On 09/28/2011 01:02 PM, Kevin Chadwick wrote:
On Tue, 27 Sep 2011 22:47:53 -0600
Tim Mensch wrote:
It's not that the degree is necessary to be any good, though I did learn
a lot of important concepts in a few CS classes. It's that the degree at
least indicates they're willing to stick to something long enough to
complete it, and implies a minimum level of CS knowledge.
The 80% study about Unix professionals being self-taught, I was talking
about was Network and system Implementers, not coders, though coding
can be beneficial in networking.
There's two things, Education accelerating learning from knowledgeable
lecturers, though Google empowers through pdfs for networking
especially anyway but then also 30% being learning useless and
potentially outdated and impractical skills just to pass rather than
*everything* you do being for a practical and useful reason.
Hence academic and theory being used in critical ways.
As for commitment absolutely rubbish it often indicates an ability to
accomplish a certain amount within a time frame but many degrees aren't
even used and many see it simply as a way to increase their wage as
they've worked hard enough and can now relax.
When I hire, background and ability will be foremost, degrees well
maybe if I haven't the time or knowledge in that area to find out
properly. The best way for a leading company as it sounds Google may do
by getting in early, is apprenticeships, not degrees. Not that both
aren't very valuable.
Programming is a talent. You have to have a knack for it. I'm sure
many here would have become great programmers without taking college
courses in computer science.
Most of my hires, if they had a degree, were in other areas. Also many
colleges were lousy at teaching computer science until about the
mid-90s. I was even on the advisory board for the City College of San
Francisco computer science department. Their graduates weren't getting
hired and needed some help with the curriculum. We suggested they shift
from teaching Pascal (no company was using that) to C and C++. We also
suggested some knowledge of Windows programming would be useful. That
worked. When I tutored a relative who was getting a bachelor's degree
in computer science I found she had no knack for programming. But she
graduated.
I see myself as a jazz musician who writes computer code. I learned
from books and by writing applications (since 1983). I also hung out
with a bunch of programmers who worked at companies like Cray, Boeing,
Batelle, Exxon Nuclear working at the Hanford nuclear reservation. Very
few of them actually had computer science degrees. It was the school of
"hard knocks" and some even took my 6502 assembly language class I held
for the local computer club.
I think college is very important but go there to learn not just to get
a couple letters after your name. I was at lunch today with a publisher
where we discussed this and was concerned about this trend for requiring
degrees when even he knew they weren't necessary and he prefers people
with experience.
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