

Getting by in a technical industry without a degree - Swizec
http://rys.sommefeldt.com/2012/07/30/getting-by-in-a-technical-industry-without-a-degree.html

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TamDenholm
From my personal perspective, me not having a degree doesnt matter in the
slightest and i think that it probably helps due to my personal preference,
because i dont think id want to work for a company that decides my vast amount
of experience is irrelevant because i dont have a degree.

It doesnt matter as much because of a number of factors, first, im a
contractor and would never take a permie job, also i sucked at school. I left
school at 15 thinking i was dumb because i got bad grades. After leaving
school and finding computers and learning them myself, i finally realised i
wasnt dumb and after a few years in shitty jobs while learning in the off
time, i eventually started making an income from my passion.

Fast forward to today and my portfolio and technical knowledge in my field
speaks for itself. To me, going to university would have just delayed my
career by years and im already kicking myself for not getting my act together
quicker.

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andybak
It's possible that you'd miss a theoretically possible "good company with a
bad HR department" although one can argue that they wouldn't remain a good
company for very long...

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mikeash
I don't understand how such a company could be possible even in theory. Seems
like an oxymoron to me.

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justincormack
Google is trying very hard to be this, for example in not hiring people
without degrees.

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randomdata
It is my understanding that they stopped such practices years ago. There are
several people around here who claim to work at Google without a degree.

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fbuilesv
Just some advice for the international readers who might be thinking about
dropping out: If you want to work in the US you will have have immigration
problems if you don't have a degree. Getting a work visa without your degree
is semi-imposible (especially if you're in your 20s).

Dropping out was one of the best choices I've ever made but this particular
thing is something that has come back to bite me in the ass several times.

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nathan_f77
Yeah, that's biting me right now :/ You need a degree to apply for the H1-B,
but I've got a great immigration attorney and am applying for an O-1 visa.
Wish me luck!

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dwc
With decades of experience, my lack of a degree isn't a large problem. But
let's be clear that many companies _will_ cull my résumé in the first pass.
I'm fine with that, as I'd rather work for people who pay more attention.

When I was younger and had less experience things were not so easy. Lacking a
degree, I had to persevere a bit more when job hunting. Networking was
important early on.

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HeyLaughingBoy
Here's my (main) problem with what you wrote: in any job there will be many,
many problems to solve that you won't love, but you have to solve them anyway.

Passion for the job is a "nice to have," not a requirement. Passion fades, and
if your job performance is going to fade along with it, I don't want to hire
you.

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jakejake
If somebody is all passion and no skill, well that's a total wild-card. They
may or may not ever be productive. I do think people like this exist, but only
temporarily. If they are truly passionate, they'll get good at their work. If
not, then they are just all talk and not really passionate.

A person with great skill but no passion - I'm not sure that person exists. I
don't think you can get to the level of greatness without some form of
passion. If you have zero passion the you are probably going to top out at
"adequate" and your skills will diminish as the industry passes you by.

I would bet that every on this forum has some passion. It wouldn't even make
sense, why waste your free time reading tech forums? All of us here have at
least a little passion for the field.

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khetarpal
Well written, and totally agreed that a degree stamp / piece of paper is not
an indicator of the knowledge or passion of the individual.

However, I do know that lack of degree is always weighing heavily on the
individual who doesn't have it. This further leads to compensatory behaviour

My 2 cents - I think an individual is better off taking small steps towards
getting a degree than justifying it for the rest of their life.

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randomdata
_However, I do know that lack of degree is always weighing heavily on the
individual who doesn't have it. This further leads to compensatory behaviour_

Care to elaborate? I was unable to obtain my degree, and maybe it is that
weighing on me, but it feels like people with degrees spend a inordinate
amount of time justifying their accreditation to deal with their own
insecurities.

Since I did not have the opportunity to go to college, unlike my friends, I
received a lot of ribbing early on about how their are getting their education
to get a good job. Once I finally revealed how much I was making, I never
heard another word of it.

I never felt the need to make fun of them for going to college though. In
fact, I fully supported it. Education is amazing and it truly saddens me that
people have to justify it with prospects of future employment opportunities to
even justify going.

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khetarpal
As an engineering manager - I'm all for pursuit of knowledge and excellence. I
could care less whether a person has a degree as long as he has the subject
matter expertise. Multiple well respected engineers in my group don't have a
degree.

I think its really a personal choice. You can get a degree and not have to
keep justifying your choice, and how good you are even without it. Or, you can
be a strong man and choose to ignore the mainstream perception. Either ways,
the knowledge and subject matter-expertise is non-negotiable to succeed.

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guylhem
A degree is like a past proof of minimal performance - ie that you did barely
enough to satisfy the requirements at one point in the past. The requirements
may or may not be relevant for the job at hand.

A degree doesn't says how good you are either.

Yet many people use that as a proxy, maybe to save themselves the trouble of
_properly_ evaluating candidates.

Why not - but they shouldn't complain about mediocrity then. They fuel it
(along with the education bubble)

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dp1234
A degree also proves that you were able to stay dedicated to something for ~4
years without giving up. There is a lot to be said for showing that kind of
commitment to a goal.

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randomdata
I'm not sure that is it. I have dedicated far more time than that to other
endeavours, but I can likely count on one hand the number of employers who
would actually care.

I think the reality is just pack mentality. At some point, one successful
business only hired those with degrees, and everyone else adopted the same
policies in attempt to duplicate their success.

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mylittlepony
I think it's more an excuse for the employer, if he's an employee too. Imagine
this situation:

superior.- This guy is a disaster, why did you even hire him?

employer.- Well, he had a X degree in Y.

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dkersten
I do have a degree, but besides my first job, which I got through the uni's
internship program, I have never been asked about it since. Of course, now
that I'm cofounding a startup, its unlikely that I ever will be asked about it
(though as a technical cofounder, it _may_ help to add to my credibility,
though if I can execute, I won't need a degree to prove that I can execute..)

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zwieback
While there are many "naturals" that do great without a degree it is still a
statistically significant differentiator for the average applicant. When I
scan resumes I do look what applicants studied but usually only to get an idea
of additional questions to ask that might be a bit outside of the recent
experience. I would not hesitate to hire someone without a degree, though.

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Techasura
i'm a undergraduate, working as an engineer. i have worked with one of the
major brands like Dell. i see no difference between a graduate and an
undergraduate these days. All have the right to study and work hard and
internet has been a of great help.

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mariusmg
A degree doesn't matter. Writing solid code does...

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HeyLaughingBoy
Depends on what you want to do I guess. I'm a software developer. Less than
25% of my job actually involves writing code.

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mark_story
Do you find that frustrating? For me, days with less than 30% time spent doing
coding feel like a waste. I think I value coding and the surrounding
activities far more than any other type of work activity. For me that other
75% (I'm guessing spent in meetings) would feel like a time vacuum.

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HeyLaughingBoy
In any given day, I may have a number of meetings; I have to write any variety
of documentation; get into discussions about whether or not a particular
requirement is correct and stated properly; answer technical questions of the
"what if..." type; investigate strange behavior to see if it's a bug or just
normal, but misunderstood behavior; review other people's designs, code, or
test cases, etc...

When all that's done, there's not a lot of time coding.

No, it's not frustrating: it's just part of the job. I mentioned in another
topic a few days ago that my dept. won't hire people who are "just coders." We
expect developers we hire to be able to take on all aspects of the job from
gathering requirements though final test, if necessary.

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mark_story
Fair enough, I always considered looking into production and customer issues,
digging through log files, and doing code review as part of 'coding', even
though that's not the literal meaning.

Perhaps I'm using that term a bit too loosely then :)

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ucee054
_The B.Sc...means precious little...What’s way more important to me...is the
reason why you did it in the first place. If it’s not because you love it then
I’m going to be much less interested in retaining your services, even if your
technical ability is first rate._

Yet another jackass who pushes his own prejudices over ability to do the job.
This is why no HR mechanisms work better than random at hiring the right guy.

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adrianhoward
Personally it sounds like a damn effective heuristic to me.

I've found the folk who have a passion for their work are the best employees.
Technical ability isn't the only factor in being productive - or hiring.
Caring about your work is vitally important too.

Ideally what I want is ability _and_ passion of course - but the world isn't
an ideal place.

A technically excellent employee with no passion... well.... in my experience
they tend to coast. They do what they're told, and do it well, but they're not
the ones who bang on your door first thing in the morning and go 'Have you
seen this?!'. The folk banging on the door are the ones that make money.

Give me a passionate employee with a clue and I can coach them into technical
excellence.

I've yet to figure out how to coach passion into somebody who doesn't really
care.

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ucee054
Says someone who's never had to do data cleansing for a living. Try telling me
you're "passionate" about _that_.

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ahoyhere
I dropped out of HS, then dropped out of college. Ask me how my career has
suffered!

