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Degree or No Degree?

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:14 am
by Moocat
Is having a degree needed for knowledge base?

By knowledge base I mean actually knowing your subject. I believe there are only two fields in which having a degree really matters, medical degrees and law degrees. Since these are the only two, I vote overall degrees are NOT needed for most careers fields. I think pretty much every career field other than the two stated can pick up just as good a knowledge base with self study as someone with a degree.

Edit: Since my statements appear to be somewhat misleading I will state an example:

If you had a choice between a 4 year college graduate with no (or little) outside experience or someone with 5-7 years (only college "credit" experience, no actual schooling) which would you rather pick? (I figure 5-7 years is somewhat the "equivalent exchange" conversion from 4 years of schooling since those with experience only tend to start earlier than those with schooling since we all know 4 years is sometimes a bit longer ;).

Would you rather someone building your computer program has years of experience? or years of only college?

I did not state both since I thought it would be overly obvious which person (in most "big business" companies) would be chosen between someone with an equal amount of college + experience or someone with experience only :p

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:20 am
by jayshields
Well, I would say that they aren't "needed", but with one, you will have a better chance of getting a job, because they know your willing to work and stick at something, plus they can get a decent reference from your uni.

In this day and age, I think people with work experience are valued higher than people with a good education.

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:28 am
by Moocat
jayshields wrote:Well, I would say that they aren't "needed", but with one, you will have a better chance of getting a job, because they know your willing to work and stick at something, plus they can get a decent reference from your uni.

In this day and age, I think people with work experience are valued higher than people with a good education.
As well as I. There was a pretty big push for going to college about 7 or 8 years back, but since then it seems they've decided that experience > degree. My hypothesis is that people finally smartened up after getting a big batch of people who might know how something works but can't neccesarily duplicate it or improve upon any existing ideas because they've never really worked with the technology.

I believe this is also why people with degrees from ITT schools and work-internships are doing better, because they've learned more through experience, trial and error than anything else.

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:31 am
by josh
I am against the current education system, it pretends to promote individuality but actually punishes everything but conformity, including unique thinking. You may think it encourages students to theorize, and perhaps some colleges may claim to, but it really does not. If I had 2 candidates both with equal experience and one had a college degree and one did not, I would favor the one without one, but unfortunately we are as a society are too quick to assume "he didn't go to college because he's unmotivated". Just because our society is structured this way I do feel compelled to go to some kind of college next year, there is no doubt it would help my career but wasting 4 years of my life doing something I disagree with is not something I look forward to, especially after I was forced to waste the last 12.

I consider myself to be of above average knowledge base and most of what I know was acquired on my own, anyways you get the point I hate the structured education system, but I'm a living example you can have knowledge outside of what you learn in school

Re: Degree or No Degree?

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:39 am
by Roja
Moocat wrote:Is having a degree needed for knowledge base?

By knowledge base I mean actually knowing your subject. I believe there are only two fields in which having a degree really matters, medical degrees and law degrees. Since these are the only two, I vote overall degrees are NOT needed for most careers fields. I think pretty much every career field other than the two stated can pick up just as good a knowledge base with self study as someone with a degree.
Well, your comment confused the issue.

If you are asking about *knowledge*, no, a degree isn't neccesary to have knowledge.

However, you bring up career fields. In the case of a career in IT (which includes programming, information security, auditing, and more), you absolutely will need a degree to get very far.

Promotions are often a competition between two candidates with similar qualifications. All things being equal, the engineer with the degree is likely to move ahead faster as a result.

In addition, there are many companies that simply will not hire without a degree. Many of the positions you will want to aim for, you won't even be considered for.

So, not so simple once you consider careers. I'd say a degree is a must for a serious career, and a nice addition to round out general knowledge.

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:41 am
by Charles256
yeah....y'all can bash a degree all you want but so long as 9/10th's of the job in my area say 4 year degree required or app is not looked at I'm going to get that paper. :) Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying someone without a degree can't do hte job, I'm saying he won't have a chance to do the job. And let's not even talk about the job oppurtunities that open up if you get a doctorates or a master's . :) That income level starts to rise, bitch all you want but stats are stats.... :-D And.....end angry rant. :)

Roja said what I wanted to as well, just less angrily:)

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:42 am
by Grim...
I didn't get a degree, however I did complete a two-year-old Computer Science exam for a study my student friend was doing for Economics.

Apparently, my result was worth a 3rd class degree, with no specialist study, or warning at all.
And I don't consider myself that good at CS (unless we are talking about Counter Strike ;)).

<edit>So I vote 'no' :)</edit>

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:46 am
by Grim...
However, I had been in the industry for about five or six years by then.
It would be interesting to know if I could have got the same result by spending only three years at Uni.

Guess we'll never know.

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:50 am
by Jenk
I'm firmly in agreement with the "no" category, I have been told by many a person that they actually prefer someone who has been "in the real world" to someone who has a piece of paper proving they completed the task in a controlled environment.

But having said that.. I am finding it very difficult to get my foot through the door without that piece of paper, thus I too am tempted to get an Open University degree or similar, just to get an interview..

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:55 am
by josh
I'm not sure if charles was accusing me of degree bashing, all I was saying is I am against the current eduction system, but not the idea of an education system, but I would have to agree with Roja that you probably won't get pretty far without a degree, the question is though, does a degree have anything to do with a persons knowledge base and I would have to disagree with anyone that said it does. I know some complete idiots that have made it through college, and even more unfortunately I have seen some creative geniuses (that also had a large knowledge base) waste their life because they choose not to get a degree. I think that most people that really know how how the education system is affecting society and the damage it is causing would agree with me.

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 9:13 am
by Jenk
Here is an example..
I recently applied for a job that imo, I am perfectly suited for. The job revolves around Data Storage solutions (SAN's etc.)

The second candidate, a young lady fresh out of Thailand, who can only speak 3 words of English (Yes, No and Hello) got the job, because she has a degree in Art.

ART FFS! SHE DOESN'T EVEN SPEAK ENGLISH!!!1oneone
[/rant]

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 9:46 am
by Moocat
Would you really want to work for a job that takes applicants strictly based on if they have a degree or not? I'd rather work for a company known to employ the best in the field rather than a bunch of people with pieces of paper anyone with a few hours a week on their hands can get.

However, I'm not asking if a degree is worth it strictly for job obtainment. I'm asking it more from the perspective, if there were a choice between hiring (lets say a contractor) a person with a 4 year degree (no experience) or 7-10 years active experience which would you rather have working/serving you? I realise I may have been somewhat misleading in the first statement, I'll go back and change that :)

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 9:50 am
by Burrito
there certainly are more areas than the two you mentioned where a degree would be REQUIRED IMHO.

for example, I certainly wouldn't want to drive down the freeway on some bridge that was designed by a self-taught structural engineer...

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 10:07 am
by Jenk
Moocat wrote:Would you really want to work for a job that takes applicants strictly based on if they have a degree or not? I'd rather work for a company known to employ the best in the field rather than a bunch of people with pieces of paper anyone with a few hours a week on their hands can get.
After some hindsight - no, I don't :)

As a slight injection of comedy, said Thai girl's name was/is Bee Chin Ho. Genuine.

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 10:09 am
by Roja
Moocat wrote:Would you really want to work for a job that takes applicants strictly based on if they have a degree or not?
Yes.

My work does not define me. While I happen to be proud of the work I do at my current job, its not a requirement for me. A job (for me) is the solution to the problem of needing money. I *prefer* to work at a job where I like the people I work with, where I make a concrete change each day, and so forth, but thats secondary to the primary goal: Making money.

So yes, I would really want to work for a job that takes applicants strictly on a yes/no basis of their degree status - if the price was right. I'd do some pretty unthankful jobs for $250,000 a year. I'd be quite willing to work at "the wrong kind of company" for double my salary. It all just depends on the priority. For me, a job is about earning wages, and moving forward in my career (so that I can earn more wages).
Moocat wrote:I'd rather work for a company known to employ the best in the field rather than a bunch of people with pieces of paper anyone with a few hours a week on their hands can get.
I'd prefer quite a few things. I'd prefer to work at Yahoo, doing PHP and Smarty templates all day. I'd prefer to work 20 hours a week. Whether those are realistic are another question.

I also disagree with the comment about being able to get a degree if you simply have time. You *do* have to have intelligence to accomplish a degree.
Moocat wrote:However, I'm not asking if a degree is worth it strictly for job obtainment. I'm asking it more from the perspective, if there were a choice between hiring (lets say a contractor) a person with a 4 year degree (no experience) or 7-10 years active experience which would you rather have working/serving you? I realise I may have been somewhat misleading in the first statement, I'll go back and change that :)
The original statement was definitely confused, and this one is worse.

In the real world, its rarely a binary choice. You usually have dozens of choices of individuals, many with both experience and degrees. Thats why I said originally that having a degree is pretty much a must these days. Without one, you are simply always going to be at a disadvantage.

No matter how talented you are.