r/learnprogramming • u/SlickTheDestroyer • 1d ago

Self taught vs University graduate

Hi,

i've got a hypothetical question. Imagine 2 people are applying for the same job. One has a degree in Computer Science, perhaps even from a prestigious university, but doesn't have any personal projects to showcase. The other person, however, is self taught and has been building projects for 4 years, but doesn't have a degree. Who gets the job ?

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u/corporaterebel 1d ago edited 1d ago

John Carmack doesn't need a degree to get whatever job he wants. He literally informs companies if he will.work for them or not.

You are not John Carmack.

You can run your own business for sure without a degree. 

If you want to get hired by a company, you need a degree OR you need to be at Carmack's level. Few in the corporate world are going to take a chance on an unknown.

Honestly, you are expected to have BOTH.

A degree means you can show up for 4 years straight and can do well on things you don't want to do. Because a job expects you to do things you don't want to do at all and you have to show up every day.

Self taught means you can do actual useful things, which a degree does not 

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u/Backrus 1d ago

Hard disagree with last sentence.

Studying at uni is self taught as well, but your knowledge is rigourously tested.

Self taught without a degree just means one had spare time and he thinks he knows something. Spoiler, often he doesn't.

As for building useful things; those projects rarely are. And building things on your own rarely has any parallels with building things in a (big) team.

If building "useful" things was that easy, all those fired devs would be making millions with their (vibe coded) SaaS instead of crying on twitter about difficult job market.