Re: Experience vs College Degree

[vhamberg@xxxxxxxxx]

Find what you're passionate about. Follow that drive.
Find out who you are - this'll change some over the
years, of course. Some of the best advice I've received
(a book called Who's Hiring Who?) was to look at what
gave me satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment, in
various aspects of my life. For me it involved solving
puzzles and performing, going on stage and getting a
response. I see programming sometimes as a stage
performance - weird, eh? I also love to teach -
another 'performance', in a way.

This was when I was changing careers 13 years ago. Have
a BA in math and music (huh?) and spent too much time
not getting a master's done. Was self(un)-employed,
copying music manually. But I'm not a good self-
promoter, so I needed to find a different way to make
regular income.

I really believe the breadth of my education has helped
me to my jobs better. Different things come to bear on
any problem I work on, and who knows what spark will get
you going to the next solution?

I'd say CompSci on its own has little to do with
business application development. If business turns your
crank, you want to know more than the narrow world of
code. Others have said it here better than I can.

Take some artsy-fartsy stuff. Music appreciation, if
you're not already doing music. Take lessons, maybe, or -
- I don't know. Even MIT has a music department. Or
learn woodcarving or auto repair or ??? Balance and well-
roundedness makes life better while getting through it.

Best wishes

Vern
> I know this is off the topic, but I need to ask the programming
> community. I am 21 years old and have been programming in RPG and E-RPG
> for about 1.5 years. I  love it! But I do not have a degree. My question
> is do you all feel that I could get turned down for a job over someone
> that has a bachelor's degree? This has never happened to me but I do not
> want it to ever happen. I am very seriously thinking about starting back
> to college at night to get my bachelors in CIS. This is a very hard
> decision to make because of the amount of money it will cost to go to
> college. That is why I'm am trying to see if job experience would
> triumph over a degree. Please give me some pros and cons on this
> situation.
>
> Justin Houchin
> Programmer and Web Developer
> ReliaTek, Inc
> justin@reliatek.com
>
>
> --