Hello dev.to() members. I was wondering wether you consider getting a CS degree as a requirement for those looking for a job in fields like web/mobile development ...
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Hello dev.to() members. I was wondering wether you consider getting a CS degree as a requirement for those looking for a job in fields like web/mobile development ...
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
Latest comments (51)
I don't think it's a requirement, your work(git repos, portfolio etc..) should speak for itself.
I was graduated from the associate degree. Today my second year in this job after graduation.
Your question has an answer depends on your country. I live in Turkey. So, my country has 128 universities. Maybe, the world knows only third.
Different things, graduation from USA and Tunisia.
If I were graduate from MIT or similar universities I can say I learned too many things.
If you are thinking about front-end developer or backend developer, I can say you don't need a diploma.
My country people say this sentence: "Too many information does not harmful".
You should think CS degree. Absolutely you'll like that.
I can only confirm what others already have said. No, a CS degree is not required. Build stuff, be curious and love what you are doing. You can double check this: When you've found a job as a dev and like mondays or at least leave with a smile from work, you have done the right thing.
There are plenty of people without CS degrees working as developers, so the most literal answer to your question is no, it's not a requirement. A more nuanced answer as with most things in life is "it depends".
If you're talking about a simple web or mobile app, frontend development etc. a CS degree may not be necessary or even particularly helpful. Someone with domain expertise might be a better fit if they have demonstrated development ability. If you're building a complicated distributed system operating at vast scale you might benefit from someone with most CS knowledge.
Look at it this way, if you're building a one-story log cabin, someone with a civil engineering degree may not be as good as a carpenter who has spent his life building things and has a good intuitive understanding of things and knows how to put things together. If you're building a skyscraper you certainly need a few civil engineers on your team (along with a whole bunch of other specializations).
I think it's usually required for foreigners to get a job abroad or get VISA to work abroad, which is what I need !
If you can get one, get one. It will open doors later you might not expect to want to open.
For instance it is quite difficult to get a work visa to most countries without a degree in the field you want to work in unless you have a significant amount of experience, letters, etc. With a degree and a job offer it is a piece of cake.
In a similar vein there will be positions where they quite rightly will not hire someone without valid qualifications in the field due to legal and insurance reasons.
In my experience these are the most fun areas of computing and you will be essentially locked out for at least 5 years and perhaps forever.
You probably would find it difficult to get into research positions and a lot of the more fun areas of computing. You can see it easily when watching talks or even reading posts on dev.to that many people are talking about things you learn in basic CS as if it is revolutionary! :P
There are a lot of people without the degree running around saying they aren't necessary, and they aren't strictly necessary, but it will make your life easier.
Furthermore just with experience hiring/dealing with developers with and without degrees in Eng/Math/CS I've found it difficult to pull other developers along when dealing with difficult problems. Just basic idea that you learn and forget in CS are things that will hold you back later in your career if you end up working on truly interesting problems.
If you are happy to do basic web dev and stuff I think bootcamps and so on are probably okay but if you want to have a full career with a plethora of options I would seek a degree in CS/Eng.
My job requires a CS degree (I'm a CS professor) :)
It feels like 4-year degrees are becoming the new high-school diploma in the US. There's such a heavy push for everyone to go to college that the degree is being devalued, especially for liberal-arts grads.
If you are just looking for a dev job, and don't have any long-term plans to move beyond that, I think a CS degree is overkill, since it's so easy these days to demonstrate competence in coding.
On the other hand, the four-year degree is so much more than learning technical skills; completing a professional degree program (engineering, sciences, etc) says something about your character and talent that can differentiate you from someone who is self-taught.
It depends where you live and where you get your CS degree. There are countries where degree is valued and it would be nice to have. Other countries just look for experience and skill and if you don't have what the company needs it doesn't matter if you have 10 CS degrees. Also colleges that have low funding are usually struggling to stay on top of new developments in the industry since technology is moving incredibly fast, so if you get a degree there you would get some all round CS skills but not enough to actually land a decent job. So before deciding do a little research or ask for advice from someone with experience from your area.
Depends on the location. In France, it will be harder but possible especially in small companies / startups if you have relevant experience.
However, don't expect your paycheck to be high compared to those who have a degree for the same job (in fact the gap can be quite significant).
As others have said it is not a requirement, but in my experience I have an easier time talking about programming (and software engineering in general) with people who have a CS degree from a relevant college (at least where I live, there are colleges that offer a CS degree but the quality is sub-par to say the least).
This is because during the studies you learn a certain "dictionary" and a certain way of thinking that I believe is very hard to learn by yourself. That being said, I know several great developers who either dropped out of college or did not attend at all.