RE: Student-Degree valuable or not?

[Seyberth Allan R Contr AFRL/VSIO <allan.seyberth () kirtland af mil>]

My $0.02, as someone in a similar situation as yours.

The knowledge gained during the coursework itself is less valuable than
hands-on up to date experience.

But

As was said earlier, that degree is a checkbox for HR departments.  Without
it your resume will never make it past the first weeding down.

For better or worse, I'm in the University of Phoenix IT plan. . . (the
local university hates working adults.)





-----Original Message-----
From: DANIEL SIMPSON [mailto:DANSIMPS () uat edu] 
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 5:23 PM
To: Security-Basics
Subject: Student-Degree valuable or not?


Hey,


I just retired from a 4 year stint in Silicon Valley where I was a System
Administrator/Technical Engineer for a couple start-ups. I started getting
more and more into Information Security and finally decided to quit my
boring job and move to Arizona to enter a 4 year program at a private
university. I'm getting my B.S in software engineering with an emphasis on
security. How valuable will this degree be and what are the forecasts for
the job market in this field in about 4 years. The program is REALLY
expensive and I cashed out all my investments/savings to pay for it (roughly
10k a year). I might even go to law school afterwards. Is this degree worth
the estimated 40-50k? I'm 22 btw, my dream is to work for Microsoft or
Goggle for a couple years and start my own security firm.


Any suggestions would be awesome.

Dann

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Allan Seyberth  

Unisys 
AFRL-VSIO WGM Manager
(505) 853-3842 
Allan.Seyberth () kirtland af mil


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