5 ms·

I believe the CS degree is one of the least useful degrees there is. The two things most people get from a degree are the knowledge and the credential. The mat

by xiaoma 12y ago

I believe the CS degree is one of the least useful degrees there is. The two things most people get from a degree are the knowledge and the credential. The material in a CS degree is pretty accessible for self study compared to that of some other majors. No expensive materials are required beyond a $500 computer. Instructors don't generally spend time with you while you are actually programming, so you won't be missing the kind of 1 on 1 feedback a music major would get. Also of critical importance, CS materials tend to be strongly represented in MOOCs. There are already people using Coursera, edX and OCW to complete full degrees (see: http://youtu.be/piSLobJfZ3c http://youtu.be/piSLobJfZ3c). As far as credentials go, it's a similar story. There are few fields in which the credential matters less than they do in tech jobs. Tons of my friends work at YC companies with either unrelated degrees or none at all. I personally graduated with a Japanese degree and still managed to break into the industry quickly once I started focusing on developing my hard skills. I received interview offers from pretty much every top tech company in the bay area and the degree never came up. I very, very nearly took one of them but instead chose to do a start-up. At this point it's possible some investor would be hesitant about us because we don't CS degrees, but it's also probably likely they'd be interested in our exceptional backgrounds. One caveat to this is is that without the CS degree you have to have the skills. Also I wouldn't count too much on being an iOS domain expert since specific tech stacks keep changing. You probably want to learn all the things you'd get from a CS degree if you don't have them already. Unlike a lot of posters here I really don't see anything wrong with not getting the degree. I would strongly suggest that you make a bargain with yourself and save/invest everything you would have spent on college. That will limit your downside and give you the option to stop working and get the degree if you change your mind and/or find your skill-set is no longer in demand. Even if you learn the equivalent of a CS degree on your own, you might find yourself wanting to return and study something like applied math, which pretty much gets you by the credential barrier for any job a CS degree does plus quite a few others.

Ologn 12y ago
>The material in a CS degree is pretty accessible for self study Whether or not it is, I have yet to meet anyone who has done self study who has studied theory of computation, mutual exclusion, and that sort of stuff, month on end, like CS students do. Everyone seems to go straight to what is immediately useful, like the syntax of Objective C and so forth. Also, the big technological leap allowing this was the Gutenberg printing press, not MOOCs and the like. Theoretically one just needs the textbooks and some other materials to self-study almost any topic. Yet people have still been going to universities for centuries. The movable type printing press was the major innovation for this, MOOCs have been relatively minor in comparison to this thus far, yet people have still gone to universities for the past few centuries. > Also of critical importance, CS materials tend to be strongly represented in MOOCs I did not find this to be the case. Some subjects we went into in class that I did not understand or wanted to look into more indepth, I would go online looking at Youtube videos, MOOCs, various materials etc. I was usually disappointed. If I was lucky I would get a poorly shot Youtube video of some professor with a thick foreign accent explaining the subject, often poorly.
- xiaoma 12y ago
  >I have yet to meet anyone who has done self study who has studied theory of computation, mutual exclusion, and that sort of stuff, month on end, like CS students do. Now you have :) Ullman's Automata course was my favorites: https://www.coursera.org/course/automata https://www.coursera.org/course/automata I find the MIT OCW superior to MOOCs for multi-course sequences, btw. If you want to do a full degree, use OCW. Coursera/edX auto graders are great for classes with programming assignments, but since there are so many classes from so many schools prereqs are a problem. If you're interested I wrote this comparison of the options late last year: http://logicmason.com/2013/self-directed-programming-and-computer-science-study-through-moocs/ http://logicmason.com/2013/self-directed-programming-and-com...
- yen223 12y ago
  I'm a 'self-learner' (graduated with a non-CS degree) who went through the Machine Learning course on Coursera, which inspired me to pursue my Master's in Computer Science You are right about self-learners avoiding heavy academic subjects. The huge problem with self-learning is that I had a moron for a teacher. There's just too many unknown unknowns - I didn't know what I was missing out on. Oh, and the credential helps too. Immigration departments don't look at Github profiles :)
  - ciaranm 12y ago
    > Immigration departments don't look at Github profiles :) That's a fantastic point, and one which has probably been overlooked so far in this thread. Yes, it's entirely possible you'll be able to find a great job/company in your home country, but good luck getting a skilled workers visa in any major country without having 'professional' level qualifications.
ciaranm 12y ago
>Instructors don't generally spend time with you while you are actually programming, so you won't be missing the kind of 1 on 1 feedback a music major would get. Really? That wasn't my experience at University at all. Every practical assignment had at least one lab session, where usually both the lecturer of the module, and some more senior students (final year undergrads for 1st/2nd year classes, typically PhD students for 3rd, 4th year classes) to help with implementation. We got feedback on every piece of code we ever wrote. >Tons of my friends work at YC companies with either unrelated degrees or none at all. That's great. How many jobs are the YC companies contributing? I'm sure they're (mostly)all amazing places to work, but there's plenty of jobs you wont even be picked up from the pile of CVs if you haven't done a degree. You might not like HR departments, but most companies have them, and it's generally not a good move to alienate them if you don't need to. >Unlike a lot of posters here I really don't see anything wrong with not getting the degree. I think it's important that I reply to this point, just so you don't misunderstand me. I don't think there's anything _wrong_ with not getting a degree - I have plenty of friends who either didn't finish or didn't attend University, and many of them are in good jobs (some of them in tech). That said, it's important OP knows what you _do_ get by having a degree - and I'd strongly disagree with your statement about it being one of the least useful degrees.
- xiaoma 12y ago
  Yes, really. By "spending time with you while you're actually programming", I meant instructors literally being right by you correcting mistakes and giving feedback in real time. This kind of feedback isn't uncommon in music programs but is very uncommon in engineering programs. Did your instructors or TAs pair program with you? If so, what school were you at? I would consider it to be a very positive indicator of your program. >We got feedback on every piece of code we ever wrote. Sure, but asynchronous feedback on code certainly isn't something that can only be had at a university. Every bit of code I wrote while on the merchant engineering team at Groupon was reviewed by at least two people and the same is true of most my open source contributions. >How many jobs are the YC companies contributing? I'm sure they're (mostly)all amazing places to work, but there's plenty of jobs you wont even be picked up from the pile of CVs if you haven't done a degree. That may be true of many places, but at I can claim with certainty that FB and Google will both give interviews and even recruit engineers without CS degrees. It wouldn't surprise me if it were the least appealing jobs that most strictly adhere to credential-based hiring decisions. FWIW, I used to run an HR effort at a tech start-up before I became an engineer myself, so I'm not completely unfamiliar with how they operate.

by xiaoma 12y ago

Ologn 12y ago

>The material in a CS degree is pretty accessible for self study Whether or not it is, I have yet to meet anyone who has done self study who has studied theory of computation, mutual exclusion, and that sort of stuff, month on end, like CS students do. Everyone seems to go straight to what is immediately useful, like the syntax of Objective C and so forth. Also, the big technological leap allowing this was the Gutenberg printing press, not MOOCs and the like. Theoretically one just needs the textbooks and some other materials to self-study almost any topic. Yet people have still been going to universities for centuries. The movable type printing press was the major innovation for this, MOOCs have been relatively minor in comparison to this thus far, yet people have still gone to universities for the past few centuries. > Also of critical importance, CS materials tend to be strongly represented in MOOCs I did not find this to be the case. Some subjects we went into in class that I did not understand or wanted to look into more indepth, I would go online looking at Youtube videos, MOOCs, various materials etc. I was usually disappointed. If I was lucky I would get a poorly shot Youtube video of some professor with a thick foreign accent explaining the subject, often poorly.

xiaoma 12y ago
>I have yet to meet anyone who has done self study who has studied theory of computation, mutual exclusion, and that sort of stuff, month on end, like CS students do. Now you have :) Ullman's Automata course was my favorites: https://www.coursera.org/course/automata https://www.coursera.org/course/automata I find the MIT OCW superior to MOOCs for multi-course sequences, btw. If you want to do a full degree, use OCW. Coursera/edX auto graders are great for classes with programming assignments, but since there are so many classes from so many schools prereqs are a problem. If you're interested I wrote this comparison of the options late last year: http://logicmason.com/2013/self-directed-programming-and-computer-science-study-through-moocs/ http://logicmason.com/2013/self-directed-programming-and-com...
yen223 12y ago
I'm a 'self-learner' (graduated with a non-CS degree) who went through the Machine Learning course on Coursera, which inspired me to pursue my Master's in Computer Science You are right about self-learners avoiding heavy academic subjects. The huge problem with self-learning is that I had a moron for a teacher. There's just too many unknown unknowns - I didn't know what I was missing out on. Oh, and the credential helps too. Immigration departments don't look at Github profiles :)
- ciaranm 12y ago
  > Immigration departments don't look at Github profiles :) That's a fantastic point, and one which has probably been overlooked so far in this thread. Yes, it's entirely possible you'll be able to find a great job/company in your home country, but good luck getting a skilled workers visa in any major country without having 'professional' level qualifications.

ciaranm 12y ago

>Instructors don't generally spend time with you while you are actually programming, so you won't be missing the kind of 1 on 1 feedback a music major would get. Really? That wasn't my experience at University at all. Every practical assignment had at least one lab session, where usually both the lecturer of the module, and some more senior students (final year undergrads for 1st/2nd year classes, typically PhD students for 3rd, 4th year classes) to help with implementation. We got feedback on every piece of code we ever wrote. >Tons of my friends work at YC companies with either unrelated degrees or none at all. That's great. How many jobs are the YC companies contributing? I'm sure they're (mostly)all amazing places to work, but there's plenty of jobs you wont even be picked up from the pile of CVs if you haven't done a degree. You might not like HR departments, but most companies have them, and it's generally not a good move to alienate them if you don't need to. >Unlike a lot of posters here I really don't see anything wrong with not getting the degree. I think it's important that I reply to this point, just so you don't misunderstand me. I don't think there's anything _wrong_ with not getting a degree - I have plenty of friends who either didn't finish or didn't attend University, and many of them are in good jobs (some of them in tech). That said, it's important OP knows what you _do_ get by having a degree - and I'd strongly disagree with your statement about it being one of the least useful degrees.

xiaoma 12y ago
Yes, really. By "spending time with you while you're actually programming", I meant instructors literally being right by you correcting mistakes and giving feedback in real time. This kind of feedback isn't uncommon in music programs but is very uncommon in engineering programs. Did your instructors or TAs pair program with you? If so, what school were you at? I would consider it to be a very positive indicator of your program. >We got feedback on every piece of code we ever wrote. Sure, but asynchronous feedback on code certainly isn't something that can only be had at a university. Every bit of code I wrote while on the merchant engineering team at Groupon was reviewed by at least two people and the same is true of most my open source contributions. >How many jobs are the YC companies contributing? I'm sure they're (mostly)all amazing places to work, but there's plenty of jobs you wont even be picked up from the pile of CVs if you haven't done a degree. That may be true of many places, but at I can claim with certainty that FB and Google will both give interviews and even recruit engineers without CS degrees. It wouldn't surprise me if it were the least appealing jobs that most strictly adhere to credential-based hiring decisions. FWIW, I used to run an HR effort at a tech start-up before I became an engineer myself, so I'm not completely unfamiliar with how they operate.