I think comp sci stuff would be useful for more enterprisy stuff, and also cutting edge stuff like search algorithms, AI etc.

But for all the PHP / javascript stuff i do with a lot of deadlines, comp sci degree would be near totally useless, in fact probably a hindrance cos i’d waste a lot of time trying to apply too much OOP

While having a college education is not a requirement, I *still* see it as an edge in jobfinding. Gives kids exposure to things they’d never find if they skipped the thing.

Of course there is. You have to know JS (possibly cross browser), a server side language, security problems for both database and XSS and whatever, XML or xHTML, XSL-T or CSS as a plus, charset encoding problems, on both client and server side, asynchronous interaction behaviour, queues, server stress problems, client optimizations, DOM events (deeply) for something that’s not an AHAH interaction, and much more … so, definitively, who can formulate a question like your one, is exactly the person that could have 10 degrees, and zero skill in AJAX development.

So, the question is:
Why there are such persons that do not know a single thing about AJAX development, but could get a job because of some unrelated degree, without experience, skill, and hard real life background?

There’s plenty to be said for the general education and the theory you get from a university education, but whether the student got those great things depends on the drive of the student, the quality of the university and not at all on whether that student got a degree, or a good grade. I present as evidence the vast droves of graduates who are utterly incompetent.

Disclaimer: I am a college dropout.

You simply can’t teach passion or drive… though you’d think by the number of ITT-like schools advertising on the radio that basically anyone can be a webmaster. Well I tend to agree… anyone CAN be a “webmaster”… it doesn’t mean that they are good at what they do.

These kids think that all it takes is a degree, or cert saying they know something. Well just because you can cliff-note your way through school doesn’t mean your cut-n-paste methodology and memorization skills will get you by in the real world.

A resume/cert/degree can get your foot in the door of some places, but it won’t keep you there unless your working for one of many mediocre businesses out there that really don’t need someone with better then average computer skills. Its usually Red tape over results, in these corporate environments. It still holds true unfortunately that its not what you know, its whose ass you kiss.

You might even be lucky enough to get paid a real wage while riding the coattails of others but if you’re just looking for an easy going 9-5 … then your mediocrity truly knows no bounds. If your company and your job survives spite your worthlessness, you’ll no doubt someday have a nice life waiting for you in a middle management.

Feel successful? At least you’ll dress the part!

However, what I learned outside of the technical aspects of my program have helped me greatly. From learning to manage time better, planning, analysis, working in teams and committing myself to a project, amongst many other things.

I spent my first few years of school thinking I was wasting my time – and took nothing from it (and nearly got kicked out in the process). I pulled myself around for my last two years, started to look at /what else/ I was getting from my education rather than pure technical know-how (since I already had it), ended up enjoying it far more, was more rewarding, and do feel that the skill I picked up along the way have made me a better employee and team player, but not necessarily a better programmer.

Furthermore, for its partially cross browser nature, JavaScript is one of the language that requires, absolutely, a lot of experience over the knowledge … but many company still thinks that JS and client/server experience is magically acquired in the “web master degree”, that sounds nearly hilarious in my humble opinion.

So, I think a degree is a good start point for selection, but I think that it does not make sense at all to filter, with a degree selection, people without a partially related degree that use JavaScript since its first implementations.

Finally, I do like the UK way to hire IT employees, using a technical and strictly job related test at first interview instead of look only the CV, while I hated, for about 9 years, the Italian style: at least a university degree, “whatever it is about”, because it doesn’t matter if you do not have a clue about your job and you still think that JavaScript is Java – probably the responsible thinks the same, so you are welcome!

Note: Italy, 38th place for IT … “unexpected”, isn’t it?
http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gitr/rankings2007.pdf

my 2 cents for this interesting, yet another one, debate about this topic.

Programming languages are simply tools that help you learn the concepts.

The educational system in the US is broken. Its become another way for big businesses (the Universities) to make money – they can charge enormous amounts because the students don’t have to worry about paying for it – they just borrow money and worry about it later. For the same reasons the schools often make it difficult to graduate in 4 years. And then people graduate, get a job and spend the next 18 months training.

There are some important things you don’t learn well while “on the job”. My friends who completed their BS did get some useful knowledge. Understanding of design patterns and other “academic” subjects don’t seem practical when you’re in the hustle and bustle of daily work. But what happens is you end up re-inventing the wheel (often poorly).

Is it just me or are the comments to this post rife with spelling and grammar errors? If you’re going to argue against the need for a college degree, at least try to appear literate when you do so.

I think fewer people need a BS degree and more people need a good education.

Would I give up that college education, though? Of course not — even if I’m not using the programming language I studied for, just the side benefits of being in a professional environment for four years prepared me greatly for a job in IT.

Yes, I’m sure there are people who can work in white-collar world without a degree, but try and find a job that pays well that requires no experience at all. Trust me, they’re far and few between.

And I think it’s sad that so many employers are requiring degress now. I’ve been steadily and successfully employed as a web developer for almost 14 years now — they didnt teach this stuff when i was in college. So I didn’t get my degree — how does that matter? They weren’t even teaching this stuff back then.