Ask HN: What degree should I be getting? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What degree should I be getting?

1 pointAlifatisk6 comments

I don’t have a degree currently but I’ve worked as a developer for about two years now. I think getting a degree in something would fulfill me.

I am aware of the fact that getting a degree is not required in this industry because most of it can be self taught, but I want to get a degree for my personal benefit, I think I would grow much more.

Is a computer science degree worth it? What about computer engineer or electrical enginner?

Which would I get the most out of? Whar are your thoughts?

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Electrical engineer here.

During my studies, I did do quite some coding, but this was mostly due to my own interests. There are plenty of opportunities to code: embedded, simulations, data processing, more and more ML stuff, ...

However, what you don't learn in electrical engineering is software engineering. If you are lucky you can do data structures & algorithms but even that is not always part of the program.

If you want to work as a software engineer I would go for electrical engineering. I would probably do computer engineering or compsci. Compsci often is very very theory heavy on theoretical comp sci, but that's not necessarily bad, just not something that will help you in software engineering in my mind.

If you had your chance to redo your choice, would you? Which of these three would you say gives me "broader" opportunities?

I have a hard time trying to figure out what exactly I want to do, I've touched different roles like software tester, web developer & fullstack developer.

I want to get a degree where I am not locked within a field or role, so I can pick freely later on in my life.

Probably, but I wouldn't know what I would choose to be honest. I am currently involved with starting a startup which also entails a lot of interesting aspects on the business side.

I completely feel you. On the one hand I would love to get deep technical expertise, but this is something that is not that relevant in startups. My technical expertise is good enough to build but it's rather general. I am a master of nothing basically.

Something that I struggle with is the internal battle of "oh shit I wanna know more about this cool tech" and "I wanna provide cool products to people and help create value".

I would say computer engineering is probably the broadest. You get a lot of the relevant computer science things and a lot of the electrical engineering things as well. I would consider taking some business related courses (marketing, entrepeneurship, ...). Being an engineer with a perspective on the business side of things is a good spot to be in.

> I would say computer engineering is probably the broadest. You get a lot of the relevant computer science things and a lot of the electrical engineering things as well.

This hit the nail, thank you!

> I would consider taking some business related courses (marketing, entrepeneurship, ...). Being an engineer with a perspective on the business side of things is a good spot to be in.

I'll note it down and see which course could interest me.

Comp Sci if you want to code.

So computer enginners wont write any code?

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