[ale] CS Degree necessary?

[Christopher Bergeron]

Kevin- speaking of O'Reilly, my DashPC project (http://www.dashpc.com) is
going to have a chapter in a new book by O'Reilly about "Cool Linux hacks".
It's going to be published sometime this year.  I don't know the book title
just yet.  The project is also going to be the cover story in the March
issue of "Free Source" magazine...

(back to the subject)

I agree with you about the degree thing.  I know of a few CS grads that
"just don't get it" and I know of some genius "dropouts".
:)



> -----Original Message-----
> From: kschmidt at mindspring.com [mailto:kschmidt at mindspring.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 10:50 PM
> To: Christopher Bergeron
> Cc: Michael Golden; Ale
> Subject: Re: RE: [ale] CS Degree necessary?
>
>
>
> I must be one of those exceptions, I guess. I've been using
> computers since age nine, programming since age 10, and working
> full time in the field for almost 10 years (I'm now 28). Not
> having a degree hasn't hurt me at all. Heck, I've written an
> O'Reilly book and have started on a second one.
>
> Just because you stick it for four years doesn't guarantee that
> you're worth a damn. I've met some real clueless people who had
> CS degrees. And some of the best coders I've known where either
> college drop outs or guys with non-CS degrees.
>
> Here's my take: If you have zero experience, then having a degree
> will get you in the door. But it has been my "experience" that if
> you know your sh*t, then you will never have a problem, degree or
> no degree.
>
> -Kevin
>
>
> Christopher Bergeron <christopher at bergeron.com> wrote:
> > Michael, I went to Florida State for CS, but ended up with a
> degree in MIS
> because I'm not very good at higher mathematics (go figure).  I've got a
> great job and this might be blasphemous to some, but I make more than the
> guy with the CS degree in my office.  I highly respect what the CS majors
> had to go through to get thier degrees - I just couldn't hack it.
> ....buuuuut, since I'm more experienced (I've been hacking since High
> School) I equate that to my overall higher salary.  I tend to think that
> salaries in general are a logarithmic curve.  When you're not
> educated it's
> harder to get to the apex, and when you're too educated you're actually
> overvalued and it's harder to find work (ever talk to someone
> with multiple
> degree's and a phD or master's in CS that _wasn't_ an instructor or
> professor? - neither have I).  The point of all this is that (IMHO) it's
> important to _have_ a degree; but ultimately your experience will pave the
> way of your career.  The degree will get you into interviews that
> you could
> not normally get and as a result I think you'll do much better than with
> just experience alone and no degree.  Although, to be practical I
> don't know
> how far a degree in "Paperclip Art" would get you.  You have to be
> realistic.
>
> That's just my take on things,
> -CB
>
> P.S.
> I'm 25 years old and according to salary.com I make in the middle-upper
> percentile of salaries for my job description (unix admin) adjusted for
> geometery of course!  [or is that geography!?]
> :)
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Michael Golden [mailto:naugrimk at yahoo.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 7:56 PM
> > To: ale at ale.org
> > Subject: [ale] CS Degree necessary?
> >
> >
> > Hi,
> > 	I know a similar thread has gone on in this list a while
> > back but for
> > one I'm too lazy right now to go back and try to find it and two I don't
> > recall well enough if it addressed this exact topic.
> > 	Right now I am set up to major in Computer Science but I've
> > only been
> > taking general education core classes so far. I was talking to people
> > about some of the classes for the major and I took a look through them
> > myself and I'm not sure how interested I am in taking half of them. I'd
> > like to have a career in computers but I don't know how much I'll enjoy
> > this major.
> > 	Is a CS degree really necessary in the real world for computer jobs?
> > What are the advantages/disadvantages to having it? Anything else to
> > add?
> >
> > Michael
> >
> >
> >
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>
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