I am not a hiring manager so I may not be the person to ask about this but there is one thing that hasn't been brought up that I have noticed about a college education. I have a BS in Information Technology from BYU and I don't regret getting that at all. There are a few things that the education gave me that I really appreciate. They are a better overview of how the entire system works and the confidence in the fact that I finished the program. These have already been brought up. The last one, however, is something that has not been brought up. That is my increased ability to think and learn. This is something that I noticed as I went into the workforce. I have worked with a few people that went to Stephens Henager or UoP. What I have noticed is that GENERALLY, it took them a lot longer to learn new concepts or a new system then it took someone that went to a college like BYU or UoU. Please don't get me wrong, I know that these are generalizations and there are plenty of exceptions out there. However, going through the educational experience that you get at a place like BYU, forces you to improve on your ability to learn. Obviously, the hard skills needed for the job are going to be the most important but soft skills like this are also very important and having the degree from a more rigorous program can only help to show that. Don't forget about needing to be able to live up to the expectation though.
My last comment is directed toward anyone who is trying to decide to get a degree. The question was brought up about if someone should get a job or go to school. I would say that if you can afford to do it without going into a bunch of debt, do both. My ONLY regret about going to school is that I didn't work in the computer field while I was going through school so that I could get that experience. Being a student can also make it a lot easier to find an on campus programming job to give you that experience as well. Derek Caswell On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 12:45 PM, Michael Hart <[email protected]>wrote: > I am just a lurker on this group but this conversation has been > fascinating and very timely. > > I currently work in the oilfield in Alberta Canada, I have taken many > courses at UVU in computer science, but was broke and had a family so I had > to make some more money. > > I paid off all my debt and am piling up money to go back to school...but I > am extremely torn since I want the most bang for my buck and I want to > progress quickly back into the computer science field. > > If I go to the University of Alberta I figured that tuition and books will > be an additional $20k. > > I've made many Android apps, C# programs, PHP, JavaScript and the like...I > really want to come back but don't know anybody who is like minded so I > don't have a community to stay up all night "hacking" with. > > What would this group suggest? Go back to school or just go to employers > and show them what I have done so far? > > Michael Hart > > MY BLOG: http://hartsoffice.wordpress.com/ > HOME PAGE: http://hartsoffice.com/ > TWITTER: http://twitter.com/TheHartsOffice > FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/michael.redxdeath > GOOGLE+: https://plus.google.com/108967967563278141587 > > > On Mar 25, 2014, at 11:34 AM, Kyle Waters <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> On 03/25/2014 11:16 AM, Justin Giboney wrote: > >> If they could come to you with something in their portfolio from > >> the course, what would it be? > > > > > > An SQL database driven webapp. Extra points for AJAX. That's what I'd > > like to see. Some employers would probably prefer certain frameworks, > > or javascript libraries. I've noticed a lot of jobs for front end > > developers, so extra work on the UI could go a long ways in the current > > job market. > > > > Kyle > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > 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 > _______________________________________________ UPHPU mailing list [email protected] http://uphpu.org/mailman/listinfo/uphpu IRC: #uphpu on irc.freenode.net
