[ale] CS Degree necessary?

Thu Jan 17 00:14:23 EST 2002

I actually was going to lease that car, but because my credit wasn't good
enough, I couldn't.  The writer is who contacted me: Scott Fullam is his
name (he's an MIT student).  He's actually going to write the chapter.

I also own: http://www.carbonfiberpc.com/ which sells designer computer
peripherals and such... The point is that my degree didn't teach me how to
be creative and intelligent.  My intellect did.  The degree was a means to
an end.  My ultimate goal is to be a serial entrepreneur and as such a
degree is worthless.  However, I do have to have good income to "experiment"
with my crazy ventures.  Hopefully one of them will be successful, but could
I have gotten there without the degree?  That's certainly up for debate.  If
I don't order a pizza tonight could it affect the rest of my life?  Who
knows...!  I saw a post about this earlier that summed it up perfectly:
Know yourself and what you want.  Know who _you_ are and what _you_ want and
you'll get where _you_ want to be.  Consciously or subconsciously... (unless
of course you use M$ Windows).

:)

-CB

> -----Original Message-----
> From: kschmidt at mindspring.com [mailto:kschmidt at mindspring.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 11:27 PM
> To: Christopher Bergeron
> Subject: Re: RE: RE: [ale] CS Degree necessary?
>
>
>
> Awesome! How'd they work out the royalty thing, given that you're
> only contributing a chapter?
>
> At any rate, I like the dashpc thing. If I weren't leasing my
> car, I'd love to do something like that.
>
> -Kevin
>
> Christopher Bergeron <christopher at bergeron.com> wrote:
> > 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  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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