4 ms·

What was your motivation for getting the degree? It does not seem, from your story, that its absence blocked the growth of your career; were there subjects you

What was your motivation for getting the degree? It does not seem, from your story, that its absence blocked the growth of your career; were there subjects you wanted to learn for which self-education proved difficult, or does the credential itself have some value?

tombert 2y ago
A few reasons. For the most part, my career was fine. I had a job at Apple as a senior software engineer at the time (though I didn't really enjoy the job itself). Part of it was just a bit of an inferiority complex over insecurity of not having a degree. People were generally very polite about it, but internally it felt like every bad thing happened to me in my career was because of the lack of a degree; every comment felt like it was loaded with passive aggression, even if that wasn't true. Kind of the straw the broke the camel's back was actually a bit funny; I had applied for a job as an engineer at Microsoft Research, and I was declined for it. It was far from the first time I had been declined for a job, obviously, but in this case it was the first time that the declination specifically said "declined because you don't have a degree". In the nearly a decade of working as a software person prior to that, I had never explicitly been told that my lack of degree was the reason for a rejection. That rejection coincided with another milestone: my 30th birthday. I had told myself I'll finish my degree "next year" for nearly a decade, and now I wasn't in my 20's anymore. Obviously there's no real difference between 29.99 and 30 years old, but it just kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. I registered for WGU that day. There are probably numerous other reasons, I did want to transition to a more theoretical role as well, but those are the main ones.
- marssaxman 2y ago
  Thank you for sharing your story. I, too, dropped out of college, but finding employment as a programmer back in the mid-90s required very little luck. It became difficult to justify the time and expense of further education when my career already seemed to be launching, ready or not. Funny that you mention MSR - I also applied there, back in 2007, and they are also the only people who have ever turned me down for lack of a degree! (Though I still got an offer out of it, after they passed my information along to devdiv...)
  - tombert 2y ago
    I'm a little jealous that they passed your information along devdiv, I would have liked to work on something like the TypeScript compiler; I just got an unceremonious form letter. I obviously don't blame them for declining me, they don't owe me a job, but I still find it a bit amusing that in my entire career exactly one entity has declined me for that reason, or at least only one has been brave enough to state that that was the reason why. I'm sure a lot of the places that never got back to me might have declined me for a lack of a degree behind the scenes, but I was never made aware of it.

tombert 2y ago

A few reasons. For the most part, my career was fine. I had a job at Apple as a senior software engineer at the time (though I didn't really enjoy the job itself). Part of it was just a bit of an inferiority complex over insecurity of not having a degree. People were generally very polite about it, but internally it felt like every bad thing happened to me in my career was because of the lack of a degree; every comment felt like it was loaded with passive aggression, even if that wasn't true. Kind of the straw the broke the camel's back was actually a bit funny; I had applied for a job as an engineer at Microsoft Research, and I was declined for it. It was far from the first time I had been declined for a job, obviously, but in this case it was the first time that the declination specifically said "declined because you don't have a degree". In the nearly a decade of working as a software person prior to that, I had never explicitly been told that my lack of degree was the reason for a rejection. That rejection coincided with another milestone: my 30th birthday. I had told myself I'll finish my degree "next year" for nearly a decade, and now I wasn't in my 20's anymore. Obviously there's no real difference between 29.99 and 30 years old, but it just kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. I registered for WGU that day. There are probably numerous other reasons, I did want to transition to a more theoretical role as well, but those are the main ones.

marssaxman 2y ago
Thank you for sharing your story. I, too, dropped out of college, but finding employment as a programmer back in the mid-90s required very little luck. It became difficult to justify the time and expense of further education when my career already seemed to be launching, ready or not. Funny that you mention MSR - I also applied there, back in 2007, and they are also the only people who have ever turned me down for lack of a degree! (Though I still got an offer out of it, after they passed my information along to devdiv...)
- tombert 2y ago
  I'm a little jealous that they passed your information along devdiv, I would have liked to work on something like the TypeScript compiler; I just got an unceremonious form letter. I obviously don't blame them for declining me, they don't owe me a job, but I still find it a bit amusing that in my entire career exactly one entity has declined me for that reason, or at least only one has been brave enough to state that that was the reason why. I'm sure a lot of the places that never got back to me might have declined me for a lack of a degree behind the scenes, but I was never made aware of it.