Computor Science Degree or Not? | Hacker News Reader

Computor Science Degree or Not?

2 pointsTalVaiz7 comments

Hello, So my question is Computor Science Degree or Not??? I live in Israel and I'M considering not to study CS degree but to do like Diploma certificate its 2 years of study and you learn mostly the practical way of the coding and almost dont touch the MATH. Do you think in today's time do I really need a degree or can succeed and move up the chain without.

Thanks for the help

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If you are smart enough to handle a real CS degree (with the MATH!) then you should do it. It will help to understand the mechanics of ML/AI and give a solid foundation for whatever types of software exist in the future. With a simpler "coding school" certificate you will be able to piece together some apps but without years of experience on various projects you won't understand how or why it all works, and won't be able to intelligently troubleshoot when things go wrong.

I agree that if you have the opportunity you should do the degree. I don't think it's necessarily true that you won't be able to troubleshoot things otherwise, but there are other reasons.

It's hard to explain why theoretical knowledge is important. It's one of those things you appreciate when you have it, and don't know what you're missing when you don't. I'm a self taught developer with a decade and a half of experience and I wish I had done a CS or Mathematics degree when I was younger.

You can succeed without. Note that the whole field, the whole job market actually, is going to go through tremendous changes due to A.I in the coming decade. It's already happening. I wouldn't expect you'll be able get good pay doing this work 10 years from now, it's possible but also the opposite is possible, so better to think about plan b from a very young age.

I have been perfectly successful without a CS degree (I have a business degree with a focus on Information Systems). With that said, I do wish that I had the foundational knowledge that is taught in CS. I have no knowledge of DS&A, low-level languages, OS, etc. and I have not been able to dedicate the time to learn them outside the structured env of school.

Do you want to avoid mathematics, or is it just part of the decision process?

The only reason I think about that is because if I will do a practical engineer diploma I will have 1-2 years of experience before any degree student will finish study. Because practical engineer it’s 2 years study and CS is 3-4 years

Don't worry about 1-2 years at the start of your career. You will easily pick up what they have learned in the industry, but it will take them a decade to pick up maybe 1/4 of what you learned in a CS degree.

Granted that will he the most important stuff, but there will still be things you know that they will probably never know.

As a self taught developer I struggled for years to teach myself mathematics and eventually enrolled in the Open University.

The lesson I learned is that theory is best learned in college, especially maths. The people who taught themselves this stuff took many generations to figure it out.

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