Do You Really Need a College Degree to Get a Programming Job?

A friend of mine once described getting a college degree as "getting your union card". A college degree doesn't indicate knowledge or experience per se, but what it does imply is that person can make a long-term commitment and complete it. A college degree is a significant investment in money, time, and effort. Lots of people don't attempt it or quit along the way, so someone that completes one demonstrates that they can complete long-term tasks.

Absolutely not. The closest thing I have to a degree is a few credits towards my Community College of the Air Force degree (an Associate's).<p>Being involved in the open source community and being a wealth of knowledge surrounding your field is more than enough.<p>My interview went smooth as possible as I simply talked about my past and present projects, throwing in terms like "SVN," "jQuery," and "semantics." I'm not saying sprinkle your keywords around but why wait for the interviewer to ask the question - tell him right off the bat and just let him check that item off.<p>For me: 6 years USAF experience in System Administration, wonderful letters of recommendation from my Commander and Vice Commander (a 3-star and a 1-star), leadership positions within open source communities in my field, and an apparent knowledge of not only my specialty (PHP) but the surrounding technologies (web servers, version control, database management, Python, Ruby, etc.) landed me a Senior Developer position with the largest contractor in US Defense.<p>My family and I live a much happier life, I am less stressed, don't have to worry about deployments and our take-home income is three times what it was two months ago.

Do you <i>need</i> one? Obviously not. Whether or not you should have one is a different question.<p>The best answer I've seen regards professionalism. We require degrees from doctors and CPAs and passing the bar for lawyers not because it's a guarantee of quality, but because it indicates that the person has a certain <i>minimal</i> level of understanding of the field's Body of Knowledge. Having that knowledge means that they are less likely to totally screw up and they have a rational basis for finding a solution to whatever ails you. Requiring a degree in CS, SE, or EE (I don't see the point of requiring a degree if it's not directly related to the field) does exactly this.<p>Of course, the argument then becomes should we be regarded as professionals or "just" programmers &#38; hackers...<p>Disclosure: I have a BS in EE and an MS in SE and once seriously considered becoming a registered Professional Engineer (PE). I'm also a card-carrying hacker and I disagree with the article.

It works the other way around, as well.<p>With a college degree in Computer Science, I had a world of trouble finding a job that <i>wasn't</i> programming. I'd apply for different jobs and inevitably end up on the 'CS major' pile on some recruiter's desk. Grr.

I don't have a degree. Hasn't been a problem for getting work.<p>Instead of spending 4 years on a degree, spend 1 year learning just as much or more on your own, and then spend 3 months creating a couple good demos, an interesting resume, researching some companies you want to work at, and writing some good cover letters when applying.

In fairness it depends on where you want to go. If you want to work for a big company like IBM, Microsoft, etc... you probably need a degree (though sometimes these companies skirt their own rules by hiring contractors)<p>But as far as other IT companies I don't think it's necessary.<p>Honestly I have a degree and if I were looking for a job right now I'd use a degree requirement to determine where not to apply. Because that, to me, says that the company is run by "managers" who don't understand the first thing about programming.<p>John Carmack's a dropout for God's sakes. That alone disproves just about every "devil's advocate" argument given in the article

Nope, but having a degree makes it easier.<p>If easier (for varying values of easier) is worth your time and money is up to you.

I have a degree, just not one in computer science. I'm self-taught, and although I've been doing this for a long time, I still occasionally freak myself out when I start to think about what I might have missed.

Development experience on a relevant platform will pretty much always trump a degree in my hiring experience<p>That being said, I don't have a CS degree but have made my bones for the last 10-15 years in some sort of developer role. The thing I can justify that a bit because when I started building websites they we're usually some sort of static site, Java was in its infancy and database driven websites were a few years off. A large bulk of what modern day programming (particularly on the web) consists of was still being developed and I could learn these skills as they rose to prominence. I could pace the growth of the technology, grow with it without too much trouble. There's a whole generation of developers in their mid to late 30's who are in this boat. I'd hire a bunch of these guys in heartbeat and I'll pay them pretty well.<p>Now in my current role I'm hiring junior developers fairly regularly. In this role where I'm looking for guys who are younger, smart and capable but who I don't want to pay a ton of money for. If I'm looking for a guy in their early 20s for a junior role I look for 2 things, a CS (or sometimes EE or CE) degree AND experience building something on their own. I've gotten a few guys through who started coding on their own in late high school but a lot of times they don't make the cut. In this case you don't need to have a CS degree, but just to leap the recruiters hurdles you better have one.

First few jobs it can certainly help, but really once you have a couple years of experience you don't need it. I've been doing fine for the last 10 years. So latch onto a small shop and get good ;)

It certainly helps to get your foot in the door.

Overall, I would say no. I think a developer who spends more time actually developing is better off than one who only studies about the theories of Computer Science and doesn't really ever apply the knowledge they acquired.<p>That's not to say Computer Science is useless, but your time in college is better spent doing more than the minimum requirements for school (doing homework and passing tests). Otherwise, you'll have a harder time trying to get "work experience" with your first job after graduation when you could have given yourself plenty of experience with your own projects.

You don't <i>have</i> to have a college degree but unless you have experience you will face a significantly higher barrier to entry in getting a job without one.<p>The question will always, be, if you are really such a kick-ass coder and love programming so much, why didn't you go and study what you love at college? If the answer is that you couldn't be bothered or you already know everything there is to know so it would be a waste of time etc. then it indicates something possibly highly problematic about your personality, like an arrogant or lazy attitude.

A degree will help you get your foot in the door if you're looking for your <i>first</i> programming job. Once you've got some real world experience, that's going to be much more valuable than what you might have studied in school.<p>A lot of places (especially smaller companies, in my experience) are more interested in seeing examples of your work, even if it's a web page you designed or an open source app you've contributed to in your spare time.

No.<p>Some of the best developers I know either A) Never went to college for B) Went to college and majored in English or Classics and taught themselves to code.

There is one mantra about college / university that is pretty true: "learning to learn things fast"<p>but that does not exclude people without a degree, and does not include everyone that vent to college

nope. i'd hire someone without a degree if i had the need to hire for my company. hiring should be about the person. a degree is a very good measuring stick, but there are other ways to measure out there.<p>plus, as someone who has a degree, i know comparatively little about real-world development you learn simply from your classes.

No, you don't.

No but I guarantee you that the phds get to stay during a recession then the non-phds who are expendable.

To get a job? Yes, especially if you're entry level. To start your own software company, work on open-source, freelance, etc. probably not.