this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
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I think it's a joke for the people who pay into those 6-month software engineering bootcamps.
Ehh, if someone can make more than me by doing a 6 month course, I say good for them.
Sure, I'm likely to have a deeper understanding with my 4 year degree, but like... the more that person gets paid, the easier it is for me to negotiate my own salary.
I'll never call for anyone to have their wage cut just to make myself feel smug. I see this all the time in the minimum wage "debate," and it drives me nuts.
I'm definitely not agreeing with the joke either, I find it confusing at best because someone who finished a boot camp and got a job as a software engineer is still a software engineer.
IMO education plays a smaller role in software development proficiency than aptitude does. But I'm biased, I'm self taught - no boot camp nor college.
Ahh, I didn't mean to imply you agreed, was just tacking on.
I completely agree. I'm glad I got my education, but in my day-to-day work I rarely do anything that couldn't be done by a motivated and self-taught coder (and even then, who knows).
That said, my job right now is pretty standard coding, I'm not like, designing CPU chips or anything like that, where the "science" part of computer science is a lot more relevant.
I figured, but wanted to clarify in case others saw it that way 😅.
I assume the thing a degree usually covers that a self taught lacks is accepted best practices, teamwork, and alot of principles that are better learned before diving into it. So a lot of bad habits to unlearn.
IMO, in today's information world a degree isn't necessary for learning, only as proof of learning (which is still very relevant). But a formal education also puts the tools you need to practice in front of you. Software development is an easy field to learn and prove your skills in. Chip design you'd definitely be better off getting a formal education, though you still see people making microcontrollers in games like Minecraft without formal education.
Imo the main thing my education provided was that it forced me to learn the "boring" stuff that I might not have bothered to learn otherwise - especially not if I was focused on learning practical skills to land a job. Things like approximation algorithms, Haskell, all sorts of math, etcetc. Things that I will likely never use directly, but that inform my decisions just by being aware of it.
It also helps a bit with imposter syndrome to have that piece of paper, at least for me.
Neither of these are what I would call strictly necessary, though, for sure.
The fact that most universities will graduate CS majors without ever teaching them how to use a debugger, build system, or version control system shows how useful they are to actual engineering work.
The problem isn't the CS curriculum, it's people getting a CS degree when what they (and employers) want is some kind of Software Engineering degree.
Computer Science teaches the foundational math and science of computation, and in that respect I found it to be very useful and informative. I don't really need to know how to use Visual Studio to prove the limit of K for some algorithm.
Besides, there are so many tools out there that we might as well just learn them on the job anyway.
I had recent cs grads in my bootcamp with me.
I did a free 6 month boot camp and I just landed a senior role after 5 years.
In my experience, the type to get mad are the ones who actually have degrees.
IMO the ones with the degree and the aptitude are fine. It's the ones who struggle despite spending the time who are probably unhappy.