Is the Computer Science Degree a meme or is being self taught a meme?

Is the Computer Science Degree a meme or is being self taught a meme?

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You need a combination of both. You need to be interested enough in the field to spend your free time dabbling in it, coding new things, creating projects, teaching yourself new things.

But you also need a piece of paper that says you have a degree in it. If you ONLY self-teach, you don't have a degree = no good job opportunities. If you only go to class, do the required assignments and then spend the rest of the time jacking off, that doesn't do shit either.

Literally this, consider what they teach you in university as a guide for where to start when you are studying on your own (as in your free time).

What if you had done projects in your spare time that CS grads would do. Would businesses really still pick someone with the degree anyway?

These days, it's a waste. Only way to land a high end gig is if you "know someone" who's on the inside with clout. Sure low end, help desk/basic network tech related jobs still can be had but you don't need a CS degree for them. Certs are all you really need. Few Comptia and a Cisco cert or two and your golden.

This is universally appliable attitude to take to anything you wanna study

>Would businesses really still pick someone with the degree anyway
They wouldn't even consider your resume if you didn't have a degree

Can I self teach myself python and java to get a decent job?

I nominate cat #2 for best supporting actor in a Sup Forums webm.

I wish people would stop asking this, but if you really want the answer: Self teaching is a meme if you don't learn best that way, and a degree is a meme if you don't learn best in that environment.

Anyone can do it with the proper education (by education I don't mean a college professor).

It's just like anything else that requires vast knowledge. Some people can be great and self taught, some people can be great with a degree (which is still somewhat self taught since degrees barely scratch the surface of what programming is; a non-stop quest for more and more knowledge).

Having a mentor is the single best asset to have in my opinion. I lost track of what I was saying.

I only ask cause I was thinking about going for a degree in CS due to my interest in it; I already know python and C and was moving on to learning C++ but I know that they teach that anyway in the degree

For most middle-rung tech jobs, self-taught + a few certs is fine. I've never stepped foot onto a college campus, I've been comfortably working in IT for 18 years.

Most of the time it will help you to actually have the degree, as in actually getting an interview. But if you don't have the skills, the degree won't help you land a job.

If you truly have an interest I would advise getting the formal education so you don't spend 6 months between interviews with no offers.

Since you say you already know python and C It's obvious the interest is there so just go for it.

While in school continue to apply and if something comes your way you don't need to continue.

I'm a bit off track, still waking up. One of the most important things about breaking into the field in a conventional way is the internship. There is one requirement which is being enrolled. May help get your foot in the door.

>18 years
Why would anyone subject themselves to wagecuckery for so long?

Money isn't everything. If you like your job and it pays the bills+ little extra then what's wrong with that? Plus not everyone wants to be a manager/boss and deal with all the bullshit/stress that goes with it.

See I know the language and finished K&R, learn python the hard way and automate the boring stuff and I struggled quite a bit with a few excersises. Also whenever I see the roll to choose programming challenge shit being posted I got no idea how to do any of the hard stuff which is why I was thinking I need a degree for more support. I also currently have no real world experience in tech jobs which is a problem

Holy shit I forgot to English in that post

>tfw shit grades in math and CS (never above 3.0)
>tfw can't think of anything I would like to work towards
What are my options? I know I want some kind of computing job but I don't know if I'm really cut out for it.

IT

Like Geek Squad IT or networking IT?

If you do enroll, my best advice is make friends with your professors and other students. For me the only way I could process a lot of the stuff was constantly asking questions. Also write everyfuckingthing in a notebook, everything. Even simple shit. It will save you.

Help desk he means. They start at like 20 an hour in the US

>If you do enroll, my best advice is make friends with your professors and other students.
What if I am not exactly the best at making friends? I'm fine at talking to people but where'd I go to actually meet people in CS other than class where you ain't supposed to talk.

My current situation is kinda a catch 22 thing. See my current employer aka the "company" (not really but hey I had to give it some name) is outsourcing a lot of IT jobs to contractors who make like 18-20 an hr just for Help Desk types. Thing is that my job is not in IT and is headed towards the shit pile. But I can't leave cause my benefit plan is pretty good and I've been with them for 12+ yrs now, I can retire at 27 yrs service with full payout/benefit package. If I leave, I toss all that stuff out the window. All I wanna do is be a pc support/network tech, not some high end upper management suck up. Trust me, being low on the IT pole would pay me more than the shit I'm making now. I've got Certs, Comptia, Cisco, a fucking CS degree for what I wanna do would be a waste. Didn't used to be like this, all IT was in house, but shit changed on me and wham, here I am.

This thread should be renamed Sup Forums job finding problems.

Other than class maybe some kind of CS club if your school has one. Can't really offer more than that without knowing what's available in your area.

If there's a concept you truly can't grasp just asking your professor is always an option, it's part of their job to help.

When I was in school there were like 3-4 group projects each semester that made it very easy to ask questions and bounce ideas around.

Just remember most people feel the same as you about it and it. You'll be fine

hardcore mode: pay for degree to teach yourself

I guess it all depends on the circumstances.
I am self taught ( Linux OS admin etc. ) and I had a friend that learned himself python during a year when we ware conducting some service takeover and we weren't doing shit desu who now works as a programmer. From my experience, now in central Europe if you know your shit you don't have to have a paper. If you have hands on experience you are golden.

A lot of companies value that little piece of paper.

You should just transfer to CS in your current uni, my man. You have nothing to lose considering bio sucks anyway :^)

they're both fucking memes. you need good parents who know what they're doing or you need someone to get you in the door. school or self-teaching alone is a path to doing fuck all. action from social strength and organization is the key.

Everything is a meme. Every. Single. Thing.

In my experience, lecturers are always happy to answer questions if you go and talk to them after a class. Taking an interest in what they do academically is also really rewarding if they're the type to want to explain it. As for making friends on the course, try to volunteer for roles like class rep or something similar. It helps to be a face everyone recognises. Whatever you decide I wish you the best of luck ^_^

The degree will only get your foot in the door. I went to a uni with a supposedly-ok CS program and the courses were broad but not particularly in-depth, meaning you must learn all the skills you require for a real-world job on your own

What if we meme ourselves places

both. education is, as always, only valuable in being able to say you have it, but you can be the best programmer ever, and go fucking nowhere because you dont have it.

programming in general is a meme though, which is why im in networking

FPBP
I'm so sick of bookworm retards that ace everything but deep down they don't know shit because they lack passion

For the degree to be useful you must:
>go to class
>network with professors, classmates, visiting employers
>get beyond the material, don't just do the assignments required
>fight the urge to be a typical college student and squander your time on vidya, porn, booze, drugs, and sex

To be self-taught you must:
>get motivated enough to actually do something (9 out of 10 fail at this first step)
>take actual notes and pay attention to documentation as you go
>make note of your accomplishments on a blog, github, or landing page
>network through open source communities or meetups

In either case you must:
>have motivation
>take notes and pay attention to common issues you come across to avoid repeat mistakes
>network with some kind of peer group
>fight the urge to waste time

I'm self-taught, currently back-end and training into devops. I started out contributing to some really obscure open source projects in C (horrific language to start with btw) and didn't get very far. I only made real progress when I started attending meetups, figuring out what was going to get attention, and working towards that goal. In six months I went from contributing trivial shit in C (mostly rejected) to getting kudos for contribs in a Ruby project a local group was active on. The latter turned into a job offer in web and I snapped it up.

Most of the people I work with; however, have degrees and went the more traditional rout. They often have higher paying positions than I do, but they also have been at this longer so I think it may wash in the long-term. I was 34 years old doing construction and basic electrical work before I decided, due to injury, that I needed a desk job. They were mostly top quarter or so of their classes at early 20s. Bottom line: You gotta want it no matter which way you go.

Everything is a meme.
Do what you want.

>on job interview
>"so where did you study programming?"

>other guy: "i studied CS at college for 4 years. while in there i was challenged to show my skills in several programming languages, as well as many fields of mathematics, hardware, and architecture and organization of computers. i was also offered an internship in a software company where i had the chance to work as software engineer for 2 years"

>you: "i learned programming watching videos on youtube, and using those websites that trick you into thinking you are learning programming for free and then forces you to pay for it. while in there i had the chance to shitpost daily on Sup Forums and ask stupid questions on stackoverflow. i was also offered a job at mcdonalds but didn't got hired because someone was more qualified than me"

you choose OP.

B-but where do I start?

Is there like a step by step guide on this shit and a list of stuff I should start studying on my own?

Literally this.

yes. start studying what's the easiest way to convince people to give you 1$ to buy food.

The only reason i'd take that degree is the fact that some places with sysadmins job require that or CE, SE

I think someone self-taught can reach the same level of understanding, proficiency and capability that a graduate has most likely achieved. Maybe even better.
The big pitfall is: He has no way to easily prove that to potential employers.

The bottom line is Truly FPBP

>He has no way to easily prove that to potential employers.
>What is git?

i have a lot of friends who are self-taught, but i have degrees, and i worked at a uni for years. the jobs my friends and my students ended up in are quite different. you can definitely teach yourself front-end development or back-end systems, e.g. server administration. however, everyone i know who works in embedded systems or data analysis has degree.

also, i think people outside of industry have a distorted view of what kinds of jobs are available. there are a lot of jobs related to machine learning, distributed computing, high performance computing, and other research computing problems. i would be extremely impressed by anyone who got a job like that without a degree.

ultimately, the most important thing about the decision is whether you learn better by yourself or in school. but a secondary concern is whether you'd be happy with a well-paying conventional developer job. if you're ambitious i think the lack of a degree would be a difficulty

there are computing domains where there is no strong tradition of a "git portfolio" and the very notion seems somewhat absurd. like, one time i designed a synthetic data generator for HPC benchmarks; should i just toss that on git and try to hussle lawrence livermore into using it? it needs to go through some kind of peer review process, most employers are not qualified to suss out whether this is good work

Fuck IT learn web dev, shit is easy

harvard university cs50 on edx. it's free, it's the full program, you can even get a certificate
edx.org/course/introduction-computer-science-harvardx-cs50x

if it's too intimidating then i would start by following a python or C tutorial

companies only care about credentials but want good programmers who are interested in and love what they do.

Only problem is just because someone went through uni doesn't mean they are worth a shit or even give a shit about what they are doing.

My friend told me that companies just want a degree and a knowledge of programming, it doesn't matter what degree as long as its a science. how true is this? Can I do physics and become a programmer?

Or you could just be a woman or black or both and then just threaten to call the ACLU if your not hired immediately.

when pursing your degree you gotta remember your ABC's
Always
Be
Coding

This for the most part.

As a student, if you're seriously cereal about being a code monkey, you will need some experience. Ideally, you will want to get yourself an internship or two during the summers. If your college's career services isn't a complete bag of shit, they will help to some degree.

As a professional, you should keep yourself up to date, learn new things, or at least read technical material if possible. That doesn't mean load up on Adderall or whatever legal meth substitute you're offered and become Total Work. Keep your work/life balance, but keep your future in mind.

depends most people with a STEM degree can program to some level anyway. There are many kinds of programmers and you probably won't be competing with people with CS degrees if you go for something easy like webdev or just someones code monkey. But shit like being a software engineer or specialized knowledge is probably out of the question.

Damn this thread was real good

Doesn't even need to be science.
I have heard about Philosophy majors starting a career in IT.

functionalcs.github.io/curriculum/

most of my buddies who finished cs masters with me landed some software job even though some of them were really bad on the projects i worked with them
idk why really but it seems like a necessity to land job. you don't really need to go there but desu it's a pretty good time

>Doing chemical engineering
>Trying to learn C
Am I doomed to end up with a useless skill?

It sounds like two useless skills to me.

In terms of long term linux skills, should I run debian? Centos? Arch (good documentation)

Want to self teach myself more linux, and bash, since its not really tought on its own. But I dont want to run something that is a "waste of time niche distro" that wont teach me anything I might need to know in a development environment.

Go to petroleum engineering or electrical

O-Ok

If you are looking for focus on chemical engineering, then you should research what kind of programming related tools are available or developed for your field. It would suck for you to spend all that time learning a programming language to find out that all the relevant stuff is in Python, R, or Matlab.

seems like a dumb idea. better focus on one and use the rest of your time on something more important.

1. Its not a meme
2. Do stuff outside of school and put effort into learning programming

I wasn't expecting so many answers. Thanks.

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Bumping this

I run Debian Testing and beyond basic maintenance and usage (installing shit, updating/upgrading, adding disks, installing drivers, whatever I need to do for programming assignments, etc.), I really don't think I know how to REALLY use Linux.

>Shit grades
>But I'm pretty good at computers(can program a couple langs)
>What do?

but I like jacking off :(

Build up a portfolio of shit you've made and try to show that you're on the level of cs grads

>at least read technical material if possible.
Any examples of good technical material?

Depends on what your goal is. Normal corporate IT requires a degree, but if you want to work in silicon valley all you need is to demonstrate competence as they care much less about degrees

>But you also need a piece of paper that says you have a degree in it. If you ONLY self-teach, you don't have a degree = no good job opportunities.
Not really, just be active, if it's also your hobby and you have things to show for it, it will talk way more about your skills then any piece of paper will. Places that ignore that are shit to begin with. Also having contacts is helpful, got a relative who worked for IBM for decades? The recommendation from such a person is worth way more than a silly paper.

>no good job opportunities

Why work for someone else?

Surely any degree, not just CS, will help, right?

It will absolutely help but they'll still take someone with an actual CS degree over you.

I'm doing neuroscience and I'm real bad at biology, I've been getting d's, should I switch? I originally just wanted to keep programming as a hobby.

you cant get a job without the degree
problem is that its not just that, you need the degree AND experience in the field

ive seen some rare openings that they also allow applicants who have at least a decade in the field and no degree but that's fucking stupid

do python instead of c, better used in the chems industry if you want to get into research.

bumping this because I'm scared this thread'll die while I'm away

the people that insist on degree when it comes to hiring are mostly female HR that are trying to look for a husband.

True story

"job" "no good job opportunities"
nobody gets anywhere with a "job"
because you are owned

ChemE graduate here transferring to tech industry... ChemE is a huge meme. There are NO FUCKING JOBS. The jobs that do open up will go to that black girl in your class with a 2.6 GPA

Self taught here

Only making 100k

>feelsbadman
>Shitposting neets under 20 years of age are making more money on crypto than you in a large corp...

Do what you enjoy most