I have no idea how this factors in, but I will give my 0.02 in case it is at all useful to anyone. (I am new to the community, and this is probably a good place to introduce myself at least a little while adding my voice to the conversation ;) ).
I am an IT Manager for a local company and have been in IT for about 15 years (ever since high school, where i actually worked in the IT department of my school system as an assistant to our net admin for pay). I have worked for my current company for about ten years, and moved up from a simple programmer to my current position. I do not (currently) have a BS degree. My only education is with ITT Tech where I got my Associates Degree in "Applied Science with an Emphasis on Computer Network Systems" in 2004. With that said, I used to mentor a FRC team (US FIRST team 1557 in Eustis, FL), and any student that even mentioned that they were thinking about going to ITT, I would tell them to avoid it at all costs. Yes, there are a FEW people like me that had some experience before going, safely got through learning almost nothing new, getting a piece of paper and making somewhat good money afterwards. Then, there are the vast majority (I would call it 70%, but I am probably underestimating the problem) that leave with no experience or knowledge and a $50,000 school debt and working at a 12 dollar an hour help desk position with little (if any) hope for growth. Many of the people I went to school with couldn't manage a network for anything, and still couldn't after the two years we were in school. I haven't kept up with any of them (this was two moves ago back in Detroit, and I graduated in 2004 at that), but I would guess most of them are not doing anything having to do with their degree. Or, they are part of that lie of a statistic that ITT will throw out there for someone working as a cashier at Best Buy but calling it in the "IT industry." I cringe when I see one of their commercials on TV, and thankfully I have never been asked to be on one of them (though I did speak at our commencement for the IT program). I have never gone to Phoenix or Devry, but I used to work with a group of people who graduated from Devry around the time I graduated from ITT. They were good - and they all thought very highly of Devry (my guess is about the same for U of Phoenix, and I have talked to people who went there too, with similar experiences). Fast forward to about two years ago, I was hiring for a report writer. My needs were pretty simple, you had to be able to operate in SQL server, know something about programming, and generally be a "technical" person (one of my questions was "have you ever tried to program your cell phone" just to see if the person was a "tinkerer"). Everyone from Devry failed miserably. Most of them couldn't even tell me how you would get data from a table (much like James's question), or even be able to log in to Management Studio (keep in mind, this was after I warned each person what they were expected to do). FWIW, I also had a candidate from a public university (cannot remember which one) who also failed miserably, but his degree was about 20 years old. For myself, I am currently going to Western Governors University. I need the piece of paper, and WGU's way of doing things works great for my current schedule (you take tests whenever the test center allows you to, everything is online, and you don't have a set schedule). The school is regionally and nationally accredited (FWIW), and I have found that even with my extensive background in IT, that some of the classes are actually providing me with new information. I would certainly suggest it for anyone who is thinking about going to a for profit college because of time restrictions if for no other reason than it is accredited and relatively cheap (a year costs about $6,000.00 which you can't touch at either Devry or Phoenix and you can't even take three classes at ITT for that). Given my expereince at WGU, I would certainly not hold it against someone if they graduated from there, but I wouldn't hire them just because of it either. If I were in the market to hire a developer, I would make them actually program. Anyone who hires someone based on a college degree or experience alone deserves to end up with someone who doesn't know how to program. The caveat being that if someone actually has code in the wild and uses that as part of their interview I would say that is a good indicator, but I would still be a huge proponent of testing as part of the hiring process. I know that there are plenty of people who probably wouldn't hire me right now because I don't have a bachelor's degree. I am sure that there are some who might not even after I graduate from WGU. That's their decision, and IMHO their loss. A degree doesn't mean jack if you can't program or actually do what it says on the piece of paper, and in my experience plenty of people who graduate from notable universities (a person I used to know who had an advanced degree from a public university comes to mind) who still can't program, or who write programs that are absolutely rubbish and not worth the bits they are stored in. There are also plenty of programmers who are reasonably good at writing good code, but who know almost nothing about IT in general, but that's a completely different subject all together ;). I have always looked at a degree as a "I sat through four years of crap" license. It basically means you can start and finish something, which isn't nothing but it isn't everything. Again, my 0.02. I may be an anomaly, but I wouldn't not hire someone because they didn't go to a notable university, but (having been burned in the not so recent past) I also don't hire people based on what they say they can do, or where they sat for four years. I hire people who can actually do what they say they can do. In other words, actions speak louder than words. Kind Regards, Aleksei On 24 March 2014 14:07, James Noble <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 9:18 AM, Kevin Jensen <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > I have a quick question. For those that hire, how important is the > > institution that a prospective employee received his or her degree? By > that > > I mean does an applicant that received a BS from the University of Utah > > seem more desirable than someone who received their degree from > University > > of Phoenix? > > > > > > > I have done some hiring and the worst candidates I had were graduates from > the University of Phoenix. I don't want to say that everyone that goes > there can't program but that is my experience. I asked two questions to a > couple of candidates. I asked them to write a select statement from a > table to get all data from the table. I also asked them to write a loop > statement. I am not sure why I asked them to do this because I don't > normally but the candidates I asked this were unable to do it. I got the > feeling that for profit colleges were more interested in passing someone > than teaching them. > > If you are looking for where to go personally then I agree with what has > already been said. Work experience trumps school names. When I went to > school some students were getting a BS because their work required it to > advance in the company. If that is the case then just look at the cost of > the school compared with the time to graduate and the expected salary bump. > > _______________________________________________ > > UPHPU mailing list > [email protected] > http://uphpu.org/mailman/listinfo/uphpu > IRC: #uphpu on irc.freenode.net > _______________________________________________ UPHPU mailing list [email protected] http://uphpu.org/mailman/listinfo/uphpu IRC: #uphpu on irc.freenode.net
