7 ms·

Poll: What is your highest educational qualification?

58 points by naish 17y ago

Following this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=595594 What is the highest educational qualification that you have completed (i.e., met all requirements and passed)? As different countries and schools use different names for similar qualifications, I've attempted to be generic. Please use the closest match for your response.

mannicken 17y ago
I don't have a high school diploma but I'm in college. Voted for "elementary school" :)
- chacha102 17y ago
  I'm in HS, so I had to vote for elementary.
  - josefresco 17y ago
    Congrats on starting early, I only wish I was rockin' the startup world in the mid nineties when I was in HS.
- tjic 17y ago
  I bailed out of high school after three years and went to college. I tried to avoid getting my high school diploma (skipped my graduation), but they mailed it to me. I tried to avoid getting my college diploma (skipped my graduation) but they mailed it to me. I've got to come up with better tactics to avoid credentials...
  - philwelch 17y ago
    It turns out if you actually attend graduation, you don't really get your diploma then, either. It's too soon for them to know whether you passed your finals or not. So they end up mailing the diploma even if you went. You do, however, manage to get out of spending an afternoon wearing robes and a squareish hat.
    - sp332 17y ago
      I got a diploma at my graduation. It was two full weeks after finals.
      - philwelch 17y ago
        I wonder how common that is. At my school, most people finish their last final on Friday, go to graduation on Saturday, and leave town on Sunday. It is a college town, though.
aneesh 17y ago
Given the age distribution of HN readers, it's clear many of them are still in school. So their responses to this poll may not be very meaningful, at least not in the same way as the responses of those no longer in school.
- davidw 17y ago
  It would be useful to have something like: * Still in HS * Still in College * Still in PhD program to help weed those out.
  - josefresco 17y ago
    The question is pretty clear, and the 'high school' result should show those that are currently IN college/university.
    - davidw 17y ago
      The point is that it doesn't differentiate between people who simply never finished/went to college, like me, from people who are still in college, which is an interesting data point.
      - deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
        davidw 17y ago
        > completed (i.e., met all requirements and passed) That sounds 'formal' to me, in the sense of either you have a degree or you don't. I took Italian in college, and having lived here a number of years, probably speak it well enough to teach it, know the grammar well, etc... but I don't have a degree in it. Whatever though... these things are kind of pointless. I think it's best to do what you want in life and get on with it and not worry too much about what other people do.
      - deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
castis 17y ago
Other: Google
- josefresco 17y ago
  Other: School of hard knocks.
tokenadult 17y ago
A J.D. degree from the United States is not exactly a master's degree, and not a doctorate in the way a Ph.D. degree is, so I chose "Other."
- dhawest 17y ago
  But it's a D. There are other D's besides a Ph.D.: there's the Psy.D and others: (from Wikipedia) The Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.) degree is an applied doctorate on the same level as (in alphabetical order) the D.B.A. (Doctor of Business Administration), D.D.S. (Doctor of Dental Surgery), D.Div. (Doctor of Divinity), D.M. (Doctor of Ministry), D.M.F.T. (Doctor of Marriage and Family Therapy), N.D. (Doctor of Naturopathy), D.O. (Doctor of Osteopathy), D.P.M. (Doctor of Podiatric Medicine), D.R.E. (Doctor of Religious Education), D.S.M. (Doctor of Sacred Music), D.S.W. (Doctor of Social Work), D.V.M. (Doctor of Veterinary Medicine), Ed.D. (Doctor of Education), M.D. (Doctor of Medicine), O.D. (Dr of Optometry) and other applied or specialty doctoral degrees. Most of these degrees do not require either a master's level thesis or a doctoral dissertation.
  - Ardit20 17y ago
    Seriously.....Doctor of Sacred Music?
    - flatline 17y ago
      Is that the same thing as Doctor of Ministry? Guess it depends on your definition of 'sacred'...
  - joeyo 17y ago
    It's even tricker because there are a couple other doctoral law degrees that can be awarded in the United States (S.J.D. and LL.D.) that are much closer in spirit to the Ph.D., as they are research degrees. Although in fairness, in many cases they are given as honorary degrees. Additionally, consider the LL.M. degree. It further complicates things because it is awarded after the J.D.
    - 17y ago
erlanger 17y ago
Pst. Don't exclude people without college degrees. They're often far more resourceful, in my experience, and there's little that college gives you as a developer. Hire the person, not the school.
- jaxn 17y ago
  Yeah, I don't have a college degree.
  - jaxn 17y ago
    Why would this get down voted?
    - abstractbill 17y ago
      Probably because it doesn't really add anything to the discussion.
    - rjett 17y ago
      You're not adding anything to the conversation. If you had said, "Yea I don't have a college degree and I've taught myself six different programming languages and I'm working on x, y and z right now," that would have been a (marginally) better response to the parent than what you wrote.
      - jaxn 17y ago
        See, I think there is value in self-identification esp since not having a college degree makes you somewhat of a pariah in some circles. Granted, it would have been better to provide some prove as to why it is notable that I personally do not have a college degree, but being here at HN counts for something. But yeah, I have probably taught myself 6 programming languages (PHP, Ruby, Java, Python, Javascript, Perl, and some software specific programming tools like Lawson Process Flow, TSQL, etc). I have over 10 years of tech / business experience, own 2 retail clothing stores, took statzen.com to TechCrunch50 DemoPit last year, am about to launch http://gpsaAssassins.com http://gpsaAssassins.com, yada yada. I was going to go back and finish my BS, but something better keeps coming along. Now I am at a point where it doesn't seem worth it. So I am thinking I may one day clep out of a much of stuff and go get my MBA. Of course, by the time I have the time to go back to school the MBA probably won't seem worth it either. So, hopefully that adds a little more to the conversation. (Better late than never)
edw519 17y ago
1 million lines of code written and deployed into production. I'll match that against anyone's degrees (including my own).
- luckystrike 17y ago
  1 million lines of code written and deployed into production. Just curious. Any favorite ones that we can see? (Applications/Source Code)
  - edw519 17y ago
    Not without my customers' permission. But now that you mentioned it, I'll work on putting up some of my favorites that I own. Stay tuned...
- narag 17y ago
  Assigned too many times to maintainance projects, I think I've deleted as many lines as I've written.
  - edw519 17y ago
    LifetimeLOC = LOCWritten + LOCDeleted Think about it. In order to write 300 good lines of code, you probably wrote 1,000 lines of code before refactoring. Same thing, just that someone else put in all the refactorable lines before you got there.
    - keefe 17y ago
      It's a pretty useless metric. How many lines of code did the people who invented quicksort (pick great algo of your choice) write in their first implementation? It's certainly important to have some minimum # so you can say you know what writing software is like, but imho judging by counting lines of code is roughly equivalent to judging mathematicians by # of lines in their proofs... that is to say, totally ridiculous.
      - 17y ago
sid 17y ago
Did bachelors at sydney uni and masters at the university of NSW. If i have a chance in future i would love to go to school in america. Have plans to do so if all goes well.
- johnconroy 17y ago
  UNSW has a brilliant instructor in computer science -- I've watched a bunch of vids by him. Richard Buckland. Explains things really well. I'm doing a higher diploma (software devt)in NUIGalway, Ireland... doing M.Sc. next year. primary degree was in Commerce 10 years ago. go figure.
rubing 17y ago
Doctorate is not PhD, MD, or JD. please correct your poll
- sangaya 17y ago
  Doctorate is accurate. While PhD is technically a "research doctorate" and MD and JD are "professional doctorates", all three are types of doctorate degrees. PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) MD (Doctor of Medicine) JD (Juris Doctor)
  - rubing 17y ago
    accurate, but not specific
- Allocator2008 17y ago
  LLD is a doctorate too (Doctor of Laws) - the next step up from the LLM (Master of Laws) - to be a solicitor or a barrister, one needs at least an LLB (Bachelor of Laws). I (almost) decided to study law once which is how I know. I was so enamored with Cole Turner (Julian McMahon's character in 'Charmed') I very nearly decided to pursue an online law degree, since Cole was a lawyer. Who knows. Maybe I still will one of these days, but since all my experience is in SQA, it would not be the most logical thing in the world in the long run I don't think. But anyway, LLD is also another kind of doctorate, along with Ph.D. MD, DDS, DVM, etc.
DirtyAndy 17y ago
I finished high school, spent 1 year full time at university, then 5 years very part time whilst I started a business. It's 18 years since I started that business and I still don't have a Bachelors degree, but it would be wrong to conclude that just because I never completed it I didn't get anything from it. Similarly I recently met someone who nearly finished their PHD, but has abandoned that to start a business. I am sure she got a lot out of the work she did towards that PHD even if she didn't finish it.
juliend2 17y ago
AEC in web development. AEC stands for "Attestation d'Etudes Collegiales". It's like a College diploma, but only in one field (web development; no philosophy courses or things like that). More info (french) : http://www.cmaisonneuve.qc.ca/iti/aec_web-commerce/aec_web-commerce_1.html http://www.cmaisonneuve.qc.ca/iti/aec_web-commerce/aec_web-c...
stan_rogers 17y ago
Tough one. I'm a high school dropout, so I had to check Elementary School. Now, I've taught at colleges (electronics and linear mathematics), but I've never actually attended one as a student. Some lives are weirder than others, I guess.
- carterschonwald 17y ago
  how did you get the certification needed to teach linear algebra?
  - stan_rogers 17y ago
    You assume that certification needs to fall within a particular discipline. And you have probably also assumed that "college" is at least approximately equal to "university", which is not the case in Ontario, Canada. What was required was a Teacher of Adults certificate and demonstrated competence. Short of posting my entire resume, I'll just say that there are areas of military avionics that require a little more than the mere ability to use an oscilloscope, and that I had had teaching experience in the interim period.
poppinphresh 17y ago
Other: Homeschooled kindergarten through the end of highschool when I started doing freelance web development. Two years after I began freelancing I got my current job as a software developer for a small startup.
_pius 17y ago
You should swap "Doctorate" out for "Terminal Degree."
javert 17y ago
Well, I won't actually be finished until a few hours from now after my exam, but close enough.
- Ardit20 17y ago
  I went for bachelors anyway although I get to finish this Friday. I guess the guy ain't a lawyer to take into consideration all the possible answers. I do not see what is the point of this poll though besides perhaps simply curiosity?
- javert 17y ago
  OK, done. :-) Now, on to grad school.
Mintz 17y ago
In college right now.
learusb 17y ago
Habilitation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habilitation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habilitation
- carterschonwald 17y ago
  In what topic? I've met A-list CS theory folks who wind up getting that only around mid career!
flooha 17y ago
I attended a networking event recently where I was pitching to a guy who had a high rank in our local university's IT program and is respected as an entrepreneur also. Anyway, he was challenging me on everything I was saying (which I thanked him for at the end), and one question was: "If what you are doing is so great, why aren't the big boys already doing it." My first response was that the key is to do it better, which he acknowledged. The second was that if I was the founder of Google standing in front of him 10 years ago, telling him that I was going to create "another search engine", he would have asked me exactly the same question. His response was: "Well, wasn't that guy working on his doctorate?" My response was "and...?" He looked at me like I was an idiot. What I should have said was "Sure, doctorates are great and I could get one, but I don't want one. I'd rather spend my time creating wealth than creating a piece of paper that will make me more qualified to create wealth for someone else." Apparently "that Google guy" felt the same way, only it took him longer to make that decision. As an aside, my Bachelor's degree was one of the best investments of my life, so I'm not arguing against formal education here. He also derided my location as if some guy from a small town in Ohio couldn't build anything worthwhile. Yes, I know pg's thoughts on location and there is some merit to that, but the assertion he made is a bit too over the top for me.
- tjic 17y ago
  Guy sounds like a credentialed idiot. > He also derided my location as if some guy from a small town in Ohio couldn't build anything worthwhile. Yes, I know pg's thoughts on location and there is some merit to that, but the assertion he made is a bit too over the top for me. Amen.
- derwiki 17y ago
  Just curious: I met a lot of good programmers from small towns in Ohio when I went to Case Western, is that the "local university" you're referring to? (if so, I also have some guesses on who the "guy" was :)
  - flooha 17y ago
    "Case Western, is that the "local university" " No. Wrong side. ;)
metatronscube 17y ago
Got a B.Eng (Hons) and MSc (Distinction), the first one was a joint degree between CS and Electronic and Electrical Engineering and the last was straight up CS. Its interesting to see the number of PhD's here. Always considered doing one but was put off when told that I had to defend my PhD 4-5 times a year and the PhD I was offered sounded very interesting but not quite my cup of tea (it was Planning in AI) For the PhD's out there, was the experience worth while? Did you enjoy it?
- yummyfajitas 17y ago
  I got one. I certainly enjoyed the experience. Original research is fun, and beyond that I had no responsibilities. Hard to beat that as far as jobs go. It may not have been worthwhile in terms of career benefit (jury is still out). I don't want to be an academic, though I may follow that trajectory a few more years if the market stays bad. I may be able to spin off a research related startup, but that isn't guaranteed yet. Regarding opportunity costs, I definitely missed out on getting into finance during the bubble. (Incidentally, if anyone is looking for a python/c++ dev with solid quantitative skills, feel free to contact me.)
- jlees 17y ago
  Worthwhile, yes; enjoy, somewhat; not my thing in the end, also true. I left the program after 2 years of research because you can get very forced into a niche to satisfy supervisors' and the academic world's requirements. I wanted to do something vaguely real-worldy, and had to leave the bubble of academia to do so. I don't regret starting the PhD or leaving it though.
papersports 17y ago
Other = Law (J.D.)
cubicle67 17y ago
Highschool. I've actually done all bar a few units of a Bachelor's Degree (Engineering), but quit and went travelling for a few years instead
Jem 17y ago
I have A levels (UK), so I voted high school (the closest out of that list, I guess).
tynman 17y ago
Master's.
HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
M.S. Software Engineering. It was fun and definitely worth it. Having an undergrad in EE, I learned a lot and it prepared me for my current Technical Lead position very well.
jcapote 17y ago
Glad there's an option for us high school drop outs :)
yardie 17y ago
They do have one thing going for them. Unlike the narrow defined parameters of American higher education they do have a variety of outlets. You can stop your education at any time and basically have a degree (I think it's called a license) for each year complete: Bac+1, Bac+2, Bac+3. I have so many friends that have nothing to show after 2 or 3 years of school because they stopped for health, financial, or personal reasons.
jawngee 17y ago
1 year college. 15 years kicking ass (built my first website when Mosaic ruled the roost).
10ren 17y ago
Roughly (at 4 hours in): bachelor's: in the top 75% master's: in the top 33% doctorate: in the top 10% (I'm assuming that a higher degree is "better", though some would differ. I've heard evidence that startup success inversely correlates with education. Some high-profile anecdotes: Bill Gates doesn't have a bachelors, Woz didn't have one at the time he designed the Apple, and I think the only degrees that Larry and Sergey got were their bachelors).
Renai 17y ago
I dropped out of high school, got a GED, and am now going to college. Marking "elementary school" does not seem quite accurate. ^.^
rms 17y ago
I'm really good at surfing the internet.
Allocator2008 17y ago
COMPTIA A+, Network+ certifications
fugue88 17y ago
Other: autodidact Greater than any other "qualification...." ;)
qeorge 17y ago
Finished high school, attended 4 years of college, dropped out as a senior. Might finish one day, just because I don't like having things unfinished.
nphase 17y ago
College Dropout, and fairly satisfied with my results. YMMV

falien 17y ago

If you're a person who doesn't need a university program, then you're a person who can get an incredible amount of value out of one as well. No school gives you anything, but you can take a hell of a lot out of a halfway decent program.

erlanger 17y ago
Unless you'd rather be in the working world than talking homework with a bunch of rich, naive kids.
- abstractbill 17y ago
  You sound very bitter about this. For what it's worth, I have a PhD and was not a "rich kid" - I was fortunate enough to grow up in the UK at a time when the government gave grants to people who would not otherwise be able to afford a university education (I'm not sure if they still do this - I know a lot has changed).
  - robin_reala 17y ago
    They don’t. I believe the last tuition grants were issued in 1996, and they’d been price-frozen for a while before that.
    - axod 17y ago
      Shortly after Labour got into power they introduced tuition fees. There's still hope - they'll shortly be out of power, so who knows.
      - jlees 17y ago
        At least a few years ago, when I did my undergrad, you didn't actually have to pay the fees if you were from a low income background though. Couple that with a student loan you don't have to pay off until you're earning, and it's not quite as evil as it sounds.
        axod 17y ago
        It still strikes me as very odd though coming from a Labour government to do away with free university for everyone. I think that's an incredibly important thing for a society to have. The fact you can get off paying if you're from low income families I'd bet still deters a lot of people from going to university, who would have otherwise gone which is a shame.
  - erlanger 17y ago
    No, I'm not. I spurned college to enter the working world after high school (programming) and did well. Took classes as well, and transferred to a reputable school. While it wasn't hell on earth, the simplicity and naivette of most students was unbearable.
    - keefe 17y ago
      I think you should check your definition of unbearable. I graduated high school in 99 and was contemplating trying to exploit the first bubble but decided to go to school instead (I was obviously a bit too young at that time). A lot of life is a game and unless you are born rich, college is a big part of that game. We can't make life any more or less fair, we have to play the game with the cards we are dealt. College is an opportunity to meet people, get your day-to-day living paid for with loans or scholarships and polish your skills. Now, maybe it is best to go into the working world right away for some people, sure. However, a lot of software engineering is based on mathematical and theoretical principles and knowing those principles should help avoid various pitfalls. I don't know why I am writing such a detailed response to such a deep comment... I guess to suggest a more cold and calculating point of view. The other students are completely irrelevant, pleasures and what is "unbearable" are not really relevant. Taking a college degree gives huge advantages to those of us who are not trust fund babies and if you have some experience about how unbearable life can really get you make decisions based on long term benefit, not whether college kids annoy you for a few hours a week for a few years.
- _pius 17y ago
  I have a bachelor's degree and, thank God, my school was (and is) committed to need-blind admissions and gives every student a financial aid package that covers 100% of their calculated need. Without their generosity, it would have been very difficult to pay $40k/year to go there.
- JabavuAdams 17y ago
  I failed out of University in my last year, but I had a wonderful experience there. OTOH this was in the days when you could get an engineering degree from a top Canadian university for $2.5k a year tuition.
ekanes 17y ago
Absolutely, school has lots to offer, but what's often missing from the equation in discussions like these is opportunity cost. People compare school vs "not-school" as if the alternative to school is sitting on your butt. In truth, one can accomplish a heck of a lot with that time and money. It's a hugely personal decision of course.
- alex_c 17y ago
  I would say "In truth, SOME can accomplish a heck of a lot with that time and money." I think it really depends on the person, and their experiences up to the end of high school. Give me that time and money now, and I can hopefully accomplish something useful. Give me that time and money when I was just out of high school, and chances are very good that it would have gone to waste. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life (still don't, but a bit less so than back then), I had no idea how to work hard, and only a vague idea of how the world works. Those are things I started to learn in college. The opportunity cost goes both ways.

10ren 17y ago

I don't quite understand what he meant, as "working on a doctorate" isn't an answer to "why aren't the big boys already doing it?" However, Larry Page got enormous benefits from his PhD: he met Sergey; he had connection with Andy Bechtolsheim; great people around him; and Stanford supported his patent (they own it). Actually, these are mainly contacts acquired through Stanford (similar to "location"), not of a PhD program itself. I don't recall Larry learning anything from doing a PhD itself, as opposed to doing the work independently. BTW: I had a very critical advisor like that, and it was really unpleasant. Not everything he said was helpful or relevant - but some were. And at the end, I was rightfully grateful - and also rightfully annoyed. I think seeing criticism as impersonal, specific and temporary is helpful; as well as responding only to the factual denotations, not connotations (including attitude and tone); and responding without connotations myself.

brent 17y ago
"I don't recall Larry learning anything from doing a PhD itself, as opposed to doing the work independently." Seeing as one major focus of a PhD is to learn to do independent research, this statement is essentially vacuous. It also disregards the influence on his thinking process from his advisor (Winograd) and fellow graduate students.
- 10ren 17y ago
  You missed "great people around him". The distinction is not essentially vacuous: it's possible for the learning of "how to do independent research" to be itself largely independent, e.g. Edison and Einstein. I said I don't recall Larry talking about this anywhere - can you show where he does? Specifically, about how doing the PhD helped this specific person to learn to do independent research. I'm interested in this.
  - brent 17y ago
    I did not miss "great people around him". Your claim was that he didn't learn anything from his PhD. My claim is that he undoubtedly learned a lot from his advisor and other graduate students. If you are talking about learning stuff in classes, that is simply not the point of a PhD. Anywhere you see him credit Winograd's influence, you are seeing him mention learning from his PhD. See his commencement speech from like 3-4 days ago as one recent reference...
    - 10ren 17y ago
      Soon after, I told my advisor, Terry Winograd, it would take a couple of weeks to download the web -- he nodded knowingly, fully aware it would take much longer but wise enough to not tell me. Maybe a nod is encouragement, but it sounds like Larry had decided to do it anyway - so the statement reads as an absence of discouragement. On reflection, I think we mean the same thing, your "learned a lot from his advisor and other graduate students", and my "great people around him". There's a question of what a PhD is. It could be the independent work; the academic justification and presentation in terms of literature; the discussions with smart, interested people. (btw I've been doing one for a few years now). I think our disagreement is about our definitions.
flooha 17y ago
>>I don't quite understand what he meant, as "working on a doctorate" isn't an answer to "why aren't the big boys already doing it?" It was a response to my assertion that his argument would have been wrong if I were Larry and it were 10 years ago. Essentially he was saying: "You can't compare you and Larry because he's smarter than you." That may be true, but people dumber than me have created successful companies...I think. >>However, Larry Page got enormous benefits from his PhD True, but that wasn't the point he was making. >>BTW: I had a very critical advisor like that, and it was really unpleasant. Not everything he said was helpful or relevant - but some were. And at the end, I was rightfully grateful - and also rightfully annoyed. I responded to his (slightly drunken) derision very positively and always had a fantastic comeback, except for the "and...?" response. I was actually very appreciative of his criticism and challenging posture because most people just shine you on when they hear your pitch and tell you everything sounds fantastic. In the end, I won him over and he said he would help me as long as I got a few other influential people on board. Even though I think he's a bit narrow minded, I liked his no-bullshit attitude and honesty. As I said, I genuinely thanked him for challenging me and giving me the opportunity to change his mind rather than just blow me off.
- 10ren 17y ago
  "Why aren't the big boys already doing it?", "Because I'm smart enough to be doing a PhD" isn't strictly an answer, but I get the gist now (conversation is rarely strict, anyway.) BTW: my advisor was slightly drunk too. in vino veritas (in wine truth is)... to a point.