3 ms·

I don't know how much it matters 10-15 years down the line, but it can matter very much 2-3 years later. I know people (mostly front-end developers and designer

by greapfr 14y ago

I don't know how much it matters 10-15 years down the line, but it can matter very much 2-3 years later. I know people (mostly front-end developers and designers) that have been totally fine without a degree, but I personally have had a terrible experience. My story: I dropped out of MIT to stay at my summer internship. However, the company tanked (this was at a finance company, summer of '08), and my team was pretty much disbanded, so I went looking for a new job. Luckily, one of my team members had just gone back to his old job where he was a manager, so he was able to vouch for my awesomeness and hire me (despite extreme reluctance -- I'd gotten told multiple times by both recruiters and other engineering folks that they wouldn't be able to hire me full-time). Unfortunately, the company turned out to be a terrible place to work, so I quit after a couple months. And from then on out, I had a really difficult time getting a job. People would say they had a company policy saying they couldn't hire drop outs, but they'd love me as an intern, or they'd tell me point-blank that I had great technical skills, but they were worried about my ability to "commit". After all, I was a fresh young kid with very few connections, so it'd always be some clueless recruiter deciding whether to pass on my resume or not. Maybe your experience will be different if you have better connections or if you're the type of person who can network well. Luckily, I have a great job now, but my experience was a big shock. I'd always thought that people in Silicon Valley didn't give a fuck about whether you had a degree or not, but this was definitely not true in my case.

nostrademons 14y ago
I think the problem for you was not that you dropped out, but that you dropped out and then had two very short stints at employers. Hence the worries about your ability to commit. When you see a dropout followed by 4 years at the same company where he assumed several levels of new responsibility, the work experience cancels out the lack of an education: he's already proved that he can commit to a task and do well at it. When you see a dropout followed by two jobs of a couple months each, it screams "dilettante": it says that as soon as you get bored with something and the honeymoon period ends, you go looking for something else. Nobody wants to hire the latter type of person. People look at your whole resume for patterns, not just each individual section in isolation. Dropping out can be either good or bad - it depends on what you do afterwards.
nirvana 14y ago
I think either you were dealing with really prejudiced people, or you were turning them off in some way and they were using the degree as an excuse because they couldn't mention the real answer.... or your resume was just too thin. No doubt that first 4 years (when others are in college) you have to work hard- its not easy, and in many ways, college is the easier choice, as not much is expected of you (By comparison). Those 4 years you probably want to keep any job you get and work your tail off to impress them. You can't yet be choosy.... but after those four years you will have paid your dues while the college graduates won't have.

by greapfr 14y ago

nostrademons 14y ago

I think the problem for you was not that you dropped out, but that you dropped out and then had two very short stints at employers. Hence the worries about your ability to commit. When you see a dropout followed by 4 years at the same company where he assumed several levels of new responsibility, the work experience cancels out the lack of an education: he's already proved that he can commit to a task and do well at it. When you see a dropout followed by two jobs of a couple months each, it screams "dilettante": it says that as soon as you get bored with something and the honeymoon period ends, you go looking for something else. Nobody wants to hire the latter type of person. People look at your whole resume for patterns, not just each individual section in isolation. Dropping out can be either good or bad - it depends on what you do afterwards.

nirvana 14y ago

I think either you were dealing with really prejudiced people, or you were turning them off in some way and they were using the degree as an excuse because they couldn't mention the real answer.... or your resume was just too thin. No doubt that first 4 years (when others are in college) you have to work hard- its not easy, and in many ways, college is the easier choice, as not much is expected of you (By comparison). Those 4 years you probably want to keep any job you get and work your tail off to impress them. You can't yet be choosy.... but after those four years you will have paid your dues while the college graduates won't have.