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Comment by wffurr | Hacker News Reader

My masters degree in Computer Science was incredibly educating and opened many career doors for me.

It filled in a lot of gaps that my undergraduate education left, and significantly raised my profile amongst recruiters.

CS might be the exception to the rule about Masters degrees though.

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CS is pretty special:

- It's not a legally qualifying degree like studying medicine

- It's academic in the sense that you can use it to gain entrance to a phd, and has academic content that isn't just "how to code".

- And yet you learn a fair bit about how to code. You'll in all likelihood come across actual tools, not toys, that real coders use, eg Git. You might also do some specialist stuff that is directly applicable to an employer, rather than just demonstrating interest. Eg if you do a systems programming course, you might actually understand systems in a way that's useful from the start.

Conversely, I don't even have a bachelor's degree in CS, and I haven't suffered at all because of it. I got a job offer before graduating, and decided my time was better spent earning money than learning stuff I would probably never have any use for.

Rather than focusing on degrees, I think it's a lot more important to focus on learning, however you don't know what's important to learn until you actually start working on real problems.

Funny how those of us who didn't spend more than a couple years in school think the rest of the years are probably a waste, and those that did spend a lot of time and money in school think it was useful.

I have a BS in computer science. I felt like less than 25% of it actually made me a better programmer. At least 25% of it was a total waste of time. The rest was stuff that was maybe academically relevant or interesting to me at least, but of dubious value given the time and financial costs.

I have a degree. It will go down as the biggest regret of my life and my life has changed drastically simply because I thought getting an education was good for society.

Who got more accurate information in that case.. ;)

It might be because education is free in my country, but I loved my Uni years and am glad I got 5 of them no matter the use for my career.

I spent 6 years in undergrad (3 for MechE, 3 for Econ). I think it was a waste in terms of my career (which is SWE). I enjoyed college from a social perspective, but there were way cooler things I could've done with $15,000/yr

I had a BA in business and wanted to get into tech field (no idea what, at the time). Decided to get MS in Information Science. That helped me get an internship which enabled me to add some tech-related experience to my resume which was a jumping off point that launched my tech career. My feeling about getting a MS at this point is that it was gatekeeping. I could have done that job pre-masters and everything I've learned about programming has been on-the-job training or self-directed.

I spent the first ten years of my programming career without a degree, like you. I got a SoftEng MSc at 30. It was worth it. Sometimes we just don't know what we don't know.

I think formal cs education would make me a better engineer than I am now, but at the same time I have never seen an instance where education has mattered more than intelligence.

What made it worth it to you?

Instead those around you, with a degree, suffered. Having to deal with bricklayers that reinvent the wheel simply because they cant grasp cs topics is annoying.

In my experience, a degree doesn't matter much whether someone is able to 'grasp cs topics'; a willingness to learn on the job is vastly more important.

If others suffered because of me, it would be because I was once a junior developer with no practical experience -- which applies to everyone, regardless of whether they have a degree or not.

I wonder if you realize how bigoted and insulting your generalization is.

> learning stuff I would probably never have any use for.

I hear this so much, and I used to be one of the people saying it. Until I actually 1) learned that stuff and 2) realized I don't want to just write glue code. I like writing compilers. I like writing efficient data structures. I use my CS education a lot.

It's probably generally true of engineering degrees. While there's obviously an opportunity cost, there's usually not a big out of pocket expense other than living expenses. In my case, it wasn't so much that I really used a lot of specific things I learned getting the Master's but I still think it was a useful supplement to what I learned undergrad--the thesis in particular.

The same applies to some degree of the sciences in general but, there, you probably have to get to a PhD for the opportunities to be significantly elevated relative to a BS.

In any case, this meme about Master's degree scams is mostly directed at high-cost degrees in journalism and the like where the career opportunities aren't great with or without the degree.

The article is poorly titled - it's mostly about non-tech degrees or online programs.

In engineering, an MS in CS has the least value to employers. However, in other areas of engineering, it has a pretty high value. Many big companies will not let you do EE design work with just a BS, for example.

I think this really depends on your undergrad, the value of masters degree seems to diminish with the following factors:

- A well taught undergrad degree in CS (Masters fill gaps caused by bad classes or different fields)

- Graduated with undergrad degree recently (getting a Masters degree after being out of school for 10 years can be a good refresher and update on how the field has evolved/changed)

- Masters degree classes in an area of CS you are familiar with (Masters degree is a great opportunity to take classes in areas that you care about but don't know well, if you are a great Rails webdev with 7 years experience, then taking a Masters degree class in Rail WebDev is just wasting your time.)

My CS masters was also no cost to me. Working as a half-time teaching and research assistant covered my tuition. I finished in twice the usual time with no debt and valuable work experience.

It's also worth considering the opportunity cost. Usually for more junior candidates, time in school is treated equivalently to work experience. You just get paid more for working those years.

I've read universally it's very hit or miss unless you specialize in some specific field.

Similar experience here. I did a BA in 'Information Technology'. It wasn't until after I graduated that I taught myself to program through Stanford lectures on YT. The MSE in CS was incredibly beneficial for me.

What was your undergraduate degree in?

Also Computer Science but from a much less prestigious state school.

It was also in a region with a much smaller tech sector.

It's actually hard to say how much of the career boost was from moving to Boston and how much from the degree. I did make some very useful connections during the degree as well as actually learning quite a lot in some of the classes.

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