Ask HN: Do you really need a degree? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you really need a degree?

11 pointsnabaraz15 comments

Hi HNers,

This subject has been bothering me for a while. After just 1 year I dropped out of college due to financial reasons and started working. I worked myself from junior to senior dev in these 5 years. And I am very happy with the progress that I have made towards my career.

Since I never graduated from college, my highest degree is still high school. I have been taking some classes which are of my interest but they don't necessarily count towards my degree.

My question is: Is it worthed to go back to college? I am interested in hearing from you folks who went back to college? Or even who decided not to go back?

Regards

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I decided to never go back.

I am 5 years into software development, 18 years in the tech industry overall. I have managed to get work at some great companies and have kept my salary close to or above 6 figures for much my career.

How? I worked my ass off. I cannot even really express the amount of time and effort I have put into my career. Especially once I switched gears and started software development full time. Even before that, I always put more time in my job than just about anyone else I knew. The downside is the effort has been detrimental to my health, I have hospitalized myself a few times due to the stress of working to much.

Should you get a degree? My opinion, based on what I have seen over the years, is that with a degree you do not need to work as hard to make as much. I am not implying that people with degrees do not work hard. Without a degree, you really need to bust your ass to make it to the upper salary ranges. Without a degree, many many doors will be closed to you, regardless of how skillful you may be with your craft.

If I had to do it over again, I would buckle down and get that degree. As much as I love what I do, and I truly do, the amount of time and effort it has take me to get this far, not to mention the health issues, it is just not something I would recommend for others.

On the other hand, if your are aspirations are a bit lower and you are just looking to make living...it is definitely possible to pursue this type of job without a degree and maybe even with a little less work than nuts like me.

I'm back at school now, having dropped out after first year CS in 2006.

The best quote I've heard on the subject, probably from patio11, was something to the effect of "there's no conceivable universe in which having a degree will hurt you." But there are many doors closed to you without it.

Get the degree. The 3 or 4 years will pass before you know it. As a bonus, you'll also make friends in your field and expand your network, which is always worth something.

I do indeed recall saying something quite similar to that. For context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7507540

If you look at hiring forms in Big Companies... There are checkboxes for Degree as well as PhD. It is common for managers to simply tick a box and send to HR / Recruiting firm.

So people without those get filtered out before anyone ever sees your CV. If you're never going to work at a Big Company, then this doesn't matter

Also, if you'd like to emigrate or work overseas, having a degree helps your case ( Australia, UK )

This is really only a question you can answer. If you want to be a doctor then yes you will need a degree. If you want to develope and run your own startup, no you don't need a degree. If you work for an employer not having a degree may hurt you when it comes time to promote. Reason behind that, shareholders and owners want to know a person is well educated. A degree may be just a (piece of paper) but it also shows that person has commitment and can complete the set goals given.

On that note I am a Marketing Executive for a Fortune 500 company without a college degree. Not having a degree has stopped me from having several positions. However I don't intended on working for someone else forever or going to college except for the several times I snuck into UCF business classes. I've always wanted to own and run my own business. I'm currently working on startup number 3. Even though I don't have a degree I still believe self education is very important. All it takes to be successful is setting goals and teaching yourself all the things you need to do to accomplish them.

Hope this helps

One other thing to consider: Do you have any interest in learning more of the theoretical bits of CS? Some obvious bits that stick out for me would be linear algebra, statistics, and algorithms. These are all things that can be self-taught, but depending... that may not be the most efficient or robust approach.

I'm maybe atypical in this regard, or maybe I just bias my consulting work towards projects that need a deeper theoretical basis, but I come across problems at least a few times/month that need me to tap into some of the stuff I learned specifically in school that I likely wouldn't picked up on my own. There's something, for me, about being able to look at, say, an analytics problem and think "Oh, this can be solved with a depth-first search on the graph of page visits from that user".

Edit: or looking at a tricky data parsing problem and being able to say "that can't be parsed with a regex, but I could probably do it with a parser-generator" and feeling relatively comfortable with writing out the grammar and walking the AST afterwards.

A degree can be a vocational milestone. It can be a personal milestone.

Most of the people I know who have gone back for a bachelor degree, including myself, have been more intrinsically motivated than extrinsically. This may be more common among older learners in general.

Is it worth going back for vocational reasons? Well for professions such as accounting, engineering, or law that require a degree for licensure, yes. Anything else requires looking at more subjective criteria including personal desire.

Good luck.

It is used as a signalling tool. A checkbox.

Does it truly matter? No. Does it help, does it give you a leg up against someone who hasn't? Obviously.

If you don't have a degree and don't plan on getting one. Work your ass off, even more importantly - network! That guy who knows someone who knows someone ... the world is a big, yet small place. Networking + marketing yourself becomes very important if you don't have a degree.

You don't need it, but it may come in handy. I would definitely recommend achieving your degree if you are able to eventually - there's no way it can hurt you and it can only really help you.

I also didn't realise at the time how much I'd actually gained from my degree until several years into my career - not sure how it works in the US but I imagine it's pretty similar to the UK - being able to choose which modules etc you take means you can round out your education and expand it into other areas which may help you depending on which direction you want to take your career.

Generally speaking my principle is that any education is worthwhile. Software development isn't an industry which technically requires a degree since barrier to entry is relatively low and there are countless free educational resources out there anyway. That being said, having a formal qualification in the subject will increase your visibility somewhat - it's still true that a degree carries weight regardless of the subject.

As far as knowledge, working of course is going to give you that, or through your own efforts. It seems like a degree is only needed if you want to make a change. Some companies will not consider you. Can you do the job? Of course, but you may never be able to get that across. I also started college, then ended up getting progressively better jobs in IT and quit college. Everything great until I got let go. Now I needed that degree to get me in a few more interviews. I eventually finished the degree and then noticed that for the positions that I was looking for wanted a Masters degree. Kept working and going to school and finished that one too. I just wanted to have as many options as I could.

Either replace your degree with solid experience and good skill, or get a degree, or combine both. At the end of the day, just be good at what you do. You know how to get there.

School is an investment. If you believe you will get a good return, go to college.

For example: If I'm making 100k a year right now. I'm clearly employable and skilled. I have no reason to go back to school because it'd take 4 years of earning potential out of my life. However, maybe there's a position I want that pays $250k, but they need a solid understanding of physics. In that case, I'd probably go back to school.

In my experience, nobody cares if you went to school or not as long as you have the skill.

Thank you!

Similarly, I dropped out of university after one semester and went on to work as a web developer for the last five years. I helped to build one company and now have a standing offer to become a CTO for significant $$$ and lovely working conditions. I choose to forgo that offer in order to go back to school but that is because I want to become a scientist not because the lack of a degree in any way impeded my professional development.

I do not agree that the want of any practical skill or piece of knowledge is a good reason to go back to school. Formal education is about credentials, which are needed to open certain doors.

> This subject has been bothering me for a while.

I'm reminded of the brilliant Mark Twain line-- "Don't let schooling interfere with your education."

Are you familiar with the UnSchool Guys? You might be interested in Hacking your education for new skills> http://www.uncollege.org/story/#the-book

Still, if it's the simple lack of the credential bothering you. Figure out the most effective, simplest way to complete a BA/BS program and get it done.

I dropped out after the first quarter of my senior year at UC Santa Cruz. It mostly worked out OK, but I grew weary of always having to explain to interviewers why I didn't graduate. The reason was that I was offered a job that - at the time, for me - paid really well.

I went back to school part-time until I completed my Physics degree. Now that I do have a degree, I find that it is for the most part ignored by potential clients.

On the other hand, there are many wonderful things you can gain from a college education. But don't feel like you need it just to get a job.

One of the very finest embedded developers I have ever met, Tom Cummings, last I heard worked on the Keck Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. I'm pretty sure he never even applied to college.

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