What is Digg?210 Comments
- purdueAl, on 10/11/2007, -6/+186@bakstuh
"I started out in college at a CS major but changed it to MIS"
ie you failed Calc 1. - ubuntuedgy, on 10/11/2007, -19/+144I have a CS degree. I graduated in 2001. I can do my job because of what I taught myself (building computers, programming, networking, etc) all from home before I ever started college. But I would not have qualified for my job if I didn't have the degree. It was a requirement.
Don't look at college as something which will make you more knowledgeable; that is a personal responsibility. Look at college as "checking the block".
There are many successful people without college degrees. There are far more successful people with college degrees. Is a degree useless? I think so, but it is an item that many many employers look for. So, take care of yourself and get that block checked. Then educate yourself to make yourself marketable. - thcobbs, on 10/11/2007, -0/+80Computer Science Degree != learning how to code
It's more learning about algorithms, binary logic, and simulations... the coding is kinda secondary after a while.
Computer Scientist is to Software Engineer what Physicist is to Civil Engineer.
Sure, a physicist can build a bridge, but the civil engineer knows how to do it on time, under budget, and make it fit it's environment. Scientists study a subject in the abstract... Engineers apply that abstract knowledge to real-world problems. - LordofShadows, on 10/11/2007, -5/+75Close the textbook, do it yourself.
- drackett, on 10/11/2007, -5/+53These days—working so much with perl and python—I really wish I would have taken more computer science classes in college.. or at least paid more attention in the ones I did take ;)
- NoHandle, on 10/11/2007, -2/+49University is for two things and people usually only get the first reason right.
Firstly, University is about bettering yourself and situation in life. More bluntly, getting a job and a more robust opinion of the world. This is why most students are at University or College. Get Rich and Get SMART! (if only most did...)
The second reason you are giving your incurred debt to a University is to learn how to "learn". Anyone who thinks they will finish their degree and know everything they will need for the next 20 or even 10 years is sadly mistaken. Universities are to bureaucratic in nature and don't have a focus on teaching, so they will never be cutting edge. The best they can do is prepare you for what you will face in the real world and give you the skills to prosper throughout your career. Software development and computers change so frequently this fact is simply far more pronounced in Computer Science or Software Engineering than it is in other fields. - shaka999, on 10/11/2007, -2/+48At work I've fought for promotions for more than one person without a college degree. Its not the degree that is going to make you successful, its your attitude. College is not going to teach you everything you need for a job and isn't going to make you smarter. You need to be able to pick things up on your own and have a good work ethic.
That said, I think a college degree has far more worth than others here are giving it. After college you will be more well rounded than most people without degrees. If you've been smart in course selection you will have a broad base of knowledge to draw upon making it easier to drop into new jobs/situations.
Even if I could have got to my present position without a degree I wouldn't give up the experience I gained in college.... - godzillaWax, on 10/11/2007, -4/+39You've bigger problems to worry about if you're being taught javascript in school...
- goflyers, on 10/11/2007, -1/+35All this @username crap really should illustrate that more levels are needed for the comments.
@username is the GOTO of commenting in my opinion. - abenton, on 10/11/2007, -0/+30Why do people "bury for blogspam"? Its an article, why does it matter if its not from some MSM or written by kevin mitnick, it's still pretty informative
- BoneheadFarker, on 10/11/2007, -8/+37@ubuntuedgy
*****. The person's natural skill is only one factor in making a good programmer. Experience is another. Education (proper school-type education) gives you the proper way to transform skill into experience. You can be a great programmer if you are well-skilled, but you could be a god if you actually had education. The problem is many people think just because they have one of those three that they are good enough. I know from observing others that it just doesn't work that way. I've seen CS grads who couldn't code their way out of a paper bag but think "My program has 2000 lines of code, I'm doing great!" I've seen people who only started programming because they were volunteered 30 years ago to learn it, but oh god...you can't tell them anything because they've been doing it for 30 years and "know more then you". I've seen people who dropped out of highschool code some pretty amazing and complex systems, but with issues that a first year college student should be able to spot. Myself...I thought I would never use some of the things that I learned in college. After programming professionally for the passed 7 years, I see why those things were taught now. Education opens you up to several things that you might never have considered but after experience are now invaluable. But education is not enough. You need the skills and interest to do it before you get the education.
The real problem is working around the people you work with who can't see why proper design and testing are important to making good software. "It compiles so it's good enough", my ass. If I get one more freakin' program that the programmer didn't even bother to run first before submitting it to testing, I'm going to whip them for every bug I find... - ubuntuedgy, on 10/11/2007, -2/+29@zippo
"I was going to major in Computer Science myself. Then I realised that the only career that would fully benefit from an education in Computer Science is teaching Computer Science."
Oh gawd! There are boatloads of jobs for CS graduates. Any military defense contractor, any company that does any type of computer research (engineering firms and software firms), the FBI even gives preference to CS graduates because they have a shortage....
You just aren't looking in the right places. - pcdescha, on 10/11/2007, -4/+30http://duggmirror.com/programming/A_Computer_Science_Degree_Doesn_t_Hurt_Much/
- Minishark, on 10/11/2007, -0/+24Seriously. If there were girls that attractive in my CS classes, I might actually go to class.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -17/+37If there is anything I HATE, it's all you 'intellectuals' who 'look down' on non-CS, non-engineering majors. Seriously, this world needs people from all disciplines, and it's ***** like you that make good people like myself get a bad rep.
Even worse are you ***** that 'look down' on people for studying at a public university; sure, I'm doing industrial engineering at a state-school because anything else is too expensive! I know that's a foreign concept to those of you with rich parents paying full tuition and buying your iPhone, but please get over yourselves. - neophenix, on 10/11/2007, -4/+23@thcobbs (#6953664)
"Computer Science Degree != learning how to code"
Oh how true that is. I find it amazing how many folks I work with or know that are coming out of school with BS or MS degrees in Comp Sci that then need to have their hand held through nearly every project at work. I debated on going back for a masters, but these people just put a bad taste in my mouth for spending all that money to have another little piece of paper. - Birdoftruth, on 10/11/2007, -3/+22yea I am getting tired of people screaming it. I think the people that scream blogspam are the people that have a blog and are jealous they can't climb the digg hierarchy .
- rderveloy, on 10/11/2007, -2/+20I took CE. It's a nice balance of both EE and CS, at least that's what I thought at the time I signed up. In reality, you git hit from both sides. It's true that you don't have to take some of the harder EE courses, but you still have lots of math. Three semesters of calc plus differential equations.
It was a lot of hard work, but I'm thankful for it. Some classes that may have seemed useless at the time have actually paid off. If I had to go back and do it all again, and because math isn't really my strongest asset, I would have most likely gone pure CS or SE and would have tossed in a few circuit theory classes, computer design, and mechatronics to satisfy my curiosity of hardware, but that's just my personal preference.
So, please, stop complaining about how hard your CS degree was. No one in the real world is going to care all that much, because, chances are, they had to go through the exact same thing. Taking a technical, engineering, or some other hard science degree is supposed to be a challenge. If you wanted something easy, you should have majored in underwater basket weaving.
Colleges don't pick the classes you take based on how much they want to torture students (that's how they pick professors), but they pick them based on industry and educational standards that are designed to give you a fundamental understanding in your chosen field. Think about it, things in IT change so fast, it would be impossible for colleges to keep up with all the latest trends. Just because a university doesn't have a ruby on rails class, doesn't mean there aren't practical lessons to be learned by taking python or cold fusion. The things you learn in school are designed to transcend individual programming languages and technologies, and provide a fundamental framework/mindset so you can teach yourself _(insert programming language or technology here)_ later on down the road.
I think my multifarious systems professor said it best when he said, "You are here to learn how to learn." - brufleth, on 10/11/2007, -8/+26Education is a pruning process.
- ubuntuedgy, on 10/11/2007, -2/+18@jcm267
That's great. Now can you give me the stats on how many dropped out and are working at fast food joints? Or are you insinuating that if you drop out you will become a millionaire?
The MAJORITY of millionaires made at Microsoft have degrees. The MAJORITY of millionaires made at Apple have degrees. The CEO's are the exception, not the rule.
Yes, some people get that great idea and become rich without a degree. It happens. But the majority of people WILL NOT become millionaires (with or without a degree). You go ahead and take your chances. I'll take my chances with a degree. - DeejayLupo, on 10/11/2007, -1/+16There isn't even any advertising!
How about: Dugg for a nice, clean, uncluttered blog.
Oh, and a great article that's right on the money about the true value of a comp sci degree. - magikker, on 10/11/2007, -2/+16I wish you would have wrote that in lowercase. I'd digg what you said because its so true.... But I just can't bring myself to anything in all caps.
- Kazbaeden, on 10/11/2007, -0/+10"Ha, you think GPA matters? Some of the smartest people I know did *horribly* in college."
Maintaining a good GPA has less to do with being smart and more to do with being disciplined.
But yeah, switching because you're GPA is going down is probably the worst reason to switch. No one cares about your GPA but your mom. In the real world, no one gives a *****. - geminitojanus, on 10/11/2007, -2/+12"Computer Scientist is to Software Engineer what Physicist is to Civil Engineer."
Ideally, this is exactly what you'd want to see. In reality, 9/10 "CS" degrees would be better titled "Software Programming" or "Computer Software Development" degrees; many college specialize to one language/format of programming (object oriented/C++/Java), never discuss other methods of programming, parallelism, project management, never get into the actual algorithmic optimization sciences that gave CS its name (which in reality, should just be a degree in computer-related mathematics).
Unless you're in a university (most of which make strides to teach and develop the actual sciences), don't expect your CS degree to be anything more than a license to code professionally. - DivisibleByZero, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9FTFA: "There are lots of examples of successful folks who didn’t finish their degrees"
Yes, but there are many more examples of unsuccessful people who dropped out. - godzillaWax, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9Either you have a wickedly poor definition of what a good looking dumb bimbo is, or you went to the CS college of Shangri La Tech.
- derkaas, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9"CS degrees are useless"
Enough of this already. If you take _all_ your classes seriously in a CS program at a major university, you will be much, much better prepared to tackle all sorts of real world problems than you would otherwise, both because of the problem-solving ability it instills and in the theoretical knowledge.
I know this from experience. I had to take classes on calculus (x3) w/ linear algebra, combinatorics, probability (and some statistics), logic, physics (x2), algorithms and complexity, encryption, systems, networking, digital design, etc. I know all of you CS folk out there did too, and all of that knowledge comes in handy more frequently than I ever thought it would (especially the math).
But more importantly, college gave me an excuse to explore subjects I wouldn't have otherwise, like international affairs, astronomy, robotics, German, etc. Did these help me learn Java better? No, but some of them literally changed the way I view the world. And that's more important in my book. - nace33, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8When your in a CSci program you get out of it what you put into it. If you only want to learn how to code, then thats all your going to learn. If you embrace the logic and mathematics behind it then you'll unlock doors that programming doesn't do by itself. I enjoyed getting my Csci degree and I think it is very useful outside the world of computing. In my case I used my degree to get into law school.
- hockey, on 10/11/2007, -2/+10You're not "successful" because you dropped out of school.
You're successful because you've convinced people to pay you 60 pounds an hour :) I wonder what the code "under the hood" looks like.
The point people are trying to make whenever a thread like this comes up (and one that is so obviously lost on most diggers here) is that anyone can write syntax because syntax is not difficult. However there is so much more to good programming than simply writing syntax. Good algorithm development is what's necessary and that is regardless of language. A crappy algorithm is a crappy algorithm regardless of rather it's C or Perl. Good algorithm development also takes practice and time and it's a skill whose basics are better taught then just picked up (as is evident by all the crap code I've had the misfortune of seeing over my years in the industry).
School may not teach you all you need to know but a good education will give you the foundation that you need to build upon.
Recently at work an engineer was working on a program that took over 30 minutes to run on average. He was trying to improve the speed and so a group of us got together and began working on algorithm's to speed up the code. We ignored syntax and we ignored coding. We just discussed various algorithm's, big O notation etc. Once we had an algorithm devised, he coded it and the program went from taking 30 minutes to run to just under 20 seconds. THAT's Computer Science and THAT is what is so sorely lacking in the software development industry today.
So there are tons of rich people who dropped out of school and can "write code". Yea good for them (here have a cookie) but I personally would rather have people concerned about sound algorithm's rather than just getting rich.
Yeah it's a pipe dream I know.
/ramble off. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9@mikefitz2
No one looks down at UConn where I come from. I don't think anyone looks down on people who study at UCLA or UC Berkley. There are tons of great state schools. Who frowns upon state schools in general? - NICU, on 10/11/2007, -3/+10To me a college degree shows that you know how to solve problems. In any science or engineering field you learn problem solving and those skills can be used anywhere. So stop copying out of textbooks (you're wasting your parent's money) and learn how to use references to help you solve problems. If the questions are too easy (and there's nothing more fun to do) then find multiple ways to solve the same problem. The answer to a question isn't as important as the steps you took to solve it.
You'll never be asked the same questions twice, but you'll always be asked questions. Spend time solving problems not memorizing or copying answers. - SocialPoison, on 10/11/2007, -3/+9I'm not sure if I agree with that CS Degree != learning how to code thing... There's obviously all sorts of other stuff involved... but you can't get through a CS degree without coding.
But maybe that's because I really didn't start coding until I started college. And having someone teach you the right and wrong way to do something is kinda important. Now that I'm in that scary "working world," I've seen code that is just plain terrible. Who the f*ck uses a GOTO in C#? Or any other language for that matter.
Anyways... interesting post. I've heard it put "Your college degree is just to get you your first job. After that you're in." - EvalCrux, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6You guys need to keep in mind, that ultimately college is to teach you how to think, to be able to better analyze problems and learn new things in the future. I doubled in CS and business, and though I hated CS soooo much during the all nighters trying to tackle impossible algorithms and such, in the end I learned how to think like a computer scientist, thereby adding value to my career. And that's what makes the degree worth it.
But in terms of your first job out of college, it's definitely the first step in the 'pruning process' for employers. Get that first job, then learn real skills, then the sky is the limit: start a company, move up whatever corporate chain, change careers to whatever you want (CS degree generally means "I am smart enough to have gotten through hell", and show that you can do almost anything...I-banking, finance, etc). - SuperSloth, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6Most schools don't offer MIS, CIS/IT/IS, or SE. Nearly all of them offer CS.
- gothsquirrel, on 10/11/2007, -3/+9I think the big difference is that to take CS classes you acctually teach yourself lots of other skills that are neccessary for a computer based job along the way. In compairing a CS degree to just about any other i'm going to say that in usefulness its fairly high up there. I have friends graduatin with art degree which will get them nowhere and they complain about it and i also have friends with english, history which are just slightly better and buisness degrees which will get you a job but you don't acctually learn anything more than some common sense.
- chrishall314, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5"Thinking in Java" by Bruce Eckel is available as a free electronic book. I have heard great things about this book and perfect for your level.
- bitweever, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5I got a CS degree, got tired of working in a cubicle, and am now back in school for Nutrition Science (I'm going to be an RD). Tell me what to do with that combo?
- Novagenesis, on 10/11/2007, -3/+7I hate to agree. I got a 6-figure CS degree and then went to the Career Counselling dept, only to be given a voucher for a free MonsterTrak.com site...
I graduated in '02. Spammed resumes (even spent money to get the resume cleaned up) for years. I did an "unskilled labor" job until I got into data entry in an IT dept in '06. In the last year I proved that it wasn't incompetence that kept me from being hired in the field, getting two promotions and now working hand in hand with Senior VPs, being told I have another promotion soon and getting prepped for the managerial side of it.
I could've gotten the same Data entry job with -no- college experience, and proven myself the same exact way. While I learned a little in the CS classes, I learned more between classes when I took the books (much less than 100k) and studied compiler design and vm development on the side.
Besides, 100k would've been enough to take a few business classes and start my own software company. - tribality, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Nice post. I went back to school for computer science after getting the super useful history degree. When I started in my program (back in '99), I thought I'd program video games or desktop apps... but when I graduated, I ended up a web designer/developer. Taking Cobol, Assembler, Pascal, Operating Systems and Networking have no direct relation to my daily work, but a wider education has paid off in the long run.
- imikedaman, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5"Again, I'm not afraid of challenge, but when the challenge starts bringing my GPA down, it's better to take two steps behind and think otherwise."
Ha, you think GPA matters? Some of the smartest people I know did *horribly* in college. - geminitojanus, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6There's a difference between blogspam (poorly thought out, short blurbs of text, often completely ripped from others, often laced with "top X" lists/bullets), and blog articles (varying quality articles written in blog format). This is one of the "better" blog articles, but most have been some really horrendous ones that have hit the front page. Don't bash them all because the few, horrible quality ones are the ones that usually hit the front page.
That being said, I'm not digging this one (she didn't really say anything that anyone who's been in/through college doesn't already realize), but hey, it'd be a great article if you were a high schooler/young college kid trying to decide what to do, and it's definitely written to the right audience. - geminitojanus, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4"I'm of the opinion that software development and server administration and network administration should move more in the direction of being skilled trades, as opposed to being professional positions."
Server and network administration mostly has become a trade, which is why "Information Technology" was spun off from "Computer Science". Truthfully, both titles are complete misnomers, as an "Information Technician" would better be described as "Computer Repairman", and most "Computer Scientists" would be better described as "Code Jockeys". However, to write good code, you really do need to have some kind of college degree, and Computer Science isn't a bad one to have, as it'd definitely expose you to everything you'd need. That isn't to say that we could better target these jobs by having a "Software Programming" degree which cuts a lot of the fat and replaces it with a lot more practicality.
My only argument here is that Computer Science isn't treated as a Discrete Science, as it very well should be. Instead, it's treated as a vocation, which is why IMHO Computer Science is on the decline in America. Anyone can hire a guy that can code a few thousand lines a week. Finding the guy that writes a thousand, well timed, algorithmically correct, parallelizable lines of code a week is a whole other story. - purdueAl, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5@Nougat
Your analogies aren't quite right. A basic IT position or administrator may be similar to a trade school, but not a true computer science degree from a major research university. That's like saying an aerospace engineer from, say Michigan, is no different then an airline mechanic. - danl_4, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4I'm taking my last class right now in my PhD program. Amazingly, I'm still learning a ton. It's one thing to get down the process of converting thoughts into loops, conditionals and expressions to get something done and pass some information around. If you can't even understand the problem, or don't know the appropriate techniques to tackle it, however, you're stuck doing something adhoc. In my case, I'm building statistical models to group text documents together. There are a lot of simple algorithms to do this, but after my last two classes I'm bringing fairly complicated statistical methods, like Gibbs sampling and Metropolis-Hastings MCMC to the task. These methods are beating the pants off of all of the adhoc approaches that I thought I had been clever to think of before. Sure, I could have grabbed some books on the subject, and I did when I tried to learn about these things before. There was too much background information that I was missing and the books just didn't give enough intuition behind how the methods worked, which I needed in order to be able to incorporate them into the new algorithms that I developed.
- Novagenesis, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5Would you do me a -huge- favor and actually find me a job kernel hacking? I graduated in the 3.3 gpa range with a CS degree from Worcester Polytech (awesome undergrad program) and while I'm proud of where I've gotten thus far, I'm basically writing perl file converters, automated outbound calls, and the occasional microcompiler to create 5-word languages that help me automate the other two jobs with some (but not TOO much) efficiency...
BTW, what the hell am I saying? Simple, you go for a CS degree, you end up doing whatever ***** that degree will get you in the business world. I can't even find a job coding in LISP and I work in the Boston area. - josegutz, on 10/11/2007, -5/+9I'd hit it :-P
- hertzsae, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Some people go to college to learn, others go to get a degree. They might both get the same jobs afterwards. However, those that learn usually end up moving up much quicker in the years following.
- surfing, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Seven years of college down the drain
- bubbadoo989, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3When I was doing my undergrad work, Comp Sci students were still carrying decks of punch cards, the computer labs still had teletype machines and IBM was the rule (yes, I know, I'm dating myself). So I majored in math and took many Italian classes (best thing I learned in college).
All of the professional skills I have acquired have been self-taught, since most of the technology didn't exist at the time. - SuperSloth, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Yeah, I've got a 2 year technical degree right now. My soft salary cap is ~$40,000. I'm going back to finish my BS in either CIS, CS, SE, or MIS. It will raise my soft salary cap to ~$80,000.
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