Some sound advice, GET THE DEGREE! When push comes to shove that is
what give you credibility not some pie in the sky marketing hype that
promises the moon and delivers chopped liver.
You make that sound sooooo easy. But then again, I'm not one of the
ones pushing for certification but instead pushing for reasonable hiring
practice. Makes no sense to me at all how a hiring manager would refuse
to even look at a resume of an individual because there is no degree
when that individual has many years of experience in the field.
I was stupid, when I went to college, I stopped after my first year
because I didn't want to waste all my time in school when I could be out
being productive, working, earning, and learning the best way possible,
at the feet of real people who have been doing just what you want to
learn. Back then when there was such a shortage of anybody with the
ability to program, this worked well. I learned, I experienced, I
earned, I taught, I even developed my own in-house curriculum for some
special purpose language the company was using. So, from all
indications I made the right choices. Until the dot com bubble went
bang. Was downsized.
I would love to pursue a degree, but, with a wife and 3 kids to support,
and a mortgage to pay and spending 60 hrs. a week developing software
free lance, it's economically challenging to seek a degree as well as
time challenged. I realize that many institutions will allow life
experience to count toward some credits as well as you can pay to test
out for other credits, but it's a daunting thought going back to school
after being out for 23 years.
In a hiring situation when two candidates are pretty well equally
qualified, one with a degree and one without, almost ALWAYS the degree
is the determining factor for who gets the job!
And that is acceptable to me IF AND ONLY IF the candidates are otherwise
equally qualified. The real problem is many companies won't even look
at the resume to find out if you are either equally qualified or more
qualified than the degreed person.
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