Comment by tr0ut | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tr0ut | Hacker News Reader

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I believe so. Besides all the intangibles "Tastes great less filling" etc.. I still believe college/uni prepares you to work. Sorry this is an unpopular belief. Certainly we can debate the original inception and intentions of university all the way back to Greeks pontificating too. I digress..

If it did not. Employment would not require it. Because as most have stated above. It was not about preparing for the workforce. It was for all these other reasons, or the theory of the subject. Why would we want a MS if all they did is meet people and learn how to cook a meal for themselves because they're no longer under their parents thumb?

I would say not too far into ones career. Education matters very little. As in diminishing returns. The best you'll get after attending 'University of X' 5-10 years into your career. Is a high-five because the hiring manager went there too. Not because you're so much better off because you had a class on .Net and Network fundamentals. This is mostly true in all but the very specialized jobs in Tech. For the specialized few that went to top universities.

> If it did not. Employment would not require it.

That's not so clear. Other theories I've heard include "college is a good proxy for being reasonably intelligent and able to complete a difficult task" (mostly from employers themselves) and the more cynical "college education is a class signifier." I personally would say that college is worthwhile, from a purely work perspective, because it provides the student with the tools to encounter a new problem or concept, learn about it, and teach himself how to solve it, but that there's something to the other two explanations I mentioned too. My Japanese degree taught me nothing about programming, but the experience of learning Japanese in a university was useful when I decided I wanted to learn how to program.

Of course there are exceptions (if you're a doctor your higher education materials were obviously directly relevant), but to me this helps explain why so many employers care about a college degree, and not necessarily a degree in a particular subject.

> Not because you're so much better off because you had a class on .Net and Network fundamentals.

A computer science program that has courses devoted to stuff like .NET frankly doesn't sound like a very good one, since the idea of learning comp-sci is to understand underlying principles rather than memorizing how to use a particular tool.

I can tell you this. We (the company I work for) would not hire you as a programmer. Without a CS degree. Now I'm assuming you did not go back to get a CS degree. If not you have now ruled yourself out of a lot of opportunities. Ultimately for reasons you mentioned which are anecdotal and intangible.

Well, that's all well and good. There are plenty of companies who do not feel that way (even though they almost all put a CS degree as a "requirement" in job listings). In fact, I've never encountered my unrelated degree being an obstacle. I have no idea what you mean about ruling myself out of a lot of opportunities for "anecdotal and intangible" reasons.

I know there is work for people like yourself to be found. Having an unrelated degree but being capable of working in tech. However there are quite a lot of really good companies that will not even give your resume a second look with out CS degree or equal on it. This is what I'm arguing for. I don't think it matters. I've worked with people like yourself and others with no degree or drop-outs. That worked people from top universities under the table. However if we keep perpetuating this nonsense we'll never get an equal opportunity. You'll continue to shut people out who are more than capable.

What I mean is the things you mentioned while I do not dismiss them and I believe you. That being learning an unrelated major helped you with learning something else.. Is not actually enough for tech companies to want to hire you. But because we place so much emphasis on the paper. You're over-looked. So what you feel is a higher-education strength is actually a weakness in the market.

Well, my argument is a little different than that. I am saying my university education is, in my mind, part of the reason I was able to go from having the notion of learning programming to following through and learning enough to make it my career. I don't think my education makes that much of an impression on my resume after five years of work as a developer except as a curiosity, but if I weren't able to learn in the first place that would be the least of my concerns.

Most of the hard-luck stories I've heard related to degrees were people who'd had decent careers and then weren't able to get a promotion because of a company policy saying managers all needed a bachelors, or something to that effect, where the subject wouldn't really be what's at issue. If I'm really being shut out from interviews because my degree is in the wrong thing I have not noticed the effect -- even at tech companies.

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