[aclug-L] Re: CS Degrees (Was: Re: Cool new fan site....hehe)

[Larry Bottorff <mrprenzl@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm slogging through a semester at WSU with 3 courses (3 more to go to
get past grad prereqs). It's a catch-22 sometimes. I'm not singling out
any group, but WSU CS has a large number of what I call "system
beaters", i.e., people who have learned the tricks of the education
trade and have evolved, survival of the fittest style, into great exam
takers and homework sharers. What I fear is I'll be forced to join them
to keep up. It's a miserable little cat-and-mouse game between
instructor and student. I love German literature and tried a grad
program (U of Ill) for it. I quit after one semester, mainly to save my
love of German literature. I hope the same doesn't happen with CS.

The academic world is for, well, academics. It's only by chance that I'm
doing so much programming this semester. Next semester I might not even
touch a computer. I've said to a couple of profs that my goal is to be
able to contribute to a non-trivial GPL project in a non-trivial way.
I'm beginning to see that the time I (go ahead and say it!) waste
"earning" this degree will just put me all that much behind this goal. I
just wish there was a happy medium between this bastard son of
mathematics CS academia and the lousy vocational schools.

As far as getting hired sans degree, I've done just fine--after doing
terrible to start. I couldn't get the time of day in the Bay Area and
Seattle, but that was during the recession. But anything past '95 has
been rosy (except for the Black Hole, i.e., Wichita). Having a degree
will get your foot in the door, mainly because the door is manned by
idiots who have no idea what IT is and simply follow scripts and drop
buzz words and act tough. Knowing full well that I could do a job and
playing verbal judo with an HR clown is the bane of this business.
Surprisingly, Microsoft is a fabulous place to work (pay's a bit low).
You'll never (or rarely) meet fast-talkers, suit-wearers, or HR clowns.
I finally got in in '95, but it was after hard-nosed technical
interviews by very knowledgable people.

To sum up, the system beaters will take their degrees, fan out, and beat
once again the HR hiring system. And maybe they'll be contributors. But
I'm still of the opinion that real IT people are a bit less
conventional--a bit like Neo crashed in front of his gear at the start
of The Matrix. IT is still the best place to be, no matter how you get
there.

Lars Von dem Ast

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