Is A Computer Science Degree Worth It?

I see: you are mistaking job adverts for job specs. Now I understand your point. These job ads are necessarily short, but job specs will add in the detail such as "Degree needed". I too could send you countless examples of where the ad is far less than the spec. Degrees are assumed in ads.

It is naive in the extreme to believe that Comp Sci is not a requirement in the JDs.

Reply 21

winterscoming

19

Original post by DVDER

I see: you are mistaking job adverts for job specs. Now I understand your point. These job ads are necessarily short, but job specs will add in the detail such as "Degree needed". I too could send you countless examples of where the ad is far less than the spec. Degrees are assumed in ads.

It is naive in the extreme to believe that Comp Sci is not a requirement in the JDs.

I don't know whether you've been misinformed somehow or if you're just assuming based on other STEM jobs/industries, but i'm afraid you're mistaken and seem not to really appreciate what employers' priorities are when hiring technical IT people. What you've said may be the case in other STEM careers, but it's not true for most technical IT roles except those areas which involve more academic or mathematical skills like Data Science, or research into areas like AI/Machine Learning.

Degrees are not assumed at all, and even where a degree is stated, employers frequently hire people without a degree if they have the right skills and experience. (Which is why the adverts often explicitly state "Degree or equivalent experience" for junior and mid-level jobs, and then usually don't even bother mentioning it for senior/lead jobs)

The reality across the vast majority of technical IT careers is that employers simply couldn't care in the slightest whether candidates have a university education because their priority is to hire someone who can do the job. In reality everything that someone may learn at university can be learned through other means, particularly now with widespread availability of MOOCs. It's quite common for people to enter these professions having been self-taught from personal projects, books, online courses, etc. Employers gain no inherent value from hiring someone with a degree. Many are used to interviewing and hiring people from all kinds of different backgrounds, including those who are self-taught, or learned those skills through other means.

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 22

DVDER

1

Original post by winterscoming

I don't know whether you've been misinformed somehow or if you're just assuming based on other STEM jobs/industries, but i'm afraid you're mistaken and seem not to really appreciate what employers' priorities are when hiring technical IT people. What you've said may be the case in other STEM careers, but it's not true for most technical IT roles except those areas which involve more academic or mathematical skills like Data Science, or research into areas like AI/Machine Learning.

Degrees are not assumed at all, and even where a degree is stated, employers frequently hire people without a degree if they have the right skills and experience. (Which is why the adverts often explicitly state "Degree or equivalent experience" for junior and mid-level jobs, and then usually don't even bother mentioning it for senior/lead jobs)

The reality across the vast majority of technical IT careers is that employers simply couldn't care in the slightest whether candidates have a university education because their priority is to hire someone who can do the job. In reality everything that someone may learn at university can be learned through other means, particularly now with widespread availability of MOOCs. It's quite common for people to enter these professions having been self-taught from personal projects, books, online courses, etc. Employers gain no inherent value from hiring someone with a degree. Many are used to interviewing and hiring people from all kinds of different backgrounds, including those who are self-taught, or learned those skills through other means.

Being an employer and hiring manager for computer specialists, I would at least argue that my experience over 20 years holds at least some value, if only through observation: almost all of the developers I have worked with either have Comp Sci or degrees where they would have developed advanced skills in this area (e.g. Physics or Maths). I assume you have not seen a lot of job specs but I have. Rather than look at job ads, you might find a trawl of LinkedIn more informative as you can better correlate people with developer jobs and their actual qualifications. Sure you'll find a few exceptions, but not many.

One thing we can agree on, though, is that a degree is no proof of what one can do. That's why experience is always key.

Reply 23

HumbleBee_x

20

hey!
I'm in a similar situation as you, idk whether to go into IT? :redface:

I've come accross degrees with strands of computer science, but i'm mainly looking at Cyber security.

Reply 24

winterscoming

19

Original post by DVDER

Being an employer and hiring manager for computer specialists, I would at least argue that my experience over 20 years holds at least some value, if only through observation: almost all of the developers I have worked with either have Comp Sci or degrees where they would have developed advanced skills in this area (e.g. Physics or Maths). I assume you have not seen a lot of job specs but I have. Rather than look at job ads, you might find a trawl of LinkedIn more informative as you can better correlate people with developer jobs and their actual qualifications. Sure you'll find a few exceptions, but not many.

One thing we can agree on, though, is that a degree is no proof of what one can do. That's why experience is always key.

Your experience seems not to reflect the reality much of the wider industry in that case. It may depend on geography too. I notice that companies in Cambridge seem more likely to ask for a degree (probably insist on it being a RG university too, or even ask for a Masters. A lot more research going on in places like that, more academics and top graduates, etc). Yet most companies around Leeds and Manchester tend to have have far looser requirements with there being so many more jobs in those cities. Also companies near to ex-polytechnic universities probably aren't going to be hiring many academics either.

At most organisations out there (particularly small-medium companies where the majority of jobs are) you will find plenty of people, particular at senior levels, who have never studied computer science at university, particularly when it comes to older people who have re-trained into IT from other professions and other backgrounds. . But going back to the original post, there are now the Degree-Apprenticeship schemes which I linked to previously which are becoming a lot more widespread and involve employers hiring people straight out of A-Levels/BTEC into junior/entry jobs to learn everything on-the-job with far less of the learning/training happening in lessons and far less emphasis on academic study.

You might find it interesting to see the statistics on StackOverflow around professional developers' education - https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#education Nearly 20% with no degree at all, and of those with a degree, only 63% hold a computer science degree.

Most jobs on StackOverflow also tend not to ask for a degree either: https://stackoverflow.com/jobs
(almost 6000 jobs, fewer than 1000 asking for a degree)

Also, the CWjobs search I posted to is pretty typical; and obviously most of those are written by recruiters on behalf of their clients too. if you've ever worked with a recruitment agency to seek people to fill a senior job then you'll surely have noticed how many CVs those agencies receive from people with significant experience and no computer science degree -- those people managed to get all that experience without a degree, so why would any recruiter or employer turn them down on that basis?

Of course, there are some companies out there (usually very large multinational companies, whose products are unrelated to technology, and HR policy set at a global level, maybe not much technical leadership, etc) who insist on a degree as a pure matter of HR policy, but that's not really the typical case.

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 25

winterscoming

19

Original post by HumbleBee_x

hey!
I'm in a similar situation as you, idk whether to go into IT? :redface:

I've come accross degrees with strands of computer science, but i'm mainly looking at Cyber security.

In my opinion, the best reasons for getting into any IT career is if it's something that interests and motivates you, and you feel like you'd enjoy the challenge of needing to learn new technical skills, and use analytical and problem solving skills as part of your daily job :smile:

Have you got any kind of programming or Computer Science background? If not it could be worth trying some free Codecademy lessons to get a bit of a taster for programming - that's going to be a pretty core part of most IT jobs.

Have a read through this job profile (obviously it's a bit generic, but it should give you some idea): https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/cyber-security-analyst

There's some good information and links to other sites here too - https://www.cybersecuritychallenge.org.uk/resources/careers/development-paths

Here's a list of Cyber Security degrees which have been (or will be) certified by NCSC (National Cybersecurity Centre) - https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/information/ncsc-certified-degrees

Aside from those, you can find a lot of other Cybersecurity-specific degrees out there: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bsc+cyber+security
A lot of those universities also have partnerships with Cisco, so that's something worth looking out for as a way to get a degree and earn some industry-recognised certification at the same time. (many of them include an industrial 'sandwich' placement year too, which is a really good way to help your employability)
- If you decide to look into that any further, it's worth going to some university open days to get a chance to talk to faculty staff, find out more about the courses, facilities, etc.

There's also Cybersecurity degree-apprenticeships - you'll need to search around for these and apply directly to the companies offering the apprenticeships:
https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/apprenticeship-standards/cyber-security-technical-professional-integrated-degree/

Reply 26

RogerOxon

21

Original post by TeacupAndTragedy

I’m currently holding a place for Computer Science at the Uni of Nottingham. However, the student debt is really starting to worry me.

CS is a commercial degree. Don't worry about the student loans - they're a fairly mild version of debt, as you don't pay it back unless you can (more or less) afford to, and it disappears eventually. This creates the problem that (commercially) worthless degrees are paid for by the tax payer, i.e. the wrong ones.

I'm usually very conservative with money, but I really wouldn't worry about UK student loans. They're really just a graduate tax, IMO.

Original post by TeacupAndTragedy

I thought I was okay with just trying uni for a year and seeing if I liked it, but I suffered a really bad anxiety attack last night so now I’m not so sure.

If anyone could make any comment or insight I would be really grateful.

Any degree is worthwhile for you, if you enjoy it. A degree that helps you get a better job, that you enjoy more, is a double win.

A good CS degree can be very lucrative. I'm a Software Engineer, and have worked in Silicon Valley for over 10 years now (moved from the UK).

Is A Computer Science Degree Worth It?

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you