Experience vs Education Qualification

[Chris]

Which do you think that a company will use it to measure your salary?

???Experience or Education Qualification???

And why you said so...

[simonm]

I know for a fact (in the UK at least) that experience counts for a lot more than formal education.

For example, I have 5 years experience with no academic qualifications above A-level. My brother has no experience but has a degree (BSC).

My brother has difficulty finding a job that will pay enough to make it worth his while and I find it much easier to find work (with respectable pay) than he does.

Don't get me wrong though, I don't mean to belittle a formal education. It is definitely very useful and gives people a very good background knowlege. I'm just saying that 3 years education does not equate to 3 years work experience.

[Chris]

simonm, I agree with you too

As I juz got my Diploma only and I found that most of the knowledge that we learn from colleage/uni is kind of old technology as compare to what we've learn from our daily working experience.

yet, almost 60% of the fresh graduate still remain stay in those old programming tools and how can they bit the real world?

[chrismitchell]

I am in full agreement with you simonm, I have had the same problem as your brother. I got an HND in Design and couldn't get any work I was trained to do.

I managed to get some work outside the work I do now (Contract work... Funnily enough). But it is near on impossible to get a job without experience these days!

[Jamagei]

Actually me & Harry are doing this sort of experiment (well i am not sure if he is actively participating) because i have only a-levels (and not especially good grades) in Computing, Maths, Law and Electronics, whereas he has damn good grades in Computing, Maths, Physics and Electronics. I left college got a job in a warehouse for a year then left that and started working as a Computer Programmer in VB (about 8 months now) whereas (i that) word) he is doing a sandwich Bsc in computer science. It will be intresting to see who gets the best pay etc.

Check back here in a couple of years to find out

[simonm]

There are many extremes in this industry.

Many companies (particlarly the large ones) won't even let you through the door if you don't have a degree. It doesn't matter how much experience you have.

May small companies have a completely reversed attitude and don't value degree's attall and even dismiss them as irrelevant.

I think that a moderate approach is more appropriate.

Degree's have value in the fact they give you a theoretical understanding of many principles we all rely on, day to day, at work. Those of us without this background knowlege will still be able to do things but we won't always fully understand why it works like it does.

[Chris]

Simonm, I would like to said the theoritical is totally different from the practical. Although I agree with you that the knowledge from university does give us the background but the real world may act as the others way round.

Again, I personal feel that the Educational Qualification juz make our WORD more powerful and be trusted by others people as compare the same things from a people that does not have a good Educational Qualification.

Degree's have value in the fact they give you a theoretical understanding of many principles we all rely on, day to day, at work. Those of us without this background knowlege will still be able to do things but we won't always fully understand why it works like it does.

Well I have no Qualifications over a GCSE and i have been using computers since i was bout 5-6, and I started programming at 7, Im now a [cough]Trainee[/cough] IT Consultant at 16 years.

[HarryW]

I agree with you Simon (as in simonm), formal education does give you a better understanding of the inner workings of a lot of things. I don't mean to say that people without the extra formal education don't understand what they're doing, it's just a difference of the scope of knowledge. Formal edication gives a better breadth of knowledge across a wide range of subjects, some of which interrelate and provide insight into each other. When it comes down to the practical act of employing that knowledge, however, formal education isn't usually going to prepare you as well to do a specific job as on-the-job experience.

I personally feel that both formal education and industrial experience are valuable, which is why I am on a sandwich degree course (I start my placement in June or July) and I have also taken (and created if neccessary) several opportunities to work in an industrial environment.

The two kinds of education are very different in nature, informal education through industrial experience is generally quite focused on just a few specific tasks at a time. During formal education you learn about all kinds of diverse aspects of the industry. How many jobs are there which provide the opportunity to learn about maths, information modelling, knowledge representation, artificial intelligence, processor architecture, algorithm analysis, modelling & simulation, etc? There are jobs that would involve most of them, very very few would involve all of them (I think... am I wrong?), and how many jobs could someone that has just finished their A-levels get that involved most, or even more than a couple of them?

I have just today attended a lecture on computer vison. How many 19 year olds would have the same opportunities to learn about a subject like that through practical experience? This kind of diverse education lets me have a taste of many different fields of computing, letting me see which I like and which I don't, helping me to choose what I want to do about my future employment.

Having said all that, I don't think it's important to employers what you've learnt in your degree. Degrees vary widely in what they teach you. What they're interested in is whether you have the aptitude to learn what they need you to do. If they look at your CV and see a 1^st, it's a good sign that you have that aptitude.

[rekcus]

Degree will get you off to a seemingly brighter start. You get off the block first. But the qualification without the hardwork and effort will lead you nowhere. If you've got both brains and brawn, then there's nothing to stop you from standing high among everyone else.

Juz my 2 cents.

[HaxSoft]

I know that in Northern Europe/Scandinavia, i.e. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland the IT companies (and all other companies) tend to hire people if they have a good formal education.

I have no paper saying that I am programmer, but I do have 4.3 GB of source code saying so, haha. Maybe I should bring that the next time I go to a job interview.

Personally, I think those educations are worthless for what I want to do. I am, however, sure that they are extremely valuable to other people.

I think it depends on what you want to do. If you really want to be a hard-core programmer, you HAVE to program many different things and for a very long time, so forget about school. It's a waste of time.

If you want to go more into project management, be an IT journalist kinda thing, teach programming or any other more theoretical part of software development, then a formal education is definitely what you want.

[HarryW]

I don't agree it's a waste of time.

[Chris]

reckus, Degree may not be able to give you a better start. Juz take a look on simonm case.

[HarryW]

It might not, no, but then not doing a degree might put you at a disadvantage. Nothing is certain when it comes to employment.

If you don't want to do a degree then fine, don't, I think that's a perfectly valid decision if you feel it won't benefit you. I (and many others), however, feel that I want to learn about a diverse range of subjects to a relatively high academic level. If you know exactly what you want to do with your career and you can get into it already then fine, good for you. Personally, I am not copletely 100% sure whether what I think I want to do is right for me, and doing this degree not only allows me to learn a lot about lots of different things, it also lets me have a taste of many different areas. I know I want to be a programmer, that much I had more or less decided when I left school, but what kind of programming do I want to do? There are many different areas I could go into, and I am thinking about it all the time.

If you don't want to do a degree then don't. I do, and so do lots of others, for very valid reasons, so don't try to tell me it's pointless.

[Chris]

em.. HarryW, I didn't said taking Degree is a waste of time. But What I mean is, when come to seeking a job. Experience it always go first as compare to the Education Qualification. (My personal point of view)

[HarryW]

I know you didn't Chris, sorry if I implied that. I didn't mean to. Some people in this thread seem to think it's useless.

I agree with you that your experience in a field is more important when you're looking to get employed in that field, but what if you decide you want to do something else? The things you learn on the job are usually fairly domain-specific, quite specialised. With a good degree, an employer can see proven aptitude for learning quickly and learning well.

[Chris]

HarryW, you're right. When we take a move from one fields to another (Job function), then we'll totally loss.

Sometimes, some of the job function is quite wide too

[Kzin]

Originally posted by HarryW
I agree with you Simon (as in simonm), formal education does give you a better understanding of the inner workings of a lot of things. I don't mean to say that people without the extra formal education don't understand what they're doing, it's just a difference of the scope of knowledge. Formal edication gives a better breadth of knowledge across a wide range of subjects, some of which interrelate and provide insight into each other. When it comes down to the practical act of employing that knowledge, however, formal education isn't usually going to prepare you as well to do a specific job as on-the-job experience.

I personally feel that both formal education and industrial experience are valuable, which is why I am on a sandwich degree course (I start my placement in June or July) and I have also taken (and created if neccessary) several opportunities to work in an industrial environment.

The two kinds of education are very different in nature, informal education through industrial experience is generally quite focused on just a few specific tasks at a time. During formal education you learn about all kinds of diverse aspects of the industry. How many jobs are there which provide the opportunity to learn about maths, information modelling, knowledge representation, artificial intelligence, processor architecture, algorithm analysis, modelling & simulation, etc? There are jobs that would involve most of them, very very few would involve all of them (I think... am I wrong?), and how many jobs could someone that has just finished their A-levels get that involved most, or even more than a couple of them?

I have just today attended a lecture on computer vison. How many 19 year olds would have the same opportunities to learn about a subject like that through practical experience? This kind of diverse education lets me have a taste of many different fields of computing, letting me see which I like and which I don't, helping me to choose what I want to do about my future employment.

Having said all that, I don't think it's important to employers what you've learnt in your degree. Degrees vary widely in what they teach you. What they're interested in is whether you have the aptitude to learn what they need you to do. If they look at your CV and see a 1^st, it's a good sign that you have that aptitude.

Agreed - good overview

A 1^st puts you into line to be considered for a huge range of jobs so opens up your horizons. Having no degree will immeditely limit your prospects in a large range of interesting companies and projects.

Where are you doing your sandwich year?

[Kzin]

Originally posted by Chris
Which do you think that a company will use it to measure your salary?

???Experience or Education Qualification???

And why you said so...

Well - the highest earning 21 year olds that I know of all have no degrees and throughout their early twenties 'unqualified' people outstrip those of similar abilities who are qualified in salary.

However if I think of people who I know who are earning £100K+ in the Tech sector they are all graduates.

[HarryW]

I'm not sure where I'll be going yet. I'm in the middle of a lot of interviews at the moment. One I'm looking at is NIP (www.nipltd.com), I'm going for a second interview with them next Friday. I have another interview on Tuesday for some kind of modelling & simulation job. Got to learn some Python before I go for the NIP interview on Friday, hopefully it won't be too hard to pick up. Seems fairly straightforward so far.

Going to apply for IBM too I expect, they seem to offer a lot of different kinds of jobs. Strange to think that in only a couple of months I'll be off working somewhere that isn't here.

[simonm]

Rather you than me to work at IBM. I know I wouldn't even get through the door (without a degree) but I know someone who worked there and (whilst he enjoyed it socially) it was like a computer program production line where you each sit in your little cubical and get handed 'specs' to implement.

I think that it is a symptom of large organisations that people get 'pigeon holed' into particular roles. In smaller companies one is usually expected (in my experience) to cross over into different roles (when needed) and contribute to the designs and specifications.

[HarryW]

I had some similar reservations myself, the NIP job seems much more flexible... the question is, though, which will I learn the most from? I'm not sure.

[simonm]

I am not saying that you won't learn anything at IBM, indeed I'm sure it will be very good experience for you. I don't know 'ought about NIP so I couldn't tell you which is better.

I wish I was as focused on my career as you are when I was your age!

[Chris]

HarryW, you can't include though in your decision making... 'coz if you think you can overcome this, sure you'll do.

[Kzin]

Originally posted by HarryW
Going to apply for IBM too I expect, they seem to offer a lot of different kinds of jobs. Strange to think that in only a couple of months I'll be off working somewhere that isn't here.

The students who I know who have worked for IBM have got placed in very interesting projects with lots of responsibility - the story goes that all the senior people spend their time showing PowerPoint presentations in to each other in meetings - so someone has to do the work

[Chris]

Kzin, yes, chances is there. But we're always do what plpl have plan. So we're so call fellowship and not leadership.

Perhaps, I can say that i a small firm will learn everything and endup you can start planning, design any kind of project as you can and juz pass the spec to those young guy to implement it.

So, basically will be do the same things those senoir ppl in IBM