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Do you need a degree on top of good experience?

Sebastian Werema · 2018-10-22T00:54:46

I'm 20 yrs old and I already have a full time job as a technology programmer in AAA company, I'm completely self taught and I love what I'm doing, the problem is that I just don't like college, I already tried to go to university and because I've put too much pressure on myself during high school, when I started living by myself for the first time I started partying too much, now I spend at least 8 hrs a day (usualy more) at work and when I come back I study a lot, recently I started part time college and even tho I have classes only every 2nd weekend I feel like having just 4 free days a month is not enough and my youth is just disappearing, I'm ambitious but I've never felt like a degree is rly worth it and I don't want to wake up in few years feeling like I chased career too much and I didn't have any fun time, do you think I should force myself anyway and get a degree from some private, paid university that didn't teach me anything useful or something that I wouldn't teach myself on my own, or having years of experience and huge shipped titles in my cv will be enough if I'll ever want to change job for whatever reason(current company is very very good, growing rapidly and I see myself staying there for a lot of years)

Games Career Development Business Education

Started by Werem October 18, 2018 08:28 PM

104 comments, last by Hodgman 5 years, 8 months ago

Werem

Author

October 20, 2018 02:58 PM

12 minutes ago, Fulcrum.013 said:

To understend a task field people need a fundamental basis in math that only university able to give. Anything else is wodoo-programming and not a development expiriene at all.

Programming is a kind of engenireeng, and say more is a topmost mathematically loaded kind of engenireeng. It is nonsence to try to design something without engineer qualifcation that require a 5-years university degree. Nobody will fly on Boeing planes, for example, in case its wings will be designed by unqualidied designers. But same wiht code - it same parts of planes and anything else.

Especially from videos like "learn C++ in 1 hour". Idiots that make and look its videos ever not undertend that knowledge of language and development skills is ortogonal.

Yeah, it's so obvious that without a degree your code is complete garbage and is bound to be full of bugs, just look at Jobs, Gates or Zuckerberg, their products are so trash right?

Rutin

1,701

October 20, 2018 02:59 PM

4 minutes ago, Fulcrum.013 said:

It require to have a basis to upgrade it.

How is a class room experience required to learn a new programming language? I had a big project I needed to do last year that required me to learn a new scripting language to complete it... It was as simple as me opening up the reference documents and going through it all. I completed the project, got paid, and my client was happy... Never spent a dime going to school.

Again, your opinions here don't hold true in the real world.

Programmer and 3D Artist

Fulcrum.013

-61

October 20, 2018 03:08 PM

21 minutes ago, Rutin said:

Not to mention the countless resources published in audio, video, and even online now.

It no required videos at all. Really software development utilize very specific branches of math, that for example branch of High Mathematic of my university have no lecturers that has been able to make lecturers for programmers, all lectures by math and software development methodologies has been done by lecturers of Applicative Math and CS branch that has been especially created to train programmers . Also education programm have to be properly built to avoid situations when absencr of knowledge of one branch restrict to learn another branch. And of cource any studied math and methodologies have to be immediately used to make a trainig projects. Really localy univesity together with diploma and qualification of enineer gives a 5 years of goverment confirmed expirience. And it can not be a goverment confirmed expirience as engineer without a engineer qualification that can be acheived together with Specialist degree diploma only.

16 minutes ago, Rutin said:

How is a class room experience required to learn a new programming language?

Development skils is ortogonal to knowledge of language.

17 minutes ago, Werem said:

their products are so trash right

Gates dont produce his product himself. But have enought brains to hire educated programmers to produce a key parts of Microsoft products. Jobs or Zuckerberg produce a complete garbage.

#define if(a) if((a) && rand()%100)

Fulcrum.013

-61

October 20, 2018 03:23 PM

27 minutes ago, Rutin said:

There are many talented people out there that never stepped into a College or University and they're doing just fine, myself included.

Really it 2 kind of peoples that studing in university. First of them become to programming becouse it one of top-paid industry nowadays, and in most cases nothing can help it people to become a good developer. Other become to programming just becouse thay love it. And really its kind of people able to get basics themeself spending tens of years of trys and mistakes for it. But university able to help them to become a god-level developers in just a 5 years.

#define if(a) if((a) && rand()%100)

Fulcrum.013

-61

October 20, 2018 03:42 PM

43 minutes ago, Rutin said:

How is a class room experience required to learn a new programming language? I

It much easy to learn new programming language in case you exactly know how to design a new programming language from scratch.

#define if(a) if((a) && rand()%100)

Fulcrum.013

-61

October 20, 2018 03:59 PM

1 hour ago, Rutin said:

I had a big project I needed to do last year that required me to learn a new scripting language to complete it...

Long years ago when it was no free scripting languages engines around, one of my projects required a c-like procedural scripting language. I has done parser to trees it in couple days together with VM for evaluation of its trees. Of cource it was a non-optimal fast-made solutions (such as recursive parser of equations and so on), but it has been enought for its kind of project, and from start has a flexible architecture that allow to replace any big components like parser, symantic analizer and so on, to upgraded optimized solution in case of needs without refactoring other parts.

#define if(a) if((a) && rand()%100)

Oberon_Command

6,371

October 20, 2018 04:01 PM

1 hour ago, Fulcrum.013 said:

But university able to help them to become a god-level developers in just a 5 years.

Help them, maybe, but the notion that they will be god-level developers after a university degree is completely false. Universities are not vocational schools. A university degree will at best help you learn theory that you wouldn't have learned otherwise. But when it comes to stuff beyond that, like actual industry design techniques and how to work in large teams, universities tend to be multiple years behind the latest things in industry or more. I would estimate that aside from cutting edge graphics work (which is based on academia, anyway), someone with a bachelor's degree will be at least 5 years behind the rest of the industry when they graduate. Getting a masters or a PhD doesn't help - all that does is immerse one in an academic environment where publishing papers (and writing small one-off programs therefor) is more important than actually making real products. The number of hours you are required to spend writing code at university is typically not even enough to be a confident programmer; every genuinely good programmer I've encountered personally wrote code on the side, in addition to their own coursework. The kids who got straight As but didn't code on their own time either went on to grad school to become researchers, aren't working in the software industry, or are unemployed. They could sure prove that an algorithm was O(n*log(n)), though.

A new graduate from university who loves programming and codes in their own time has enough knowledge to be minimally useful to a software company, but university is just the beginning of a programmer's education. The rest comes through work experience and mentorship with actual, working programmers. Programming may be an application of higher level math, but software developement is more than programming.

Fulcrum.013

-61

October 20, 2018 04:08 PM

7 minutes ago, Oberon_Command said:

someone with a bachelor's degree

Locally Bachelours diploma historically caled "Diploma of stupid engineer".

7 minutes ago, Oberon_Command said:

with actual work experience (rather than a cocky new grad) claiming this

It can not be a actual work without a required knowledges. Really i has a projects in production priort im entered to University. Both of its project take long month to implement. After 2-nd university year i has enought knowledge to make same functionality in couple days.

#define if(a) if((a) && rand()%100)

Oberon_Command

6,371

October 20, 2018 04:16 PM

1 hour ago, Fulcrum.013 said:

1 hour ago, Oberon_Command said:

Locally Bachelours diploma historically caled "Diploma of stupid engineer".

Again, getting a masters does not actually help - and it doesn't. The topics covered in masters degrees are highly theoretical and often of only very particular utility due to the highly specialized nature of an individual academic's research. In some cases, grad students even learn outright falsehoods or misunderstandings from their professors, who are no less out of touch with industry than they were during the grad student's undergrad years. This is common when it comes to things like how to architect software, how to work in groups, even really basic stuff like how different version control systems work...

Perhaps it's different with other kinds of software companies - I'm willing to believe that someone with a masters degree might be more useful to a data science company, for instance - and perhaps this is an East vs West thing, but in North America at least, getting a masters degree is largely irrelevant to the skills a game developer needs. My impression is that at best you learn a few extra things, contribute a paper or two to the literature, and waste a couple of years that you could have spent actually getting work experience in your field making money doing something that's probably going to be completely irrelevant to what you actually do with your degree. In the vast majority of cases, a masters degree is kind of irrelevant to actual software development and software companies will treat a new masters grad as if they were exactly as junior as a new bachelors grad.

Fulcrum.013

-61

October 20, 2018 04:17 PM

10 minutes ago, Oberon_Command said:

and writing small one-off programs therefor

You really dont understend what is semester project in university.(Or in North America it mean something other). For example one of semester works in my first semester has involve development of a desktop window framework from scratch as subtask that has been required to visualise anything else. And each of 9 semesters we has a 2 semester works for different fields.

#define if(a) if((a) && rand()%100)

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