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

PhD in Atomic Physics.<p>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.<p>I still had to type the thesis myself.

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.)<p>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.<p>I love this site btw.

I dropped out of business school.<p>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.<p>I'm not a programmer, but I'm learning. It's so hard to get good programmers that I thought I would learn how.

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.

PhD in pure mathematics, University of Nottingham, UK.<p>Self-taught as a programmer, but it's a similar mindset.

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.

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.

Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Cornell<p>(also B.S., Physics, Case Western Reserve)<p>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.<p>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, <i>Learning Emacs</i>, Fogel's CVS book (hey, that's all they had in the elder days... :), <i>Internetworking with TCP/IP</i>, <i>SQL for Smarties</i>, Tufte, etc.

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).

MBA, BA, Economics BA, French Université de Montpellier, France International Interpreter's School Mons, Belgium<p>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.<p>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.

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).

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

BCS (yes it exists...) University of Waterloo<p>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

High school kids don't have degrees yet ;)

B.S., M.Eng. C.S. Texas A&#38;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.<p>Daggum Californicators.

BA Philosophy &#38; Biology - UNC Chapel Hill MA Philosophy - University of Maryland, College Park

BA in communications from the University of Arizona - minor in CS.<p>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.<p>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.)

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).<p>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.

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.

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.<p>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<p>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<p>So to the initial question: No major degree, but I can code!

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.

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).<p>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.<p>Getting my first job was a combination of luck and persistence.

BA in English and Creative Writing, Oberlin College<p>Most of a second bachelor's in psychology, University of Pennsylvania<p>A year-and-a-half in a Clinical Psychology PhD program, University of Texas, Austin<p>MS Information Systems, and MS Library Science, Drexel University, Philadelphia<p>Web developer at a not-for-profit medical publishing company, doing Rails and pretty much anything else related to the web.

Ph.D. Computer Science UCLA 1997

no degree, quit when I was told I couldn't take the fun (math, chem, etc) classes and had to take poly sci<p>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)<p>PS: You might want to warn someone if they have cookies turned off... the error message is counterintuitive.

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

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

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)

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.

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<p>Still learning, of course...

BA Software Engineering, University of Waterloo.<p>Working as a C++ developer at a big online retailer.

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.

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.<p>I stretch but know my limits.

BS Comp Sci, USC - 1 more year to go

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

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...<p>My partners are:<p>BA PPE &#38; CS, Claremont McKenna BA Economics &#38; CS, Claremont McKenna

BS in Computer Science &#38; Engineering from The Ohio State University. - Programming for the man.<p>the '&#38; Engineering' just means I took more math and physics classes and some intro to (insert Engineering Discipline) classes.

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 &#60;(+ grin groan)&#62;.

BS Electrical Engineering &#38; BA Philosophy, 2004, Univ. of Texas at Austin

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.

MPhys in Computational Physics from University of York, UK.<p>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)

Computer Science major, minors in Physics and Mathematics at Radford university, in VA.<p>A party school, so my gpa wasn't perfect, but I had a good time. I had a full academic scholarship though.

I dropped out of Informatics (Universidad de La Plata), in 3rd year. I'm now starting studies on Maths (Universidad de Buenos Aires).<p>I've been programming for about 12, or 13 years now, I think.

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.

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).

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).

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.

Been developing software for more than 10 years.<p>- Stanford U, Masters in Engineering - UC-Berkeley, Engineering - UC-Berkeley, Computer Science - UC-Berkeley, Business Admin.

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.

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.

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.

AS Computer Science - Penn State York<p>7 years out of college. Web programmer for a startup. Still learning the ropes, hoping to have my own startup someday.

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.

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).

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

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

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

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

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...

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

AA Liberal Arts!<p>Applied for it after I had started programming professionally. (Already had the credits, so why not? ;-)

B.S. in Computer Science<p>Guess you could call me a programmer as I wear many hats, but web developer is my prime role...

BS CS Washington State<p>Will finish this year: MS CS University of Washington<p>programming for other people for 5 years

BS Applied Math<p>BS Comp Science (both at Appstate)<p>Former Java programmer; current language is Ruby, professionally.

Computational Science (2nd Division) - St Andrews University, Scotland.<p>Writing software that bills gas pipelines.

B.Sc. Computer Science; Colorado @ Boulder

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

BA in Management Information System, MBA sorbonne/dauphine (mbaip.com)<p>Programmer ... hmmm ... someday I will!

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

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

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

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

Degree in Computer Engineering - Marquette University php/c#/vb.net<p>learning as3/ruby/linux shell

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

MIT^3<p>Depending on who you ask, I was either trained as a rocket scientist or a propellor head.

Info &#38; Comp Sci Degree from UC Irvine. Just transitioned to being a programmer in our group.

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

B.S. Comp. Sci. from the University of Rhode Island<p>Java programmer for a Defense Contractor.

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

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

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

BS, CompSci, University of Memphis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BS in CS, BS in Electrical &#38; Computer Engineering -- from Carnegie Mellon

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

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

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

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."

BSc (Computer Science) from Curtin University, Western Australia

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

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

Masters in Mathematics UC Berkeley Programming since 1969.

Purdue University - BS in Computer Programming Technology

BSc Computer Science from University of Cape Town 1997

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

Computer Engineer degree from the University of Ottawa

BS, Computer Science, Central Washington University.

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

B.Sc. Software Engineering - Universtity of Calgary

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

BS Computer Systems Engineering, Boston University

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

BS, Computer Engineeering, University of Florida

BSc Computing Science. Simon Fraser University.

BS Math, BA Philosophy, EMT-B certification.

No degree, some CS classes, lots of books.

BS Comp Sci - University of Kansas - 2005

BA English from The University of Dayton.

BBA in CIS from Georgia State University

CS from RPI... programming for The Man.

BS Finance, University of Dayton, 2006

B.S. Applied Mathematics, UC Berkeley.

Physics degree, University of Lisbon.

Dropped out of CS school, twice.

BA Mathematics, Rice University.

BS Comp Sci, UC Santa Barbara

B.S. Computer Science, FSU

CS BA NYU, Robotics MS CMU

BA in CS, Amherst College.

Masters, EE, Penn State

S.B. Math MIT

BA Comp Sci &#38; Economics, UC-Berkeley

dropped out and coded in.