College Degree vs. Work Experience

First off, I'm new to these forums but been sneaking around for a little while. I love the positivity here.

I've been going back and forth with myself about obtaining an IT degree (CIS). I have some college credit, but nothing more than the core classes. I've been in help desk for 3 years and I'm currently working on my A+ cert; which should be completed by the end of this month, then I'm moving to Network+ then probably going the Cisco route. Normally, a degree can increase your earning potential by $X amount of dollars over your lifetime (so "THEY" say) but with me already gaining experience (granted, on the lowest level in IT) w/o the degree, I wanted to know if obtaining one will really do me any good. Some days, I say I'll just stick with working, pay my dues, get certs to show my basic knowledge and see what happens but other days, I feel I won't reach my full potential without a degree. I've been told that having a degree basically shows your dedication when seeking employment in the IT field but doesn't obtaining certifications do the same? Any advice? Thanks.

-Trey

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Comments

networker050184

If you can get a degree (financially, time, dedication etc.) there is no reason not to. The more things you have going for yourself the better. You can obviously still be successful without it though.

kurosaki00

Is not as transparent as it seems.

The truth is that if for example you go to a good school, get involved in college, do internships, get scholarships, work with professors/establish a social network, maintain a good gpa; you will probably get a very good job right off college. Most people go through college with the bare minimum and dont realize is the best place to start a professional network and get hired to good jobs.
Again, this is if you're a good student and involve yourself with your college a lot.

If you expect just to attend college, just want a degree, there are alternatives like WGU which can help you get a degree and knock some certifications along the way.

You can also just keep gaining experience and you could maybe get paid even more than a lot of people with degrees (has to do with your dedication, hunger, ambition, responsibility etc).
The norm is that at some point in your professional career someone is going to wonder why you dont have a degree.

NetworkNewb

I've worked at companies where they wouldn't even hire helpdesk positions if you didn't have a college degree. Having a college degree will only open up more doors. Can you succeed and be successful without it? Yes. Will you have more opportunities if you have a college degree? Yes

Also, you if ever plan on getting into any management role you will want your college degree as well.

markulous

What is your ultimate goal? Do some job searches for the job you want to do in 5-10 years and see how many require a degree. A lot of jobs are shifting towards having a BS for higher-end jobs, so it'll likely be worth it in the long run. Nothing is going to substitute experience, but they compliment each other nicely.

TreyClem18

markulous wrote: »

What is your ultimate goal? Do some job searches for the job you want to do in 5-10 years and see how many require a degree. A lot of jobs are shifting towards having a BS for higher-end jobs, so it'll likely be worth it in the long run. Nothing is going to substitute experience, but they compliment each other nicely.

I'm 29 years old so at this point, its now or never lol. I've been doing research for Network/Systems Admins and most of the post I see require a degree. I'm hungrier and more motivated now than I ever was in my earlier 20's so the dedication isn't an issue.

TreyClem18

kurosaki00 wrote: »

Is not as transparent as it seems.

The truth is that if for example you go to a good school, get involved in college, do internships, get scholarships, work with professors/establish a social network, maintain a good gpa; you will probably get a very good job right off college. Most people go through college with the bare minimum and dont realize is the best place to start a professional network and get hired to good jobs.
Again, this is if you're a good student and involve yourself with your college a lot.

If you expect just to attend college, just want a degree, there are alternatives like WGU which can help you get a degree and knock some certifications along the way.

You can also just keep gaining experience and you could maybe get paid even more than a lot of people with degrees (has to do with your dedication, hunger, ambition, responsibility etc).
The norm is that at some point in your professional career someone is going to wonder why you dont have a degree.

Very true. I love the field so I wouldn't be going to college just to obtain a degree. I'm just worried about going and taking on that debt outweighs the idea of not going and see where it takes me. From what I gathered from your post, it sounds like supplementing a degree with experience and certifications would maximize my chances of getting to where I want to go.

AwesomeGarrett

TreyClem18 wrote: »

Some days, I say I'll just stick with working, pay my dues, get certs to show my basic knowledge and see what happens but other days, I feel I won't reach my full potential without a degree.

You have to decide, what are you going to believe? What if I told you there's a different path other than these two, but it's a tougher road, would you do it?

Experience, degree, and certifications all have one thing in common. They're only as strong and valuable as the person holding them.

markulous

TreyClem18 wrote: »

I'm 29 years old so at this point, its now or never lol. I've been doing research for Network/Systems Admins and most of the post I see require a degree. I'm hungrier and more motivated now than I ever was in my earlier 20's so the dedication isn't an issue.

There you go. Go to somewhere like WGU where you can get a degree and some certs. Once your A+ is done, that's enough to get enrolled there.

TreyClem18

AwesomeGarrett wrote: »

Experience, degree, and certifications all have one thing in common. They're only as strong and valuable as the person holding them.

That was an eye opener

dave330i

AwesomeGarrett wrote: »

You have to decide, what are you going to believe? What if I told you there's a different path other than these two, but it's a tougher road, would you do it?

Experience, degree, and certifications all have one thing in common. They're only as strong and valuable as the person holding them.

Experience, degree and certs get you past HR screening, so there's a bit more valuable.

Polynomial

I'm starting to see more and more "Master's degree preferred" on jobs at my company for even developer positions. Not just management.

The education creep is real.

AwesomeGarrett

dave330i wrote: »

Experience, degree and certs get you past HR screening, so there's a bit more valuable.

Um, ok. Won't get you the job if you don't have any value. Therefore, what's the point of getting past the HR screen?

dark3d

You only have to do it once, and it never expires.
This might get a bit long, so feel free to skip to the next post if none of this applies..

I have been in IT since 1996. When I was 19, I landed a Net. Admin gig at a bank. I got that job because I got my MCSE while working helpdesk. (Back then it was a big deal.) Fast forward to today, I am 36. I should have completed my degree many years ago, but I have always made mediocre salary-so I continued to put off the degree. Now I am paying for that decision. Nothing is more frustrating than applying for a job that I am well qualified for only to be disqualified because I don't have my degree. I use that frustration to drive me to study EVERY day. I started attending WGU February 1st, and if I stay on schedule I will complete 97 units and graduate in September. I have to drive 70 miles each way to the testing center, so I am limited to one course per week. I also attended the VMWare course simultaneously through Stanly.

I say that to say - it's all in what you want to do. Just realize that your most important resource is time. Don't waste it. I know of at least one coworker that is still working that same helpdesk, 20+ years. He may be perfectly happy, but I had my fill after about a year. If you want six figure+ salary, you might get extremely lucky without a degree, but I'm here to tell you that piece of paper says volumes and I need all the recognition I can get to get ahead of everyone else.

Watch a Jaret Grossman daily motivational every morning. He posted one every day for an entire year.

AwesomeGarrett

dark3d wrote: »

Watch a Jaret Grossman daily motivational every morning. He posted one every day for an entire year.

LOL! You must be going hard if you're already down to Jaret.

dark3d

AwesomeGarrett wrote: »

LOL! You must be going hard if you're already down to Jaret.

It's all or nothing these days.

dave330i

AwesomeGarrett wrote: »

Um, ok. Won't get you the job if you don't have any value. Therefore, what's the point of getting past the HR screen?

Good luck on that resume with only your name & address.

TheFORCE

TreyClem18 wrote: »

Very true. I love the field so I wouldn't be going to college just to obtain a degree. I'm just worried about going and taking on that debt outweighs the idea of not going and see where it takes me. From what I gathered from your post, it sounds like supplementing a degree with experience and certifications would maximize my chances of getting to where I want to go.

See path below
1st job: Only A+
2nd job: A+ and experience from job 1. (this was while going to college too finish my degree) was working evening shift.
Left job 2 and did contract gigs for about 6 months because conflicting schedule college with job 2.
Finished my degree(at 29) and was re-hired at at job 2. No Pay increase even with the degree, they just gave me my old job back.
3rd job: (same company as job 2) Got promoted.
4th job: A+ plus experience from job 3.
5th job(current job) I have CISSP, A+, bachelors degree and experience. The issue why it took me so long to get my degree came up and i told them i was working full time, was working contract gigs and basically was putting in the effort to get my degree without getting into debt. They understood that and I got hired.

Moral of the story, as you move up to better paying jobs or jobs with more responsibility the experience + certs + college degree will start to pay dividends and you will notice the difference. Being 29 or 35 has nothing to do with it, you already have experience, now you are moving into getting the degree or deciding too. Get some certs and you complete the magical trio. (Experience+Degree+Certs).

I would like to add something else here as a note. What I mentioned above will affect most likely a good percentage of people that move jobs through their career. If I had stayed at the same company I had job2 and job3 where I got promoted I wouldn't need any other certs or I could have stayed at job2 without finishing my degree.
For a lot of people stability is perfectly fine without getting new certs or degrees or experience doing new things. I worked in one company where my manager at 38 was managing 2 groups with only a degree, no certs and no experience but he later on gained the experience from staying with the company for 17 years. He started at the company right out of college and never moved. Today he manages 2 groups because he learned the company operations and the people and got the "company experience" So there are a lot of way to do what you want to do. Luck, timing, company environment and a lot of other factors play role too. Eventually though you need to have the character and the personality to use all those factors to your advantage.

markulous

dark3d wrote: »

You only have to do it once, and it never expires.
This might get a bit long, so feel free to skip to the next post if none of this applies..

I have been in IT since 1996. When I was 19, I landed a Net. Admin gig at a bank. I got that job because I got my MCSE while working helpdesk. (Back then it was a big deal.) Fast forward to today, I am 36. I should have completed my degree many years ago, but I have always made mediocre salary-so I continued to put off the degree. Now I am paying for that decision. Nothing is more frustrating than applying for a job that I am well qualified for only to be disqualified because I don't have my degree. I use that frustration to drive me to study EVERY day. I started attending WGU February 1st, and if I stay on schedule I will complete 97 units and graduate in September. I have to drive 70 miles each way to the testing center, so I am limited to one course per week. I also attended the VMWare course simultaneously through Stanly.

I say that to say - it's all in what you want to do. Just realize that your most important resource is time. Don't waste it. I know of at least one coworker that is still working that same helpdesk, 20+ years. He may be perfectly happy, but I had my fill after about a year. If you want six figure+ salary, you might get extremely lucky without a degree, but I'm here to tell you that piece of paper says volumes and I need all the recognition I can get to get ahead of everyone else.

Watch a Jaret Grossman daily motivational every morning. He posted one every day for an entire year.

I live in Aurora also, but why do you have to travel 70 miles to a testing center?

TreyClem18

I went home and talked to my girlfriend about it. We've worked at the same exact places; for the same amount of time. The difference is that she graduated with her CIS degree last year. We did the math, she's making about $20K more a year than what I'm currently making; not including the many perks she has. It's pretty much a no brainer now, Degree+Experience+Certs. I remember someone saying earlier that some companies won't hire for help desk w/o a degree and her company happens to be one. Thanks to everyone who contributed. I see a lot of inspiration here and I hope to become a valuable contributor like you all.

beads

It really depends on how far you want to go versus how long your willing to apologize for not having completing the degree. We all set our own limits.

-b/eads

Christian.

Interesting thread, I would like to share my experience that is different from what I have been reading. In my case, I have been seeing along my career that the education matters when you are starting in IT and employers have the ability to choose between many candidates. A degree or certifications will separate you from those that have none and you will get more chances to be selected. You have to separate from the rest somehow, but that's all you can do with a degree when you start, it doesn't matter much after that. Now, if you are applying for Senior positions (as you will in a future), they can't be too picky because they need someone that truly knows his stuffs, has practical experience on the technology they have, not theory. There aren't many people out there to meet this high-skilled demand, so the education requirement becomes less and less important the less candidates they have to choose from. This happens once you specialize in a particular field that is on high demand.

I can mention myself as an example. I don't currently have a Bachelor's degree, and when I came to the US last year I didn't had any relevant certification as I never had the need to get good positions. I did however had over 10 years of good experience in different companies working in IT Security with Banks, Insurance and Financial companies, Automotive industries, Government entities, etc. When I updated Linkedin with my new US address, I started receiving emails with interview offers from a bunch of different places. I still receive them every week from different places.. even without a degree. Now I'm studying at WGU (started 10 days ago) and I did several certifications this year before joining, but my education hasn't really changed that much.

The company that I'm working right now (Big utilities-Nuclear company) had been looking for over 9 months for someone with experience in Security/Firewalls, and they contacted me as they saw my online profile and thought I could be a good match. I saw over 10 different add from companies in the past that were looking for this someone (they were acting as a referral for this company, doing a filter and passing the resume to the client) without finding the profile they wanted. In the end, I ended up with the position based on my past experience in Argentina (of course, the technical interview was brutal with 3 different engineers asking me every possible question for an hour, it wasn't easy). And while I don't like mention how much I earn, the position was paying 135k a year (plus paid overtime), so I doubt they didn't get many applicants that wanted the job. One could think they were looking so long because they weren't paying enough, so it's worth mention it in this case. A few coworkers even left the company and went to another paying more (I was approached by them too 2 months ago), so the degree isn't something that will slow you down or condemn you with a low salary. Everything depends on you.

The basic premise is that companies want someone that has been working in the past with the product/technology they have in big critical environments, someone that knows their way around. The degree or college you may have listed in your resume won't help if that's all you are bringing to the table. Now.. if you have the possibility to study, you should go for it because it's complicated to do it after and like many others said (and I was even told by my current manager), your resume looks a little light in that regard and it may be discarded due to that. You could lose opportunities even if you are qualified enough. You won't know that's the reason for sure, but it's a good guess.

In my case, I wasn't able to study in the past for many different reasons, so that's why I'm doing this now at 28 years. My goal is just to fulfill that requirement so future employers can mark that degree checkbox and continue reading my resume. I don't want to close myself doors and neither should you if you can avoid that. My recommendation for you is to get your Bs to avoid being filtered, but keep in mind that experience is what's really valuable. No degree can match that, but again, this is what I have been seeing and is my experience in the field in 2 different countries. English is not even my native language so I even had that against me.

You are on a good track. Try to get the degree while working (there are many Universities here in the US with a good reputation and not terrible expensive, Umass, Pennstate, WGU, more here). Always try to get more responsibilities in your current place to boost your resume, and never stop looking for better positions that shows you are progressing in your career. There are of course more items like knowing how to sell yourself in an interview, how to prepare your resume, reading between the lines to detect if something is a really good job opportunity as they tell you, etc, but for now you should focus on getting the degree and having more experience to jump to another better position in the future.

This ended up being way more long that I wanted, lol. I hope this helps you in your inquire.

Good luck

aderon

My thought process in life is that there's always someone wiling to do what you're not willing to do. So I would suggest taking every opportunity to set yourself ahead. Certs, experience, degree, workshops, networking, honing your skills, writing better resumes, perfecting interview techniques, creating a great LinkedIn, etc, etc, etc. Anytime an opportunity presents itself, just jump on it.

TL;DR: Do both.