Can you avoid the whole certification game with a CS degree?

If you get grades in highschool and get accepted to a reputable computer science program and graduate, do you really need anything else?

I'm not trying to stir the pot, but going through a lot of my LinkedIn connections and I mean a lot, I noticed quite a few had CS degrees. Windows admins, network engineers, even IT managers.

Is the simple fact that if you obtain a CS degree you are in really good shape for the future?

Would it be worth you time the invest in the CS degree ASAP?

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Comments

Roguetadhg

A CS degree from a reputable college would be worth something. Likewise a certification. Experience, too is worth it's weight.

Certifications just say "At some point i've been able to pass this test, I know enough to pass the requirements of the exam."
a CS degree just says "I've been able to stay in college, and maintain good grades and maintain the school's requirements"
Experience means "Someone was willing to trust me with their equipment, hard earned money."

You can get a job without certifications. You can get a job without a Degree. You can get a job without both. You can get a job without Experience, without a Degree, without a certification.

You increase your (unknown) odds of getting jobs with each. Experience, Certifications, and a Degree.

YFZblu

Roguetadhg wrote: »

You can get a job without certifications. You can get a job without a Degree. You can get a job without both.

Agreed.

dave330i

I suspect career growth curve will be very flat.

FloOz

yes a cs degree from a reputable college is definitely worth something, however, a degree, certs, and experience is even better

you want to make yourself as marketable as possible. what worked for one person does not neccesarily mean it will work for you.

the_Grinch

I have two buddies with CS degrees and no certs who got jobs without issue. My first job out of school I would have gotten without Security+ or CCENT. I too have noticed that people with a CS degree tend to not have certifications. But that being said I have found that most CS grads start off as programmers or low level techs and then just build off of experience. I've always found that certs are good when trying to start your career, but once you get experience you don't need to worry about them as much.

Roguetadhg

Good point. A Sr. Level tech with 30+ years of experience in the field and management wouldn't need certifications because his experience with issues, knowledge, and learning from his mistakes would be a valuable asset for any company. At this point, I'd expect him to talk my ear off if I asked him/her a vague question: "How does the internet work?"

Atleast, I hope so

dave330i

the_Grinch wrote: »

I've always found that certs are good when trying to start your career, but once you get experience you don't need to worry about them as much.

If that's the case then why do so many people work so hard towards higher level certs?

shodown

It depends on what you are trying to do. The CS degree helps in more bureaucratic organizations, but the reality is that college degree's are becoming more and more outdated as the days past by. This has even been said by teachers who are leaving universities to start online free colleges. With that being said we aren't there yet or even close to it, but if you are going out and planning on spending a lot of $$$$$ towards a degree, I would think long and hard about what are my goals for this degree. If its just to skip certs I feel the certs are cheaper to get and less time. If its to move into management you can prob get a IT management degree. If you looking to become a programmer or do real design work then I say go for it. If you don't know why I say its best to skip it.

Roguetadhg

I'd assume most people that don't "need" to do it because they can, because it's hard, because it's a goal.

There's also incentives for higher certifications, for companies. I believe Microsoft offers partners? Cisco offers discounts on equipment and stuff with an organization that employs cisco certified persons.

I'd do it because I'm that freaking awesome

erpadmin

Certifications certify knowledge. It always saddens me when I see folks who come here with no IT knowledge or experience expecting certifications to land them a job...not even in helpdesk, but as an administrator. If someone has a CS degree, they tend not to have a problem getting a job to get them experience. For others, like myself, who have not gone the CS route, then aptitude will land someone their first IT job, for experience to come later. But you will never see me say or agree with getting such and such tech cert will get me such and such job. Only exception I may have for that are those high level certs, such as CCIE, CISSP and PMP. My LinkedIn account shows a lot of folks with CISSP or PMP as part of their names.

People with CS degrees will, for the most part, not need certifications for the fact that a CS job can land them in a good amount of IT roles (or perhaps at a place like Cisco, Microsoft or Google as a software engineer.) Only reason I never pursued a CS degree was the math component. I didn't want to do Calc I and II. Programming I wouldn't have minded though.

RouteThisWay

I am doing pretty well without a degree and only a few certifications. Granted, one of my certifications isn't an entry level certification. And that is what has allowed me to really get noticed for my job coming up.

However, as I have stated before- I am under no illusion about how I have probably had doors closed to me that I didn't even know about without a degree. For some opportunities, not having that check box filled by "Bachelor's degree" will automatically disqualify you in an employers eyes. And I am okay with that.

ptilsen

If one goes into development, certifications can be avoided altogether. While there are still plenty of dev positions that like to see them, they're not quite as ubiquitous as in the various infrastructure disciplines.

Even in infrastructure, it depends on career goals. My boss, for example, has few or no certifications (at least he doesn't list them on LinkedIn), but he has a CS degree and has worked for the company for 20 years or so. That's not my cup of tea, but he's in a high-level management and hands-on technical role, and I'm sure he's making at least $120K, despite not being an expert in anything in particular.

I would also say I'm well beyond my expected career level when you look at both my certifications and degree. Still, I think I'd be doing even better if I'd met my own certification goals by now. On the other hand, if I'd gotten a CS degree after high school, I probably wouldn't look twice at most certifications -- not because they don't matter in infrastructure, but because I wouldn't have gone into infrastructure.

QHalo

I would say if you're going into development, being able to program in multiple languages or being very strong in one or a few is their 'certification' path.

kgb

Roguetadhg wrote: »

You can get a job without certifications. You can get a job without a Degree. You can get a job without both. You can get a job without Experience, without a Degree, without a certification.

That sums it up perfectly in my honest opinion.

Before I enrolled in WGU I asked previous hiring managers and the lead developer here do I really need a degree to get a job as a developer. They both told me No, that if I can prove I can program (technical interview, etc) that is all I need. The way I look at the entire degree, regardless of the words that are printed on it is it's nothing more than a checkbox for HR. It enables one to move onto the next round of elimination.

erpadmin

There are other advantages to having a degree that have not been mentioned in this thread.

Having a BS degree allows one to get a Master's. A Master's then allows one to adjunct teach at a college for beer/pizza money.

Mind you, that's probably not one's goal, but take it from me; it is the easiest part time job ever. One can (technically) be an instructor with only a BS, but I'm gonna tell you right now, you would have to do some serious "schmoozing" (that's the most polite word I'd write here...) to be an adjunct with a BS degree. I only know of one guy that does it with a BS and it's at a state school.

But getting back to topic, I'm Rouge...I didn't have a degree, experience (other than PC hobbyist experience/fixing my neighbors PCs) or certs when I got my first job. Only experience got me subsequent jobs. That was it though.

the_Grinch

I'd say most people go for higher level certs generally to fill a check box. Don't take it as me saying certifications aren't useful, but once you hit that upper echelon it becomes less of a factor. How many people would still get CISSP if it wasn't due to a requirement for a position? How many people do you know that are experts without a certification? How many people **** their way through an exam? I think the general lack of high level certifications show that they aren't as used that much.

paul78

As someone that does not have a degree or any certifications for the first 21 years of my career, I find this topic interesting. I do think that current economic conditions and industry perception changes over time so this is a topic worth discussing every once in a while.

In today's climate, I would guess that it really depends on what area of IT and type of company, an individual wants to pursue in their career. Degrees in CS and EE really do offer good foundational knowledge - but less practical knowledge. Certifications offer more practical knowledge.

I guess I would look at it more from the angle of "what type of education is required if I want to have X career" and "what credentials do I need to enter Y business".

I prefer to separate the knowledge attainment from the actual credential. I.e. - the degree/cert being the credential.

Hope my rambling makes sense.

NetworkVeteran

N2IT wrote: »

If you get grades in highschool and get accepted to a reputable computer science program and graduate, do you really need anything else?

N2IT, it depends on your goals. That's plenty to earn a decent entry-level salary in a wide range of roles. If you want to work as a pure network engineer at a top company straight out of college, you often need a bit more. When I've done new grad hiring, I was able to sift through ~750 resumes all from folks who graduated from good CS/EE programs with decent GPAs. Add something to show networking interest and know-how to their portfolio--a CCNA, JNCIA, internship, master's project or thesis, etc.--and they made the short-list of about a dozen candidates. If I passed on them, a competitor or smaller fish would get the opportunity, and likely hire them.

My team mates all have a CS/EE degree, experience, and most have CCIEs. Certainly, remove any component (education/experience/certification) entirely, and they're unlikely to work with me. All three are a factor in networking career success in my experience.

pert

You cannot look at current people in the field, especially senior people, to get a grasp of whats needed to thrive. The market and field has changed so much since then, you cannot take the same route early IT employees took and achieve the same results. You need everything, you need a degree, experience, and certs. There are plenty of other entrants into IT that are willing to do so, and those are people you're competing against. You can either accept that the reality has changed and adapt, or sit around hoping to get lucky. If you don't have a bunch of experience under your belt already, then none of the advancement are beneath you, and you need to take full advantage of all if you want to succeed. There are other people doing so that will be applying to the same jobs you do.

NetworkVeteran

the_Grinch wrote: »

I'd say most people go for higher level certs generally to fill a check box. Don't take it as me saying certifications aren't useful, but once you hit that upper echelon it becomes less of a factor.

To put it in dollars and cents at the senior level, my CCNP recertification was easily worth $30,000 and qualified me for roles I consider challenging/interesting vs. roles where I'd be doing more of the same. That makes sense--experience counts most when encountering similar situations, knowledge is helpful when you face novel problems. I agree a certificate (and the related knowledge) is not essential at the senior level as a CCNA at the entry-level, but it still helps dramatically.

swild

In Arkansas at least, if you can code Java, you can make $70k nothing else needed.

If you are good enough, you can be an alcoholic and sleep with the boss's wife and never need for a paycheck.

That is how badly programmers are needed here.

If you want to do anything else besides program, you will need a combination of degree, certs and experience. The more the better.

Devilry

I think the higher the combination of things can increase your possibilities of getting a job, think of it like this (in no particular order):

1) Education degree level, type of degree (complexity)
2) Certifications
3) Experience
4) Interview Skills
5) Personal Networking
6) Criminal Record
7) Credit History

Social Skills
9) Work ethic

And I am sure there are many more that are all factors for getting jobs and career moves, so the more you have, the more checkboxes an employer will be able to mark complete when hiring. Some employers will only seek 2-3 of these, so if you meet and exceed that.. how can it ever hurt?

N2IT

@ NetworkVeteran

What you stated makes a lot of sense. I have noticed that some of my former co workers have the masters and bachelors in CS so that probably is what is offsetting the certifications like you mentioned earlier. It sounds like if a engineer with 5+ years of experience and a bachelors and masters in CS from a reputable school he has a serious shot of getting employed even without certifications.

I do know an enterprise architect who just have a CS albiet from a the University of Michigan which is a top 15 school is Computer Science and Engineering.

That leads me to another discuss revolving around this post.

Let's say candidate number 1 has a CS from Stanford (one of the best CS programs in the world) and carries a high GPA >3.5

Where would someone like that stand at? I know Google, Oracle, and MS pluck these types of talents. Would your organization even get a chance to grab such a special talent?

I know it's a very one off situation but I am just wondering how that all plays out.

drkat

How about the guy who is just a CCNA with 10+ years of experience with no CS degree.. how does he fair? or the guys with just an A+/MCP with 10+ years? I mean at some point the 'criteria' has to give.

N2IT

The objective of the thread was to see if you could avoid certifications and be successful with just a CS degree. I would hope someone with 10 years of IT experience could get a job. If not there is something seriously wrong.

NetworkVeteran

N2IT wrote: »

Let's say candidate number 1 has a CS from Stanford (one of the best CS programs in the world) and carries a high GPA >3.5

N2IT, if you went to Stanford or MIT, you may be in a special situation, and my career advice might be different than for any other top-100 computer science department in the country.

Would your organization even get a chance to grab such a special talent?

Yes, usually, but the process can be a bit different.

N2IT

Network would those individuals bother with certifications?

Legacy User

@N2IT You can't really set up a scenario and expect a hypothetical answer to be by any means accurate. Only thing that a Degree from a well known school can do is get you noticed from the stack of resumes. It really depends on how you do on the interview to get the job. The high end college degree just helped you get to the door its up to you to walk through it. To the OP having a BS in CS will help you gain an entry/junior level position over someone that doesn't have a degree or experience. Having a certification in a specialization along with the degree will give you a leg up from the college freshers without any specific knowledge. It can only benefit you from having a college degree.

N2IT

@dmar

My point was how much weight was put on a high level CS degree. Even one in the top 25 rankings of US News. Us mere mortals including myself of course leverage certifications to help get a head, I get that.

My point was/is if you scored a CS degree from a top flight school with a very respectable GPA would certifications even be part of your employement strategy. I say no way, but I wanted to hear from others.

I agree experience trumps all (usually).

One of these >>>>>>>>CS Programs

paul78

dmarcisco wrote: »

You can't really set up a scenario and expect a hypothetical answer to be by any means accurate.

That's very true.

But these types of topics certainly open up interesting dialogue and provide a means for sharing their own experience. I kinda like reading everyone's opinion and their own stories.