[QUOTE=brianosaur;49600319]You gotta have some kind of direction IMO. Only you know what you want to do with your life.
I dont think just simply going to school and hoping everything will fall into place is necessarily a good idea.[/QUOTE]
Yeah I agree, I do wanna move to Sweden in the near future, that's really the only goal I have atm
[QUOTE=Danny1828;49594213]This is pretty interesting as it seems completely the opposite where I live, whenever I look at job applications I see almost every job requirement atleast have certain degrees, though they are not university degrees.[/QUOTE]
Australia doesn't really have colleges like the rest of the world does. Once you finish Year 12 and want to get into higher education, you either go for a Bachelors at a university or to a technical college to get a Diploma (in things like childcare, or a trade). None of this nonsense with colleges or community colleges. Although the Abbott government was contemplating 'degree schools', like American colleges.
I think this can be true for some subjects but definitely not all of them. Programmer without degree? Sure, you can get a job. I study Geoscience (geology) and literally all employers ask for bachelor or shit, even masters.
Nearly everyone has cared about work experience moreso than degrees for years. This is hardly news.
[QUOTE=PieClock;49598219]I decided to go to Uni for the experience and not the certificate at the end. Nearly all jobs here require "At least 1 years experience in X" and Uni is a way into a work for a year if it is part of your course. But it's also fantastic for building contacts and friends in the same field which is also very crucial for loads of industries.
The degree might not help, but that doesn't mean to say University doesn't.[/QUOTE]
That's kinda what I was thinking, too. The college that I was initially planning on going to had an ATEC program, and while that turned out to be useless, you still have the other pros such as being able to get a degree just so you'll be able to get a job at other places (Although, I don't anyone is going to give a shit about someone having a degree that's as specific and obscure like an ATEC degree) and potentially make connections with students and experienced teachers through shit like clubs and such.
However, I was pretty worried about getting into heavy debt and, in combination, the likely possibility that I'll just slack off and only do what's minimally required rather than going out of my way to get some decent experience beyond simple school work. That's not to say that no one should bother going to college (especially if they know what they're doing), but I'm not the kind of person that can take those kind of heavy risks, as someone who only vaguely knows what to do with his life.
[QUOTE=kijji;49600053]College dropout here, I was originally majoring in anthropology, then switched to comp sci because it "made more money." I dropped out not long after because I was unhappy and was going through some mental and physical health issues.
People are telling me to go back to school and figure out what to do with my life, I dunno what it is I wanna do yet. I sure as shit don't wanna end up in loads of debt. What are my options?[/QUOTE]
Work part time for a while, make a bunch of money and travel to a country you've never been to before. See what you're like after that
[QUOTE=Perl;49599843]Started uni (informatics, free - thanks new laws) in September, finished one semester, took part in a few programming competitions. Now considering quitting since even though the non academic part of the uni experience has been amazing, the course content is absolutely boring. I've already got 3 job offers, a few industry contacts and some new friends. Accepting the best of the job offers now, interview this upcoming week. Their CEO told me face to face that they don't really care about degrees. They know exactly how useless some of the grads can be.[/QUOTE]
Excellent choice man, good luck!!
[QUOTE=LtKyle2;49599889]I'd love to do something in comp sci but I've never been someone to sit in one spot in a classroom and networking is beyond my grasp since I'm not a people person. Skilled labor will most likely be my future, I hope.
The internet and how it connects all of us with our computers has fascinated me since I was a child but of course as we get older we have to get realistic about our places in life. T[B]hat and I wouldn't know where to start learning on my own.[/B] Plumbing is easy; shit flows down hill. In Comp Sci I feel like I have to go back to the very start of it's history and understand the very being of computers to learn how to program or understand how servers work.[/QUOTE]
Google. You can learn to make a basic website with HTML, add some JavaScript, etc. Or do basic game development tutorials that hold your hand with Unity. Honestly it's pretty easy. I'm doing comp sci, and like, its interesting to me, but it isn't what taught me how to program. Actually programming and figuring out why my game doesn't work taught me that.
My career doesn't require a degree, but I firmly believe I wouldn't be making a living off of it had I not went to school for it. The piece of paper is near useless, but the knowledge I gained from my professors, the connections I made, and the internships I got as a result have been invaluable.
You can get those things without going to school for them for the most part, but it's much more difficult and takes a special kind of person to have the self-discipline to do it.
[QUOTE=cody8295;49594231]Comp sci student here hoping to make 60-80k starting salary once I get that special piece of paper[/QUOTE]
To follow up I'm a second semester junior and my current classes are CS3 (C programming), data structures, spanish2 and calc2.
My uni offers 2 different CS programs, 1 is called Honors CS and is [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABET"]ABET[/URL] accredited, the other is called Alternative CS. The alternative program requires less math (no calc 2, linear algebra) and less CS credits. I know plenty of students that started honors and changed, and some people that started alt. I'd like to have that accreditation on my degree even if it means very little to employers.
I need to do more programming outside of class. Once I'm done with filler assignments often I don't feel like working more. The good academic students in my program that are awful at using computers/programming make me mad as they're part of the reason employers are weary of hiring people without a giant profile.
I'm talking about the CS students that don't know about pressing tab to complete paths in shells, start projects in gedit without any debugger, don't know what an IDE is and attempt to write the whole program before even running it once. Can't fix their own computers even if it's just finding a driver for a brand new lenovo. But they'll keep up on the readings and go to TA office hours 3 times for an assignment and somehow they end up with a better grade by doing 10% better on the final despite doing 20% worse on assignments. At least they have even less on their profile.
These are the people that are useless to employers and need information fed to them. Some of this could be offset by weighing programs higher in classes making it less does it do what it needs to do or does it segfault and more is this a robust well thought-out solution.
How do I transfer my reliability to paper? I've done two internships at the same place, taking zero sick days, working unpaid overtime, as I want that bug fixed not it to be 5 o'clock. I hate going to my school career fairs and having recruiters treat me like an idiot for having a highly specific area of cs I want to put all my effort into when they can't tell me a non high level interpretation of what I would doing at their place.
This applies to some degrees but theres still some that need a degree + masters or even a Phd to get a job
[QUOTE=proboardslol;49601176]Work part time for a while, make a bunch of money and travel to a country you've never been to before. See what you're like after that[/QUOTE]
I'm already working part time, saving up money to visit Sweden as soon as I can
[QUOTE=Rocko's;49594179]Seeing news like this worries me sometimes since I'm trying to major in Nursing, and trying to get in as either a Surgical Tech or Scrub Nurse. I know I'm good for college, and getting the education I need, but once I get out of nursing school I'm scared that there won't be many opportunities available. Especially where I live, where everyone here wants to be a nurse. Don't know if I want to have a backup major, or keep focusing on what I plan on doing.[/QUOTE]
Your not going to get a nursing job without any type of school or se type of training, it just can't happen. The title is very misleading. What is true for a ceartin field doesn't mean it's true for another.
literally came to university for the lifestyle and the independence so a useless degree is of minor concern
[QUOTE=Mellowbloom;49603345]literally came to university for the lifestyle and the independence so a useless degree is of minor concern[/QUOTE]
Why, out of interest? Is that really worth £9k a year in your opinion?
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