Ask HN: To degree, or not to degree? (Info. Security) | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: To degree, or not to degree? (Info. Security)

3 pointsJekyll3 comments

First off, excuse my silly attempt at a modified Shakespearean soliloquy in the title.

I'm going to get straight to the point and try to be as concise as possible to avoid ambiguity and "TL;DR"'s.

I've clocked up 17 years of existence, and have a bit of a dilemma with regards to pathways into a career in information security (I understand it's a diverse field with many different roles) - academia has NEVER appealed to me and I hate the notion of studying for a further 3-5 years at university once I've finished school to obtain a paper qualification only to have to enroll on a graduate programme to get me up to scratch to a company's desired level.

Having studied Physics/Maths at school - I decided to self-teach myself programming with Python to begin with and set up a Linux virtual machine to muck about in and explore.

I also managed to land myself a part-time job involving UNIX scripting alongside a security researcher at a small company and am thoroughly enjoying it as well as improving my knowledge in other areas such as network security, web applications etc...

Which leads me to my title question - the company I'm working with may offer to keep me on and provide me with basic training (a sort of early graduate scheme) & encouraging me to take certifications from the likes of CompTIA, Cisco etc. - is it worth it for me to avoid university/getting a degree to pursue a job which I thoroughly love with the risk of potentially affected long-term propects (many employers are requiring a degree to get you past the HR filter).

In the UK (where I live) - with increasing amounts of people pursuing university, the value of a degree seems to be declining & topped with a three-fold increase in tuition fees it seems to be looking like a an increasingly unattractive option.

I appreciate the youthful energy you have. But before making this decision, you must understand that college is never about that paper they give you at the end.

College is about friendships you form, the networks you gain. If you are careful, you learn more from your peers than your professors. As a side benefit, you get a support network for the rest of your life to depend upon.

College is about wrapping your mind around a subject, and learning to find relevant stuff whenever you need; and to recognise that you need something, you must be aware of its existence.

College is about experimenting and trying to find your preferences before life tosses you somewhere. And no matter how careful you are, life has its tricky ways to interfere with your plans. College gives you plans B, C and D.

College is a gatekeeper. Once you pass that initial steps you talked about, you might want to work on mind boggling stuff only PHDs can understand, and you might be shocked that the doors are closed for you even though you are smart and knowledgable.

College is investment. If you aren't lucky enough to win the lottery you aren't lucky enough to be the next Bill Gates no matter how studious and smart you are. Investing your four years in college would ease your life afterwards and open possibilities you haven't thought of.

If you ask me, given the lower cost of higher education in U.K. it would be dumb to skip college to try to forge a path through sheer will.

Go to your college and let the world unfold.

College is empowerment. Don't be silly, make lemonades.

No degree. Best advice you will ever receive: dive head first into your work. Get certified. Meet people and make connections/relationships (at work). Go above and beyond what you are paid to do (if you see something that should be done but no one is necessarily telling you to do it, then do it and do it very well).

Make your manager love you. Make your coworkers love you. Start building a resume listing the major accomplishments you do at work. Stick with the job for a minimum of 2 years.

In your spare time, be learning more (if you have spare time, considering you will be studying for certs, etc.). Just learn a little something on your own everyday. Learn about the web, network programming, various programming paradigms, and maybe a new language or two (at most -- don't go overboard with learning a ton of languages). See if you can apply something you are learning about on your own to your work. If you can't apply what you are learning about to your job, then build something (small) with what you are learning in your spare time. If you can't even begin to use the things you are learning about at all, then stop learning about them and instead, focus on learning things that you can make use of now.

At work: begin to think business-y instead of just technically. Think about: how my skills can accomplish the 1. Business Requirements 2. Project Requirements 3. System Requirements, etc.

If you get good at Python or such, see if you can write a few scripts to automate some of the common tasks your coworkers do. Nothing major, but something that can be useful.

Then after 2 years, put yourself out there with that resume you have been building up and see what kind of bites you get. It's completely possible that 2 years from now the economy is collapsed and the world is broken, but if it's not then following the above will get you a lot farther than taking some classes at a Uni.

To the OP, this is top-notch advice. In my opinion, the certs are valuable but it's easy to get a bit overwhelmed by it and overdo them (also many of them require experience but I'm sure the company you have a part-time job in can vouch for your experience if you continue with them. I'd advise you to take the more vendor-neutral ones like CompTIA.

As the poster above said, and I cannot emphasize as much, networking is incredibly important so be professional with your work relationships and increase your connections as much as you can.

You may not be able to get pass the degree-wall of big companies like Google (although they are beginning to hire degree-less candidates now) - but that doesn't mean that consolidating your experiences and whacking up a great resume and throwing yourself out there will land you any less of a satisfying job - the clever employers know to look past the worth of pieces of paper acknowledging that you're capable of regurgitating information.

Good luck with what you decide anyhow.

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