Ask HN: Should I go for engineering? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Should I go for engineering?

1 pointcupofjoakim3 comments

Hey guys, I have a question.

I'm currently working as a front end developer at a brand agency in Stockholm, Sweden. The work's fun and varying in difficulty - sometimes it's brand websites, sometimes it's prototypes and sometimes it's interaction demos. It also pays decently considering my age (23), experience (3 years) and earlier education (2 years at Ad school).

As it stands right now, I'm self taught. I enjoy programming a lot, but I know that I do lack some basics that CS bachelors know. I still am not fluent in any other language than javascript, even though I know my way around php and swift.

I'm considering going back to school to get a bachelors in CS, but it would mean a huge time investment. I didn't read enough math and physics before graduating, so I'd need what the Universities in Sweden call a "basår". It's like a year where you get prepared to study the actual engineering programs. All in all it'd mean 4 years to get a bachelors. I can freelance during those 4 years, I've got a good network, but I'm not sure it'd be the best way to spend my time.

Should I go for it or should I not? Anything else I should consider?

Basing on my experience I would first ask you a question - how much do you like doing it. "it" means fiddling with code, handling legacy and not so often creating your own stuff. Also what technologies do you want to work with - web technologies is that right? I'm guessing some people won't like that idea but I can advice basing on my own experience - you do not need to go back to school to do this stuff for your living. I'm holding MSc in engineering not relevant to software engineering nor computer science and still I'm working in software engineering. Having that said holding a valid qualification is an entry requirement for many well paid job posts out there. So if you do not hold a degree then it's a good time to get around that since later it will be much more difficult (i.e. when you consider a great project called 'family' your time is basically vanished).

Thank you for the response. The family aspect is certainly something I do think about. I don't think I'll be having kids for another ten years, but I'd like to know that I could get a job in a smaller town than Stockholm, which isn't as easy as a front ender compared to an engineer. A kid needs a bit of nature, I think :)

Doing web is not as important as I might've made it sound in the original post. I just want to feel challenged at all times, and front end isn't doing that as often as I'd like it to. For now I'm moving into full stack, but I think the concept of machine learning is intriguing as well, even if it is very far away from where I am at this point.

In such case going for degree might be a good idea - depending on university you pick there are wide and narrow courses. Wide in the meaning that they touch many areas giving you a feel of what is it waiting down the corner if you decided to specialise in that direction. That's what I was studying - pretty multidisciplinary course and I'm happy with it even though I work in quite a different market than what I was studying for.

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