Is a degree absolutely necessary?

My boss got wind of me really buckling down for the MCSA and eventually on to some security, etc.

This seemed to unnerve him and he started throwing things at me like "all that is worthless, you have to have at least a Bachelor's to be anything!"

I would like to think that yes, a degree would carry you farther in addition to certs, but is not necessarilly the best starting point, esp for a more tech/admin level person. If I was wanting to get into say, management, then absolutely.

Any thoughts?

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linuxguy

I agree. Everyone go back and read. CCIE was brought into play to prove the point of mis examples. I was not commenting on the salary itself but the notion he with more debt (which is a bad plan to start with) is more dedicated.

The proof of ability (whioh took the experience) is what makes the money. I agree.

"all three" -nuf said

You seem to mis my very plain point. YOU do not HAVE to have a degree to be a success.
It will make the first few years in the industry easier and get you into managment, but after your first two jobs it shifts and proof of skills is more important. The most important part to getting a job is the interview. The door will open somewhere for a degree or cert.

Good day

Sturmbahn

The "well roundedness" is the entire point. Case closed.

Employers can pay for certifications or classes if the potential employee is lacking training and the price is fairly cheap. If, for example, the potential employee has trouble with basic communication skills (written and verbal), which is very common, the employer is stuck with finding someone else or finding an opportunity that requires no necessary communication that would disable the candidate.

Just look at a degree as a professional base to work off of. It won't get you technical jobs alone, but certifications and experience don't necessarily show your level of education, or lack thereof. It is very important to employers, especially when the field you are trying to enter is professional and deals with others outside the company. Every employee represents the company to some degree.

I will say that the desire for a degree has gone down over the years. More technical positions are available and, to tell the truth, do I really need my groceries bagged or trash picked up by a business major? It all depends on the job.

My thoughts on the CCIE - around $2000; average student's loans - around $50000 (4-year BA/BS). Who has the greater impetus? This was meant to be a joke, comparing the two based on price alone as any normal person with a CCIE shouldn't have any student loans to take care of by then.

linuxguy

I grow tired of trading opinion as if it were fact. Bottom line is in is not necassary which was the question. I will stop replying to this unless addressed directly.

Good day and God Bless

Webmaster

I haven't joined this discussion so far because I know very little about the value of a degree in the US. Although it is probably not much different from here. I agree with Linuxguy, that when it comes to the original question "Is a degree absolutely necessary?" the answer is surely: no it isn't. There are plenty of success stories of people without a degree.

The only thing a degree helps with is 1. your first job 2. deciding between condadites 3. managment.

This is my experience as well, although a decade or two experience can lead to a managment job as well. It all just takes 'a bit' longer. That first job is still at the bottom where everyone else begins. Our education system is very different, but I don't have a degree, or something equivalent to it. I started working in IT when I was 19 and at the age of 25 I was glad I dropped out early. Those 6 years experience allowed me to choose the jobs I wanted (ok, IT was booming then), which included teaching MS exams to people who were of the same age and just got their degree (equivalent to college, but also university degrees). They did exactly the same work I did when I was 19 (desktop support etc). However, their salary increased faster than mine. When those with a degree had 2 years experience they would make the same money I did, and eventually they would always get just a little more for the same job. But when the industry was no longer booming, my extra years of experience and the certs still allowed me to pick the jobs I wanted to do, which eventually is much more important than the extra money.

On the other hand, some major IT companies here, don't hire anyone without a degree.

One of the things I always kept in mind when I just got into the industry is to build up a resume. I takes a lot of years for the single line that says ".... degree". During those same years one can build up a resume with several pages filled with experience and a complete paragraph with certs.

Again, I know very little about the value of a degree in the US, so the above may all be irrelevant. But in general, you'll need two out of three (certs, experience, degree), which combination is best differs a lot depending on the location, the job, the person, etc.

garv221

Webmaster wrote:

IOne of the things I always kept in mind when I just got into the industry is to build up a resume.

Most important thing is that...I did that while I took classes & money wasn't really an issue besides beer money.

skully93

linuxguy wrote:

BTW- I have smiled during all of these. I enjoy healthy conversation. Just a note to say, I am not arguing anybody.. just chatting.

Absolutely. That's the reason I'm here. To get opinions/help, and to discuss things.

For me, for now I have to do what will get me a job that I can live on while I get ready to go to school, pursue certs, or both. I'm getting into IT because I have an affinity for it, and I can't imagine starting over in something I don't enjoy. I really like customer service too, even though there are always those particular users that absolutely must be set on fire

.

That being said, I have a phone interview tomorrow for a tech support job back in Denver, which I'll be returning too within a few months. It'll be so nice to be back in a tech-oriented city. Sure, there are way more people than jobs, but still, at least people know what a hard drive is....

Wish me luck!

nrf

The degree vs. cert topic is one that flares up from time to time, and generally covers the same arc. I will cover some of the topics here.

*It's not useful to compare the difficulty of any cert, even the CCIE, against a bachelor's degree.

Think about what we're talking about here. People say that the CCIE is difficult and I grant you it isn't a walk in the park. But honestly, how long would it take for somebody who didn't have anything else to do to complete? For example, consider a guy who has no job, has no family responsibilities, and basically has nothing else to do but study CCIE books and bang away on a router/switch lab. Als consider the fact that Cisco policy allows you to take the CCIE exam every month over and over again until you finally pass. How long would this person realistically need in order to pass the CCIE? A year, at very most? Again, remember this person has absolutely nothing to do except practice, practice, practice. Somehow I think even 6 months is probably far more than sufficient.

Again, that's not to say that the CCIE exam is easy. Far from it. What I'm saying is that a year is a very long time. In a year of doing nothing else but studying and practicing, you can learn a lot. Get your homelab together. Buy some of those CCIE workbooks available from those training companies. Practice, practice, practice every day. I think we would have to agree that after awhile of doing this, that person would be ready to pass the lab. The CCIE really isn't that hard for somebody who has been practicing.

Now obviously some of you might object that having a year of spare time doing nothing but studying/practicing is completely unrealistic. And to that, I say "and what do college students do?". Let's face it. Most college students are studying full-time. Most of them don't have a job. Most of them don't have family responsibilities. So they get to do nothing except be a student. Yet it generally takes them 4 years to get that bachelor's degree, whereas it takes 1 to get the CCIE. I think it's clear that the degree requires more time and more total effort over that time than the CCIE does. The CCIE, while difficult and time-consuming, simply isn't as difficult and as time-consuming as the college degree is. The amount of time and effort you need to spend on your degree is greater than what you need to spend on your CCIE.

Let's not also forget that for most colleges, by far, by very very far, the most difficult part of getting a degree from them is simply getting admitted in the first place. Anybody can start studying for cert ABCD anytime. However, you can't just wake up and decide one fine day that you want to start working on your degree from an elite school like, say, MIT. If you want a degree from MIT, you have to first get admitted into MIT, and that's certainly no walk in the park by any stretch of the imagination - to build the credentials necessary for you to get into MIT, you have to do a substantial amount of work beforehand to even be a viable candidate, and the odds are you still probably won't get in. To have a degree from MIT is not only to indicate that you were able to complete the indisputably grueling coursework of MIT, but also to indicate that you were good enough to get admitted in the first place. Now, I realize that we were just talking about general college degrees, and not necessarily degrees from schools of the caliber of MIT, but at the same time, the conversation was just talking about certifications in general, not about particular certifications (i.e. the CCIE), so I believe my point still stands.

* The value of the degree is not just about what you learn while in school.

That's part of it, but you're missing 2 other tremendously vital components of what makes a degree valuable. The first is what I mentioned above - the pure selectivity factor. Sporting a degree from a top-flight school indicates that you were strong enough to survive their admissions process. This is, incidentally, why many big and famous companies like hiring college graduates from elite schools even if what they studied had absolutely nothing to do with what the company does. The big-league Wall Street investment banks hire lots of former English majors, philosophy majors, engineering majors, and all kinds of other majors. What do those subjects have to do with banking? Nothing. But these banks aren't just hiring from any old schools - they're hiring from the usual suspects - Harvard, Stanford, Yale, MIT, Princeton, Columbia, etc. What they're really hiring is not the content of the degree itself, but the person's raw talent.

The other value-add of the degree is the connections and the alumni network that it provides. We've all heard the term 'it's not what you know, it's who you know'. The reality is that most people are hired and most positions are filled based, at least in part, on 'who you know'. CNN once esimated that over 90% of all positions are never posted publicly, and so you never get the chance to get that job unless you know the person who is doing the hiring. College is one of the most effective ways to get to know people who will later on be potential hirers (or will themselves know people who are) and/or to establish a connection with somebody who you don't know but who went to the same school you did.

Let me give you some examples. Steve Ballmer is the CEO of Microsoft (for those who don't know, Bill Gates stepped down from the CEO position a few years ago, although he is still the Chairman, Chief Software Architect, and largest shareholder). So how did Ballmer get hired into Microsoft in the first place? Did he write up a formal application and send it to Microsoft's HR department and get hired that way? I don't know about you, but that seems rather unlikely to me. Did the fact that Ballmer just 'coincidentally' happen to have been Bill Gates's old college roommate and poker-playing buddy at Harvard have anything to do with how he got hired? Nah, I'm sure that's a completely unrelated fact. I'm sure it's also a coincidence that practically all of the first few hundred employees at Cisco Systems, who are all easily multimillionaires now from Cisco stock options, all happened to be friends and acquaintances of Bosack and Lerner (the 2 founders) from Stanford. Look - that's the 'game' of hiring. People tend to hire people that they know. Steve Ballmer is a billionaire. Do you think that would have happened if he had never went to Harvard and met Bill Gates?

* Look at who the major IT companies themselves are hiring.

I think the most telling statistic is to look at who the major tech vendors - the ones who are promoting their own cert programs - choose to hire themselves. Microsoft actively recruits at maybe only 20 schools in the nation, at most. Microsoft does not actively recruit amongst the ranks of MCSE's. If the MCSE was so valuable, then shouldn't Microsoft be hiring only MCSE's? Or perhaps shouldn't they be requiring all their employees - or at least their technical employees - to become MCSE's themselves? To say that certs are categorically better than degrees is to say that Microsoft should fire everybody at the company who doesn't have a cert. Furthermore, the fact that they hire all these fresh college graduates instead of hiring all these MCSE's who are "clearly better and more knowledgeable" than all those college graduates on the street right now must mean that Microsoft is being stupid. If certified, but un-degreed people really know more than people who are degree'd but not certified, then Microsoft must be stupid for favoring the latter over the former.

The same can be said for Cisco. Again, Cisco actively recruits only at certain schools in the country. Cisco doesn't actively recruit amongst the ranks of CCIE's. If the CCIE really is better than the degree, then if any company would know this, it would be Cisco. So why doesn't Cisco just fire all its employees who don't have CCIE's and replace them with people who do. Why doesn't Cisco stop wasting its time actively recruiting at the college campuses that it does, and instead recruit only CCIE's? Is Cisco being stupid? And of course that begs the question that if Cisco is stupid, and yet you choose to buy your network gear from them, then what does that make you?

*The Bill Gates exception?

Now, I know somebody is going to raise the point that Bill Gates doesn't have a degree, so let me just deal with that issue right here. Sure, Bill Gates doesn't have a degree. On the other hand, he doesn't have a certification either. This whole thread is about the value of certifications vs. degrees, hence we have to talk about what has more relative value - the cert or the degree. Obviously neither one by itself guarantees anything. Yet the hiring practices of Microsoft itself should be very telling. Bill Gates doesn't have a degree, yet Microsoft practically demands that all its hirees have one. It's far far easier to get hired into Microsoft with a degree but no cert, than with a cert but no degree. And if any company would know the value of a cert, you'd think it would be Microsoft itself. At the very least, I don't think anybody here is going to dispute that Microsoft is an extremely well-run company and so it's difficult to argue that from a business standpoint, Microsoft doesn't know what it's doing.

*Look to the future.

The real way to look at certs vs. degrees is to think about what you want to do in the future. What do you want to be doing in 20 years? Do you still want to be configuring boxes? Maybe you do, maybe you don't. Certs are generally only useful for one purpose - to show that you have certain specific skills that are valuable only at a specific moment. Nobody is going to care that you are Windows2003 certified in the year 2024 (in 20 years). However, people are still going to care that you have a college degree.

The degree gives you the freedom not just to go into management, but also to change careers. If you decide you want to get into sales, get into finance, get into whatever, it's far easier to do that if you have a degree. Try doing that with an IT certification.

*None of this is to say that you should not get certified.

Let me make myself perfectly clear. I am not trying to bash certs. Indeed, certs can be useful when used properly.

The point I'm making is that comparing certs and degrees is really comparing apples and oranges. They exist to serve different purposes. Certs should be seen as a quick way to demonstrate that you have certain topical skills. It may provide you with a quick boost to your career. However, a degree should be seen as a very long-term investment into your knowledge-capacity, as well (in the case of selective schools) as a strong signal that you survived a highly competitive admissions process, and a means to build your network of 'who you know'.

/usr

Excellent post.

NPA24

I must agree as well that this was an excellent post. I work in IT and my coworker who I referred here were both reading this post. I myself have a Bachelor's degree while on the other hand my coworker does not. We both have certifications and experience. I would like to say that when my boss said that there was an open position just like mine, I instantly thought of my friend would best be suited for this job. I chose him over some of my other closer friends that have degrees. And why did I do that, because I think that he is more technical, has better experience, and that he is well motivated that one day when he gets time he will eventually get a degree.

garv221

Degrees can be argued from either side. This is an IT thread in an IT forum. The recruits you’re talking about are in what % of the top of the class & are in Ivy League schools. I have never heard of someone graduating from a Big Ten school & immediately placed into a well paying IT field configuring terminal services & routers. It just doesn’t happen, I have heard of people graduating from Harvard, Yale, & MIT and placed into Microsoft writing scripts or managing projects, but the grads are part of the business, there job is to make business they are not employed into the IT dept. I agree that a degree is good but is not a directed toward IT as a certification is. A degree says you know facts taught to you & maybe 40 credits are IT related while the rest stress art & history. To say in “IT” that a degree is the door opener for an easy path is foolish. I work for a guy who is multi, owns 4 companies & has no degree. Schools are pumping students out with degrees like a drug house. The only way to make something happen is take the initiative to make it happen, & to make it happen in IT, you have to get certified proving your knowledge. If you want to be pushing loans on Wall Street, get a degree from an Ivy League school.

/usr

IT is broad. If you want to get into the technical side of IT, then certifications are better, as they prove your knowledge of a specific vendor's products or a specific technology. If you want to get into an upper level managing/planning/coding IT job, then a degree is most likely going to benefit you more.

It all depends on a person's specific goals. There is no "better path" for a specific group. It all depends on an individuals wants, needs, and abilities.

garv221

LostInSpace wrote:

If you want to get into an upper level managing/planning/coding IT job, then a degree is most likely going to benefit you more.

Not true. Thats where experience comes in. A degree is not the golden ticket.

skully93

From what I've been seeing lately, degrees are getting as devalued as certifications. I have several friends with degrees, and they're having just as hard a time because even some college grads are coming out totally ignorant of how to do the job.

Just something to chew on.

garv221

True, in all honesty..F**k it, I got a great job as a System/Net Admin in charge off all Windows & Cisco gear, experience, nice Lexus, & I did what I had to do, -to do what I want to do. How you get there is up to you, I'm done with this..

/usr

garv221: It seems that you're getting way too upset about this topic. Every post I make that hints towards needing a degree for some things, is deemed invalid by you. I'm not trying to argue or even say anything negative. Just wondering if you're coming across that way intentionally or if it's just me.

garv221

LostInSpace wrote:

garv221: It seems that you're getting way too upset about this topic. Every post I make that hints towards needing a degree for some things, is deemed invalid by you. I'm not trying to argue or even say anything negative. Just wondering if you're coming across that way intentionally or if it's just me.

Absolutely not, I'm not mad about anything & respect your comments; I didn't mean to come across mad (far from it). I just seen my name in this thread a bunch of times, basically arguing a paintings meaning (you can't win) so I called it quits. The way I see it the more you know, the better off you are.

Cherper

This whole discussion is quite interesting, and I can see both sides on the arguement, but a degree is a huge advantage, over certification alone. As was said earlier it allows you freedom that certifications alone don't.

Interestingly enough, we have a position open here as a sys admin, and we have gotten some great applicants, but at the end of the day, only those with a degree even made the 1st cut after the interview. The position requires a lot of public contact, and while the title is sys admin, there is a lot more to the position.

We had a MCSE with 5 years experience with no degree, and a recent graduate, with one MS test done. We had to cut the guy with no degree because his focus was entirely TOO technical. He had focused so much on the technical that he couldn't fit the needs of the position. He didn't relate well with people, and wasn't "well-rounded."

The other candidate, while not having the best hands on technical knowledge had other skills that will come in handy. He can do a little bit of programming, he can write a report, and he can talk to non-technical people.

I know that this is just a small instance, but if you feel that you are getting along fine without a degree more power to you, but at the end of the day (decade) a degree is forever, certs only last until the next upgrade.

/usr

So basically you needed a paper pusher and endowed him with the title of sysadmin?

Honestly though, your "Administrator" position sounds a bit...easy. Granted, you've got to be able to deal with people, but a fresh college graduate with one MS test completed will most likely not be able to admin a network. Of course, I'm just basing all this off of what you said.

Most organizations would have grabbed the MCSE with 5 years of experience.

nrf

Garv221, let me take some of your points one by one.

*Official job 'requirements'.

You say that you see jobs in the paper requiring such and such cert or experience. Well, again, I would point out that published jobs are a tiny tiny minority of the number of actual available jobs that are out there. CNN and other publications have estimated that over 95% of all jobs are never publicly posted anywhere. You're not going to find them in a newspaper. You're not going to find them on Monster. You're not going to find it on a company website.

You get these jobs, which happen to be the vast vast majority of all available jobs, basically through word-of-mouth - people you know. Again, I would point out that did Bill Gates put out a public ad for a job spec before he decided to hire Steve Ballmer? Doubtful. Gates already knew he wanted to hire one of his friends, and that's exactly what he did. Similarly, at my last job at a major multinational, when the company decided they needed a good UNIX guy, did the company publish a job spec? No, the IT director basically asked the IT staff if they knew any good UNIX guys who were on the market. One lady recommended a guy she knew, he came to interview, and got the job. No muss, no fuss, no need to pass through HR screens.

Look, that's the way that hiring is done in the real world at almost all companies out there. Most jobs are obtained by knowing somebody. That guy who was hired didn't have a single cert to his name. It didn't matter. The lady knew him and knew that he is a good Unix guy, so she put his name in for the interview. Just look around your company and ask yourself how exactly did the people around you get hired? If your company is like most companies, then a lot of employees got in basically because they knew an insider.

The point is that hiring is done largely based on personal connections, and college is one of the most effective ways to establish a personal connection. I have seen Harvard guys go and specifically hire only other Harvard guys, I have seen MIT guys hire only other MIT guys. Nor is this phenomenom restricted only to brand-name schools. I have seen no-name-school guys hire only guys from that school. Whether you like it or not, college is an extremely effective way for you to establish bonds with other people.

*You accuse me of only looking at people who have top degrees.

Yeah, and what's wrong with that? You seem to be restricting yourself to only talking about the top certified people. Let's face it, there are a lot of people who are certified who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near any computer systems. Paper-certified people abound - I'm sure you've heard of the many stories of MCSE's who have never installed Windows before in their whole lives. All they did was basically braindump and memorize a bunch of answers out of books and went and passed their cert exams. They might know how to answer test questions, but they have no idea how to actually run a real system. Even the CCIE ranks are full of "lab-rats" - people who have practiced on a bunch of lab gear enough to pass the test, but have never actually touched any real-world Cisco production gear in their lives, and consequently have no idea how to run a real network. For example, I knew one CCIE who thought it was perfectly OK to clear all the peering sessions of a router during the middle of the business-day. It's perfectly OK, and in fact even desirable to do that in the CCIE lab in order to make your lab setup work. But you cannot do that on a production router during business hours. Cannot. He got fired that afternoon.

The point is, since you seem to be implicitly restricting yourself only to good certified people, I think it's entirely fair for me to restrict myself to good degree'd people. Obviously bad degree'd people abound, just like bad certified people abound.

* No company is going to hire uncertified IT guys straight out of school.

Consider the December 8 2003 edition of Fortune Magazine (I can't provide an online link to the article, because Fortune only allows subscribers to view the magazine archives.)

"For the most part, it takes a degree from an Ivy League school, or MIT,
Stanford, CalTech, or Carnegie-Mellon - America's top engineering
schools -even to get invited to interview...work experience counts far less
than where you went to school, how you did on your SAT's, and your
grape-point average. 'If you've been at Cisco for 20 years, they don't want
you,' says an employee."

This philosophy extended even (and in fact, especially) to its IT staff. This company couldn't give a damn about certs. They cared about one thing - your degree, and whether it was a good one.

So now you're probably asking what kind of damn-fool company would be doing this, and how could they be so stupid. You're probably expecting some incompetent old-school company with a retrograde and regressive business strategy, and/or a company who doesn't understand the importance of good information technology workers,right? Nope - let me kill the suspense. The article was about Google. Yep, that's right, THE Google. Again, if you don't believe me, go to your local library and read the 12/8/03 volume of Fortune magazine.

Is anybody here going to stand up and say that Google doesn't understand technology? Or that Google is a poorly run and incompetently managed company? I didn't think so. And besides, those guys fresh out of school with their primo degrees, but no certs, who got hired at Google before the IPO (remember, the article came out in Dec of 2003, the IPO happened in April, 2004) are probably too busy counting all their stock option millions to be worried about getting certs.

Nor is Google the only company that does this. Right off the top of my head, I can think of certain investment banks, hedge funds and private-equity firms who will only hire college graduates for their IT staff. Don't care about certs, but you absolutely have to have a degree. Gotta have it, simple as that.

The point is that you can't say that no company will hire a guy straight out of school for its IT staff. Many do precisely that. I don't know about you, but Google doesn't seem to be doing too shabby.

*The whole notion of needing only experience (but not a degree) to get into management.

I have heard it said here that experience is the key to getting into management, and not so much the degree. The problem with that is that this is a simple non-sequitur, because you have to ask yourself the question: "experience in what"? A guy who spends 10 years running a Microsoft network obviously has strong knowledge in running a Microsoft network. But what exactly does that have to do with being a good manager, which requires an entirely different set of skills?

Let me argue by analogy. Let's look at the military. Why is is that the USArmy hands the command of a platoon to a fresh-faced 2nd lieutenant who has no experience but does have a college degree from the Academy or from ROTC? That platoon is often times full of grizzled sergeants with plenty of experience, and heck, some of those sergeants might have even been in the military before the lieutenant was out of diapers. Heck, the lieutenant may be the least experienced person in the entire platoon. So why is it that he is the one that is given the command? Why is it the LT that is given the orders to the sergeant, and not the sergeant giving orders to the LT? Why? Is the USArmy being dumb?

And even if you do believe that it's the USArmy being dumb, then you should bear in mind that this is also the way that the vast majority of all military forces around the world are organized - the degree'd officers command the non-degree'd enlisted men. So why would so many of the armies in the world choose to organize themselves this way if this is a stupid way to organize an army? Why would they all deliberately choose to be stupid? If it's a stupid policy, then why didn't some country in recent history change the way its army is organized, and then use that supposedly more effective army to win a war?

Taking it back to the corporate world, if experience really does always trump the degree, then why do some many of the big-name companies in the world scoop up young MBA grads and put them in charge of divisions that often times include employees who are old enough to be their parents? Who has more experience? And yet who is the manager?

The point is that even experience, as valuable as it is, does have its limits. In particular, experience is really valuable only up to a point, and then the that value levels off. The first few years of experience are extremely valuable. But beyond that point, more experience doesn't really help you. Honestly,- is there really that much difference between having 10 years of experience and having 15? Not really. If you haven't learned something after 10 years of doing it, you'll probably still not have learned it by year 15.

And in particular, just because you have a lot of experience at doing a particular technical task doesn't mean that you're going to be good at managing people who are performing that task. All those years of doing that task might have made you good at that task, but says very ltitle about how good you would be as a manager. That's why the Army places the LT in charge of the platoon, not the grizzled sergeant. That's why companies hire MBA's to run their line divisions, not just the oldest and most grizzled line worker.

*I never said that the degree was infallible.

I never said that the degree would solve all your problems. Degrees are not the end-all, be-all.

Rather, I see that IT qualifications really form a 3-legged stool. One leg is the degree. Another is your experience. And another is your certs. You should always work on what you are weakest on. If you have certs and experience, but no degree, you should consider getting that degree, because that's where you will get the most bang for the buck. Those with a degree and experience, but no certs, might do well by getting certs.

What I will say is that if you are in IT and you deliberately choose not to get a degree or you choose not to get certified, then you may be closing some doors. You are free to do whatever you want, but you are not free to have the consequences of your choices be whatever you want. If I choose not to go to the gym to work out, then I have to accept the fact that I may suffer from poor health, and I certainly shouldn't whine about it. I could have made the choice to work out, and I didn't, and so if my health deteriorates, then I have nobody to blame but myself. Similarly, if a guy chooses not to get his degree, and he then finds that he can't get certain jobs or certain promotions, then he has nobody to blame but himself. He could have made the choice to get the degree, and he didn't, and, well, that's what happens.

The point is that you have to be willing to accept the consequences of your actions. If you choose not to get a degree, then you shouldn't complain if and when you find out that you can't get a job you want. You knew the possible consequences of the choices you were making. And you certainly shouldn't complain about the supposed unfairness of it all. Everybody has the chance to get a degree, and if a guy doesn't do it, and then starts whining because he can't get a job because it requires a degree, well, it's hard to sympathize with that guy. He should have gotten the degree when he had the chance, and if he doesn't, well, that's his own fault.

*The "20-years" question

Again, I will paraphrase from my last post and say that certs are indeed very useful if you want to stay in IT. And not just anyplace in IT, but within a narrow sector of IT - basically whatever sector has to do with the cert in question. Degrees are not about getting an immediate job for immediate pay. They are about long-term career flexibility. A degree gives you the means to change sectors, or even entire fields if necessary. For example, an MCSE might give you the means to get a job running Microsoft Windows. But if you want to get a job at Microsoft designing the next version of Windows, or marketing that version, or formulating business strategy for Microsoft, or whatever at Microsoft, then the degree is probably more valuable.

So the real question is what do you want to be doing in 20 years? Specifically, do you still want to be slinging boxes and typing commands 20 years later? For some people, the answer is yes, and that's fine. But for other people, the answer is clearly no. I know that I don't still want to be slinging boxes in the year 2024. Or let me put it to you another way. Will you be fine with having a manager who is young enough to be your son come in and tell you how he wants the boxes to be set up and configured, or would you rather have a good chance at being the manager yourself?

The point is that certs are useful for the 'here and now'. Degrees are designed as long-term plays. This is why you find so many IT directors and CIO/CTO's who have degrees but no certs but rarely vice versa. So the real question is what do you want be doing in the future?

JASON123

Ok, I have a question. I am a student attending Case Western Reserve University and am majoring in management. It is too late for me to either switch over to majoring in computer engineering or getting a minor in that field. I am very interested in getting into the network engineering side and am currently studying for my ccna and have passed the Microsoft 70-270 exam. My question is that even though I am not majoring in computer engineering, is getting my ccna and some network certifications enough to get into the network engineering side of business or will they not accept that since I did not major in computer engineering in college? If you have any advice that could help me, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

drewm320

Definitely stay and finish your management degree. I don't think anyone would argue that it will help immensely in 10 years or so if you want to move into management.

Any degree and a few certs in a specific area should be enough to start a career in that area. You probably will still have to pay your dues in a helpdesk or doing PC support first. But I'm pretty sure that your degree + CCNA, Net+, etc. should be enough to get you in as a network engineer at some point.

/usr

Yes, your management degree plus certs will serve you just fine.

Cherper

LostInSpace wrote:

So basically you needed a paper pusher and endowed him with the title of sysadmin?

Honestly though, your "Administrator" position sounds a bit...easy. Granted, you've got to be able to deal with people, but a fresh college graduate with one MS test completed will most likely not be able to admin a network. Of course, I'm just basing all this off of what you said.

Most organizations would have grabbed the MCSE with 5 years of experience.

Many orgs would have grabbed the MCSE, but our org wants people that can do many things, and in the home office, of the 45 people here, all but 5 have college degrees. I guess it is just a matter of fit. The guy with the MCSE could talk microsoft, all day long, but that was it, he couldn't deal with real people.

Fu Loser

I still don't think that a degree is all that important. Experience outways a degree anyday.

I am taking my CCNA in 2 weeks and my goal is CCIE. CCIE is far harder to obtain then a 4 year degree. I do not see the point in taking biology, foriegn language, arts classes and all the other crap that is needed. My local community college offers ccna and ccnp. You are also required to have taken 3 math classes before you can go for CCNP......explain to me how difficult the math really is to subnet. Anyone with half a brain shouldn't need a math class at all.

The FBI has very strict requirements when hire. All candidates need a 4 year degree or a CCNP/CCIE.

Once I get a CCNA and CCNP. I will only be required to take about 5 or 6 classes to actually get and associates degree.

fredd13

I'm currently enroled on a foundation degree in computer network management...

For this we are going through the MCSA and the CCNA...

So I guess I get the best of both worlds in the end...

Freddie

/usr

I do not see the point in taking biology, foriegn language, arts classes and all the other crap that is needed.

Because it is well known that all that "crap" makes a person well rounded and gives them a diverse knowledge base. Every professor at every university understands this. Granted, there are some worthless classes you'll have to take, but most of them are there for a good reason. Not to mention that if you are fluent in more than one language, you've just increased your pay, or at least increased your chances.

Ten9t6

I would have to say that this all depends on what level you want to work at. If your wanting to get into the upper management in IT, your most likely going to need a degree....unless you are in the right spot at the right time. A senior tech can make pretty good money without a degree....I don't have one right now..and I would consider myself to be doing pretty dang good in the $ department (of course you will never get what you think your worth

)...I will finish my BSIT degree this year to roll right into a Masters in Information Security program..I am also working on multiple CCIEs..This is not so much for the money as it is for personal goals....

So, long story short...it all depends on what goals you have set for yourself.

BluesKid

<my two cents>

Why doesn't anyone ever mention what exactly it takes to get a degree in CS or IS? Is it because it is a complete joke? I have a number of friends with fancy degrees from good schools who I love like brothers but are totally useless. Even they will tell you they spent a fortune and an eternity in school and feel no more prepared for the world than the day they started. A degree is 90% fluff. They tell me about different classes and requirements and it makes me sick to hear that employers actually place value on these things. IMHO I can't see why high level certs + some actual experience would not be preferred to a degree 10:1. I have been in the IT field since high school and never regretted not spending the equivalent of purchasing a small country on a piece of paper that says I have the patience to sit in a boring lecture hall and doodle on a napkin. Ive spent the last 7 years learning by "doing" and building up a decent repertoire in the process. Employers have always responded well to my experience alone. Certs, I admit, are a must which is why I am finally grabbing the ones I should have gotten long ago. I have always been more of the "cut to the chase" kind of person. Im only interested in the meat of the matter and could go my whole life without studying the emotional satisfaction someone gets from sending an e-mail.

Here come all the hatemail posts from all the degree holders

</my two cents>

johnnynodough

one more important thing which no one mentioned, which is very true and very real....

College Graduates like to take care of their own.

Discimination based on education. I know a lot of really stupid college graduates, and a lot of brilliant high school graduates. Its just a fact of life.

mobri09

This is a heavy topic for sure. People say you should have experience or a degree or both if your ontop of things. But we cannot do everything in life! Your employer should not be telling you that kind of stuff either.
Good luck and do what you feel is best!