Question for parents in the CS field

Parents Forum
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<p>How important is it for someone in the computer science field to have a degree?</p>

<p>My D has finished 3 years at a top school as a CS major. Due to some medical issues, she took this year off and end up working. She had two different internships. She loved working and now doesn't want to go back to school. She is telling me that she thinks she can get a good job without finishing her degree. Call me old school, but I think she should go back for the year and finish. Right now she could go back to her current college in the fall. If she waits too long, I'm not sure they would automatically take her back.</p>

<p>I don't know how much influence I really have, but if I could get a sense from some people in the field, I might either (a) get more comfortable letting her do it her way, or (b) lobby harder for her to go back and finish. </p>

<p>Thanks in advance for your thoughts.</p>

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<p>My son made $25 freelancing before his degree - that was standard rate for freelancers at my brother’s firm back then. Unless they hired you full time I don’t think you were going to get much in the way of raises. I don’t know what the possibilities for working your way up would have been without a degree. He’s graduating next week and will be making, much, much, much more than that. Would there be any possibility of working part time? I know the last year of CS will probably have some pretty heavy duty courses.</p>

<p>I do know that my sil who is two courses short of a BA has really been hampered by her lack of degree (she does accounting degree would have been in history).</p>

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<p>My son will be a CS freshman this fall but your thread reminded me of a dear friend. </p>

<p>He is an absolute genius with hardware and software, all self taught. However, he has struggled finding good jobs. He just can’t progress in the field without a degree nor get the necessary industry certifications. Have her look on some of the job sites for higher career ladder CS jobs; most are asking these days for not a BS but a MS.</p>

<p>I’m with you. If she doesn’t finish now, gets married and has a family when will she ever have time to go back? Unless she’s the next Bill Gates, she’s going to need that diploma as she her career advances. Plus, imagine her job opportunities after 1 more year. She’ll have the diplomas AND the highly desired experience!</p>

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<p>Many companies have government contracts, and some of those have degree requirements for personnel to work on projects. Without a degree it seriously limits your potential number of jobs.</p>

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<p>It may not have mattered years ago, when CS programs were just getting started. But nowadays, when a college degree is the new high school diploma, and so many get a Master’s? I am quite certain it would hamper her at some point, even if she is able to get a decent job at first.</p>

<p>My H’s advice to my S: you can skip college if you have a minor-league baseball contract, or have founded a company making $1M a year.</p>

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<p>She’ll really benefit from having a CS degree, but where it is from may be of less importance unless the school she’s been attending is one that is very well known in the field. But – if she’s just not willing to go back right now, perhaps she could take a leave of absence and work for another year or so (paid) to figure it out? In the long run, where her degree is from probably won’t be a determining factor, but in the short run it could affect what jobs she gets considered for – but if she’s able to get a job with one of the companies where she’s interned that might not make a difference, and some would even pay her to finish her degree through a university with which they have some affiliation or one of the universities offering on-line courses.</p>

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<p>Unless she’s a salmon (who enjoys swimming upstream) the degree is basic to a successful career.</p>

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<p>I know someone with 20 years experience who was laid off, and now cannot get a job because he doesn’t have a degree. It is essential nowadays, particularly when many resumes are “scrubbed” by computer - if it doesn’t have a key word in it, it won’t even get to the hiring manager.</p>

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<p>I know someone who’s very talented in the CS field and had a hard time find job because he lacked an UG degree. He had to go through word of mouth to get work. This is back before the dotcom bust. I would encourage your daughter to at least finish the degree.</p>

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<p>Like many have said, she needs to think long term. Short term, she will be fine with getting an entry level job or low level programming job. But long term, especially when the job market is not so good or when she needs to find a higher level position, she will be handicapped by not having a degree.</p>

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<p>It’s certainly possible to have a job in the CS field without a degree and there are many working in it without a degree as evidence. However, to get a job, especially a good position with a lot of growth potential and higher level skill set required (as opposed to doing some very basic often low paying programming jobs) is going to be more difficult without a degree. The degree is the credential to indicate a certain base level of preparation for a job in the area. This is even more of an issue in obtaining jobs towards the front end of their career when they have less work experience to serve as ‘evidence’ of their capabilities and employability. Not all jobs are equal - some will be lower paying more basic jobs without a lot of potential and others will have a lot more potential, a lot more responsibility, and a lot more growth potential so the question isn’t even ‘getting a job’ - it’s ‘getting a good job’.</p>

<p>When I hire a new entry to mid level software developer I’ll only consider people who have the appropriate degree. If I was looking for a more senior level person I wouldn’t be as rigid on the degree and would look more at their work experience.</p>

<p>She needs to consider that for any job she tries to get she’ll generally be competing against others who have the degree in addition to the relevant work experience through internships, etc. It’s very simple for the manager or HR department to use the degree as the first filter on the resumes. </p>

<p>The CS degree is different from a lot of others, for example humanities degrees, in that one learns things directly relevant to the job. There are courses in the 4th year of the CS degree that the employers will value and could be directly relevant to the job that she doesn’t have right now. The employer would also wonder if her reason for not finishing the degree was because she either didn’t want to work that hard or she felt she couldn’t handle the work - both further reasons to not offer her employment.</p>

<p>There’s no better time to finish her degree than now so she should go back and finish. If she doesn’t then she should wish for a lot of luck in obtaining her first few jobs in the field.</p>

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<p>She can probably get a job at a startup, and if the company is successful, may end up just fine without a degree, but it is risky. She will be safer and have many more options if she gets her degree. Maybe she can keep working, and finish the degree over 2-3years if she does not like the idea of returning to school full time.</p>

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<p>

I’ve been in the field for over 20 years. And not really cool stuff - just standard business programming in a cube farm. I’m adding to the unanimity here. I also have three friends, excellent workers, and very intelligent and good, who can’t get jobs because they don’t pass the buzzword test. I have also noticed on MY resume (on the interviewer’s desk during an interview), that the “master’s degree” line on my resume is highlighted.

I don’t even think this is right generally because not everyone is as smart as ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad - it’s hard to advance / get another job, even with years of fantastic recommendations, without the degree.</p>

<p>Let us know how she reacts when you make her read this thread! :)</p>

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<p>The other issue - you said she went to a ‘top school’ - if she doesn’t complete her degree she won’t be able to take advantage of the job placement services of that college, including employers who recruit on-site at that school.</p>

<p>If she’s looking at it from the possible perspective of an engineering person - she might not agree that it’s logical that the degree should be required to obtain certain jobs at certain companies or for further job advancement at some companies but that’s really irrelevant in the equation - the fact is that it does matter regardless of her opinion on whether it should or not.</p>

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<p>I agree with others that the degree is very important.</p>

<p>However, in the interest of completeness, I’ve met a number of blockbuster CS folks without degrees who could be hired anywhere/anytime, at the most elite high tech companies in the US. In this industry, achievement is what matters.</p>

<p>But still, it’s easy to be overlooked on your way there, even assuming that you’re that rare true wizard. Get the degree.</p>

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<p>I’ve worked in several government labs - none of them would hire for a cs position without a degree.</p>

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<p>I work at a university in the IT department.</p>

<p>For our help-desk staff, cabling, phone and PC techs, we require certification. Some of them have an associate’s degree. A bachelor’s degree is not required, although some of them have that.</p>

<p>For systems and networking, programming, database managers, etc. a bachelor’s degree is required.</p>

<p>At our institution to be a Director in almost any non-academic department on campus requires a master’s degree.</p>

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<p>OP here. Thanks everyone for your input. I guess I better work on my powers of persuasion.</p>

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<p>inaquandry, if you were a HR person and you had two candidates, someone like your daughter and a highly qualified college grad would you go out on a limb to hire the former? However if she can progress up the career ladder at her current company based on her talent, spearhead a startup or gain entry to a new company via networking in a few years perhaps she could make it work.</p>

<p>It seem the nine months invested in a degree where she could tailor her coursework with the interest she has gained working would be a wise decision.</p>

<p>My son was a compsci major, obtained his degree in 2008 and was hired as a computer game design firm in Orlando, Fla because he was accepted into UCF’s FIEA program and deferred enrollment for a year. On discussing his grad school plans with his employer he was convinced that cutting edge experience on the job trumped grad school.</p>

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<p>I would suggest she 1) talk to the college or university to see how long she can be out before losing some of the credits, and what other obstacles there might be to returning and when. And 2) talking with someone at the company where she works about any possible differences in her future there, with versus without a degree.</p>

<p>My son was a CS major and one of his summer internships led to a job offer after sophomore year, for a good salary. It was tempting, but he went back to school and got his BS. After graduating, the same company offered him a better job, so he certainly didn’t lose anything by going back, and might have lost something long term by not getting the degree.</p>

<p>That said, I can really understand your daughter’s feelings. Does she ever want to go back? If so, does she feel that missing more years would mean she would be rusty, and less able to do the 4th year? How is her health?</p>

<p>I have a kid out on medical leave also, and she is doing two internships. She loves, loves working and has two more years to slog through to finish. But, she is going back.</p>

<p>I am willing to be that, having health issues, your daughter is more mature than most and does not love college life. Is that part of the problem?</p>

<p>Perhaps there is another way to finish up that last year, at her current school (finishing elsewhere may be tough, since she has already done 3 years; 2 years is the usual breaking point for transfers). We know of a top, top school that granted permission for a student to finish at a state university thousands of miles away, and she did it part-time due to, yes, health problems.</p>

<p>So maybe there is some out of the box, creative solution possible. But I would say, yes, whenever she can stand it, she should try to finish. Good luck!</p>