Ask HN: Did my poor choice in higher education hurt my career permanently?

Maybe not permanently, but yes, it definitely hurt your career. I'm not sure why everyone wants to deny that what college is on your resume matters. It really does matter. Google hires from "top-tier schools" (you can get in via other paths, but that's the easy one, and the only way you can get to work at Google straight out of college). Likewise facebook and all the other hot places to work in technology.

I was unaware of this fact when I made my school decisions, and my parents were mostly unaware of this fact as well (having been the first in both their families to attend college of any sort; to them the distinction was "went to college" and recognized little difference between "went to a good college" and "went to a bad college"), so I somewhat aimlessly attended a community college for four years. It took me about 5 years from finishing school to get to the point where I could work in high-paying jobs alongside people who had degrees from MIT, Caltech, Duke, etc. And the most important element in that process was probably writing a technical book and getting it published by a well-known publisher. I wouldn't have needed that book and other experience and getting such a job could have happened immediately after college had I attended a good school.

I've rarely let this bother me, as I've always known I wanted to work for myself, and I don't need to see a diploma to know what I can do. But, I can say that there have been a few occasions in my life where I desperately needed to be able to get a job in order to pay my bills (running your own business when you don't know how can lead to running up a lot of debt), and the jobs I could get were simply awful. Without a good degree, and without a solid trail of work-experience, you don't get the callback on high-paying jobs. There are always candidates with a good education who will edge you out in the selection process.

I believe you're going to need to take the initiative and fix your situation yourself. It won't happen by accident, and it won't happen by staying in one low-level position until your superiors deem you worthy of promotion.

I wrote a book, got involved in numerous Open Source projects, spoke at conferences, and did really good work whenever I found myself in a contract position at a really good company (on a few occasions that led to full-time employment offers, including an office with more Ph.Ds per square meter than any other place I've stepped foot). I feel pretty confident that at this point in my life, I could get a job working at almost any tech company in the world, because I have so much to show for my time since college. But, I've been out of college for 12 years...that's a long time to wait to start getting good jobs and making a good salary.

You don't have to go back to school to "fix" the problem, but you do need to do something dramatic. Start a successful company. Write a book for publication (preferably a good one). Start an Open Source project and make it really successful. Just going to work every day will not cause the world to begin to agree with you on your value in the workplace. If you believe you're being undervalued and underutilized, you're going to have to do something about it.

Well put. I fall in this bucket. I didn't go to a bad college but I didn't go to a "Stanford."

Depends..facebook is hiring non-ivy school people as I got offered an interview and I only have a 2 community college degree :)

The golden rule is your skills/exp are in demand..than it matters far less

I'm very nervous about this. I'm a rising sophomore at Virginia Tech (best in-state engineering school for ECE), and, while it's not a diploma mill, it's also certainly not "top-tier". I wonder whether my job prospects (or, worse, my education) suffer because of it. I take it your advice would be to get moving on the OSS/Company-starting as soon as possible? What other methods might make me a more impressive candidate?

I really wouldn't worry if you're at Virginia Tech; it's not MIT/Stanford/CMU but for ECE I'd say it's in the top 10 and definitely top 20.

You should do the same thing someone at Stanford would do to be as impressive as possible -- independent projects, maybe try to do a startup, open source, etc.

I think the difference between MIT and Virginia Tech, at least for undergrad, is that the 50th percentile MIT student is going to probably be better than the 50th percentile Virginia Tech student; the 95th percentile at each is going to be very good. Just make sure you're one of the best graduates and anyone reasonable will evaluate you on your merits.

Virginia Tech is far from a diploma mill or a community college, and is probably on Google's accepted school list. It's not Stanford or Caltech or MIT, but it's not a problem you need to fret about.

Actually, one of the most productive programmers I know at Google is a Virginia Tech alum...

There are very few career mistakes that hurt you permanently, if you make an effort to recover from them. Usually, the way it works is that a low-quality degree shunts you into a low-quality initial job, which then makes you lower your expectation about what you can achieve, which prevents you from going for better opportunities as they arise. This cycle is very much breakable, it just requires that you do something unexpected.

Basically, if your degree sucks, it will force the hiring manager to look much more closely at your other accomplishments. If you have none, you're screwed. If you have a track record of shipping products that other people want to use, nobody is going to care about your degree.

If you're not regularly getting unsolicited offers of employment, you're not spending enough time on career development. Start a blog, contribute to open source projects and hustle like a motherfucker.

If you want to work on exciting things, work on exciting things. Demonstrate that you're halfway good at it and people will offer you money to do it for them. It really is as simple as that.

To me, the idea of a software developer seeking employment based on their degree is as ridiculous as a rock singer trying to book a gig on the basis of his BA. We work in a field where theoretical understanding is no guarantee of practical ability, but proving practical ability is straightforward. Developers who rely on credentials can't code and employers who rely on credentials can't hire. You want to keep the hell away from all of them.

Well, my company, an enterprise agile dev consulting firm, could really care less if you had a degree.

My guess is that most places you REALLY want to work won't care where your degree is from. Work on cool stuff, share what you do on github, and look for ways to learn and grow. It will be evident.

So if they could care less, they do care a little?

No, they don't care. I have heard them say to college interns that they should stop spending money on school so they can work sooner.

Your degree and what school you went to don't matter. What matters at this point is what you have accomplished. So what have you? If you have no publicly available proof of your work (open source, or web app, business ...) then get started. It is never too late. At the age you would be by now, people will judge you on your accomplishments.

I am 41 and have a couple of small companies (30 employees total). For my education, I barely graduated from public high school. I had my sister write a special make up paper so I could pass French. Without that I would not have made it. I am married now to a professor. I go to many parties with academics, and they are mostly impressed with the fact that I am self employed. I am impressed with all the degrees and publications they have. Nobody asks me where I went to school because that is not relevant to figure out if I am successful or worth talking to.

So to summarize - your place of education has an order of magnitude less importance than what you have accomplished. And the gap will get wider as you get older. So do something that people can see, and prove to the world that you are capable.

If you have been out of school six years, where you went to school should at best only be a minor consideration regarding your qualifications - proven track record will nearly always trump academic credentials in the business world.

In addition attending a mediocre local school due to limited options is different from traveling across country to do so as an explicit choice.

Thanks everyone, the personal anecdotes are the fuel I need to keep me motivated. It's tough when you see lots of big news about developers at startups doing amazing things and you just think 'well, I didn't do x,y,z perfectly, so I'm not eligible for this kind of project'. I work for a fairly small company that's existed for over 10 years but is still in startup mode, probably for the wrong reasons. But it's convinced me that startups and other small outfits are definitely where I want to be. Thanks everyone!

I agree with what everyone says here, but I think that reflects the OP's concern that he will have to prove himself by going the extra step, developing a worthwhile portfolio of work before being accepted as a person who knows his stuff. On the other hand ,a person with a degree from a known institute would be assumed by "most" people to have those skills , even without having anything to show for them.

I doubt you'll find any company that hires solely based on a degree. They all have an interview process designed to force you to prove you actually know how to code. Some use in-person interviews, some require code samples, but all require proof, and a degree is never proof in this field.

So no, I don't think he has hurt his career at all. Maybe slowed down the initial job, but with a decent portfolio (which he'd need anyhow) then his second job will be right back on track.

Consider getting a master's degree from a recognized institution.

Also consider joining some large company that will pay for that master's degree.

I think that depends on what you want your career to be.

If you're looking to work for startup and/or small firms, it's probably not going to matter. You've got a gig right now, they're going to care about what you did and learned at that gig. I know that my company doesn't care about what your degree is in or where it's from. Hell, all that has become is a measure of how much debt you and your parents were willing to accomodate.

If you're looking to work for a big firm, I dunno, Google or something, it's probably going be something they'll use to vet resumes.

This is not new advice, but now that you have your degree focus on creating stuff. Do something in the open source community. Blog the things you learn here and there. Your experiences and your portfolio of work is far more important to a smart hiring authority than some damn diploma.

Google will hire people without big-name degrees if they have big-name accomplishments. I know folks from SJSU or with no undergrad degree at all that are working in pretty high-up positions. They can't get hired straight out of school, but there're a bunch of things you can do in the meantime that increase your desirability to employers.

Yeah, Google was a bad example. IBM maybe? I can't think of a big company that I know for sure requires specific degrees from specific institutions.

I used to recruit for several "large" firms including top-3 finance, a few smaller hedge funds, then the top eCommerce firms (sans Google). The finance hedge funds had the most strict req's. Target school, CS degree (nothing else but CS), no Masters or higher degree, 0-2 years of experience etc.

This was due to "taint" from over-education, etc.

Otherwise, you needed a degree or some very solid accomplishments to be looked at for a top eCommerce / tech firm. Many financial firms require a 4 year degree or a sign-off from a Senior Manager.

Most of my roles were $90-140,000

You only "hurt" your career if you wish to stay in a corporate climbing-the-ladder world. EG: progressively moving up in pay / title, non-degree's seem to have $5-$15,000 less salary in my experience.

The most important long-term indicator of income was (my Google skills are failing me for citation) the first position. If you started low ($30-$35,000), in 10 years, you will of course still be behind your peers who started at $50-$60,000. The first position out of school also tended to keep you "stuck" in that track.

But, these are "averages" and nothing is limiting but your own ambition and drive.

"The finance hedge funds had the most strict req's. Target school, CS degree (nothing else but CS), no Masters or higher degree, 0-2 years of experience etc."

haha, I had considered this route since I have a BS in CS/math and MS in math and I figured they would like that more. apparently not. I like working 40 hours a week anyways at an employer that pays more more for the MS.

...and will just take the financial actuarial exams if I want in that route anyways.

You can compensate for a less-sexy degree by demonstrating excellent career growth. The time to act on this is now. Six years out of college, and four years in the same job - you're on the threshold of appearing stale.

Take some time to set long-term goals for yourself, determine what steps you would need to take to get there, and then execute on the steps that are feasible for you at the moment.

I have found that the career growth paths at many companies are quite immature - there are more options available when you consider changing employers versus busywaiting on the scarce promotional opportunities available in your career track at a single company. Doubly so if you are trying to overcome prejudices about your skill set, like if you are trying to make the leap from software testing to development, etc.

Where you were educated matters much less when you have an awesome list of projects/experience to refer to.

Define "hurt my career." Working for Google or Facebook? Maybe fresh out of school it would be a problem, but six years after? I find that hard to believe.

In any case, there is more to the employment world than Google, Facebook, or Apple. Want to work for a Fortune 500 business? Well there's 500 employers right there, most of whom aren't too concerned with where you went to school 6 years ago, but care more about what you did since.

I've been interviewing people for a few years and the only time the university is noticed is if it's Harvard or MIT or something well known. And even then it counts for absolutely NOTHING.

Harvard has a merit-based remote Master's program for Software Engineering[1] if you're interested in continuing education.

A strong professional network will help overcome most deficiencies. Companies are concerned with reputability and a school name or a degree are just a part of that. In that same vein, there are other areas of your professional reputation you can bolster as well.

1: http://blog.markwshead.com/911/harvard-online-masters-degree...

Wow $20,000 is a lot of money. I really feel sorry for those i the states, when you consider I could enter a residence masters program in Sweden for nothing (coming from the EU) you really wonder where the cost of education comes from.

You know it's not really free, right? You and everyone you know will be paying taxes to pay for that "free" education for the rest of your careers.

Not saying it's a bad deal, but it's not free.

It is also not really free to you directly; there is an opportunity cost to being in a full-time graduate program vs. remaining in your job, advancing in your career, or starting a company.

It still might be the right choice for financial and non-financial reasons, but school isn't free even if you don't have to pay for it.

Eh! It's not that bad. My MS cost about the same, but the only thing I had to pay was about a total of $300 in parking fees. In the US most large employers worth working for will reimburse you for tuition & books etc. 100% as long as you maintain a satisfactory GPA.

I just read the linked post and it seems like an interesting program. I couldn't help but notice though where he said it's an MA rather than an MS. Does anyone know how well regarded the program is? In other words, if a potential employer saw a Harvard Extension School ALM in IT master of arts degree on a resume instead of a master of science in CS from the Harvard engineering school (or anything else comparable), how well would it hold up?

Harvard only gives out B.A. degrees (more precisely, A.B. -- Artium Baccalaureatus spelled in Latin) in the sciences. I would assume the same for their masters program, but it is effectively equivalent to an MS.

By my own experience, if you have the appropriate skills and knowledge, most companies could care less on where you graduated. Some larger companies' HR departments can be university snobs, but I never encountered that on all the startups that I've applied to.

Just keep studying, do great work, and grow your portfolio; and I'm sure you'll do fine.

Nobody that matters will look at your schooling after a few years of experience. Those that do you should avoid, as they care more about superficial credentials than what you can actually do.

You don't have to put it on your resume.

You seem a bit like myself, a few years back. You are worried about "School Names" or how it looks to others.

Don't even worry about what school you attended, worry about the things you know. Did you learn anything?

Worry about what your skills are, good companies could careless if you went to no school and know the skills instead.

Worry about what projects you have done and what you learned from each one, even if the project was by yourself.

My point is people are so hung up on schools and degrees, they forget the skills and experience out-way any degree.

So worry about skills and experience even if its on your own experiments. The passed is the passed, hopefully you learned something at the school at the least.

You just don't learn in schools.