Degree for a Programmer?

[DanielWayne]

These look like good FREE intro starting points from legit universities. There are more advanced classes at these websites once you are done.

If you happen to enjoy one of these, then I can almost promise you it will be like a new world has opened up when you see what other things you can learn:

https://www.coursera.org/course/cs101
https://www.coursera.org/course/programming1
https://www.udacity.com/course/cs101

[OdysseusNY]

Originally Posted by packer43064

Thanks everyone. I want to get information from the horse's mouth.

So from people who are in the industry what would you suggest for the "new guy" in the field? What can you learn from the internet and what will you learn from a college degree?

What should I start to learn now...online?

If you had to go back and tell yourself what to do differently...what would it be?

stanford offers (or at least used to) all of its lectures from their introductory CS106 courses online. i'm not sure if that's changed since their association with udacity, but it's the best beginner's course i've seen. i would suggest you check that out, and recommend the textbooks they use (a few variations on professor eric robert's "the art and science..." and "programming abstractions..." as well as a karel the robot textbook)

personally i didn't learn anything technical in the field that i hadn't already learned in school, although many people have a different experience if their classes are lacking. most of what i learned in the field was more business related, selling myself, networking, etc

the most important thing to do is get the fundamentals down. this is much, much more important than knowing the latest languages and buzzwords. that's why i like the CS106 courses - they start with karel the robot

[BigDGeek]

Back when I entered the profession you did not need a comp sci degree; having a degree in anything was great as long as you could prove what you knew; most interviews were little more than a group "pimping" session and if you could run the gauntlet, you were in.

16 years later things have changed somewhat, as a lot of entry-level/low-level work has been farmed out to India or is concentrated in "Calcutta sweatshops" stateside with tons of H1-B contractors from places like Wipro and TCS. A lot of companies demand a comp sci degree or "equivalent experience" nowadays. For people like me it's not a big deal since I have a lot of experience, but if I was just starting out I'd imagine it would be difficult to get my foot in the door.

[BarqCider]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

Back when I entered the profession you did not need a comp sci degree; having a degree in anything was great as long as you could prove what you knew; most interviews were little more than a group "pimping" session and if you could run the gauntlet, you were in.

16 years later things have changed somewhat, as a lot of entry-level/low-level work has been farmed out to India or is concentrated in "Calcutta sweatshops" stateside with tons of H1-B contractors from places like Wipro and TCS. A lot of companies demand a comp sci degree or "equivalent experience" nowadays. For people like me it's not a big deal since I have a lot of experience, but if I was just starting out I'd imagine it would be difficult to get my foot in the door.

back in the tech boom days as long as you knew it, proved it and had some certs you WERE solid. these days you need a BS,MBA,PHD and certs and lot of experience just to land that 50k job it seems.

then again i completely blame that damn HR person who only screens for key words instead of seeing what a potential employee could bring. down with hr reps!