Let's discuss college degrees

[GeorgeG.]

Well, I guess time flies when you're having fun. Two and a half years later I completed my associates degree. Still at the same job, it's flexible and pays well so no complaints, but I was passed up for a Systems Manager role even though I'm the senior technical person here. I truly think it's because of how often my director and I have butted heads in the past and he's held a grudge since.

Anyway, I wanted to circle back and thank everyone here for the feedback a few years ago. I'm not overly fond of the sacrifice (time away from family) but that part is done and trying to find the motivation to keep going.

I'm in the process of starting at UT Dallas this fall but the closer we get I may not be able to make it work financially...still waiting to see what aid I get. I'm hoping I get to make it work since I'm certain that advancement will not happen for me here.

[Big A]

This is another great point...the exact degree isnt as important as just having one when it comes to management.

But do they have degrees?

I would have to ask, but it could go either way honestly. Every job posting that I've looked at over the past 6+ years has the bachelors or MBA listed in the preferred qualifications, rather than required, with the type and length of experience being required. Granted these were for a handful of specific roles within the sales org, which require a high-level technical understanding, focused on the user experience, and how the tools empower rather than the more granular concepts of design, architecture, and coding. Both managers came from one of these roles, so the degree wouldn't have been a requirement for getting hired.

[Ruffdaddy]

Food for thought, my last two managers didn't know squat about what I do on a day to day basis, and being that I'm on a team of specialists, all unrelated business groups, that could be said about all of their direct reports. The point being that in management you need to know how to motivate, guide, and hire the right people, as well as being able to help navigate HR and company structure. When you hire correctly, you shouldn't need to dig into the specifics, other than to help sort out details form time to time.

Both of these managers came from roles in other parts of the business, and were brought on due to an all up understanding of Microsoft's vision, and understanding of how the company operates, not because they have a degree in what their reports are tasked with doing.

This is another great point...the exact degree isnt as important as just having one when it comes to management.

But do they have degrees?

[Ruffdaddy]

Indeed. I was referring to which qualification you place the most value on.

I have worked at companies that hired people based on the degree they held with little applied experience. They usually get shown the door after a short period of time. Having a degree isn't a certification of worthiness.

As someone above pointed out - the IT field changes quickly. The base courses you learn in college are always useful (algorithms, etc) but any course that teaches a specific technology will at some point be stale (COBOL, Pascal).

Don't discount the value of people with hands on experience. The people that are disciplined enough to dig in on their own to learn certainly have the aptitude and the drive, degree or not.

I'm not disagreeing that the bottom could very well fall out of the economy and a degree may become the hurdle that needs to be cleared. But a degree is not required to be successful in IT.

I fully agree that the right experience plays a HUGE role in how well you do at your job. My self directed learning is one of the factors that got me ahead of so many of my peers and a long list of patents helps me when in interviews. It's also important to understand that age does not equal experience.

I think the difference here is in how you see a degree. I dont see a degree as making one better at their job or a "qualifier" (unless is hyper specialized and directly in line with a doctoral thesis). Instead...the LACK of a degree is a "disqualifier" for a lot of jobs whether it should be or not. You've got to make it through a recruiter and HR prescreen before getting to a hiring manager unless you already have a connection. The current market is the exception not the norm. I wish it weren't that day but when were getting hundreds of applications for the same jobs...you have to have someone else with a lot more time doing the prescreening.

[Big A]

Food for thought, my last two managers didn't know squat about what I do on a day to day basis, and being that I'm on a team of specialists, all unrelated business groups, that could be said about all of their direct reports. The point being that in management you need to know how to motivate, guide, and hire the right people, as well as being able to help navigate HR and company structure. When you hire correctly, you shouldn't need to dig into the specifics, other than to help sort out details form time to time.

Both of these managers came from roles in other parts of the business, and were brought on due to an all up understanding of Microsoft's vision, and understanding of how the company operates, not because they have a degree in what their reports are tasked with doing.

[Silverback]

Indeed. I was referring to which qualification you place the most value on.

I have worked at companies that hired people based on the degree they held with little applied experience. They usually get shown the door after a short period of time. Having a degree isn't a certification of worthiness.

As someone above pointed out - the IT field changes quickly. The base courses you learn in college are always useful (algorithms, etc) but any course that teaches a specific technology will at some point be stale (COBOL, Pascal).

Don't discount the value of people with hands on experience. The people that are disciplined enough to dig in on their own to learn certainly have the aptitude and the drive, degree or not.

I'm not disagreeing that the bottom could very well fall out of the economy and a degree may become the hurdle that needs to be cleared. But a degree is not required to be successful in IT.

I agree with just about everything you've said... If you want to remain technical the degree isn't as important as the experience anymore. With the cloud now, technology if evolving at a very fast pace, and enough people with experience just don't exist to fill the jobs that are available. Learn something new, even on your own, and you'll be surprised the people willing to take a risk on hiring you just because you learned something, even if you haven't functionally done the job before.

[Silverback]

I guess I assumed that was common knowledge among us. Of course I don't expect to go from admin to director in one giant leap. But yes, you are correct...realistically my next jump up will be some variation of Network Manager/Manager of Infrastructure. I was offered a Help Desk Manager a couple of years ago but at the time I still wanted to focus on the technical aspects of networking so I passed on it. Sometimes I regret that decision.

One piece of advice, don't always stick to the technology you know when it comes to taking a leadership role. Just because you're a good network engineer doesn't mean you'll only be a good network manager/director.

Take the leap into other areas. I spent a lot of time in Wintel/Virtualization leadership because I thought that's what I'd be best at, since that's what I knew technically.

Taking the leap to AWS as a Delivery Manager for Cloud Managed Services, which I knew next to nothing about before I got here, has been my best move ever. In nine months with AWS, I know more about the cloud than I ever could have imaged, and I've earned two technical certs as well, Cloud Practitioner, and Solutions Architect Associate.

[GeorgeG.]

I guess I assumed that was common knowledge among us. Of course I don't expect to go from admin to director in one giant leap. But yes, you are correct...realistically my next jump up will be some variation of Network Manager/Manager of Infrastructure. I was offered a Help Desk Manager a couple of years ago but at the time I still wanted to focus on the technical aspects of networking so I passed on it. Sometimes I regret that decision.

[Silverback]

So to touch on your post Mike, I've been in this field too for a very long time. With my skill set, I'm sure I can get another network engineer job fairly quickly. The only thing with that is that it's going to be another engineer job.

My goal is to break out of that and position myself for a director role. IMO, a bunch of tech certs isn't going to make that happen. I'm also not taking technical courses in college or as college credits. I've already stated that that is typically hand on training, boot camps, conferences, etc.

You really need to work your way up through leadership, by leading in your current role. Doesn't mean you need the title of manager to achieve this, but you need to show leadership/managerial work you've done and been successful with. The business degree may open the door to entry level management, but you'll be hard pressed to go from individual contributor to director level leadership just by adding a degree to your technical experience. (unless of course that's with your current company and you can move up internally)

Internal technical succession usually goes like this. - Technical Individual Contributor > Technical Team Lead > Technical Manager > Technical Sr. Manager > Technical Director

[GeorgeG.]

So to touch on your post Mike, I've been in this field too for a very long time. With my skill set, I'm sure I can get another network engineer job fairly quickly. The only thing with that is that it's going to be another engineer job.

My goal is to break out of that and position myself for a director role. IMO, a bunch of tech certs isn't going to make that happen. I'm also not taking technical courses in college or as college credits. I've already stated that that is typically hand on training, boot camps, conferences, etc.

[mikeb]

But you can have both experience and education. By no means is that an either or decision...

Indeed. I was referring to which qualification you place the most value on.

I have worked at companies that hired people based on the degree they held with little applied experience. They usually get shown the door after a short period of time. Having a degree isn't a certification of worthiness.

As someone above pointed out - the IT field changes quickly. The base courses you learn in college are always useful (algorithms, etc) but any course that teaches a specific technology will at some point be stale (COBOL, Pascal).

Don't discount the value of people with hands on experience. The people that are disciplined enough to dig in on their own to learn certainly have the aptitude and the drive, degree or not.

I'm not disagreeing that the bottom could very well fall out of the economy and a degree may become the hurdle that needs to be cleared. But a degree is not required to be successful in IT.

[Ruffdaddy]

I tend to disagree based on the fact that IT is evolving so much more rapidly than ever before, such that anything learned has already become obsolete by the end of a 4 year degree. New roles and responsibilities present themselves constantly, and there's not a distinct learning path for any of them.

This is where certifications, specialization, and experience come into play.

Its the same way for several degrees out there...its not about what you've learned...I'm sure people on this thread have already pointed that out.

A degree is a qualifier for several roles out there...when you are applying against several other candidates in a down market it's easy for your resume to get trashed because of a lack of a degree.

I'm not saying you cant do well without a degree...but it's important to understand that we're in a period of incredible economic growth that has created labor shortages in those type of roles. It reminds me of the oil boom in the 2012 time frame...every sales guy there thought they were amazing and untouchable but they never stopped to realize it was always the market making them look good. As soon as it went bust those dudes were all on to new career paths that took years to rebuild...and that's still during times of high economic growth.

Success = preparation meeting opportunity. Some see having a degree as preparation, others see experience and hands on knowledge as preparation. Choose your poison.
...

But you can have both experience and education. By no means is that an either or decision...

[mikeb]

You are jaded by the fact that we are in the longest period of economic expansion on record. That "few years ago" you talked about can and will come back. As long as you can keep your job that's great but if you're laid off...jumping back into a six figure IT job will be far from trivial without a real degree.

I've been in this business for a long time making a good income for most of it. I've owned my own company, and I've been through the good times and the bad times economically.

I always had a job through those times. Even in those years where having a degree was de rigueur the longest period I was out of work was about 5 months, and it was my experience that got me rehired.

I'm currently working for a company that does security products, and they employ the latest web and development technology. I'm currently working on some older technology, but you can bet your ass that I'm learning the new stuff too. Staying current with your technical education in this business is always a good idea, getting comfortable and sitting back is not.

Success = preparation meeting opportunity. Some see having a degree as preparation, others see experience and hands on knowledge as preparation. Choose your poison.

But none of us has a crystal ball..... we may all be selling apples and pencils on the street corner the next time the economy craps out.

[bcoop]

You are going to get different opinions on whether having a degree is a useful thing.

For some fields having as many advanced degrees as you can get is an advantage - doctor, lawyer, etc. For IT? It depends...

A few years ago the number of job applicants in IT was way higher than the number of available jobs - possession of a degree was used as a filter by employers to thin out the number of resumes that they had to weed through.

Now? Not so much. There are more IT jobs available than can be filled. Employers are placing less emphasis on having a degree so that they can put butts in seats. They are looking for people that are bright and are eager to learn.

I've been in the IT field as a developer for around 35 years. I managed to get a useless associates degree while I was working full time making good money but it's never done anything for me. Recently I looked into getting a computer science degree but the courses I'd have to take have *NOTHING* to do with my job - courses such as calculus and physics. The bottom line is that I'm 57, I'm making 6 figures, and I'm simply not interested in wasting time climbing that hill just to be able to say I did.

Its been my experience that if you have a good work ethic, you are willing to start at the bottom, you are good at what you do, you are a quick learner, and you are willing to tackle nasty assignments that no one else wants - you can find work and make good money without a 4 year degree in IT.

I'm glad you're doing well, Mike! Long time no see!

[Big A]

You are jaded by the fact that we are in the longest period of economic expansion on record. That "few years ago" you talked about can and will come back. As long as you can keep your job that's great but if you're laid off...jumping back into a six figure IT job will be far from trivial without a real degree.

I tend to disagree based on the fact that IT is evolving so much more rapidly than ever before, such that anything learned has already become obsolete by the end of a 4 year degree. New roles and responsibilities present themselves constantly, and there's not a distinct learning path for any of them.

This is where certifications, specialization, and experience come into play.