Ask HN: Is a CS degree worth the effort today?

1 points by brux 11y ago ↗ HN

I just read this Quora thread:

http://www.quora.com/Would-you-choose-a-coding-bootcamp-or-a-computer-science-related-degree-Why

How useful is a four-year CS/IT/SE degree if people coming out of three-month coding bootcamps get a better job placement and salary?

2 comments

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paulhauggis 11y ago ↗

I'm sure they can get some sort of job, but the degree will give you a better chance at a long-term career as a developer.

First, in a competitive marketplace, if you are up against a person with similar skills/experience and you have a degree and they don't, you will have a better chance at getting the job.

Second, I don't think a person coming out of the 3-month bootcamp has any sort of real understanding of the fundamentals of development (algorithm design, what the compiler is actually doing, how, why, and when to optimize code).

The great part about learning the fundamentals is that you can move to other languages quickly. I just started with Python 2 months ago (I know c/c++/pascal/perl/PHP) and I'm already writing full apps pretty easily. Since I've already learned many of the fundamentals, I just needed to learn syntax.

smt88 11y ago ↗

A bootcamp grad can probably do better junior-level work, but they couldn't be the person at the top of that hierarchy without a lot more experience. And the only reason they're better at junior-level work is because it often requires minimal understanding of the underlying workings of the application, let alone the server, OS, or hardware.

The problem is that CS schools haven't done a good job teaching practical web technologies because web technologies are a poor way to study computer science. There's only so much time in a degree program.

The ideal situation would be to get a CS degree and then do a cheaper course on web technologies (that's still led by an instructor). I think there's something called Code Union offering that.