Life without a Degree
So since I've been keeping my eyes open for a job lately I've seen the difference (yet again) between having a Degree and not. Let me start off with the fact that I do not have a formal degree, or formal certifications (except the Zend Certified Engineer,) or any other real qualifications aside from experience and time with books teaching me the principles of something then allowing me to stumble in the dark to figure out the details; with that out of the way let me state that if you’re in a position to go to school or enter the job market GO TO SCHOOL there are various reasons behind me saying that.
At work we’re cut in half on having degrees, and I have to say I cannot really see a vast difference in the code produced by those with a degree and by those without, then again we use PHP which is extremely easy to become lazy in. In my recent job hunt I’ve noticed that degrees (even when advertised for) are optional once you have a few years of experience, the real difference comes in gaining the experience. I had to scrounge the barrel for contracts for years as a consultant to gain my knowledge and I see the large gaps in my knowledge (UML, overall Architecture, etc) that have been small pains to work around or deal with (yes I’ve had to learn as much as I work over the last few months and largely in my own time.)
I have several questions though; I have a friend who recently asked me for help with a C# homework project, my friend is a senior at a local University and should at the very least know the basics of logic and programming. His code was suboptimal; it had infinite loops, un-terminated conditional statements, and so many syntax errors that I completely scrapped what he had written in favor of writing the applet from the ground up. So the real question is how well does a formal university prepare a programmer for the real world of application development? How does that education stack up to someone with a computer, a handful of books, and a willingness to learn?
In my case, only time will tell, I’ve gotten a list of 10 books that are supposedly worthwhile to check out and that should substitute for a CS degree, as such I’m going to start off and probably expand on that list. Here it is 10 Boks that will Substitute a Computer Science Degree
C#, Python, maybe a sip of Java
I've been pondering other languages as of late, to branch my development skills. I've done C# in the past for ASP.NET 2.0 and I'm working on Python at the moment for purposes of working with it for future web applications. Now I'm forced to wonder what language I should focus on if I want to move away from Web Development. Any input would be greatly appreciated.