How Important is a Well-Known CS Degree? 1280
syynnapse asks: "I've been interested in computer science since my mother taught me how to program in QBASIC when I was eleven, and I've wanted to be a developer ever since I learned C++ in AP Computer Science while in high-school. Now I'm in my sophomore year of college studying CS at a state university that isn't particularly known for its CS program, but I'm quite happy and personally think I'm learning plenty. My father thinks otherwise, and the deadline for transferring successfully is approaching quickly. What chance do I have in the real world with a not-so-prestigious degree? Am I likely to be learning what's important? Am I looking at a series of awful jobs if I don't transfer?"
Experience is key... (Score:5, Informative)
The most important thing in the market today is experience. Go look on Monster or any of the other sites right now, and you'll see one phrase quite a bit -
In other words, a degree is a bonus now rather than a prerequisite if you have talent and experience. If you have no experience and no big certifications, then a degree is something (and perhaps the degree from a bigger school could help a little), but the jobs available to you in this boat are not all that appealing for the most part anyway.
The great jobs go to those with solid experience, and for those people (and the people hiring them), the degree they have is considered decoration rather than the meat of the resume.
Perhaps this is different in the development field, but I doubt it; I'm coming from the infosec side of things and I imagine things are much the same for programmers.
In short, degrees and certifications are "get you in the door"-oriented credentials; the big jobs rarely go this breed of applicant.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Experience is key... (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting a job that matches your particular skillset is easy if you're good at what you do, degree or not. But getting a job that may deviate from your skillset, but still exists in the same general area, will be impossible without the degree, but may be reachable with it.
As for schools, in my experience, the only schools that have been looked at with derision are the known degree-factory schools, particularly online and "nationally accredited" schools like the University of Phoenix. If the school sounds like a traditional university, it probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference which one it is.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:5, Interesting)
I currently have a pretty decent job- without a degree, but with about 7 years of solid experience.
But I know if I want to move into management (which I do) or if I need to change out of my 'specialty', my chances without a degree are very slim. But, with a degree, and my experience, I can move around a lot more.
Since I am only going at night, I still have quite a few more years to go. But I'm hoping that I finally finish my degree the day before my head explodes because I am sick and tired of writing code. Then it will be my chance to be the clueless boss who assigns impossible projects without any clear objective, reasonable timeline, or decent support.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:4, Funny)
Sounds great, when are you hiring?
Re:Experience is key... (Score:3, Interesting)
Even though I didn't get the formal CS training in college or university, I have learned my trade from the masters (you should see my book collection) of various disiplines and languages.
Contrary to popular belief, being a good programmer
Re:School more important than the degree (Score:4, Insightful)
We have a winner. Where you go to school matters! The better the school you go to the better chance you have of getting a good entry-level job in your field which, in turn, jump-starts your career IF, and ONLY IF, you take advantage of this opportunity. Where you go to school is NOT a permit to rest on your laurels for the rest of your life. (Unless, of course, you dropped out of Harvard and started a small software company in Redmond, WA...or whereeverthehellmicrosoft was founded.)
Also, college is not a vocational school. College is an evironment where people hone their skills at critical thinking and reasoning (and socializing, but that's a different discussion.) You choose your vehicle to do this by picking a major that INTERESTS you. I know quite a few English and History majors that were pulling in $100,000+ per year two years out of college as analysts for Wall Street firms.
Where did I go? The College of William and Mary.
What did I major in? Chemistry.
What do I do now? Not Chemistry. I'm in IT and do project management for large, global infrastructure projects.
While where you went to school won't necessarily get you the job, it will improve your chances of getting your resume looked at.
Granted, I never really leveraged where I went to school, even for my first job.
--Mike
Re:School more important than the degree (Score:5, Insightful)
I've also worked with fresh faced grads that couldn't think their way out of a paper bag. Or have the first job ego: "I produced something that actually works, I'm awesome!" And anyone who uses goto in anything but the most brain dead of situations gets a swift kick in the junk. I don't give a shit who the person is, someone is going to have to read that code, goto generally doesn't help.
Oft heard, but bullshit: Experience is key... (Score:3, Insightful)
You may see "or equivalent experience", but that's not most employers first choice. In most cases the degree does have significant weight, and given two people who are more or less equal, the guy with paper will win. Likewise, between the guy with a second tier state university CS degree will lose to the guy who went to a b
Re:Oft heard, but bullshit: Experience is key... (Score:5, Insightful)
In most cases the degree does have significant weight, and given two people who are more or less equal, the guy with paper will win.
Not to mention the degree will get you past the HR department.
Re:Oft heard, but bullshit: Experience is key... (Score:5, Informative)
60% Experience (this is what gets you in the door)
39% Interview (this is what gets you hired)
1% Piece of paper
Nobody puts weight on the paper because everyone knows that schools do not prepare programmers for the real world.
About the only exception I could see to the 1% rule is if you come from a particularly prestigious institution like MIT, CalTech, etc. That said, people who come from institutions like that usually do very well in the interview because they are ultra-geeks. In any event, since the percentage of the population coming from those places is extremely small, it's not really a factor.
Re:Oft heard, but bullshit: Experience is key... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Oft heard, but bullshit: Experience is key... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not saying your wrong about your experience, obviously, but I have been on both sides of the process and have seen degrees make a big difference. I've seen people with great experience lose out to people from the "right institution."
Here're a few reasons:
- Some institutions, particularly service-related companies, are vain about the statistics they can cite. I worked with a Big Consulting Company once who had a VP who would frequently state that over 25% of their employees had PhDs from Berkeley, Stanford, or MIT. I asked him what their GPAs were as a joke, but he took it entirely seriously, and told me he could find out. For companies and people like that, the image is as important as the education. Their product is design audits, system reviews, etc, so they're essentially selling confidence to other companies. They sell to upper management, not the engineers, so easily-recognized indications of quality (i.e., reputation) are important.
- Insecure hiring/HR people. It's like the old "no one ever got fired for buying IBM" mentality. It's a defensive mechanism.
- It's cultural, too. Certain cultures put more emphasis on titles and institutions than others. American culture (whatever that is
Also, people's prejudices come out in the hiring environment. University degrees are easily verified, while experience may or may not be.
And experience can be a slippery thing, too. I hired someone once who gave an outstanding interview and who had amazing knowledge of Unix development. This person turned out to be very talented, but unable to follow directions at all, or even perform the job requirements. It wasn't a lack of ability, it was an unwillingness to work with the requirements that our client had imposed. A university degree here would have been a good thing -- it indicates that someone is capable of, for want of a better phrase, being compliant and going along with the bullshit that jobs unfortunately often require. Being talented and knowledgable is not enough. You have to be able to deal with and compromise with people who are less talented, situations that are not ideal, and, as you call it, the real world.
Anyway, that's my take on it. Yes, experience is very important, but I wouldn't overlook a good degree as a tool for getting yourself hired.
Re:Oft heard, but bullshit: Experience is key... (Score:4, Interesting)
Data point: At my Fortune-100 company, I have interviewed many candidates. I have never seen a candidate without a degree of some kind. Dunno if HR is just tossing out resumes without degrees, or people without degrees just don't bother applying.
Also, I assume some minimal level of compentency from someone with a degree. I never assume that someone with a degree from an Ivy League is better than someone with a degree from East Podunk City University. I have mysterious ways of finding out candidates' skill levels :)
--Rob
My degree to real world experience (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, they can. I took one class that think got me a job out of college - software engineering. I got my CS degree in '93, so the environment may have been a little different, but not that much. I attended an Illinois university that was better known for its party atmosphere instead of academics, but the CS program was pretty good. I took a class in software engineering my senior year. Th
Re:Oft heard...whatever! (Score:4, Insightful)
Almost as important however is the which path within the IT world do you want to pursue. If you're looking to do more than code then finding a school with an IT department within a school of business might be helpful. If you want to specialize in graphics then look for a school with a good program involving fine arts or engineering.
So don't get downhearted about being at a so-called "second-tier" school if that school offers unique or interesting paths to follow.
I went to a small state school and my first job was at a Fortune 50 company! I've transformed that into a very good upper management job at a well-known international company in less than 10 years.
Nonsense. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have been working without interruption for 15 years now.
And I have interviewed and be part of interview processes in many occassions.
The reaity is that the context is king. In some places they could not care less about your university degree or the school you come from.
In other places they did actively filter people from well known universities. In yet other places it was the other way around.
The only thing in common is that people had to demonstrate they knew their field, and the only case in which many places got really punctillious was in assesing skills (ridiculously complicated tests).
Very rarely you have two guys that, once properly assesed, score equally (if you are assesing the candidates properly that is, if you are just fooling around, then yes, paper may win, but I have seen in several occasions managers that lived to regret such carelessness).
Re:Experience is key... (Score:5, Insightful)
Demonstrate by doing (Score:5, Interesting)
What led me to my current position was a lot of persistance and being able to demonstrate that I was a smart, capable person. I started as an entry level programmer (mostly hired to teach the occasional Access class), caught the whole "web application" wave, and ended up in a well-paying position some eight years later.
The trick in many cases is just getting in the door. For that, being able to say you're certified with a particular skill or have a degree is good enough. Once you're hired, the key is to show that you really know your stuff and can make your customers happy.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:3, Funny)
Most people that enter the military make much more than the average person, when they leave and enter the private sector.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:5, Insightful)
And then there are the people who leave the military in a box and enter a hole in the ground.
Joining the military is a serious commitment. It is not a job training program.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:5, Funny)
You mis-spelled if. HTH
Re:Experience is key... (Score:5, Interesting)
I see a ton of resumes in my job as IT VP and the militarily experienced always earn less than their otehrwise educated counterparts because they end up in dead-end regimented IT shops and they start their careers at a later age.
Of course, the IT industry as a whole is going to the drone model, so maybe that disparity will change. Right now, a tour in the military is worth -$10,000 to -$15,000.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:4, Insightful)
In my experience, developers with a CS degree have a much better handle on the underlying concepts; however, I'm not sure that a degree from a big school makes that much of a difference.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Experience is key... (Score:3, Insightful)
It is similar enough to any other Turing machine on a piece of silicon to be a useful academic example.
An accredited CIS program teaches a bit more than Pascal.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm totally self-taught. I've had to do a LOT of catching up on my own to learn the underlying theories behind good software design. If I had stuck with CS in school and stayed in school I'd have learned more about CS theory and would have more of a foundation to build upon.
Having gone through a good CS program that covers actual computer science and not just how to code is a big advantage. The hard part of software is designing it and fitting it all together and a good CS program teaches you that.
However, so many CS degrees are just coding certificates, more or less. the guy opposite the wall from me is an idiot. He cuts and pastes all of his code, not even paying attention to what it's doing, has singlehandedly brought down many production systems and broken almost every build he's been involved with, and is just generally an unpleasant person aside from that. He also has a bachelors degree in CS.
The academic CS culture seems to devalue things like communications and, well, anything that's not geeky, so you get a lot of recent CS grads that still have the social skills of a retarded goat, even if they could rewrite the Quake engine from scratch in 48 hours. That's useless in the real world. A good programmer has to be able to communicate as well as code and design software. There's a backlash growing against offshoring because of this (if the backlash hasn't made it to where you are, I'm sorry)
Furthermore, pure CS programs teach you nothing about business or how to survive in the corporate environment. If you don't understand the business of your employer, you're not going to be very good at solving its problems. The corporate environment has to be experienced to learn to navigate it.
If I had a resume from a recent MIT graduate and a 25-year self-taught veteran, it would come down to what the task is, if I were hiring. I'd take the MIT guy for buzzword compliant work and the vet for mission-critical stuff that has to be near-100% reliable. I've found that veteran programmers make an effort to cover the bases more thoroughly.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:3, Insightful)
While it might not matter all that much for standard entry level joe-programmer jobs, it most definitely matters in areas such as research and advanced development work. Take a look at the backgrounds of people who work for Google and any major research lab, for example. You will find a majority went to top-10 institutions.
If you can transfer to a better program, you should definitely do it. Not only does it improve your job prospects, you will probably learn m
Re:Experience is key... (Score:3, Interesting)
I pursue CS interests as a hobby, but my degree is in EE and I work in the aerospace industry (satellites), so my situation is a little different. Nonetheless, I think there is some commonality in the work world.
I went to M.I.T. I wouldn't say I had a lot of fun compared with what I expect ASU would've been like. However, I think it is telling that even now, 20 years into my career, (a) I still get "Wow, that's impressive" whenever someone learns I went to M.I.T., (b) it
Re:Experience is key... (Score:5, Informative)
Once accepted, then consider the choices. The school will play some minor effect, for example having MIT on your resume will get your future employers/grad school's attention slightly more. However no worthwhile company or graduate school would put too much emphasis on the school alone. Employers and admissions groups are well aware that the best schools can easily graduate idiots, and smaller schools can easily graduate geniuses.
Really it depends on how well you do in your environment. If you work reasonably hard at a smaller school, you will stand out like a big fish in a little pond. And, if you do research work for some professors or groups (which I highly recommend), then at your chances are much higher that you can impress them enough for very personal letters of recommendation. From what I hear the letters of recommendation are typically the most important factor for future applicants to either companies or grad schools.
If you transfer to a big school, say MIT, then it's a different ballgame. You will certainly have a wider array of course offerings and research projects, and will have peers who will challenge you more. However you will also find it much more difficult to rise above the radar. The general body of student talent will be greater, and it's easier to fall under the noise floor, so to speak.
Beyond this it's hard to decide what to do without carefully looking at the details. I've seen situations that favor both sides. For example, I knew a guy that had a very good GPA in EE at a small school, and had the opportunity to transfer to a different place. His EE classes weren't very intensive, so his theory knowledge won't be as good. I was hoping he would transfer, because he had a good opportunity to do so. However, if his research went well enough, it might not matter too much.
On the flip side I've seen a few undergrads from schools with small physics departments do amazingly well. They would do research with a professor, do it really well, and then get into a top-tier school. Usually a professor at a small school will know many colleagues at the top-tier schools, and can easily pass a personal reference directly to them.
For companies instead of school, I know less of the hiring practice. School will probably play some factor, but they're more interested in knowing that you can get the job done than which school you went to. If you have good letters of recommendation to this end, you'll be fine.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:5, Insightful)
And Monster.com is where you find the -ahem- monster jobs.
DISCLAIMER: I'm an independent consultant.
In my experience, the good jobs, the real jobs, the ones that you really want to get don't come from job sites or the newspaper.
No, the good jobs are filled out on the golf course, or over fine wine at dinner, when two executives meet for business/pleasure.
The job interview really goes something like "Hey, one of my networking guys just got married and is leaving the state. Do you know anybody good?".
The words that follow that question are crucial. You should be ready to sacrifice animals to the higher gods to have your name follow such a question.
If the responding executive recommends you, you are almost guaranteed the position. You'll walk in with coveted status. You'll be appreciated for doing good work. And, you'll be paid decently without complaint.
It's OK to ask people you work with if there's anybody else who might need your services. If you're good, they'll actually mention your name prior to you meeting the referral, or meet with the referral with you.
And that's gold. Pure, and sweet.
Job? Newspaper? Website? There, you're guilty until proven innocent. You get no respect, as you are just a commodity easily compared to thousands of others. Every dollar you earn is "an expense". Yuck.
Referrals, baby. That's the ONLY way to fly. (and it's the ONLY way I've EVER promoted my myself!)
Re:Experience is key... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you work for a company that doesn't do much federal contract work, but does some, it still impacts their hiring de
Re:Experience is key... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Experience is key... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Experience is key... (Score:5, Informative)
It's not that you'll get a better or worse education. It's that you'll get a better or worse personal network. That's all it is.
I graduated from a prestigious university (not necessarily known for CS, in the spirit of full disclosure, but in the top 10 most presigious US News & World Report) with a CS degree, and I can tell you that most people I went to school with do no better or worse than anyone else simply by relying on the prestige of their degree. The people who do well are those who regularly play a role in alumni activities and contribute to the alumni social network. And, for whatever reason, the more prestigious the institution the more active the alumni are about helping each other out.
Have I personally gotten jobs through people I know/knew through university? Yes. Have others I know? Yes. If I didn't lift a finger to keep in contact with that network, would it help me at all to have my degree simply on my resume? Marginally, it might help me get my foot in the door, but the interview is the proving ground. Don't pass that, and it won't matter if you have letters from Caltech, MIT, and Carnegie-Mellon.
Experience vs. Education in the dot-bomb era (Score:4, Informative)
Experience will trump education on a job-by-job interview, but consider what happened in the post-dot com boom, you NEEDED a CS degree. They wouldn't even consider you otherwise, unless you had a direct inside connection.
In times of plenty and demand for workers, education pales to the immediate need for experience, because they can always hire someone else if you don't fully pan out.
In times of lean, when companies need good people to fill their positions, they can be pickier, and you'll be interviewing against people with equivalent experience, and they will be more thorough with the evaluation. That's when education comes into play.
As a CS major (bachelor's only, not an ivory-tower PhD) who has dealt with many a non-CS IT worker, the difference in ability between those who took Computer Architecture, Algoritms, and Operating Systems versus those who just learned C or C++ on the job or in a night class is huge. Unfortunately, it's difficult to communicate on a resume, but on an actual ability standpoint, it will resonate, and that will build you a local network of people that respect you, and that will get you future jobs.
Re:Experience is key... (Score:3, Informative)
Go to Sourceforge or Freshmeat or Rubyforge (or where ever) and get invovled with a project that interests you.
This gets you some exposure and experience at the same time.
I doesn't matter in 99% of the cases. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you want to go for an ivy league type of degree (MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, etc.), as long as the college offers a strong program, where you go to school has ZERO effect on your life after your first job. I went to a average school (Cal State University, Chico), and got average grades. (3.0 average). I found a good starter job when I gradiuated, and started progressing on *merit* after that. Now, I am in a top design position at a huge networking company, and no one looks at my degree. When I interview people, I never look at the college, other than to verify that they got a degree.
The only caveat is if you want to get a high profile degree from a top of the line college. All the Phds I work with come from top drawer schools, and went to top schools from the bachlor stage on. It is more of a pedigree at that point, and it clearly matters.
Go to a school that has a good CS program, has energetic professors, is fun to live in (you can't beat Chico), and just do your best. Once you get a job, your accomplishments will distinguish you from the rest.
I am sure to be flamed by people who went to well known schools and swear by it, but none of the people I work with who have BS desgrees went anywhere recognizable. It is all about how you perform.
Good luck!
Todd
Re:I doesn't matter in 99% of the cases. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I doesn't matter in 99% of the cases. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you attend a prestigous university, you will know important people who will offer you a job. There will also be more jobs nearby related to what makes the university prestigous due to successful alumni.
Re:I doesn't matter in 99% of the cases. (Score:3, Insightful)
Still, the bigger name degree will always stick out at an interviewer. In my opinion, the FP might as well transfer (or try to transfer) to a more elite school, if he can.
Re:I doesn't matter in 99% of the cases. (Score:3, Interesting)
Not very when I graduated... (Score:5, Insightful)
I graduated in 2000 and didn't find the degree to be a hinderance at all. Granted this was at the tail of the bubble, but I was hired ahead of a Purdue and a U-Wisconsin graduate, both of which I'd consider to have far superior programs.
Why? First, because I interviewed well. I was able to interact with my future bosses and coworkers, I didn't lie on my resume, and I was eager to learn. Second, because I had relevent experience gained while I was a student. I found that working as a programmer for the campus IT department 15 hours/week and volunteering as a lead sysadmin for a student government / organization webserver to be far more relevent to the job then anything I learned in class.
Since that first job, I've found references and contacts to be the key to getting other interviews and offers. I don't feel like a state-U degree hurt me at all; college is what you make of it so learn to socialize, volunteer or take a part time job relevent to the field you want to work in, and concentrate on getting a good broad education. Take liberal arts classes and business classes, etc.
Re:Not very when I graduated... (Score:5, Interesting)
While experience is probably the most important reason for success, I have found that developers who believe that they "learned nothing of value in class" tend to write poor code. Two people with the same degree from the same university writing the same program: The one who values his degree will write much more maintainable and smaller code.
Computer Science degrees are "learn by example" degrees. While you're in all those classes learning about Networks, Vision, Robotics, etc., you're supposed to be learning how to write good software by seriously thinking about your professors' comments and critisism. Those who don't value their degrees tend to be those who didn't value their professors, or listen to them.
Are you learning? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are learning, stay exactly where you are. You don't want to discover how horrible it is to attend class after class, year after year, and be learning nothing. I'm currently studying at a well-known university that's crashed a probe into Mars. But reputation and content are two very different things. As long as you're learning, stay where you are.
Besides, your university credentials are mainly useful in getting your first job. After that they are more interested in your previous jobs. So at worst an unknown university will just add one stepping stone on your career path.
CS (Score:5, Funny)
Re:CS (Score:3, Funny)
I graduated summa cum OMGWTF WALLHACKING N00B.
Trust your Instincts (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember: *Learning* is what's important here, especially when we're talking about an undergrad degree -- I went to a small state school where there were 10-20 people in my classes and I recieved a much, much better education than my peers who went to large universities. Why? Because I could walk into my professor's office and spend an hour talking to him about class material, advances in computing or the state of the industry or whatever.
In my experience, the sort of jobs you'll get with an undergrad degree tend to value understanding and skill over who your degree is from -- if you can do the work, you're their person. If you're going to a job that requires a graduate degree, well, you can go to a high-profile school for your grad work, eh?
Aside from all of that, I've learned the hard way that you should follow your instincts. Follow yours on this one and stay put.
Re:Trust your Instincts (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Trust your Instincts (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus, calc makes a lot of the other things seem easier, particularly discrete math (hey, if you can comprehend infinitesimals, discrete math is *easy*) and stats (understanding why statistics are the way they are is as important as understanding how to use them).
Re:Trust your Instincts (Score:3, Informative)
I think deffinately calculus. In fact, if there is an Applied Mathematics departement at said school, picking up a dual is gravy. A third of the algorithms I deal with are descretized forms of differential equations. About a third are based on the solution of linear systems, often systems of linear Differential Equations. The remaining are based on derived statistical distributions. Respectively, Differential Equations/Numerical Analysis, Linear Algebra and Mathematical Statistics, a
Re:Trust your Instincts (Score:5, Insightful)
That sounds like a trade school, not a CS degree! I freely admit that I am biased - I did my undergrad degree in pure mathematics - but to a certain extent University is about learning for learning's sake. If I want to know SQL I'll pick up a book on it - I in fact did so in my first job out of school, and had no difficulty.
I would suggest you spend time at University learning what you find interesting, and learning what you find hardest. If it is hard, you'll be harder pressed to pick it up easily later. Many people here will tell you they are self taught at programming, UNIX, networking etc. Few will tell you they are self taught at the harder more abstract points: data structures, information theory etc. Personally I think a good CS degree should contain a healthy dose of mathematics - but as I said, I'm biased.
Jedidiah.
Re:Trust your Instincts (Score:3, Insightful)
I have an EE degree, not a CS degree, but I took quite a few CS classes in college, and most of the work I do and have done since then (both professionally and as a hobby) have been programming-related.
I took one class in which the purpose of the class was to teach a language (C++ in my case). The basic intro CS class (CS 100) used Java as a teaching tool, and you could learn it as you went.
Other than that, I took classes in algorithms, structures, discrete math, OS design, etc. Learning lan
Just my opinion... (Score:3, Insightful)
Connections are all that matter (Score:3, Insightful)
My college math prof.'s wife had a computer programming company; that's how I got my first job.
You're not going to be rich. You're just going to be a working stiff like everybody else.
Still, I'd listen to your dad. A really boring degree is a plus. It communicates to the rest of the world that you are willing to do will shit boring things, which is the value they're looking for.
Major in Business and take a lot of programming courses.
I've got a top knotch CS degree (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I've got a top knotch CS degree (Score:5, Funny)
it doens't matter at all (Score:4, Insightful)
i had one of the worst graduating GPA's in my CS class, but i managed to get one of the best jobs out of college. why? becuase of what i knew and what i did on my own time.
college simply teaches you how to teach yourself. if you are basing how you will do off how you do in class, then you are in for a suprise.
if you can teach yourself the new technologies and get your name out there somehow, you will be set.
but then again i am planning on getting out of the tech field in 2 years so take it for what it is worth.
Two words for ya... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, take a look at my resume (http://www.codesweep.com/about.cfm) you will see that there are plenty of interesting jobs on it (and I haven't throughly revised it in awhile, I could state more). While my college degree is a footnote at the bottom. While Cal Poly Pomona is a good school, it doesn't matter based on what's more attractive, the work or the school.
Bottom line: Find a good (even if cheap) job NOW. Failing that, grab an open source project at http://www.sourceforge.net and contribute something to get your name on the developers list. Something, anything for your resume besides a degree (whether Ivy League or State U) is paramount to a good job. If you can accomplish this, it won't matter if your degree says "WTF Coding University".
Re:Two words for ya... (Score:5, Informative)
Your resume is ugly and difficult to read. Please, choose a different font, and format it better. Also, check the language flow, and ditch the scale of 1-10 stuff.
Also, you have tense problems. Some things use past tense, others use present. For ease of reading, it's best to use past tense in all job descriptions, including your current job.
Also, you have typos (empahses in last segment, possibly others). PLEASE proofread your resume. Nothing kills your chances faster than careless mistakes.
It's also not immediately clear if you have been working as an independent contractor all this time. Without that little tidbit of information, you look like a serial job-hopper.
Your opening paragraph reads like a recommendation letter from someone else. Show, don't tell. Don't tell me you're a great team leader, give me examples of when and how you were a great team leader. Don't tell me you can make tough decisions, give me an example of when you did so, and why your decision was the best one.
Hope this helps!
Answer: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that my CS degree from UCF is all that prestigious.
Well, speaking from experience.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you know somebody, it's hard to get in to the truly cool jobs. Most companies only recruit at a relatively defined set of universities, generally where the founders and a few of the early employees came from. Which means you have to seek out companies more if you want to avoid being a coding grunt.
Once you are out for a bit, it matters far less.
Oh yeah, and a good CS degree is not about being taught. It's about being tortured into learning because your professor is really bright but can't teach. So he gives you hard tests and you have to teach stuff to yourself in order to pass. At least, that's the shared experience amongst most of the grads from top-10 CS schools that I've talked to.
Learn your craft (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are a moron, you will not learn at the best of universities.
If you are gifted, you will learn at the lowest of universities.
You would be FAR better served by going to a school you can afford, that you may spend your time learning rather than working to earn enough to go to school.
If you want to build up your resume, work on projects that you can point to - being a contributor to, or better still the maintainer of a well known project will look much better on your resume than a degree with no other experience.
I'd be more concerned about trying to find a good internship during your summers off - that counts for a lot more when looking for a job.
it's just one part of the difference (Score:3, Insightful)
Employers weigh up the total sum of what you present in a CV. Other issues can outweigh you having going to a top school, e.g. track record. Additionally, going to a top school is no guarantee that you're a top student. However, when the employer weighs things up, a better school adds to the overall point count that leans in your favour, especially in comparison to other equivalent candidates (similar experience, different schools, for example). Even if you are "fresh paint" as a graduate job seeker: other issues count (e.g. you could come from a mid tier school, but you show that in the last 3 years, you've a passion for software that meant you contributed to multiple F/OSS projects, and you know your way around CVS, tools, unix, etc: employer will know they are getting a really capable and hands on person, not just someone who did well at exams).
Like most things in life: do your best to work at the highest level (i.e. going to the best schools, etc), but don't deprive yourself of a life in doing so.
Something I wish I had known. (Score:4, Interesting)
Youre not in college to get a degree.
Youre in college to get a job. Which normally means you need an internship or some useful contacts for when you get to the work world.
Most good employers don't have to hire someone with out experience, people want to work for them. So get some experience soon!
hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
The question of whether you should transfer or not is one you make AFTER you get accepted.
I would recommend you don't transfer to a slightly better school. If it's not top 5, I'd stay where you are.
Computer Programming != Computer Science (Score:4, Insightful)
No you haven't. You may have been interested in computer programming since age 11, but you didn't even know what computer science was, let alone have any interest in it.
Not that there's anything wrong with this; the world needs plumbers and electricians (and computer programmers) as much as it needs writers, mathematicians, and computer scientists. But this is one way the well-recognized undergraduate computer science distinguish themselves from the programs at the College of Upper Podunk. A good university will teach computer science, and expect you to work out how to write code on your own; a bad university will teach you how to program, and not even admit that there is anything more to learn.
Decide what you want from your years at university, and pick your university accordingly.
Re:Computer Programming != Computer Science (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Computer Programming != Computer Science (Score:5, Insightful)
Would you hire a theoretical physicist to build a suspension bridge? Well, I wouldn't hire a theoretical computer scientist to implement my relational database server or my C++ compiler or my operating system.
And just for the record: I learned C when I was 12. And it was the process of decomposing a task into unabiguous components that interested me from the very beginning. I would call that process fundamental to computer science.
Re:Computer Programming != Computer Science (Score:3, Interesting)
While I agree that there is a major difference between programming and computer science I diagree with your statement that a good university will not teach you to write code.
In my opinion a bad university is one that:
The problem with not teaching people how to code is that people will end up writing code that only they can read, and in my experience would not be able to read after a 2 week break.
I did a Computer Science degree and found
Re:Computer Programming != Computer Science (Score:3, Funny)
Ooooo! Cliff, you have been served!
A good university will teach computer science, and expect you to work out how to write code on your own; a bad university will teach you how to program, and not even admit that there is anything more to learn.
Well, in a better constructed reality, a good university would teach *both*. I taught myself to program when I was in my teens (Atari BASIC!), but I c
Re:Computer Programming != Computer Science (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, one of my bosses (graduate of the smaller school) was blown out of his mind when I showed hi
Re:Computer Programming != Computer Science (Score:3, Insightful)
As you've said, the world needs programmers. I would guess that 95% of the software industry's developers could be classed as "just programmers". Most of them wouldn't know a deterministic finite automaton from a turing machine. Most have never needed to.
The other 5% are not Computer Scientists, however. They are real Software Engineers. They have more in common with Mechanica
Re:Computer Programming != Computer Science (Score:3, Informative)
I didn't -- I said that he wasn't interested in computer science when he was 11 years old.
The knee jerk responses with my own thoughts... (Score:5, Insightful)
People who have a CS degree from a well known school will say "most definitely!" so they can justify their own.
People who have a CS degree from Arkansas Community College will say "not really" because they got a job just fine with theirs.
People who have a computer-related degree from DeVry will say "nope" because they have a bottom-rung tech job.
People without a degree will say "most definitely not" because they have a job based on experience.
I'm trying to hire three developers, a project manager, and a business analyst where I work. We ignore the degrees they put down, unless it's for the pm spot where a MBA from anywhere will work. Some of the applicants have a BS in CS from places like Berkeley, but it doesn't really matter because they got it ten years ago...with an emphasis in cobol.
Having a degree on your resume will just help it get through the automated resume grabbing filters big companies use when fielding hundreds of applicants.
Oh, and I don't have a degree.
I have hired hundreds of people.... (Score:3, Informative)
State Schools are cheap, spend the money on a BMW (Score:3, Insightful)
I bought a brand new subaru impreza WRX when I got out of school with the money I saved. I have no debt from college.
It took me a year to get a job, but I blame that on my poor planning (I didn't have an internship) and crappy market (got out of school 2002). Now I've been working in the Boston area as a software engineer writing web-based apps for about a year.
Keys to a good job are usually location (Boston, great; Boise, eh), interview / personal skills, and prior experience. No one ever really asks about college so much, as long as they know I did my time.
As far as what you get from the quality of professors, I find that varies. There were great professors and horrible ones. What I did learn is that if you put in the extra effort, you'll get way more out of it.
Don't go into debt. (Score:5, Insightful)
You'll hear lots of people telling you about the value of name schools, the need for "networking" and other such hoo-hah. And often, they'll try to convince you that it's worth $30,000 in debt to get a top-tier undergraduate education. Don't buy it.
Remember -- at the undergraduate level, most schools will teach you the same things (oftentimes, from the same books). So why pay out the nose for an education that can be obtained for a fraction of the cost of a top-tier university?
Save your money, keep yourself out of debt, and you'll have more options later on. That's doubly important today, where Punjab's willingness to work for 30 cents an hour will almost invariably trump an expensive diploma....
Depends (Score:3, Insightful)
Note that the above is a blatant stereotype to make a point -- obviously the sentiments expressed are not exemplified by the majority of CS students anywhere.
Are you going to school in order to create a career for yourself that you enjoy and are passionate about? Are you going to school to impress friends, relatives, or potential employers? It cannot be said enough that the school's reputation has little bearing on the competency and attitude of the students. Employers are looking more for a positive attitude, appropriate skills, and a good investment for their company.
I know some folks who are currently in their undergraduate CS study and say things like "I could teach these classes! The only reason I am doing this at all is because the 'stupid' rules say I have to get a bachelor's degree before I get that Ph.D." Meanwhile, they are getting C's in those "easy" classes because their goal is the piece of paper and prestige (ego) rather than pursuing an activity or career they can be passionate about.
My best professors (in CS and otherwise) were those that began their careers in 'industry' and had a passion for engineering or CS and had excellent communication skills before moving into teaching/academia. Real-world experience is so much more useful than 'book-smarts' most of the time. (That's not to say that these professors weren't book-smart, too!)
Death by Anecdote (Score:3, Interesting)
Short version: I've got an A.S. in Computer-Aided Drafting from the local community college, but due to luck for sure, skill I hope, and good management, I'm a senior systems analyst for a company that writes tax software -- the most steady programming gig possible. Go figure.
I was planning for an Electrical Engineering degree, but I had near-zero study skills. I spent a semester at Okla State and quite utterly failed to distinguish myself.
After a summer delivering pizza, I got a job through Manpower -- proofreading phone books. But instead of just marking errors, I figured out the patterns, and got hired.
Next was the big lucky break: Texas Instruments, flush with Cold War defense contracts, had a program where they put folks through school to become CAD draftsmen. I applied and got in. Got paid to go to school for a semester, then worked full time with a full-time school schedule. By the time I got my A.S. in Computer-Aided Drafting, I was the software support person for the drafting group, writing Lisp extensions for AutoCAD.
Cold war ends. Layoffs begin. I bail out for American Airlines... start out as 2nd level support, taking calls from Australia and Japan in the evenings, the Middle East at midnight, and Europe in the wee hours. Transferred around, picked up VB, ended up leading a small project. Bailed out in the mid-90s and just missed the downturns.
Got the current job when it was a family-owned company with a tradition of "get it done" over "show me your diploma". The owner also didn't like to lose talent, so they kept up with the dot-com boom wages. Owner sold to a conglomerate, but clueful management remained in place.
So here I am, a high-level programmer, with an A.S. in Drafting from a community college. Put that in yer pipe and smoke it.
STAY! (Score:5, Interesting)
I was in a similar situation; my school wasn't terribly noted for engineering, so after 2 years my mom convinced me to transfer to Virginia Tech. The biggest reason is that I was looking for a co-op job and no one would hire me from the previous university.
VT was very different from my old school. It did seem like the program was a little better academically, and the school definitely had a much better intern/co-op department which made it much easier to find internships. Also, I think the big name on the resume does help a lot in your first job or two; this may be more important now with the terrible job market than it was when I first got out of school in '98.
However, I paid a terrible price for the change. First, it was much more expensive. My family wasn't exactly rich, so while I was doing ok at my first school, where I paid in-state tuition, costs went up greatly at VT, leading me to build up a large debt in student loans. Secondly, and possibly more importantly, I never managed to build a network of friends at VT like I had, and lost, at my first school. Being a not-terribly-outgoing person, I had a very hard time finding any new friends at the new school; I found that I believe that most relationships are made in one's freshman year, when you're living on campus and everyone is new. After everyone's been there a few years and has a circle of friends, it's not so easy to break in. And maybe it's just me, but the engineering students at Virginia Tech seemed to be a bunch of snobs compared to the students at my old school. Not having many friends in college isn't bad just because of the social aspect, but those relationships can also be rewarding to your career: look how many companies were started by people who were friends in college.
So, in summary, if you're happy where you are, don't screw it up. Personally, I don't believe in making changes to anything unless there's something wrong, or there's something else that's obviously better in sight. I don't see any posts here so far in favor of big-name schools (unless maybe you have your sights set on politics).
The degree matters, the school doesn't (Score:4, Insightful)
Very few people, employers or otherwise, care about where you got your degree. All they care about is that you have it. There are times when an MIT or Harvard degree will carry more weight, but they're the exception, not the rule.
Doubt it? Try this little experiment. Your post implies that you're somewhere in your teens, which probably means that you've had at least a few different doctors (pediatrician, dentist, and GP, at the least). Do you know where any of them got their degrees? Do you care? Probably not... all you care about is that they did get an education. And these are the people whom you entrust with your health, your well-being, and potentially even your life. For most of the rest of society, it's the same way.
Learn program design, not just programming... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you can find a college where they have this material, well done! 50% of programming is having a good design. That's what makes the difference between a senior software developer and a... (despective)programmer.
A "programmer" can plug bits and pieces of code, drag some icons and have a visual basic program. A developer knows how to abstract data, ENGINEER applications, frameworks, and make a very good job, saving time and money.
This will give you a huge advantage over your competitors, when you start looking for jobs.
Also, do NOT be conformed with what you learn on school! If there are additional courses at college, say, a new programming language, or a new framework from X or Y company, do NOT - repeat, do _NOT_ ignore them just because they're not required for your grades!
This mistake costed me 2 long years of unemployment (and the subsequent stress and stomach aches) after graduating.
It's more the grades, than the school (Score:3, Insightful)
Otherwise it depends on what you plan to do with the degree. If you want to work in the MIT AI Lab, then you better go to a name program and get perfect grades. If you will be happy being a developer somewhere writing financial software, then I don't think it matters.
I also think that showing people the practical things you did while you were in college, not just class work, matters. I wrote a FORTH compiler (while, interpreter, really) from scratch and I think that impressed people that I could apply all the theory I had learned.
Limited impact (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't have a degree, and I'm the most senior and highly paid developer at my company. I won't tell you that not having a degree hasn't hurt me -- it has, mostly by making it much harder for me to get that first "real" job, and obviously, there are some companies that won't consider me. But I also do a lot of the hiring around here, and I can tell you that I don't pay too much attention to where new hires got their degree; I pay a lot of attention to prior work experience, code samples, references, and demeanor during interviews. I've worked with some people with degrees from prestigious schools who were terrible programmers and horrible coworkers, and I've worked with great programmers who were fabulous to get along with who had two-year degrees from local community colleges.
If I were you, I'd stay put. Of course, if your dad is going to foot the bill for a fancy school, you might consider it. Otherwise, the massive burden of student loans for that sort of thing might be a lot more trouble than it's worth.
value of a top program (Score:3, Insightful)
First, you'd be in the company of much brighter, more driven, higher-achieving students. If you're really into computer stuff, then this could be fun, motivating, and extremely educational-- classes and professors aside.
Second, stronger programs are more likely to focus on ideas beyond mere software development: the theory of computation, algorithm design, and mathematics. Now, if you just want to build mundane user interfaces, this would all pretty much be a waste of your time. However, if you're interested in doing work that involves some level of challenge beyond just structuring the software itself and getting algorithms out of a book, then this stuff can be really useful.
You could graduate from your current school, work for a while, and-- if you decide you need deeper knowledge-- go get a master's or PhD somewhere else.
It depends (Score:3, Informative)
Helping my roommate with his homework further reinforced this view. Much of his homework for equivalent courses was much easier. Of course, when I took it we didn't have google or the other Internet resources available either.
Not all colleges are created equal.
-Aaron
Maybe some places, but not most (Score:3, Informative)
Every once in a while you'll hit some nutjob who went to a big university and was in a frat or something, and he'll try to give preference to an alumni, but most people are buying a person, not a cookie cut with some specific cutter.
Let's be blunt, here. (Score:4, Insightful)
In practice, most jobs'll look for certifications and maybe a degree as an afterthought. They're not interested in your actual knowledge, they're only interested in not being held accountable if you don't work out.
Lastly, you're going to get rotten jobs, whatever education and certifications you have. Most jobs are rotten. Especially in IT, where most companies are plain stupid. Many IT specialists and generalists stick with getting a well-paid job, rather than a useful and/or productive one. There are exceptions (eg: my current employer, where a number of key people read Slashdot) but for the most part, if you want an intelligent job, you need to work for yourself.
Oh, and stay out of the military, if you possibly can, even if you sacrifice Government jobs, loans, etc. IT professionals are snobby in their own way and have far stronger ties with intellectual pursuits than grunt work (with the exception of hauling servers and running cables, though you'll notice most IT staff "let" other people do such stuff, especially in public). Also, whenever there's a call-up of reserves (as at present), businesses lose out big-time. You can't get useful work from a person fighting in another continent. Nobody is going to hire you, if they think you'll cost them more than you'll make for them.
Also, many intellectuals and many higher-end IT professionals tend to be left-of-center, non-conformist and don't follow rules (without a major internal struggle). Exactly the opposite of what most militaristic and Government-oriented organizations want. In IT, you're there to get the job done, and if the rule book gets in the way, too bad. In something like the military or the civil service, you're there to follow the rules to the letter, even if that means nothing gets done.
My advice: Get the degree (and if you can get sponsored for a Masters, even better) but don't go for a PhD. Even if (and it's a big if) you get paid more for it, the cost of the degree and the cost of not earning for those extra years will often make it pointless.
After you've got your degree, get a certification. The program itself is likely to be pretty useless, but the scrap of paper at the end of it is worth a lot of money and improved job opportunities.
Don't get a student loan, unless you absolutely have to. Sponsorship is generally a better bet, doesn't charge interest, and the demands aren't quite so obnoxious. Businesses looking for new graduates and looking to expand in the medium-term will very likely be willing to consider some sort of deal. (eg: internship over the summers, plus a guarantee that they get first-pick on whether to hire you, after you graduate, in exchange for contributing towards the costs.)
A more dangerous path - but it's worked for some - is to ignore the whole degree/certification approach. Become famous or infamous for something so spectacular that even the most dim-witted of Human Resource people will know you're in the news, even if they don't know why. Few can pull this kind of an approach off, and several of those have spent years or decades in prison (eg: Kevin Mitnick) but those who succeed often get the Really Big Money. Those who fail will never move beyond minimum-wage jobs and will eventually die in obscurity and poverty. It's about the same kind of risk as staking not only your entire life's earnings but all potential future earnings as well on the lottery.
Here's my experience . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
1. "Work Experience" - This is in quotes, because most people would not consider what I put down on my resume as work experience as work experience. I put down various side jobs that I had done in high school such as adminning various small web hosting provider boxes and shell hosts for free, or creating programming projects for myself such as ODS [ods.org]. Why admin someone else's boxes for free? I did it because I enjoyed it. Little did I know that it would help me a couple of years down the line to land my first job (at IBM of all places - full time job at age 16.)
2. It was a very good time to find jobs in the technology fields. This was 1999. That alone should be enough to give you an idea.
Once I had IBM on my resume (in addition to my other less accepted "Work Experience"), getting the second job (which paid twice as much) was a lot easier. It still took a little bit of searching, but it worked out. And now, I have 4 "real" jobs that I can put down on my resume. In fact, finding this last one took less than 1 week from the day I put my resume out, to the day I received an offer that I liked. That was in March of this year.
To sum up. In my experience, work experience is king. I think all a degree helps people in our field with (unless they are doing research or teaching) is to get their first, and maybe second jobs. If you can manage to snag that first job by yourself, and you have the knowledge and drive to do the job they give you, then everything else will fall into place. After the second or third job is when it really starts getting easier.
Regards,
-JD-
Here we go again (Score:5, Insightful)
In my opinion it depends entirely upon the type of job you're looking for. The computer field is rather messily divided between techies and intellectuals. It's a bit of an open system, with people migrating in both directions, and considerable overlap, which disguises the fact there there are, in fact, two camps.
Degree or no, fine school or barely adequate, you're going to start life as a techie. Welcome to the help desk, cubeville, or low-end development. Your geek-badge and a love of white-collar slavery is your passport to this world. And thus begins the journey. . .
You will gain experience, confidence and skill, and begin to be promoted. You will (hopefully) gain a reputation in your chosen fields, and garner the laurals of a job well done. You begin to plan a career path. Somewhere around Sr. programmer (substitute DBA, Network Admin. or Sys Admin as appropriate) something unexpected happens.
You see, at the upper end of "applied technical knowlege" there is a fork in the upward path. The broad road leads to middle management, and God help the poor souls who venture there. The narrow path leads to "think tank" positions.
It's true, most large companies have one or more senior geeks doing funded research, planning strategy, or generally dispensing wisdom on demand. They really do exist, but you don't see them because they live in the nice office building in corporate headquarters not in the programming shack.
Here's the important bit. These guys are hired for their brains, and to join the club you need to have the sort of broad-based understanding the almost inevitably comes from a top-notch college education. A B.S. gets a distainful sniff, but the doors gape wide for the ivy-league Ph.D's, and may open for an M.S from a solid school with a bit of persistance.
The self-taught crowd will howl and cry that it's not fair. They can program as well or better than their pedigreed peers, they have probably built an open-source terminal emulator, and they've labored in the same trenches, side by side for years. However, in reality, very few people teach themselves calculus, computer theory, materials science, economics (and don't forget ettiquite) with the level of rigor demanded by these positions. This is where the four, six or eight years of studying that "useless theory" becomes useful, even necessary.
I'm a self-taught techie with several certifications, facing this division. I'm 40 years old, and a Sr. DBA for a large firm, making a good salary -- end of the techie line. I've been courted for managment positions, which I don't want. I've got three B.S. and one M.S. degrees in various sciences, all from good schools, but no C.S. degree.
Over the past two years I've taken several C.S. classes from a good school - algorithm analysis, advanced data structures, automata, etc. I'll probably get an M.S in a few years, and maybe a Ph.D. after that, but more importantly, I'm learning all the little details that differentiate a computer scientist from a competent techie. There IS a differance, after all.
INTERNSHIP ANYONE?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:INTERNSHIP ANYONE?? (Score:5, Interesting)
I interned at my current workplace (summers and winter breaks, with a 9 month full-time stint) starting in 1999, and when I graduated in 2002 I was immediately hired full time at a very respectable salary.
If I hadn't had my foot in the door, I really have no idea where I'd be at right now.
M.I.T. (Score:4, Informative)
I took some "trendy" courses in the business school (Course XV) and core theory courses (Course VI-1). The former long became obsolete, while the latter are still useful.
I have an Ivy League degree (Score:4, Informative)
However, once that door is opened, the rest is up to you. That is, 1) your work experience, 2) the rate you adapt and learn, and 3) your attitude and personality.
I am in a Fortune 500 internet company (market cap = US$50B) and everything I learned about technology (SQL, OLAP, datawarehousing) I learned on the job.
Caveat: I am not a programmer and my degree is a BS in chemisty and Asian Studies.
Better CS College = Better Preparation (Score:4, Insightful)
It depends... (Score:5, Informative)
Just a little side note: I went to a university known for having a good business and data processing curriculum. I took my first job writing in an obscure language for outdated mainframes. After about 2 years, I thought I'd look for a job doing what I really wanted to do, and the conversations with recruiters usually went like this:
Me: I'd like to start working as a game developer/engineer/etc...
Recruiter: Well, I see you've got many skills listed on your resume. But, what experience do you have as a developer/engineer/etc...?
Me: (sheepishly) Well, none - but it's something I'd really like to do. I've done some work on my own and read up on the subject quite a bit.
Recruiter: Well, that's nice and all, but my clients are going to want someone with solid experience... Would you be willing to take a job writing in COBOL instead?
You see, my mistake was twofold:
The perception problem is very real. If you stay at a lackluster school, you will neither get a good education, nor have a good career - at least not without a great deal of effort. Having a few years in an given technology tends to pigeon-hole your career prospects, and you might find yourself unable to find a position doing what you want to do if you don't get in with a good company right after graduation.
Of course it matters (Score:4, Insightful)
CS itself is getting older, more mature. People are starting to understand that just knowing how to hack doesn't quite cut it (always). In short, going to a college and getting a degree in CS never hurts (as opposed to not getting one, not opposed to getting one in some other engineering field).
If we agree to the above - ie we must get a degree in CS or EE or math or something related, we question where we must get it from. College degrees are not pieces of paper that open the door to getting a fat job. This is one of the perks for sure, but there are others. They open the door to contributing something for the betterment of humanity (by doing original research), they open up your mind by forcing you to interact with peers who are often better than you. No matter what your job, you will fall into a mental rut as compared to school. A school is only as good as the students that study there. The students are what makes the MITs and Stanfords of today - not the professors. If the professors were getting sub-par graduate students to work with or sub-par peers they'd leave.
This is why it is absolutely essential to try to go to the best possible school you can go to. You will get exposed to things that you never were exposed to. You will learn new things from both professors and students alike. You will take part in activities that will challenge your mind in multiple dimensions - something quite unparalleled in the "real" world.
And you never know - you may want to do research for life. You may want to go on for a higher degree. In all these cases, the better school always wins. You can get by with going to a lower school - in fact you can "get by" with not going to school at all. But our purpose in life is not to just "get by". The whole point is to do something great - something that you can point your finger to 50 yrs down the line and say "I did that and changed they way people think / do something". Always strive for the best.
Re:for the most part (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bah! (Score:3, Funny)
Indeed, it is most definitely what you know that counts.