

There is a strong connection between music and programming, that shouldn't be ignored. Doesn't mean that programmers are necessarily musical, or vice versa, but programming well requires similar thought patterns to music (and writing, and philosophy).

I studied the course linked to below at University of Sussex, which is a combination of Computer Science, AI and classical Music.

http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/courses/music-informatics/overvie...

I have a Bachelors degree in Geography. I work at a university doing systems programming for a research group in electrical systems and security. I have been published more than once. I will be doing some fun research this year about big data. The only thing my degree content has been used for so far is one time when I was talking to a GIS company about some work related displays, I spoke the language correctly.

The most important role my degree has played: I was able to get a "College degree required" job. The importance of this cannot be understated. Many places will not consider you without the piece of paper, whether it is related or not is much less important. The paper itself signifies the ability to get through 4 years of doing something.

An irrelevant degree takes some years that you could invest into a working experience, and more importantly, it delays maturity. But it can give you a valuable knowledge (of course, if you earn grades for real things, not for imitating some nonsense). This is hard to learn in everyday life.

I program in Python and earlier was a DB developer, but have an economics masters degree. The most useful thing of this degree was maths and games theory that surprisingly comes to conclusions on things like morale, honesty and dignity, and shows that they're not relative as the classic economics implies.

I've already got four years of (in my opinion quality) working experience, and to be honest I think that most of the overall life-lessons that a music degree could teach me I already have - the biggest reason I want to do it is learning more about the subject, than using it as a way to improve myself in other areas.

(I asked HN more to see if it would give the impression of having improved my other areas, than if it would)

The thing to be cognizant of, I think, is that CS/Business/Marketing at a University are already disconnected from the business world somewhat. The problems they solve are already more abstract and academic (in a good sense). So people are already negotiating the realities of business v. the academic analogs, etc. Music, on top of it all, is perhaps the most abstract field in the humanities (philosophy has systems of ideas, literature has words, the visual arts have images but music has predominantly...sounds?). That's not to say Oxford or any good university wouldn't provide you with invaluable habits and attitudes about learning for the rest of your life. But if you think about it as an investment, apart from what hiring managers will think, you're potentially exposing yourself to a pretty heavy load of abstraction. However, as long as you're aware of it, you can balance it with other things (organizing gigs as mentioned is a good idea), or do them later (or even while you're there -- sit in on CS lectures, read the books on your own, etc.).

I would think it depends a lot on what you want to do after obtaining your degree. If you want to work for the Government, go for it. Federal, State and Local governments do not care what kind of degree you have, as long as you have one.

If you want to work in the private sector, I would suppose that all depends on your target company. Some HR people see a degree as an accomplishment and do not worry themselves much about the specifics of your degree. Some, however, feel that you simply must have a relevant degree to understand your job even though you will learn almost all of your job duties on-site.

I am 31 and started college about 2 months ago. I work for the state Board of Education and a degree = pay raise. I administer several large Windows domains, do basic hardware/software tech, and plan/integrate networks. The state does not care if I have a degree in computers or gymnastics. I get the same pay raise regardless. They don't care if it is Ivy league or University of Phoenix (which I am doing by the way.)

For CS: Firms generally look for CS or a related degree (Maths, elec eng, etc.) - although if you can prove you can program (open source projects, etc.) they may well be flexible. Typically for most degrees you can do a few "open units" in other subjects, so if you did some in CS that would help as well.

For Business/Marketing: Specific degree is less important, although some firms prefer degrees with mathematical content. Again having relevant extra-curricular activities or internships are much more important if your degree is in an different subject.

It's worth noting that most people (~60%) go on to careers completely unrelated to their degree so don't worry too much about it.

Feel free to email me if you want more advice, I used to run a non-profit that did analysis on degree -> career paths in the UK so I'm pretty familiar with the area.

I'm confident I can gain experience for any area I might want to go into in the future - where I am currently, mainly focussing on marketing with an slight techy twist, I've created expensive advertising campaigns for companies like Dell, AMD and PC World, having had no experience prior to this job, plus on the side I've played a big part in various events, and management of 20 or so servers/websites.

Basically the last few years I've been doing my best to build up experience in as many of the areas that interest me as possible, partly because I love what I'm doing and partly because I want my CV to be non-restricting to any future path I might want to take.

I double majored in English and philosophy because that was what I wanted to study and the kind of school I wanted to go to. I didn't expect it to help me get a job, and sure enough it didn't. I ended up doing a mix of non-programming employment and moonlighting as a consultant for several years until I had enough skill, discipline, and network to become a full-time consultant a couple years ago--which was when life kicked my family off a cliff and called, "Hope you figured out that flying thing!"

Thankfully, I've been flying since then. So if you habitually choose your life based on what you think is best not easiest, and you have some reasonably well founded confidence that you can make it work out regardless, study whatever you want to study. Just don't expect anyone to give you credit for it until sometime after you don't need their regard.

First off, I don't think the lack of a degree brands at all someone as dense or slow. Also, depending on the degree and school it's received from, the holder's persistence and/or determination can be generally deduced.

However, I would not choose to hire someone who didn't have a clue about the general area the job offer was on, regardless of what the job specifically required. I would rather try and judge her suitability from a personal interview, instead of a few lines on her resume. For technical tasks, you don't have to be a CS grad to solve them. For research and development, I'd value a formal background on CS more.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that people without a degree are dense or slow, some of the brightest people I know never got a degree.

My point was more than the percentage of people with degrees who might be considered "dense and slow" is going to be significantly lower than of people without education, and I would imagine the difference is further highlighted when the degree is from a university like Oxford.

I'd never suggest that person A who went to Oxford is smarter than person B who went to a less-popular university, or none at all, without knowing more about both people, I just think as an overall it works out that way (you don't have to get a degree to be clever, you do have to be [reasonably] clever to get a degree)

It's Oxford. Any decent business should recognise the intelligence and workload necessary to get a degree there.

edit: Of course, it's always best to do a relevant course, but it won't be the end of the world.

At most Universities you can do a double major. If you know what you want early on, this usually won't add much length to the time it takes to get your degree.

If the double major doesn't work out, consider minoring in Music. My real passion is history, so I did a major in Computer Science and a minor in History.

Degrees are like checkpoints in life.

While not required (at least at good companies that look for talented people rather than degrees), they serve as a nice launching board (and as a negotiating point for salary).

If you are passionate, then school is a great idea to get a breadth level exposure to the field.

study what you like, not what anonymous recruiters and employers will have presumably wanted you to study. i have a degree in CS (which is what i wanted to study) but do wish i had a music minor or at least had some time to take some real music courses in college.

when looking at hundreds of resumes for prospective hires, i don't think i once looked at the school or degree somebody had. i barely looked at the resume at all; past experience is nice to thumb through but conversation with the candidate was the only real way to tell if they know what they're doing.

as for getting past anonymous HR resume scans, don't worry about it. nobody can really get past those anyway. your best bet is and always will be inside referrals.

Just remember tbe opportunity cost of not doing a relevant degree with those four years. I graduated a few years ago with English Literature but I'm kicking myself for not doing CS. I'd be so much more comfortable right now if I had.

For computing I'd definitely be interested in somebody with a music degree--music is said to have a strong correlation with programming ability.

Of business and marketing I know nothing at all.

an irrelevant degree will not hurt you. an irrelevant degree only has the potential to help you, although whether or not it will actually "help" will vary from job to job, HR person to HR person, etc..

Mind you don't get "Oxbridge syndrome"... Oops, too late.

I'm very aware that there are plenty of non-Oxbridge universities in the UK (and elsewhere of course) that are of a high quality, my reasons for wanting to go to Oxford specifically aren't (entirely) because of the name it's made for itself.

- Most of my ancestors on my mother's side went to Oxford or Cambridge, so feels roughly inherited (no university on my Dad's side)

- I've lived in Oxford all my life, and a.) love this city and b.) have grown a sort of irrelevant pride for it (kind of a more localised patriotism)

- I've very close personal ties with two colleges here at Oxford, one of which is the one I'd like to attend

- I happen to know a few professors at Oxford (all in Music, as it happens), one of which is the director of music at the college I'd like to attend

The fact that "Oxford" on a CV traditionally looks better than some other universities is just an added benefit, I'm not someone who would chose it purely for that reason.

Indeed. There is practically no difference between the quality of any of the Russell Group universities. But only Oxbridge graduates feel the need to mention their college within 2 minutes of you meeting them.

May be true for some oxbridge students, but not all (and not me if I do end up doing it)

You haven't even been there yet! And you already have.

I would have mentioned it had my university of choice not been Oxford though...

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