4 ms·
Ask HN: Should I go back to university?
Abstract:
recently laid off in a city with a huge wave of highly qualified people looking. Losing self confidence. Thinking about going back to school. Spouse still in university, but spouse's parents pay for tuitions. No debts whatsoever, no cars, only expense is rent and food. We will be 25 this year.
Education: software development certification from technical school. GPA 80%. It was a really intensive program, doing 78 credits in 8 months, class from 9-5 M-F, with 1 month practicum at the end.
Work Exp: total 3.5 years
(0) month-long contract project at a really big Business Intelligence project. They liked the project.
(1) 2 years at a small company about 50 employees, small IT dept of 4, did everything from ASP.NET web apps to VB.NET/VB6 backend apps to SQL db admin to site cross browser compatibility stuff. Left after months of ridiculous unpaid overtime. Gave them 2 months notice to find, and train the guy.
(2) 1.5 years at a smaller company, about 30, as the sole programmer, writing C# in-house use apps and stuff to go with our SQL database (that I installed and configured). Developed business ideas for them, made custom software to those goals. Laid off along with 7 other people based on seniority. Nothing shameful there.
Obvious weakness: my technical school taught us how to work, how to think like a programmer and how to debug problems. But it's still technical school. I will not be able to answer technical questions if I have not used that particular bit of knowledge before. I know nothing about lower level architectural stuff.
Redeeming Qualities: I work hard. I can look up stuff I don't know how to do quickly. I come up with good business ideas, I can think from my manager's POV and our clients' to reach a fair comprimise. End users really like me because I not only fix problems they find, I will actively find out what I can do for them. I'm fiercely loyal to whatever company I work for, even when they're cheap and abusive.
Bottom line: I know I can be really good at my job once I'm on the job. I just think my lack of proper education and low level knowledge about computer science will prevent me from being seen as such at interviews or resume screening. Going back to school can fix that.
However: my spouse is still in school. I went to university straight out of high school with 87% GPA, but dropped out after the first year because of academic immaturity (ie: I thought university was a load of crap--no one gives a shit about you and you're just a chequeing account number. The textbooks are meant for the profs to profit rather than for you to learn, and the profs clearly have other things to do way more important than teaching you. I was going to all the classes but never handed in any assignments. Teenage angst. I was taking arts and foreign languages. This was before I even touched any programming.). I don't know if I have the discipline to do it still. I may go back to get all angry about the bullshit institution again and shut down again like I did. But I managed to get through the technical school well, because I love programming, I love it to death.
....advice?
- josefresco 18y agoAfter reading your last paragraph, I'd stick with the professional world and try to craft a job you love, one where you control your own destiny. I would bet that school will still strike you as mostly bullshit from the sounds of your past experience (tech school/self taught)
- Srenaeb 18y ago...yes, I don't think the state of our higher eduction has improved in the (counts) 7 years I've been gone. I'd have to play the system like everyone else there is doing, and my honest opinion is that degrees are an over-produced commodity in the developed world today. On the plus side, many have pointed out that the true value of a degree program isn't the courses, the books, and the shiny paper at the end, but the contacts you make there and what you can learn from talking to the professors one on one. Looking at my U-grad friends, I've come to realizes university does not educate people or give them any sort of knowledge. University is a place where you can education yourself and obtain whatever knowledge you seek for yourself.
- rsayers 18y agoI'm in a bit of an opposite situation, I've been doing web development since high school (i'm 27 now), and am just now going to college for the first time. For a degree in religion of all things. That said, I would never have gone to school for anything related to computers. I'm still not sure if I plan to continue doing development or go into something else completely, but I'm fairly certain that I could pick up more useful knowledge outside of school. Experience is huge, and at 3.5 years you are about at that level where it doesn't matter if you have a degree or not to many employers. I've worked with many coders with formal degrees, did well in college, but simply fell flat when confronted with a professional development environment. The best programmer I know personally has also never stepped foot in a college class room. So my advice would be to stay away from formal education and keep coding. Do side projects when you can, You would be shocked how a weekend of toying with a new programming language will change the way you think of things and help your 9-5 programming.
- 18y ago