Raphael Mankin wrote:
<flamewar> As an employer of programmers of some 30 years experience I find that CS graduates are generally a dead loss. I would much rather employ English or Philosophy graduates: at least they know that they don't know. They also tend to have some knowledge of the world outside computers, unlike the CS graduates who can best be described as pig ignorant.
BTW one of my sons is a [pseudo-]CS graduate. His degree is in maths+computing.
</flamewar>
Sz wrote: -- nope, I was speaking purely as an observer of EE students and CS students at university.
I would suggest that a 10 year engineer would lose versus a CS student with a first or 2:1 and 7 years experience. 2:2 and under is not very impressive, on my course anyway. But then I have considerably more background than most people.
I don't agree with that, a friend got a 3rd, and I consider him way above me in most things (yeah that's you bing ;) In my opinion, just because someone has a degree dosen't mean they have more experience/knowledge than somebody else. Some of the most knowledgeable people I know didn't go to uni. The best programmer I have had the pleasure of working with used to defuse bombs in the gulf war.. and could totally run rings around me when coding.... --
<war> We have the whole academic-ranking thing here. Raphael, I must assume that you're looking for the wrong qualities in your employees. Sz, your friend Bing is not an average bloke. AFA the electronic engineers go, you're at one weird uni. None of the EE I know could shake a mouse by the tail.
There are two parts to getting a good degree- talent and effort. I'd guess R has been employing guys who spent a lot of effort learning what they needed to to get a great degree, while Bing has huge talent but just can't be a*d to work or to work the system. By the latter, I mean sometimes you have to do the wrong thing in the wrong way because it's what the examiners want. I got C's for Philosophy and Buddhism at A-level because I wrote too many original ideas, not what I'd been taught.
Degree measures are very awkward, because it's harder to apply yourself in the uni environ than at work. If someone worked, I'd basically expect a first. If they slacked, I'd expect them to have some other project to show me, in which case I'd ignore the degree.
Most of my knowledge I didn't get from uni, I got from private reading. However, there is stuff I'm learning at Uni which I never would have found on my own, and which has enabled me to think in new ways. </war>
Alexis