I was in disbelief when I found out that some people are in a dilemma about getting a CS degree or not, when they already have some other degree. And here I am with no degree in anything, working as a SWE. I've gone back and forth about it - mostly I don't care about the fake degree from WGU and similar schools and then to get a degree where I'd actually learn something new (MIT maybe?) it would be a huge time sync, cost and I'm not sure I'd even be accepted.
I can tell you from experience that every company, from Meta to Apple to hell, even 90% of startups, will just accept the CS degree as is. I'd say to working professionals (those with a couple years experience in the industry now) its a bigger win because it matters astronomically less where you got your degree than when you are first starting out as an engineer. It keeps the gatekeepers away and checks all the recruitment boxes across the board.
Its also a good gateway to get a useful Masters degree, like the two year Computer Science and Engineering degree from Georgia Tech, which if I recall correctly is very cost effective and highly regarded
As far as working in the US, I can understand that. And as for a Master's, I'm not sure I'd ever want that. The Georgia Tech OMCS for example has a good name but I doubt I couldn't learn the same material for free.
Will I get left behind in the industry among a sea of Master's and Phds?
Some places, like Google, and to a lesser extent, Apple, Microsoft, and a few others, still really require you have to a degree (bachelors or otherwise), at least when hiring from the outside.
Other places, like Meta, often default to experience or degree, but not per se requiring both. There are of course exceptions at all of these places, however it seems to hold true in aggregate.
It won't hurt you, thats for sure, and if (when?) the job market tightens, those with degrees often get preferred to those without. That was my experience in the last down turn anyway
Which downturn do you mean? And that's certainly worth considering. Can you explain more what happened then from your experience that gave you that perspective?
Though I wouldn't say it's true it won't hurt me - the debt is certainly harmful.
Well, I've lived through both the housing recessions of the mid 2000's, a regional downturn in the mid 2010s (ended up moving to California!) and the pandemic "boom" that a lot of tech companies have seen wasn't true for every company in the sector, so I lived through most recently a COVID-19 related downturn in 2020.
In my experience doors closed on me because I didn't hit that "checkmark". In fact I remember interviewing at a company (who's name I don't 100% remember, I interviewed a lot in the 2010s and I don't want to call out a company by mistake) and they somehow missed that I didn't have my degree yet and halted the entire interview process after the 2nd round because HR couldn't justify deviating from their norms. I also was told by many recruiters at that time that it was the only barrier to me getting into their hiring pipelines. I eventually caught a break and wound up at Apple, but its because I didn't get hired through traditional means (right place, right time).
This has changed as the labor pool tightened, and by 2020 I wasn't in the same position anymore regardless, but those first two situations have always stuck in my mind about how hard it is to get hired when automated systems gate keep things. I since learned alot about how to work around them (without directly hurting your prospects) and through experience know alot more about networking (though I'm no expert), so I'm a little better insulated, but it was much harder for me than it was for my peers who all got their CS degrees early in their careers comparatively.
Ironically, through pure grit, luck (can't underestimate luck to be honest) and my own drive I've ended up being very successful, but it took alot more work than it would have otherwise, I think. I believe truly I would have reached this point earlier in my career (I'm a Staff Engineer now at a mid sized startup in Silicon Valley) and been better off for it.
Well it's not fake, but I don't have confidence that I'd learn anything from it. If I am going to perform a box checking exercise, I'd rather learn something. And you're right, I have indeed listened to MIT lectures, but that doesn't give me a degree.
ok, so then one should'nt have used the word 'fake' - and if one does'nt know the material, there will obviously be something to learn from.
An argument can be made that MIT's material is qualitatively better, but still, the smarter choice might be to get the credentialling from WGU and the materials from MIT at a lower overall cost.
and I am pretty sure there needs to be a lot of self-motivation to get this done, which in itself should be a good signal to future employers. Not all jobs need cutting CS research.
