

Ask YC: How many people here have a degree and are programmers? - gregp

Quick poll - what type of degree - from what school -
======
mironathetin
PhD in Atomic Physics.

Started programming with 16, started to love it when I wrote the code to run
my lab automatically (adjust the lasers, pump the vacuum chamber, run the
electron gun, calibrate the spectrometers and do the measurements), while I
was downtown having a beer with my friends. Did it in ansii c on a eltec os 9
lab computer using a camac crate.

I still had to type the thesis myself.

~~~
ardit33
Cool. I minored in physics, and I thought it was much harder than CS. Respects
from me.

~~~
mironathetin
Thank you!

Maybe I drop a word about why. CS was an option for me, but I would have done
it only to learn more about programming (and maybe how the hardware works).
Since I already knew a lot about programming when I was 18, I decided to go
for physics, because Astronomy and Quantum physics were both also strong
interest of mine.

Basically this decision opened a bunch of very interesting job opportunities
in science programming that would have been hard to get into without a
scientific degree. I can wholeheartedly recommend to not study CS, but a
different science, especially if you know that you want to write software. You
can easily learn programming by yourself and get detailed knowledge in another
topic. This combination is hard to beat (most scientists are very bad at
programming).

It was a lot of fun to program in my own lab environment. Maybe because I
controlled the whole pipeline starting from requirements to finally using the
software for my own scientific work.

Its a pity that this is rare. Currently I develop software for an ESA space
observatory. Sounds incredibly cool, but sucks a lot because of the size of
these scientific projects (and because of the bureaucracy of ESA and NASA).

~~~
whacked_new
How rare is this? The caliber of mind required for physics should be more than
enough to make a decent programmer. What's preventing your colleagues from
just picking up what they need to know?

------
kleevr
Still in college for CS but plan to complete course work on part-time, I've
been programming since I was 14 professionally. (A friend of my father had an
SEO startup and needed a script kiddie for PERL/JS/HTML stack. He bought me
any book I wanted and payed 15/hour. Purely self-taught, but higher level
mathematics and discrete theory have improved my programming beyond anything
else I've taken.)

Computers are made for making life easier, and in a capitalism that equates to
making money if you can teach a computer to do a human job. Just waiting for
that dynamite concept to take to market.

I love this site btw.

~~~
cstejerean
When I stopped going to school full-time (about 2 years ago) I thought that I
would continue my degree part time. It hasn't really worked out however. The
reason I stopped going full time is that classes were boring, and since I work
full time, wasting a couple of nights per week on boring classes (instead of
staying at home hacking) is not something I enjoyed. I'm still "planning" to
finish at some point in time but I'm starting to doubt if it will ever happen.

------
mixmax
I dropped out of business school.

Too boring, especially macroeconomics. It was quite clear early on that they
had absolutely no idea how things actually worked in the real world, and were
just dreaming up theories.

I'm not a programmer, but I'm learning. It's so hard to get good programmers
that I thought I would learn how.

~~~
apathy
The trouble with business school is that some students mistake the classes
for... well, for anything other than an opportunity to network. If you want to
learn about finance, work for a fucking bank! If you want to make contacts,
you could do a lot worse than a top MBA program.

An EE friend of mine (who helped me survive PChem, since I taught myself
linear algebra and multivariate calculus, poorly) went back for his MBA
recently. He began a standard engineering exposition of market forces in terms
of structural equations and nearly the entire class glazed over. Afterwards,
the professor (a former physicist) told him that, while his math was spot on,
you can't use calculus in front of businesspeople and expect them to follow.

He almost cried. I laffed when he told me about this. (We both worked at JGSM
and also at the supercomputing center as undergraduates -- even still, I think
he was disappointed.)

Scientific programmers (what I was trained as) and everyday build-something-
that-works programmers (which is more fun) are as different as FORTRAN77 and
Lisp. Just an observation (related to your final sentence), not a tautology.
There is, however, a divide between systems/performance-centric programming
and logic-centric or symbolic programming, and the latter is more efficient in
terms of man-hours IMHO.

~~~
mixmax
There is definitely a difference, and my goal is not to become a scientific
programmer - I'm not smart enough for that. I am just curious as to how it all
works, and my goal is primarily to better understand the process. So it is
just basic CSS, javascript and PHP.

------
dgabriel
Maybe half of a theater degree? I completely failed out of college, then tried
to make a living as an "artist," then accidentally stumbled into a programming
job at a start-up. Now I'm a principal software engineer.

~~~
wallflower
Do you still practice your art for fun and non-profit? I think exercising
creativity is important for personal satisfaction.

~~~
dgabriel
Absolutely. I'm very involved as an organizer & I still do workshops, etc. I
make maybe $500 a year off of the work I do as an artist, which is great, but
also clearly demonstrates why programming is the more prosperous carer path.
Fortunately, I really, really enjoy programming & I've been able to use it to
benefit the arts community I work with.

~~~
wallflower
I'm glad to hear that you are able to contribute both your programming and
artistic (and probably leadership) skills. My brother-in-law is a photographer
and he's started to sell some of his photographs at small art fairs.

I've always wanted to be able to sit in a busy city park and either do
caricatures or play classical guitar and draw a crowd to a stop and make a
moment of their day more beautiful.. But it takes practice and practice. Not a
priority, just a pipe-dream right now.

I'm starting to get involved with a non-profit - PHP stuff - I think it's
better than stuffing envelopes (e.g. provide value with your skills)

------
abstractbill
PhD in pure mathematics, University of Nottingham, UK.

Self-taught as a programmer, but it's a similar mindset.

~~~
albertcardona
PhD in Biology (Developmental Genetics), Univ. Barcelona, Spain.

Self-taught as a programmer as well, but it's a _totally_ different mindset.

~~~
mnemonicsloth
PhD student in EE/solid-state, currently vacationing in the math department.

I started out in CS and hated it, but I still spend a lot of my time coding.

Most of my math classmates can program a little, but all the engineers I know
are hopeless.

~~~
whacked_new
Can you elaborate on "hopeless," and why do you say this?

------
modoc
Made it 1.5 years into an aerospace engineering program before realizing I was
wasting my time and money. I was making six-figures and had racked up tons of
hands on experience working with startups and Fortune 500s by the time my
classmates walked out with a piece of paper and some huge debts.

------
davidw
No degree, I left for Italy afer a few years of Italian courses at the
University of Oregon. I have worked as a programmer for 11 years.

~~~
iamwil
How'd you end up writing a programming language?

~~~
davidw
You can't be in this business without being passionate about it. Well...I
guess you can, but I think everyone on this site falls into the 'passionate'
category. And with that comes the ability to pick things up on your own, which
is in any case pretty much a necessity for this field, as many aspects of it
change frequently.

One of the wonderful things about this field is how much is possible to do on
your own, if you have a computer a decent internet connection.

In terms of Hecl itself, taken from
(<http://www.hecl.org/docs/j2me.html#javame_tutorial>)

"I became interested in writing cell phone applications several years ago,
after a rainy day high in the Italian Dolomites near Cortina d'Ampezzo - my
old phone ended up in a mud puddle and died, leading me to purchase a new
phone with J2ME (Java) capabilities. Writing applications in Java was okay,
but I thought to myself that it would be an interesting experiment to try and
create a scripting language that runs on top of the J2ME (now known as Java
Micro Edition or Java ME) environment."

~~~
systems
hey a Tcl'er :)

Tcl is the best lisp tell them the truth, enlighten their braces crippled
souls :PpP

But seriously, Tcl is a very smart language, one can only wish it was used
more.

------
mechanical_fish
Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Cornell

(also B.S., Physics, Case Western Reserve)

I had one formal course in software: Motorola 68k assembly language
programming, in college. Three months of super-tedious review for the slow
students ("this is a hexadecimal number") followed by perhaps one month of
interesting new knowledge ("this is a stack frame"). I never tried to learn
programming from a lecture course again.

I self-taught my own way through ArsDigita's web programming curriculum in the
late 1990s... reading Greenspun's stuff was what convinced me that software
was actually worth doing, and the reading list was great: SICP, _Learning
Emacs_ , Fogel's CVS book (hey, that's all they had in the elder days... :),
_Internetworking with TCP/IP_ , _SQL for Smarties_ , Tufte, etc.

------
danprager
PhD in Mathematics (computational physics), 1997. Self-taught at programming
from age 14. After finishing my PhD I decided to get out of academia. Didn't
want to work as a "quant", hence: software (mainly programming).

------
tirrellp
MBA, BA, Economics BA, French Université de Montpellier, France International
Interpreter's School Mons, Belgium

Started coding at about 8 or 9 years old on a C64 and Apple IIc/IIe. I have
always been a tinkerer of sorts... taking things apart then wondering why I
have extra parts left over when I put it back together.

I have done it all, networking, development, support, QA, moving up the food
chain so to speak. These days, I spend a lot of time in Project/Process
management.

~~~
dkokelley
When you have leftover parts, that means you were more efficient than the
manufacturer. :P

------
macnod
No degree. I've been programming professionally for 20+ years. Usually better
off than my peers salary-wise (since the beginning). Generally regarded as the
best amongst the programmers I know personally (which is a bad thing, in my
view). Started several companies. Most failed. One sold. Have had a 9-5 job
for the last 3 years (telecommuting from home). Title: Senior Programmer
Analyst. Actual Work: developing new products (programming).

------
rcoder
I dropped out of college after my freshman year to join a startup. I've been
doing programming and general IT work ever since (~8 years).

After taking some more classes part-time, I've probably got about 1/2 the
requirements for a degree in mathematics from a couple of different schools,
but never seem to find the time to go back full-time and finish it out.

I do work at the college I dropped out of all those years, ago, though.

------
mrtron
BCS (yes it exists...) University of Waterloo

So at Waterloo you can now get a BCS (in the math dept, school of comp sci),
BMath - CS, Comp Eng, or Software Eng. I think the diversity in the programs
is a good thing. Hell half the Electrical Engineers end up as programmers, but
I would never hire one :P

------
kajecounterhack
High school kids don't have degrees yet ;)

------
aggieben
B.S., M.Eng. C.S. Texas A&M University. Programming for the man (but working
on a little bit of just about everything on my own at home). Really.
Desparately trying to figure out how to get going with a startup without
having to go to the freaking Valley, Boston, or NYC.

Daggum Californicators.

~~~
pg
_Desperately trying to figure out how to get going with a startup without
having to go to the freaking Valley, Boston, or NYC._

You can do it, if you can find a good cofounder where you are. When people
like me talk about it being a net win to be in the Valley, we mean no more
than that. It gives you an advantage. But it's far less important than the
quality of your cofounder(s).

------
bscofield
BA Philosophy & Biology - UNC Chapel Hill MA Philosophy - University of
Maryland, College Park

~~~
donal
WOOHOO! +1 Philosophy

BA Philosophy from Ripon College MS Information Systems University of Maryland
Baltimore County (in progress).

been a avid "hobbyist" programmer for 7-8 years now... just recently started
getting paid for my programming.

~~~
goodgoblin
BA Philosophy Colgate University, 1 Year Post Bacc CompSci University of
Oregon - have been programming for food since 2000

------
ibsulon
BA in communications from the University of Arizona - minor in CS.

They were restricting the students going into the major and I flubbed up the
first semester. (I got a D in discrete math. None of the concepts were
difficult for me, but they combined it as a proof class and I just couldn't
get the hang of them.) Also, I knew I was pretty good with the computers, it
was the interaction with people I was lacking.

I'm strongly considering going back for a Ph.D in cognitive science, but I'll
likely have to shore up some of my undergraduate weaknesses first. (The years
in industry have taught me that as much as I am frustrated with academia, it
suits my personality much better.)

------
rjb
B.A. in Art and Photography. I was working in the mail room of a financial
company here in Chicago when word got around that I was an art major and that
I was into computers. The CIO came over one day and dropped a 4" stack of HTML
print outs on my lap, asking me to build a company newsletter website. I
haven't stopped web development since. (I can't believe that's pushing 10
years ago).

I dropped out of grad school (computer science) a few years back after
completing 1 year only because it wasn't enjoyable. It felt like high school,
no enthusiasm, like every HAD to be there. Classes were painfully slow and
sequential, stripped of any creativity.

------
eelinow
I've been coding since the age of 8, never got a degree as I found university
moved too slowly. I knew from childhood that all I wanted to do was code. Now
I've been coding professionally for 13 years, and overall for 27 years. I'd
thought about going back for formal education but the reality of it is that I
still learn at a faster rate on my own and do take the time and effort to
learn even those things that I don't think I'll need or particularly care to
learn. I do feel that I missed out on some camaraderie with peers, though I
have since gained that via professional and non-professional venues.

------
bosko
I went to a college in Canada, which are basically regarded as the "lower
form" of post secondary, as Universities are for the big wigs.

I graduated from a 3 year Computer Programmer / Systems Analyst program and
couldn't be happier. Now working at a retail startup doing all their tech /
web/internal development / online / offline marketing and I couldn't be
happier

Apart from that I stick in some freelance and my own projects on the side.
Currently working on my own startup. I live code, I loves it

So to the initial question: No major degree, but I can code!

------
jimm
BA Mathematics, concentration in Comp. Sci. from University of Rochester.
Graduated a year before they had an undergrad Comp. Sci. degree--there was
already a graduate program. Oh, yeah: I'm a programmer.

~~~
bsaunder
B.A. Cognitive Science - University of Rochester. - Programmer.

------
wallflower
I have a degree in Civil Engineering. Since I was bored/nearly falling asleep
in some of my structural engineering classes, I knew it probably wasn't the
field. (I've always loved coding/playing with computers).

An engineering degree really emphasizes problem solving. We had homework sets
where you'd be lucky to solve all of them. Spending hours on a single problem.
But you learn a lot. I see software development mainly as creative problem-
solving.

Getting my first job was a combination of luck and persistence.

------
andrewl
BA in English and Creative Writing, Oberlin College

Most of a second bachelor's in psychology, University of Pennsylvania

A year-and-a-half in a Clinical Psychology PhD program, University of Texas,
Austin

MS Information Systems, and MS Library Science, Drexel University,
Philadelphia

Web developer at a not-for-profit medical publishing company, doing Rails and
pretty much anything else related to the web.

------
anaphoric
Ph.D. Computer Science UCLA 1997

~~~
anaphoric
Oh yeah and B.S. Computer Science University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 1991

~~~
ashwinl
I'm a current undergrad at University of Michigan, AA studying mechanical
engineering. But, I started programming at 11 when I first got paid for my
programming skills. I've worked in the "real world" each summer and have found
my hacking abilities more useful than many other skills.

Sometimes it's a php script to scrape data, other times it is a vb macro to
make excel work more efficiently or a bash script, etc. etc.

~~~
anaphoric
Sounds like you are doing well. What are your plans?

I was back to A^2 last year for a week. It has the same feel. I must admit
that I miss the place from time to time.

------
human_geode
no degree, quit when I was told I couldn't take the fun (math, chem, etc)
classes and had to take poly sci

code part-time, not as good as I'd like. Thinking about going back to school
and finishing a CS degree, but I'm 40 with 5 kids to support (geeks get lovin
too)

PS: You might want to warn someone if they have cookies turned off... the
error message is counterintuitive.

------
jey
"professional" programmer, self-taught, no degree.

------
rokhayakebe
no degree, can't code, rejected from yc funding 3 times, and still working on
my startup.

~~~
dawnerd
3 times? That hurts. Shows your dedication though.

~~~
ardit33
or obliviousness... *ducks

------
culley
BS Material Science - Rice Took no comp sci in school, but I've been coding
since I was 8 (Drawing Mr. T in VB) Currently work as a coder, never used the
degree but.. co-workers who do my same job without a degree pull 20k less a
year and are career limited (in that they can't advance anymore until they get
a degree of some kind)

------
imperator
No degree. Taught myself how to code when I was kid. Started a Computer
Engineering degree, but I would get bored and stopped going to class. Switched
to Econ, but never finished that. Started taking classes I wanted in an order
and grouping that was never going to get me a degree. So I left. I've been a
programmer ever since.

------
geebee
BA English, UC San Diego BA Math, UC Santa Cruz (strange case, they let me
finish the double English/Math major at a different university - I did about
half of the Math at UCSD and the other half at UCSC) MS Industrial Engineering
and Operations Research - UC Berkeley

Still learning, of course...

------
alexsolo
BA Software Engineering, University of Waterloo.

Working as a C++ developer at a big online retailer.

~~~
hisham
Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo.

Also worked as a software developer at a big online retailer ;-).

~~~
mrtron
Haha, I know a few people working as developers at a big online retailer from
Waterloo too.

------
TheTarquin
Kind of boring by comparison: B.S. Computer Science, Gonzaga University.
Working on my Masters thesis in Philosophy to be done in May. Been working
continuously as a programmer (mostly legacy support) since January of 2006,
with a few other internships before that.

------
jkush
High school dropout who has been a programmer for about 7 years now. Voracious
reading habits on a wide variety of subjects, a willingness to work hard along
with a constant assessment of knowing what I don't know has served me well.

I stretch but know my limits.

------
rksprst
BS Comp Sci, USC - 1 more year to go

~~~
tlrobinson
Fight on!

BS CECS and MS CS, USC, '07

~~~
rksprst
Fight on! Yea, I was surprised that when I posted I didn't see any other USC
students or grads. Glad to see they're here!

------
danohuiginn
That's an impressive number of philosophers. And of replies in general; turns
out we do all like to talk about ourselves ;)

My degree is in sanskrit. Programming was as obvious a detour as any after
that, once I figured I wasn't cut out to be an academic.

------
ALee
B.A. Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE)- Claremont McKenna (small lib
arts college in SoCal); non-hacker, but man do I wish I could hack...

My partners are:

BA PPE & CS, Claremont McKenna BA Economics & CS, Claremont McKenna

------
xmilestegx
BS in Computer Science & Engineering from The Ohio State University. -
Programming for the man.

the '& Engineering' just means I took more math and physics classes and some
intro to (insert Engineering Discipline) classes.

~~~
raju
MS in Industrial and System Engineering (thesis in Systems) from Ohio
University. Learned programming as a mix of self-study, and great mentoring by
a professor at OU.

Bachelors in Production Engineering from Bombay, India.

------
MaysonL
No degree, but 990 GRE in maths, and 3 top 200 scores on the Putnam. First
programmed in '63, unless you count wiring a Brainiac, which I did some years
earlier. Finally getting around to studying Lisp <(+ grin groan)>.

------
larrykubin
BS Electrical Engineering & BA Philosophy, 2004, Univ. of Texas at Austin

------
dmpayton
I'm currently on a break from school while I move and get settled with a new
job (software developer at a near-Silicon Valley startup). I'm going back this
fall to work on my BS in Comp Sci at CSU Fresno.

------
pmjordan
MPhys in Computational Physics from University of York, UK.

Self-taught in programming from age 9. Had 1 long-term job as a game
programmer, got fed up with it, now working on my own tech. (I'm 23)

------
ardit33
Computer Science major, minors in Physics and Mathematics at Radford
university, in VA.

A party school, so my gpa wasn't perfect, but I had a good time. I had a full
academic scholarship though.

------
hhm
I dropped out of Informatics (Universidad de La Plata), in 3rd year. I'm now
starting studies on Maths (Universidad de Buenos Aires).

I've been programming for about 12, or 13 years now, I think.

------
arvid
BS Math CMU, MA Math UPenn. Both too long ago to matter anymore. A programmer
and failed mathematician. On good days, a software developer. Never a computer
scientist or software engineer.

------
agotterer
B.S. in Management with a concentration in MIS from the University at Buffalo.
Transfered out of comp sci from the University of Delaware (I was bored and
had no pretty girls in my classes).

------
NoBSWebDesign
I graduate this summer. I've got only 12 credits left out of 204 for my dual
BS in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. I go to Kettering University
(formerly General Motors Institute).

------
seshagiri
Engineering degree in civil engineering. self taught programming while in
college and switched to full time programming career after a year stint has a
civil engineer on the field.

------
tachibana
Been developing software for more than 10 years.

\- Stanford U, Masters in Engineering \- UC-Berkeley, Engineering \- UC-
Berkeley, Computer Science \- UC-Berkeley, Business Admin.

------
Novash
Working on my degree now. Two more years to completion, suposing I ever attend
the classes. I live in Brazil so the name of the University is probably
meaningless to you all.

------
mfruhling
Generic Information Systems from Villa Julie College in Maryland. The courses
taught me Visual Basic and SQL. I've taught myself everything else and have so
much to learn.

------
thisisnotmyname
BA in Computer Science from a tiny liberal arts college. I worked as a
programmer for 3 years. now I'm back in school, working on a PhD in the
biomedical sciences at BCM.

------
ice5nake
AS Computer Science - Penn State York

7 years out of college. Web programmer for a startup. Still learning the
ropes, hoping to have my own startup someday.

------
gloucester12000
BS on CS (Concentration: Machine Learning and Computational Logic) from GA
Tech. Currently working as a Python (30%) and Lisp (70%) programmer for a
startup.

~~~
brlewis
What gloucester does your username refer to?

~~~
gloucester12000
It's from Hamlet. I chose the name because it's somewhat sui generis and thus
not too many people will be using it as a user name.

~~~
brlewis
OK, not the town on the north shore of Massachusetts, then.

------
simianstyle
I'm about to graduate from Babson with a degree in entrepreneurship (real
useful that's gonna be), and I'm working at a startup as a programmer (self-
taught).

------
jmtulloss
Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I graduate
in May, looking forward to working full time on my startup after that.

I-L-L!

~~~
JaredRad
I can't believe nobody has jumped on this yet... I-N-I!

All UIUC/Chicago hackers interested in meeting up should email me: jared [at]
aftervibe [dot] com

------
indian
MS, Computer Applications (National Institute of Technology, Trichy, India)
Manager of a Development Team. still like to call myself database programmer

------
chr
M.S. from Norwegian School of Business Administration and Economics (NHH),
M.A. in linguistics, University of Oslo, currently programming CL in a telco.

------
davidppp
B.Sc (Computer Science) and an incomplete B.A (Philosophy/Classics).
University of Canterbury here in New Zealand. Currently programming for my
startup.

------
dawnerd
I decided not to go to college and instead work 100% on my startup. Life has
been good. I can work with PHP if you want to consider that programming...

------
apgwoz
BS in Computer Science from Temple University. I started on a Masters, but
dropped it. Now I'm taking classes at the University of Pennsylvania.

------
a-priori
I'm 3/4 of the way through my Bachelor of Computing degree at the University
of Guelph. Taking some time off right now to work on my start-up.

------
bkrausz
Sophomore undergrad at Carnegie Mellon University. No desire/plan for grad
school...I'm thrilled that I'll be done in a little over a year.

------
parbo
M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics (no, not two degrees, a
combined syllabus). Oh, and I'm a programmer. Or something.

------
there
no degree for me. i started programming in my early teens with vb, worked for
an isp during high school doing unix sysadmin and perl/php programming. after
high school i didn't bother with college and just continued at the isp for a
number of years doing perl/php/ruby programming. i left there two years ago to
become self-employed doing software development.

------
huherto
BS Computer information systems, University of Chihuahua (in Mexico); MS
Computer information science, University of Michigan.

------
icky
AA Liberal Arts!

Applied for it after I had started programming professionally. (Already had
the credits, so why not? ;-)

------
pauljonas
B.S. in Computer Science

Guess you could call me a programmer as I wear many hats, but web developer is
my prime role...

------
gills
BS CS Washington State

Will finish this year: MS CS University of Washington

programming for other people for 5 years

------
jharper
BS Applied Math

BS Comp Science (both at Appstate)

Former Java programmer; current language is Ruby, professionally.

------
watmough
Computational Science (2nd Division) - St Andrews University, Scotland.

Writing software that bills gas pipelines.

------
sigstoat
B.Sc. Computer Science; Colorado @ Boulder

~~~
uuilly
Me too! I don't miss the concrete jungle at all.

------
BKmke
BS and MS in Electrical Engineering-Marquette. I am not a
programmer...although I read a lot about programming.

------
systems
BA in Management Information System, MBA sorbonne/dauphine (mbaip.com)

Programmer ... hmmm ... someday I will!

------
nkohari
B.S. Computer Science, University of Akron (Ohio). Software Architect at a
small (25 people) consulting firm.

------
trick
3.5 years studying CS at Georgia Tech, life forced me to pull out and I'm
working at a startup in Orlando.

------
pdsull
BA in Philosophy from the University of Montana and a JD (in May) from the
University of Pennsylvania

------
mk
B.A. in Philosophy from University of California, Santa Cruz 2006. Started
programming around 1999.

------
jdavid
Degree in Computer Engineering - Marquette University php/c#/vb.net

learning as3/ruby/linux shell

------
hollywoodcole
B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Mississippi. Programmer
Analyst at FedEx Services.

------
sanj
MIT^3

Depending on who you ask, I was either trained as a rocket scientist or a
propellor head.

------
misterbwong
Info & Comp Sci Degree from UC Irvine. Just transitioned to being a programmer
in our group.

------
codewhisperer
M.S. Computer Science, CIMS NYU. Actively programming when not wrangling
departmental politics.

------
KB
B.S. Comp. Sci. from the University of Rhode Island

Java programmer for a Defense Contractor.

------
secorp
BA UC Berkeley in Mathematics '93, MBA NYU Stern '06, run a small startup and
still get to hack

------
alakra
BS Computer Engineering Technology, 2004 - Southern Polytechnic State U. I
program non-stop...

------
jgrahamc
BA in Mathematics and Computation and then a DPhil in Computer Security.
Oxford University.

------
thorax
BS, CompSci, University of Memphis

------
wlievens
Master in Applied Computer Science from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel
(Brussels, Belgium).

------
dssjon
BS Information Systems, University of Texas in Arlington working as
database/web developer

------
doubleplus
BA Political Science, UC San Diego. Still learning programming. Stuck in
insurance atm.

------
dazzawazza
BEng Software Engineering Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine,
London UK.

------
geldedus
MSc in Civil Engineering. Always worked as a computer programmer, never as a
civil eng..

------
aleclair
I'm a sophomore working on a BS in Comp Sci from Northeastern University. Go
Huskies?

------
omakase
BASc in EE from University of Toronto (in 3 months) -- already into my first
startup

------
shafqat
BSE computer engineering and economics, Penn, but don't use any of it at my
startup!

------
jonp
MA Mathematics from Oxford; MSc in 'Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems' from
Sussex.

------
konsl
BASc in EE from University of Toronto; immediately followed with my first
start-up

------
jonnytran
BS in CS, BS in Electrical & Computer Engineering -- from Carnegie Mellon

------
speric
BS in Comp Sci, St. John's University, currently a programmer at an i-bank.

------
mxyzptlk
BFA, Illustration, Ringling School of Art and Design, and a programmer.

------
dkokelley
Business Marketing from CSUN (Cal State Northridge)... in 2 more years.

------
gregfjohnson
bs math Pomona College, ms statistics, ms,phd computer science U Wisc -Madison
Am a programmer; love what I do. 6-word novel describing my life: "It worked!
Still can't believe it."

------
andrewf
BSc (Computer Science) from Curtin University, Western Australia

------
streblo
(pursuing) BS Computer Science, BA Philosophy, Duke University

~~~
unexpected
B.S. Economics and Computer Science, 2006 - Duke University!

GTHC! GTHC! ;-)

------
astrec
BS Comp Sci / BA Philosophy - Monash University (Australia)

------
tallpapab
Masters in Mathematics UC Berkeley Programming since 1969.

------
dottertrotter
Purdue University - BS in Computer Programming Technology

------
garethm
BSc Computer Science from University of Cape Town 1997

------
pius
S.B., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT

------
engtech
Computer Engineer degree from the University of Ottawa

------
klocksib
BS, Computer Science, Central Washington University.

------
kashif
BS, Finance - run and hack in a small software firm.

------
nadim
B.Sc. Software Engineering - Universtity of Calgary

------
amohr
Half a BS in physics, half in Economics, both UIUC

------
caudicus
BS Computer Systems Engineering, Boston University

------
fortes
BS in CS and MS in HCI, both from Carnegie Mellon

~~~
misterbwong
I've been thinking about getting an MS in HCI. How did you like the program?

~~~
fortes
I actually did a 4.5 year program for Master's and Undergrad there, so I don't
have the typical experience.

I liked the program, I definitely learned a lot from it, although I can't
honestly say I've used it much in my career (ended up lower level than UI
often times).

My only gripe is that I wish that (at least at CMU) they had taught more
graphic design. We had a few classes, but they were quite basic (I took as
many as I could, but ultimately the interesting ones were restricted to Design
majors).

Before you go get a Master's -- think about which part of HCI are you most
interested in? Usability (evaluating, running tests), UI design, the
programming?

------
thermocline
BS, Computer Engineeering, University of Florida

~~~
kobs
Still there? It'd be nice to speak with fellow Hacker News readers on campus.

(in progress) BS, Computer Science, University of Florida

------
pkaler
BSc Computing Science. Simon Fraser University.

~~~
jeffreypriebe
Another Canuck here! I did my graduate diploma (1 yr) at SFU

I did my undergrad at Canadian Bible College - B.A. in Religious studies (with
Music History and ancient Greek). Thought the subject matter doesn't help
coding, I think the college work did. I'm also a "started at age 8" story.

------
menloparkbum
BS Math, BA Philosophy, EMT-B certification.

------
bgutierrez
No degree, some CS classes, lots of books.

------
Xichekolas
BS Comp Sci - University of Kansas - 2005

~~~
jalammar
Go Jayhawks!

BS Comp Sci Kansas 2006 here.

------
mannylee1
BA English from The University of Dayton.

------
carpal
BBA in CIS from Georgia State University

------
mullr
CS from RPI... programming for The Man.

------
fallentimes
BS Finance, University of Dayton, 2006

------
bayareaguy
B.S. Applied Mathematics, UC Berkeley.

------
olifante
Physics degree, University of Lisbon.

------
simplegeek
Dropped out of CS school, twice.

~~~
wallflower
Can we assume you won't go for the hat-trick as you probably already have the
skills to pay the bills.

~~~
simplegeek
Well, I often think I should go back to school. But I guess I've been lucky so
far :) That said, I think self-learning is much more important. They don't
teach you how to use version-control, right?

------
dnaquin
BA Mathematics, Rice University.

------
copenja
BS Comp Sci, UC Santa Barbara

------
wehriam
B.S. Computer Science, FSU

------
ivankirigin
CS BA NYU, Robotics MS CMU

~~~
codewhisperer
A CMU Robotics masters is totally sexy.

------
nostrademons
BA in CS, Amherst College.

------
ejs
Masters, EE, Penn State

------
brlewis
S.B. Math MIT

------
gojomo
BA Comp Sci & Economics, UC-Berkeley

------
DarrenStuart
dropped out and coded in.

