Vetinari:
That is a good point about Bill Gates. Not getting a degree might forfeit you a lot of jobs, but it doesn''t mean you can''t do it. You just have to be willing to work a little bit harder for your goals. Someone won''t hire you....start your own company.
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CS Degree?
Squidi-
Notice how all 4 people you mentioned all created their own companies. Notice how the original question was not about starting his own company, but getting into a pre-existing one.
If you look at a Sunday employment section for programming jobs, nearly all of them say, as a requisit, a B.S. in CS and something like 2 years of experience. No matter how nice your resume looks, they aren''t even going to give you an interview period. None of them say: "Programmer wanted - no degree or experiance required"
The only other real option is some sort of demo code, but with all the plagerism out there, it''s nice to back that up.
You say hard work, well, school is the hard work that will help acheive your goals.
Another few nice things about college is all the resources they have to help find jobs. Not to mention all the contacts you make with people that can help you get a job.
The point is, he was asking what employers are looking for. To find out, all you really have to do is look in any employment section of your newspaper. But dammit, don''t base big decisions like college on what people like me on these forums say.
For a wider knowledge base, there''s always double majoring and also minors. I plan on double majoring, or at least getting a minor or two.
Mike
Notice how all 4 people you mentioned all created their own companies. Notice how the original question was not about starting his own company, but getting into a pre-existing one.
If you look at a Sunday employment section for programming jobs, nearly all of them say, as a requisit, a B.S. in CS and something like 2 years of experience. No matter how nice your resume looks, they aren''t even going to give you an interview period. None of them say: "Programmer wanted - no degree or experiance required"
The only other real option is some sort of demo code, but with all the plagerism out there, it''s nice to back that up.
You say hard work, well, school is the hard work that will help acheive your goals.
Another few nice things about college is all the resources they have to help find jobs. Not to mention all the contacts you make with people that can help you get a job.
The point is, he was asking what employers are looking for. To find out, all you really have to do is look in any employment section of your newspaper. But dammit, don''t base big decisions like college on what people like me on these forums say.
For a wider knowledge base, there''s always double majoring and also minors. I plan on double majoring, or at least getting a minor or two.
Mike
See the interview with John Carmack on Firingsquad:
http://www.firingsquad.com/features/carmack/
There he talks a little bit about school and if he consider a degree important or not. Also a lot of other interesting stuff is brought up.
http://www.firingsquad.com/features/carmack/
There he talks a little bit about school and if he consider a degree important or not. Also a lot of other interesting stuff is brought up.
Mr Squidi only mention those successful people without degree. Actually there are also many people who has a degree. I'd give an example. While I am searching for webpage that contains fantasy art, I found the homepage of Stephanie Law Pui Mun. Her arts are really great, when I check her bio, I am quite surprise to see that she has a CS degree. She is an unknown programmer, but if you want to know which well known person has a degree, there are many example: the guys at Yahoo has Stanford Engineering degree, President Clinton and Wive has Harvard Law degree, Most CEO has PHD etc.
Edited by - CarlFGauss on 2/24/00 9:57:44 AM
Edited by - CarlFGauss on 2/24/00 9:57:44 AM
It''s just Squidi. Mr. Squidi is my father 
You''re only a failure as long as you let yourself become a failure. A college degree, or lack thereof, will not change this.
Sure there are people without degrees that didn''t amount to much, but there are just as many college "educated" people who didn''t either. The degree is not the factor in success that everyone thinks it is. You can look at 100 successful people, and try to find the element that ties them together. If 90 of them have degrees, you can go "Oh! The degree must be the answer!", but it doesn''t mean it is.
If you are willing to do what needs to be done, to knock on every door, to sleep in a van outside of Nintendo, to learn on your own, to work harder than the next guy...a degree will not make you more hard working. The lack of a degree does not mean your aren''t hardworking.
If someplace won''t hire me because I don''t have a degree, then I don''t want to work for them anyway. They put more emphasis on all the wrong elements of a person. Rather than hiring a person with individual talents and abilities, they are hiring a college graduate. I''ve worked places like that before, and I''m not interested in doing that again.
What if I were to tell you that I didn''t have a degree. I was one hour short of an AA, and a few non-core majors classes, like a non-physics science or a computer language elective (though I haven''t taken a class on it, doesn''t mean I haven''t learned Lisp, Pascal, C, C++, Forth, Perl, Fortran, Ada, and others) short of graduation? What if I told you that I already have enough credits to graduate, but some of those classes don''t count towards my major (like Japanese 5) so I can''t graduate? What if I say I came into college as a Sophmore, but I''ve still been at college for four years, and still have two years left (mainly because of the way the course rotation works)?
Would you say that I am uneducated because I don''t have a degree? Sometimes the difference between a degree and not is Geology for science majors.
You''re only a failure as long as you let yourself become a failure. A college degree, or lack thereof, will not change this.
Sure there are people without degrees that didn''t amount to much, but there are just as many college "educated" people who didn''t either. The degree is not the factor in success that everyone thinks it is. You can look at 100 successful people, and try to find the element that ties them together. If 90 of them have degrees, you can go "Oh! The degree must be the answer!", but it doesn''t mean it is.
If you are willing to do what needs to be done, to knock on every door, to sleep in a van outside of Nintendo, to learn on your own, to work harder than the next guy...a degree will not make you more hard working. The lack of a degree does not mean your aren''t hardworking.
If someplace won''t hire me because I don''t have a degree, then I don''t want to work for them anyway. They put more emphasis on all the wrong elements of a person. Rather than hiring a person with individual talents and abilities, they are hiring a college graduate. I''ve worked places like that before, and I''m not interested in doing that again.
What if I were to tell you that I didn''t have a degree. I was one hour short of an AA, and a few non-core majors classes, like a non-physics science or a computer language elective (though I haven''t taken a class on it, doesn''t mean I haven''t learned Lisp, Pascal, C, C++, Forth, Perl, Fortran, Ada, and others) short of graduation? What if I told you that I already have enough credits to graduate, but some of those classes don''t count towards my major (like Japanese 5) so I can''t graduate? What if I say I came into college as a Sophmore, but I''ve still been at college for four years, and still have two years left (mainly because of the way the course rotation works)?
Would you say that I am uneducated because I don''t have a degree? Sometimes the difference between a degree and not is Geology for science majors.
My general advice: Go to college, but if you want to be great, don''t expect to do all your learning in the classroom. Do interesting projects outside of the classroom.
Here is the deal:
A College degree is:
o Instant networking. It opens up all of the "College Hire" avenues at various companies.
o Certification that you can complete something of the magnitude of a 4 year degree, even though there are parts you probably didn''t like
o One way to winnow the herd of applicants. Companies only have so much eyeball time to spend on thinking about wether to interview you. "BS CS" is one quick technique to reduce the number (like it or not..)
o Probably good for you. Most people don''t naturally take to rounding out there education. They simply go for what they are interested in. There is something to be said for exposing yourself to things you think you aren''t interested in. College does this (to some degree..)
o Time you can spend figuring out what you want to do with your life (or so you think..
o A great way to get job experience. Most people don''t realize the chances for internships and coops with major companies. This is *the* way to learn something about the industry you want to join, and get something fairly nice on your resume (not to mention finding a potential future employer...)
College is not:
o A guarantee that you know anything about the major you got a degree in. I''ve interviewed candidates from many different schools. The one thing I''ve learned is that neither the name of the degree nor the reputation of the conferring institution is necessarily indicative of the knowledge (and potential) of the candidate.
o A free ticket to a job
o Always fun.
o Cheap :->
o The only thing in the world that can make you a success.
Notwen
Here is the deal:
A College degree is:
o Instant networking. It opens up all of the "College Hire" avenues at various companies.
o Certification that you can complete something of the magnitude of a 4 year degree, even though there are parts you probably didn''t like
o One way to winnow the herd of applicants. Companies only have so much eyeball time to spend on thinking about wether to interview you. "BS CS" is one quick technique to reduce the number (like it or not..)
o Probably good for you. Most people don''t naturally take to rounding out there education. They simply go for what they are interested in. There is something to be said for exposing yourself to things you think you aren''t interested in. College does this (to some degree..)
o Time you can spend figuring out what you want to do with your life (or so you think..
o A great way to get job experience. Most people don''t realize the chances for internships and coops with major companies. This is *the* way to learn something about the industry you want to join, and get something fairly nice on your resume (not to mention finding a potential future employer...)
College is not:
o A guarantee that you know anything about the major you got a degree in. I''ve interviewed candidates from many different schools. The one thing I''ve learned is that neither the name of the degree nor the reputation of the conferring institution is necessarily indicative of the knowledge (and potential) of the candidate.
o A free ticket to a job
o Always fun.
o Cheap :->
o The only thing in the world that can make you a success.
Notwen
You do not need a degree to be successful or educated, nobody said otherwise. College, and a degree, will definately give you an edge on getting a job however. Whether it''s ''right'', ''fair'', or whether it makes sense, it''s true. When companies get 50+ resumes, if you don''t have a degree or experiance, it''s less likely you will get an interview. I''m not saying it''s impossible to get a good job w/o out a degree though, just harder.
I never said or intentionally implied that a degree or lack there of makes one educated. In my opinion, a degree does NOT determian whether one is educated.
Success is the achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted. You obviously do not need a degree to be successful. Success is differant for each person; everyone has their own goals that they would like to accomplish. A degree can HELP many of these people to accomplish their goals. A degree does not make success in and of itself. Many people with degrees do not accomplish all their goals.
However, if you take 100 people and compare their salaries, you will find that people with degrees earn a lot more on average (I''ve heard 20,000).
Yes, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard. That is a bit misleading, he didn''t drop becusae of grades, he left to start a company.
Basically, my point is that in the job market, a degree can give you an edge over a someone w/o one; fair or not, right or wrong.
Notwen made some really good points also
Mike
I never said or intentionally implied that a degree or lack there of makes one educated. In my opinion, a degree does NOT determian whether one is educated.
Success is the achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted. You obviously do not need a degree to be successful. Success is differant for each person; everyone has their own goals that they would like to accomplish. A degree can HELP many of these people to accomplish their goals. A degree does not make success in and of itself. Many people with degrees do not accomplish all their goals.
However, if you take 100 people and compare their salaries, you will find that people with degrees earn a lot more on average (I''ve heard 20,000).
Yes, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard. That is a bit misleading, he didn''t drop becusae of grades, he left to start a company.
Basically, my point is that in the job market, a degree can give you an edge over a someone w/o one; fair or not, right or wrong.
Notwen made some really good points also
Mike
I would suggest getting a college degree because it will help you do one thing and that is to think outside the box.
Before I went to college I thought I knew it all. I majored in Chemistry because I thought thats what I wanted to do but when I figured out I was pretty good at programming and the money was better than the chemistry field I said what the heck. I only had one programming class in college and that was C. The rest was either OTJ(On the Job) or home taught. The reason why I was able to pick up programming quicker after college was because college taught me how to
and the rest is up to you. I''m knew to game programming but I have the positive mindset and the motivation to become good at it and eventually make a living at it.
Good Luck
Casper
Before I went to college I thought I knew it all. I majored in Chemistry because I thought thats what I wanted to do but when I figured out I was pretty good at programming and the money was better than the chemistry field I said what the heck. I only had one programming class in college and that was C. The rest was either OTJ(On the Job) or home taught. The reason why I was able to pick up programming quicker after college was because college taught me how to
and the rest is up to you. I''m knew to game programming but I have the positive mindset and the motivation to become good at it and eventually make a living at it.
Good Luck
Casper
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