4 ms·

There is no single answer that someone can give you; It really depends on you and your background. As a personal rule of thumb I look at what big companies like

by zengid 10y ago

There is no single answer that someone can give you; It really depends on you and your background. As a personal rule of thumb I look at what big companies like Microsoft or Google expect of their employees (particularly Google). I know not every tech company is like Google, but they are a company with a very rigorous vetting process for applications. That said, even Google doesn't require a formal degree for their engineers, and they offer a guide for potential applicants listing what they expect [1]. IMO, what it really comes down to is if your learning style is best suited for a class-room education, and if so then whether you can afford to 'stop the world' and go back to school. A grad-student should be capable of doing independent research, so in theory you should be able to learn how to code on your own (if you wish to be a software engineer). You'll need to be sure you have a way to receive objective feedback on your output, and be ready to humble yourself as you descend down the Computer Science rabbit hole. In full disclosure, I'm going back to school for a MS in Information Technology. It's not as rigorous as CS, but it's reasonable given that I have a BA in Music. I wouldn't necessarily have gone back if it weren't for having a perfect opportunity to do so (My wife got a job as a professor at a university that had a masters program for IT, and so I'm getting a good deal on tuition). [1] https://www.google.com/about/careers/students/guide-to-technical-development.html https://www.google.com/about/careers/students/guide-to-techn...

wikibob 10y ago
Just FYI, getting an Information Systems degree instead of a Computer Science degree is one of my regrets. I would not advise it to anyone. If you want to work in tech, go for the CS degree. Yes it'll be harder, but it's vastly more valuable. IS/IT degrees are nearly all fluff, especially a MS.
- zengid 10y ago
  I agree, but hey, at least you have a framework you can use to fill in the missing CS pieces on your own! You're probably in a better position to be promoted to a management level with an IS degree over a CS, so that's not a bad thing. In my case, the school that I'm attending only has a MS in IT. I decided that spending a short amount of time getting a higher degree in a 'softer' field would be better than struggling through the (somewhat arbitrary) math for a long time just to earn another Bachelors. Either way, I'm trying to use all of the free-time that I have now to supplement my education as thoroughly as possible in the realms of hard CS topics. I hope to integrate this into my thesis as a way of demonstrating that I made the most of my time.
  - wikibob 10y ago
    Your reasoning isn't far off from what mine was at the time I was choosing a major. With the benefit of hindsight I can tell you that if you want to work in the quantitive side of technology, the pain of suffering through the math and truly grasping it, is absolutely and completely worth it. As time goes past, the tech industry appears to be becoming more specialized. An analogy that I think works pretty well is the medical field. In the beginning you just had "doctors", then as more advances were made, the field specialized into nurses, doctors, physicians assistants, and then further into specialties and now sub-specialities. Someone can absolutely work in technology without a firm grasp on the fundamentals, hell they can even make a lot of money. But it's a difficult leap to go from working on a React & Rails app to working on distributed systems, advancing the state of the art AI, etc. Also be careful about assumptions about who is in 'management'. This is also a mistake that I made when I didn't really understand the industry. I have spent time working for managers who are non-technical and am rebuilding my life so that I never have to do that again. Happy to chat more about this if you'd like. Good luck with your degree and I hope it works out well for you.

by zengid 10y ago

wikibob 10y ago

Just FYI, getting an Information Systems degree instead of a Computer Science degree is one of my regrets. I would not advise it to anyone. If you want to work in tech, go for the CS degree. Yes it'll be harder, but it's vastly more valuable. IS/IT degrees are nearly all fluff, especially a MS.

zengid 10y ago
I agree, but hey, at least you have a framework you can use to fill in the missing CS pieces on your own! You're probably in a better position to be promoted to a management level with an IS degree over a CS, so that's not a bad thing. In my case, the school that I'm attending only has a MS in IT. I decided that spending a short amount of time getting a higher degree in a 'softer' field would be better than struggling through the (somewhat arbitrary) math for a long time just to earn another Bachelors. Either way, I'm trying to use all of the free-time that I have now to supplement my education as thoroughly as possible in the realms of hard CS topics. I hope to integrate this into my thesis as a way of demonstrating that I made the most of my time.
- wikibob 10y ago
  Your reasoning isn't far off from what mine was at the time I was choosing a major. With the benefit of hindsight I can tell you that if you want to work in the quantitive side of technology, the pain of suffering through the math and truly grasping it, is absolutely and completely worth it. As time goes past, the tech industry appears to be becoming more specialized. An analogy that I think works pretty well is the medical field. In the beginning you just had "doctors", then as more advances were made, the field specialized into nurses, doctors, physicians assistants, and then further into specialties and now sub-specialities. Someone can absolutely work in technology without a firm grasp on the fundamentals, hell they can even make a lot of money. But it's a difficult leap to go from working on a React & Rails app to working on distributed systems, advancing the state of the art AI, etc. Also be careful about assumptions about who is in 'management'. This is also a mistake that I made when I didn't really understand the industry. I have spent time working for managers who are non-technical and am rebuilding my life so that I never have to do that again. Happy to chat more about this if you'd like. Good luck with your degree and I hope it works out well for you.