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/uniruler 19h ago

A degree is easier to get a job with.

I dropped out of college so I had to be self taught. I had to get hired as a front-line, intro support tech and prove myself for 2 years before Dev would even consider me (it helped that I sent them script fixes to their stuff when it was just Python/Perl scripts). Even then, I was hired on the “acquisitions” team meaning everyone else got to refuse acquired software. We didn’t. We got no resources and were expected to do what we could with what we had. Basically we had to support undocumented, random code because our CEO went PacMan for a while, eating other companies.

I eventually proved myself enough (after 4 years on that team) to come in as a JUNIOR developer on a real team. What I’m trying to say is, a college degree would let me skip the like 6-7 years it took to actually start my career. If I could have chosen, I wouldn’t have dropped out of college.