Re: Student-Degree valuable or not?

[Bennett Todd <bet () rahul net>]

2003-09-25T19:23:03 Daniel Simpson:
> I'm getting my B.S in software engineering with an emphasis on
> security. How valuable will this degree be [...]

That depends on a several things.

A B.S. degree is a checklist item in many HR departments for many
professional positions. There's a perception, which may have some
correlation with reality (but definitely not 100% correlation) that
someone who has gotten a bachelor's degree has gotten some breadth,
has learned some real foundation basics in their field, and has
learned how to learn, so they can carry on training themselves to
stay current throughout their career.

In our field there's definitely a wad of core underpinning knowlege
--- data structures and algorithms and performance analysis,
compiler construction, operating systems architectures and
internals, to give a few examples --- that many self-trained folks
I've known seem to be weak in.

A couple of other factors strongly influence how valuable a B.S.
will be for you. First off, has anybody ever heard of the university
in question. "Joe's bait shop and trade school" might not be helpful
on your resume. Second, where are you going to be applying? Dotbombs
often preferred seeing examples of work, a portfolio if you will,
over more traditional credentials. At the opposite extreme,
positions in large corporations are likely to be much, much harder
to get without a degree.

As long as the school you're looking at has a reasonable reputation,
and the program you're going for covers the important foundations,
I'd strongly advise going for it; although a degress is not by any
means a union card guaranteeing your fortunes, many career paths
will be a lot easier to enter, and those foundation courses really
do teach valuable material that many people I've known have found
pretty inaccessible for self-training.

-Bennett

Attachment: _bin
Description: