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@Frederick The key difference: in the US, studies have become so expensive that you spend years as broke student and then many years again as broke worker. Basically, the only use of a degree is turning into proof that you either have rich parents or get it as free gift because you're from some minority.
That's why US companies have reacted and recruit talent without degree, and also why the US use the "brain drain" pump from other countries that aren't as fucked up. -
@Frederick E.g. in Germany, studying isn't entirely for free, but we're talking about a semester fee of around 250 EUR which also covers public transport.
If you and your parents are poor, you can get state student loans of around 1k EUR per month for the regular duration of the studies plus some conditional buffer. If you finish the studies, you have to pay back only 50% of that, and the payback is capped at 10k EUR at most.
Obviously, the tax payer eats the rest of the cost, and I as tax payer am fine with that because the country cannot afford to lose talent just because they're poor. However, I'm not fine with wasting that money on BS degrees such as gender studies and shit.
In the US, it's like $20000 per semester, and that's just the uni, not cost of living. With a master of 10 semesters, that alone puts you with $200k in debt (cost of living not included), and private bankruptcy doesn't get rid of that. -
@Ceren I agree with your post in great detail and I really just can't stand people who look down on one's proud achievements especially if those achievements are easily verifiable and obviously huge.
That said, I just wanted to add that there is however an insane variation in the quality of IT degrees people might receive. Having worked in higher education (in EU), I have encountered an immense number of people with great looking CS or other IT degrees that not only knew very little about theoretical conepts but more crucially did not get *any* meaningful practical education. It shocked me how many CS and SDE courses have barely any actually practical project works, no group projects, not to mention for client projects and have interviewed dozens of "Masters" who can barely write a few lines of shitty code.
I generally dislike comparing names of universities but from my experience there is a very huge correlation between uni reputation and competency. -
@Fast-Nop Yeah major difference between US and Europe.
In Sweden we get paid to study. If I had to pay more than a year's salary to study I might second guess the value. -
@Alt-Tab yes education quality differs.Everyone can write code doing a bootcamp.You don’t have to rock the code or be experienced if it is your first job you need to be supported regardless and trained.It doesn’t matter if you have MS or phd.You learn on the job and that’s OK.You wouldn’t expect an electronics graduate create a car’s circuit board.As a company your duty is train the employee support and teach them.IT industry is very spoilt they want job ready push people not give much,training budget is pluralsight and they want an applause. Masters is broad you’d know about the project delivery,requirement gathering,dealing with stake holders,researching,having your own opinion,how a project is led managed,how to research write present professional reports,yes coding too.Careers progress some become leaders,devs,engineers some stay as coders.They drop a bomb in a meeting and you need to collect the shattered glass.You can up skill coding but you can’t up skill those
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@Ceren I understand your frustration with people who take a dump on your degree however you do the same to people who have none.
There is not one of two ways to get a career.
It should not matter what a paper says but what you can do and unfortunately I'm my personal experience a master's degree is no proof at all only two of the 5 people I led with a master's degree where competent.
I'm sure they all worked very hard for the degree.
One was super arrogant and kept throwing theory at everything even though it was not relevant.
Another could remember stuff really well but hardly any skills and terribly slow. Nice dude but not suited for a business environment. The third one didn't know anything useful and seemed not to be willing to do anything to change that. So either he just learns shit to get through the subject and forget about it it he cheated. -
@hjk101 this is a generalisation no one is taking a dump on my degree at all. This is a general rant. I hear these from loads of speeches and it started to annoy me.
Nothing personal to anyone I respect everyone who is making “an effort” “either they’re good or bad”, having a degree or not.
I just don’t think writing good code would make someone professional in a work environment. I don’t see this as the main and the most important criteria even though this is software development industry.
I don’t appreciate any “you”, “me” conversations. I shouldn’t feel the need to explain and rephrase or defend myself to targeting personal statements. -
College keeps at steady rate of being 30-40 years behind the industry. Since it pays way lower wages than private sector, naturaly academia attracts the sore bottom of specialists, it's dominated by morons who couldn't do the job in real world, detached theoreticians and old wrecks waiting for retirement. It's a waste of time and everything that people learn there has to be purge from their minds as they start their first real job because it's simply wrong and useless. And sorry but you have to be a real dummies to claim that college degree is hard, all I did during mine was drink beer, play video games and memorize answers to tests that did not change in 20 years.
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@PAKA Most of what I learnt at uni was at least a 100 years old, and that's exactly why I chose my specialisation: because that will never be outdated. Fourier, Laplace, Maxwell will always be valid and useful.
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This is a great discussion. I simply could have been plucked from my USA high school, trained by a company in an IT role, and probably would have wound up right where I am today. However, I would not be the same person without my university degree, nor would I have the connections I have today. A university degree isn’t necessarily an investment in your “job”, it’s more of an investment in you. There are things you learn that follow you through life like communication, friendship building, critical thinking about not just technical, but social issues. You don’t need a degree for these things of course, but I feel the university experience helps strengthen these skills.
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@PAKA Educations can vary immensely. even within the same college and program the skill level of classes can vary between different years. Talked to people who took the same comp sci as me and a few years later they added a some nightmare classes, and they pushed all the difficult classes to year 1 which made a ton of people quit early compared to my day when people got similar classes later on and got a chance to warm up during year 1.
I started to get super pissed off to people saying you don’t need a college, masters degree to get an IT job. Instead go and gain practical knowledge, showing your practical certificates projects is much better than a having a degree that doesn’t prove if you can do the job or not.
Is a degree absolutely necessary to get a job? No, I agree on that. You can tear yourself apart to be known make projects loads of people contribute in GitHub spend maybe years on practicing and creating stuff for your portfolio..
But excuse me what do you think people do in college studying degrees? Are we getting it from the shop in the corner on a Saturday?
Respect people’s achievements and titles. Especially Masters degrees push you hard, make you sweat apart from loads of courses you work at least a year on a practical project, dissertation, thesis and only pass if it is your own opinion and findings. It is not like a multiple choice exam certificate or you study watch videos for few months and create a web page.
Don’t throw shit on people’s efforts and accomplishments without knowing how it is achieved just because you don’t have it.
Yes it is not necessary. Does it make you learn? Yes! Is it practical? Yes! Does it help you get a job? Hell yes! Why most companies look for degrees? Do you think they might know what it takes to get it and the skills and knowledge you gain?
Don’t come and say in IT degrees not worth it without even knowing how to draw UML. Without knowing IT management you go and be a leader later on, no clue on how to manage projects, people and soft skills sweeping the floor.
It doesn’t matter if you are a YouTube celebrity or a president. What does the title say? “Master” now go, respect and digest it! Don’t be a sour loser.
Ooh I am fierce today and not done yet
rant