Ask YC: How many people here have a degree and are programmers?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=110992

by gregp • 18 years ago

35 187 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Quick poll - what type of degree - from what school -

mixmax2• 18 years ago

I dropped out of business school.

Too boring, especially macroeconomics. It was quite clear early on that they had absolutely no idea how things actually worked in the real world, and were just dreaming up theories.

I'm not a programmer, but I'm learning. It's so hard to get good programmers that I thought I would learn how.

apathy• 18 years ago

The trouble with business school is that some students mistake the classes for... well, for anything other than an opportunity to network. If you want to learn about finance, work for a fucking bank! If you want to make contacts, you could do a lot worse than a top MBA program.

An EE friend of mine (who helped me survive PChem, since I taught myself linear algebra and multivariate calculus, poorly) went back for his MBA recently. He began a standard engineering exposition of market forces in terms of structural equations and nearly the entire class glazed over. Afterwards, the professor (a former physicist) told him that, while his math was spot on, you can't use calculus in front of businesspeople and expect them to follow.

He almost cried. I laffed when he told me about this. (We both worked at JGSM and also at the supercomputing center as undergraduates -- even still, I think he was disappointed.)

Scientific programmers (what I was trained as) and everyday build-something-that-works programmers (which is more fun) are as different as FORTRAN77 and Lisp. Just an observation (related to your final sentence), not a tautology. There is, however, a divide between systems/performance-centric programming and logic-centric or symbolic programming, and the latter is more efficient in terms of man-hours IMHO.

mixmax2• 18 years ago

There is definitely a difference, and my goal is not to become a scientific programmer - I'm not smart enough for that. I am just curious as to how it all works, and my goal is primarily to better understand the process. So it is just basic CSS, javascript and PHP.

tallpapab• 18 years ago

Masters in Mathematics UC Berkeley Programming since 1969.

dottertrotter• 18 years ago

Purdue University - BS in Computer Programming Technology

davidw2• 18 years ago

No degree, I left for Italy afer a few years of Italian courses at the University of Oregon. I have worked as a programmer for 11 years.

iamwil• 18 years ago

How'd you end up writing a programming language?

davidw2• 18 years ago

You can't be in this business without being passionate about it. Well...I guess you can, but I think everyone on this site falls into the 'passionate' category. And with that comes the ability to pick things up on your own, which is in any case pretty much a necessity for this field, as many aspects of it change frequently.

One of the wonderful things about this field is how much is possible to do on your own, if you have a computer a decent internet connection.

In terms of Hecl itself, taken from (http://www.hecl.org/docs/j2me.html#javame_tutorial)

"I became interested in writing cell phone applications several years ago, after a rainy day high in the Italian Dolomites near Cortina d'Ampezzo - my old phone ended up in a mud puddle and died, leading me to purchase a new phone with J2ME (Java) capabilities. Writing applications in Java was okay, but I thought to myself that it would be an interesting experiment to try and create a scripting language that runs on top of the J2ME (now known as Java Micro Edition or Java ME) environment."

hhm• 18 years ago

I dropped out of Informatics (Universidad de La Plata), in 3rd year. I'm now starting studies on Maths (Universidad de Buenos Aires).

I've been programming for about 12, or 13 years now, I think.

ejs• 18 years ago

Masters, EE, Penn State

nostrademons• 18 years ago

BA in CS, Amherst College.

misterbwong2• 18 years ago

Info & Comp Sci Degree from UC Irvine. Just transitioned to being a programmer in our group.

tachibana• 18 years ago

Been developing software for more than 10 years.

- Stanford U, Masters in Engineering - UC-Berkeley, Engineering - UC-Berkeley, Computer Science - UC-Berkeley, Business Admin.

aleclair• 18 years ago

I'm a sophomore working on a BS in Comp Sci from Northeastern University. Go Huskies?

kajecounterhack• 18 years ago

High school kids don't have degrees yet ;)

dmpayton• 18 years ago

I'm currently on a break from school while I move and get settled with a new job (software developer at a near-Silicon Valley startup). I'm going back this fall to work on my BS in Comp Sci at CSU Fresno.

a-priori• 18 years ago

I'm 3/4 of the way through my Bachelor of Computing degree at the University of Guelph. Taking some time off right now to work on my start-up.

engtech• 18 years ago

Computer Engineer degree from the University of Ottawa

icky• 18 years ago

AA Liberal Arts!

Applied for it after I had started programming professionally. (Already had the credits, so why not? ;-)

nkohari• 18 years ago

B.S. Computer Science, University of Akron (Ohio). Software Architect at a small (25 people) consulting firm.

rksprst2• 18 years ago

BS Comp Sci, USC - 1 more year to go

tlrobinson• 18 years ago

Fight on!

BS CECS and MS CS, USC, '07

boucher• 18 years ago

BS CECS, MS EE, USC '07

People don't give 'SC enough credit!

rksprst2• 18 years ago

Fight on! Yea, I was surprised that when I posted I didn't see any other USC students or grads. Glad to see they're here!

huherto• 18 years ago

BS Computer information systems, University of Chihuahua (in Mexico); MS Computer information science, University of Michigan.

jgrahamc• 18 years ago

BA in Mathematics and Computation and then a DPhil in Computer Security. Oxford University.

pkaler• 18 years ago

BSc Computing Science. Simon Fraser University.

jeffreypriebe• 18 years ago

Another Canuck here! I did my graduate diploma (1 yr) at SFU

I did my undergrad at Canadian Bible College - B.A. in Religious studies (with Music History and ancient Greek). Thought the subject matter doesn't help coding, I think the college work did. I'm also a "started at age 8" story.

bkrausz• 18 years ago

Sophomore undergrad at Carnegie Mellon University. No desire/plan for grad school...I'm thrilled that I'll be done in a little over a year.

kashif• 18 years ago

BS, Finance - run and hack in a small software firm.

thorax• 18 years ago

BS, CompSci, University of Memphis

systems2• 18 years ago

BA in Management Information System, MBA sorbonne/dauphine (mbaip.com)

Programmer ... hmmm ... someday I will!

secorp• 18 years ago

BA UC Berkeley in Mathematics '93, MBA NYU Stern '06, run a small startup and still get to hack

geebee• 18 years ago

BA English, UC San Diego BA Math, UC Santa Cruz (strange case, they let me finish the double English/Math major at a different university - I did about half of the Math at UCSD and the other half at UCSC) MS Industrial Engineering and Operations Research - UC Berkeley

Still learning, of course...

fortes2• 18 years ago

BS in CS and MS in HCI, both from Carnegie Mellon

misterbwong2• 18 years ago

I've been thinking about getting an MS in HCI. How did you like the program?

fortes2• 18 years ago

I actually did a 4.5 year program for Master's and Undergrad there, so I don't have the typical experience.

I liked the program, I definitely learned a lot from it, although I can't honestly say I've used it much in my career (ended up lower level than UI often times).

My only gripe is that I wish that (at least at CMU) they had taught more graphic design. We had a few classes, but they were quite basic (I took as many as I could, but ultimately the interesting ones were restricted to Design majors).

Before you go get a Master's -- think about which part of HCI are you most interested in? Usability (evaluating, running tests), UI design, the programming?

mannylee1• 18 years ago

BA English from The University of Dayton.

wallflower4• 18 years ago

I have a degree in Civil Engineering. Since I was bored/nearly falling asleep in some of my structural engineering classes, I knew it probably wasn't the field. (I've always loved coding/playing with computers).

An engineering degree really emphasizes problem solving. We had homework sets where you'd be lucky to solve all of them. Spending hours on a single problem. But you learn a lot. I see software development mainly as creative problem-solving.

Getting my first job was a combination of luck and persistence.

larrykubin• 18 years ago

BS Electrical Engineering & BA Philosophy, 2004, Univ. of Texas at Austin

speric• 18 years ago

BS in Comp Sci, St. John's University, currently a programmer at an i-bank.

pauljonas• 18 years ago

B.S. in Computer Science

Guess you could call me a programmer as I wear many hats, but web developer is my prime role...

bscofield• 18 years ago

BA Philosophy & Biology - UNC Chapel Hill MA Philosophy - University of Maryland, College Park

donal• 18 years ago

WOOHOO! +1 Philosophy

BA Philosophy from Ripon College MS Information Systems University of Maryland Baltimore County (in progress).

been a avid "hobbyist" programmer for 7-8 years now... just recently started getting paid for my programming.

goodgoblin• 18 years ago

BA Philosophy Colgate University, 1 Year Post Bacc CompSci University of Oregon - have been programming for food since 2000

eelinow• 18 years ago

I've been coding since the age of 8, never got a degree as I found university moved too slowly. I knew from childhood that all I wanted to do was code. Now I've been coding professionally for 13 years, and overall for 27 years. I'd thought about going back for formal education but the reality of it is that I still learn at a faster rate on my own and do take the time and effort to learn even those things that I don't think I'll need or particularly care to learn. I do feel that I missed out on some camaraderie with peers, though I have since gained that via professional and non-professional venues.

simianstyle• 18 years ago

I'm about to graduate from Babson with a degree in entrepreneurship (real useful that's gonna be), and I'm working at a startup as a programmer (self-taught).

apgwoz• 18 years ago

BS in Computer Science from Temple University. I started on a Masters, but dropped it. Now I'm taking classes at the University of Pennsylvania.

KB• 18 years ago

B.S. Comp. Sci. from the University of Rhode Island

Java programmer for a Defense Contractor.

jonp• 18 years ago

MA Mathematics from Oxford; MSc in 'Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems' from Sussex.

rokhayakebe• 18 years ago

no degree, can't code, rejected from yc funding 3 times, and still working on my startup.

robmnl• 18 years ago

What's your startup?

dawnerd2• 18 years ago

3 times? That hurts. Shows your dedication though.

ardit333• 18 years ago

or obliviousness... *ducks

sigstoat• 18 years ago

B.Sc. Computer Science; Colorado @ Boulder

uuilly• 18 years ago

Me too! I don't miss the concrete jungle at all.

abstractbill• 18 years ago

PhD in pure mathematics, University of Nottingham, UK.

Self-taught as a programmer, but it's a similar mindset.

albertcardona• 18 years ago

PhD in Biology (Developmental Genetics), Univ. Barcelona, Spain.

Self-taught as a programmer as well, but it's a totally different mindset.

ken• 18 years ago

B.A., CS, 2000. A prestigious US university you've heard of.

Essentially had to self-teach myself programming after graduation, because all they taught was Java and C++ and Windows NT. Real programming is a totally different mindset.

edu• 18 years ago

BSc in Computer Systems Engineering, UPC, Spain.

Currently studying MSc in Computation, also at the UPC, Spain and working as a programmer (mainly in Perl and JavaScript).

Programming since I was 14 (currently I'm 23), lot of self-acquired knowledge.

mnemonicsloth• 18 years ago

PhD student in EE/solid-state, currently vacationing in the math department.

I started out in CS and hated it, but I still spend a lot of my time coding.

Most of my math classmates can program a little, but all the engineers I know are hopeless.

mullr• 18 years ago

CS from RPI... programming for The Man.

NoBSWebDesign• 18 years ago

I graduate this summer. I've got only 12 credits left out of 204 for my dual BS in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. I go to Kettering University (formerly General Motors Institute).

dkokelley2• 18 years ago

Business Marketing from CSUN (Cal State Northridge)... in 2 more years.

BKmke• 18 years ago

BS and MS in Electrical Engineering-Marquette. I am not a programmer...although I read a lot about programming.

bosko• 18 years ago

I went to a college in Canada, which are basically regarded as the "lower form" of post secondary, as Universities are for the big wigs.

I graduated from a 3 year Computer Programmer / Systems Analyst program and couldn't be happier. Now working at a retail startup doing all their tech / web/internal development / online / offline marketing and I couldn't be happier

Apart from that I stick in some freelance and my own projects on the side. Currently working on my own startup. I live code, I loves it

So to the initial question: No major degree, but I can code!

tirrellp• 18 years ago

MBA, BA, Economics BA, French Université de Montpellier, France International Interpreter's School Mons, Belgium

Started coding at about 8 or 9 years old on a C64 and Apple IIc/IIe. I have always been a tinkerer of sorts... taking things apart then wondering why I have extra parts left over when I put it back together.

I have done it all, networking, development, support, QA, moving up the food chain so to speak. These days, I spend a lot of time in Project/Process management.

dkokelley2• 18 years ago

When you have leftover parts, that means you were more efficient than the manufacturer. :P

brlewis3• 18 years ago

S.B. Math MIT

xmilestegx• 18 years ago

BS in Computer Science & Engineering from The Ohio State University. - Programming for the man.

the '& Engineering' just means I took more math and physics classes and some intro to (insert Engineering Discipline) classes.

raju• 18 years ago

MS in Industrial and System Engineering (thesis in Systems) from Ohio University. Learned programming as a mix of self-study, and great mentoring by a professor at OU.

Bachelors in Production Engineering from Bombay, India.

bdittmer• 18 years ago

BS Computer Science & Engineering

thermocline• 18 years ago

BS, Computer Engineeering, University of Florida

dfranke• 18 years ago

What year? You were in my department.

kobs• 18 years ago

Still there? It'd be nice to speak with fellow Hacker News readers on campus.

(in progress) BS, Computer Science, University of Florida

andrewl• 18 years ago

BA in English and Creative Writing, Oberlin College

Most of a second bachelor's in psychology, University of Pennsylvania

A year-and-a-half in a Clinical Psychology PhD program, University of Texas, Austin

MS Information Systems, and MS Library Science, Drexel University, Philadelphia

Web developer at a not-for-profit medical publishing company, doing Rails and pretty much anything else related to the web.

jharper• 18 years ago

BS Applied Math

BS Comp Science (both at Appstate)

Former Java programmer; current language is Ruby, professionally.

dnaquin• 18 years ago

BA Mathematics, Rice University.

jimm• 18 years ago

BA Mathematics, concentration in Comp. Sci. from University of Rochester. Graduated a year before they had an undergrad Comp. Sci. degree--there was already a graduate program. Oh, yeah: I'm a programmer.

bsaunder• 18 years ago

B.A. Cognitive Science - University of Rochester. - Programmer.

dgabriel2• 18 years ago

Maybe half of a theater degree? I completely failed out of college, then tried to make a living as an "artist," then accidentally stumbled into a programming job at a start-up. Now I'm a principal software engineer.

wallflower4• 18 years ago

Do you still practice your art for fun and non-profit? I think exercising creativity is important for personal satisfaction.

dgabriel2• 18 years ago

Absolutely. I'm very involved as an organizer & I still do workshops, etc. I make maybe $500 a year off of the work I do as an artist, which is great, but also clearly demonstrates why programming is the more prosperous carer path. Fortunately, I really, really enjoy programming & I've been able to use it to benefit the arts community I work with.

dssjon• 18 years ago

BS Information Systems, University of Texas in Arlington working as database/web developer

aggieben• 18 years ago

B.S., M.Eng. C.S. Texas A&M University. Programming for the man (but working on a little bit of just about everything on my own at home). Really. Desparately trying to figure out how to get going with a startup without having to go to the freaking Valley, Boston, or NYC.

Daggum Californicators.

pg• 18 years ago

Desperately trying to figure out how to get going with a startup without having to go to the freaking Valley, Boston, or NYC.

You can do it, if you can find a good cofounder where you are. When people like me talk about it being a net win to be in the Valley, we mean no more than that. It gives you an advantage. But it's far less important than the quality of your cofounder(s).

dazzawazza• 18 years ago

BEng Software Engineering Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine, London UK.

watmough• 18 years ago

Computational Science (2nd Division) - St Andrews University, Scotland.

Writing software that bills gas pipelines.

ivankirigin• 18 years ago

CS BA NYU, Robotics MS CMU

codewhisperer2• 18 years ago

A CMU Robotics masters is totally sexy.

macnod• 18 years ago

No degree. I've been programming professionally for 20+ years. Usually better off than my peers salary-wise (since the beginning). Generally regarded as the best amongst the programmers I know personally (which is a bad thing, in my view). Started several companies. Most failed. One sold. Have had a 9-5 job for the last 3 years (telecommuting from home). Title: Senior Programmer Analyst. Actual Work: developing new products (programming).

anaphoric3• 18 years ago

Ph.D. Computer Science UCLA 1997

anaphoric3• 18 years ago

Oh yeah and B.S. Computer Science University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 1991

ashwinl• 18 years ago

I'm a current undergrad at University of Michigan, AA studying mechanical engineering. But, I started programming at 11 when I first got paid for my programming skills. I've worked in the "real world" each summer and have found my hacking abilities more useful than many other skills.

Sometimes it's a php script to scrape data, other times it is a vb macro to make excel work more efficiently or a bash script, etc. etc.

olifante• 18 years ago

Physics degree, University of Lisbon.

mironathetin2• 18 years ago

PhD in Atomic Physics.

Started programming with 16, started to love it when I wrote the code to run my lab automatically (adjust the lasers, pump the vacuum chamber, run the electron gun, calibrate the spectrometers and do the measurements), while I was downtown having a beer with my friends. Did it in ansii c on a eltec os 9 lab computer using a camac crate.

I still had to type the thesis myself.

ardit333• 18 years ago

Cool. I minored in physics, and I thought it was much harder than CS. Respects from me.

mironathetin2• 18 years ago

Thank you!

Maybe I drop a word about why. CS was an option for me, but I would have done it only to learn more about programming (and maybe how the hardware works). Since I already knew a lot about programming when I was 18, I decided to go for physics, because Astronomy and Quantum physics were both also strong interest of mine.

Basically this decision opened a bunch of very interesting job opportunities in science programming that would have been hard to get into without a scientific degree. I can wholeheartedly recommend to not study CS, but a different science, especially if you know that you want to write software. You can easily learn programming by yourself and get detailed knowledge in another topic. This combination is hard to beat (most scientists are very bad at programming).

It was a lot of fun to program in my own lab environment. Maybe because I controlled the whole pipeline starting from requirements to finally using the software for my own scientific work.

Its a pity that this is rare. Currently I develop software for an ESA space observatory. Sounds incredibly cool, but sucks a lot because of the size of these scientific projects (and because of the bureaucracy of ESA and NASA).

jdavid• 18 years ago

Degree in Computer Engineering - Marquette University php/c#/vb.net

learning as3/ruby/linux shell

TheTarquin• 18 years ago

Kind of boring by comparison: B.S. Computer Science, Gonzaga University. Working on my Masters thesis in Philosophy to be done in May. Been working continuously as a programmer (mostly legacy support) since January of 2006, with a few other internships before that.

menloparkbum• 18 years ago

BS Math, BA Philosophy, EMT-B certification.

bgutierrez• 18 years ago

No degree, some CS classes, lots of books.

imperator• 18 years ago

No degree. Taught myself how to code when I was kid. Started a Computer Engineering degree, but I would get bored and stopped going to class. Switched to Econ, but never finished that. Started taking classes I wanted in an order and grouping that was never going to get me a degree. So I left. I've been a programmer ever since.

jmtulloss• 18 years ago

Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I graduate in May, looking forward to working full time on my startup after that.

I-L-L!

JaredRad• 18 years ago

I can't believe nobody has jumped on this yet... I-N-I!

All UIUC/Chicago hackers interested in meeting up should email me: jared [at] aftervibe [dot] com

rcoder• 18 years ago

I dropped out of college after my freshman year to join a startup. I've been doing programming and general IT work ever since (~8 years).

After taking some more classes part-time, I've probably got about 1/2 the requirements for a degree in mathematics from a couple of different schools, but never seem to find the time to go back full-time and finish it out.

I do work at the college I dropped out of all those years, ago, though.

konsl• 18 years ago

BASc in EE from University of Toronto; immediately followed with my first start-up

kleevr• 18 years ago

Still in college for CS but plan to complete course work on part-time, I've been programming since I was 14 professionally. (A friend of my father had an SEO startup and needed a script kiddie for PERL/JS/HTML stack. He bought me any book I wanted and payed 15/hour. Purely self-taught, but higher level mathematics and discrete theory have improved my programming beyond anything else I've taken.)

Computers are made for making life easier, and in a capitalism that equates to making money if you can teach a computer to do a human job. Just waiting for that dynamite concept to take to market.

I love this site btw.

cstejerean• 18 years ago

When I stopped going to school full-time (about 2 years ago) I thought that I would continue my degree part time. It hasn't really worked out however. The reason I stopped going full time is that classes were boring, and since I work full time, wasting a couple of nights per week on boring classes (instead of staying at home hacking) is not something I enjoyed. I'm still "planning" to finish at some point in time but I'm starting to doubt if it will ever happen.

ice5nake• 18 years ago

AS Computer Science - Penn State York

7 years out of college. Web programmer for a startup. Still learning the ropes, hoping to have my own startup someday.

hollywoodcole• 18 years ago

B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Mississippi. Programmer Analyst at FedEx Services.

there• 18 years ago

no degree for me. i started programming in my early teens with vb, worked for an isp during high school doing unix sysadmin and perl/php programming. after high school i didn't bother with college and just continued at the isp for a number of years doing perl/php/ruby programming. i left there two years ago to become self-employed doing software development.

jey• 18 years ago

"professional" programmer, self-taught, no degree.

bayareaguy• 18 years ago

B.S. Applied Mathematics, UC Berkeley.

klocksib• 18 years ago

BS, Computer Science, Central Washington University.

jonnytran• 18 years ago

BS in CS, BS in Electrical & Computer Engineering -- from Carnegie Mellon

gills• 18 years ago

BS CS Washington State

Will finish this year: MS CS University of Washington

programming for other people for 5 years

davidppp• 18 years ago

B.Sc (Computer Science) and an incomplete B.A (Philosophy/Classics). University of Canterbury here in New Zealand. Currently programming for my startup.

human_geode• 18 years ago

no degree, quit when I was told I couldn't take the fun (math, chem, etc) classes and had to take poly sci

code part-time, not as good as I'd like. Thinking about going back to school and finishing a CS degree, but I'm 40 with 5 kids to support (geeks get lovin too)

PS: You might want to warn someone if they have cookies turned off... the error message is counterintuitive.

chr• 18 years ago

M.S. from Norwegian School of Business Administration and Economics (NHH), M.A. in linguistics, University of Oslo, currently programming CL in a telco.

pius• 18 years ago

S.B., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT

mrtron2• 18 years ago

BCS (yes it exists...) University of Waterloo

So at Waterloo you can now get a BCS (in the math dept, school of comp sci), BMath - CS, Comp Eng, or Software Eng. I think the diversity in the programs is a good thing. Hell half the Electrical Engineers end up as programmers, but I would never hire one :P

pmjordan• 18 years ago

MPhys in Computational Physics from University of York, UK.

Self-taught in programming from age 9. Had 1 long-term job as a game programmer, got fed up with it, now working on my own tech. (I'm 23)

alakra• 18 years ago

BS Computer Engineering Technology, 2004 - Southern Polytechnic State U. I program non-stop...

mk• 18 years ago

B.A. in Philosophy from University of California, Santa Cruz 2006. Started programming around 1999.

alexsolo• 18 years ago

BA Software Engineering, University of Waterloo.

Working as a C++ developer at a big online retailer.

hisham• 18 years ago

Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo.

Also worked as a software developer at a big online retailer ;-).

mrtron2• 18 years ago

Haha, I know a few people working as developers at a big online retailer from Waterloo too.

simplegeek2• 18 years ago

Dropped out of CS school, twice.

wallflower4• 18 years ago

Can we assume you won't go for the hat-trick as you probably already have the skills to pay the bills.

simplegeek2• 18 years ago

Well, I often think I should go back to school. But I guess I've been lucky so far :) That said, I think self-learning is much more important. They don't teach you how to use version-control, right?

indian• 18 years ago

MS, Computer Applications (National Institute of Technology, Trichy, India) Manager of a Development Team. still like to call myself database programmer

mechanical_fish• 18 years ago

Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Cornell

(also B.S., Physics, Case Western Reserve)

I had one formal course in software: Motorola 68k assembly language programming, in college. Three months of super-tedious review for the slow students ("this is a hexadecimal number") followed by perhaps one month of interesting new knowledge ("this is a stack frame"). I never tried to learn programming from a lecture course again.

I self-taught my own way through ArsDigita's web programming curriculum in the late 1990s... reading Greenspun's stuff was what convinced me that software was actually worth doing, and the reading list was great: SICP, Learning Emacs, Fogel's CVS book (hey, that's all they had in the elder days... :), Internetworking with TCP/IP, SQL for Smarties, Tufte, etc.

danprager• 18 years ago

PhD in Mathematics (computational physics), 1997. Self-taught at programming from age 14. After finishing my PhD I decided to get out of academia. Didn't want to work as a "quant", hence: software (mainly programming).

thisisnotmyname• 18 years ago

BA in Computer Science from a tiny liberal arts college. I worked as a programmer for 3 years. now I'm back in school, working on a PhD in the biomedical sciences at BCM.

copenja• 18 years ago

BS Comp Sci, UC Santa Barbara

wehriam• 18 years ago

B.S. Computer Science, FSU

modoc• 18 years ago

Made it 1.5 years into an aerospace engineering program before realizing I was wasting my time and money. I was making six-figures and had racked up tons of hands on experience working with startups and Fortune 500s by the time my classmates walked out with a piece of paper and some huge debts.

caudicus• 18 years ago

BS Computer Systems Engineering, Boston University

fallentimes• 18 years ago

BS Finance, University of Dayton, 2006

streblo• 18 years ago

(pursuing) BS Computer Science, BA Philosophy, Duke University

unexpected• 18 years ago

B.S. Economics and Computer Science, 2006 - Duke University!

GTHC! GTHC! ;-)

Xichekolas• 18 years ago

BS Comp Sci - University of Kansas - 2005

jalammar• 18 years ago

Go Jayhawks!

BS Comp Sci Kansas 2006 here.

rjb• 18 years ago

B.A. in Art and Photography. I was working in the mail room of a financial company here in Chicago when word got around that I was an art major and that I was into computers. The CIO came over one day and dropped a 4" stack of HTML print outs on my lap, asking me to build a company newsletter website. I haven't stopped web development since. (I can't believe that's pushing 10 years ago).

I dropped out of grad school (computer science) a few years back after completing 1 year only because it wasn't enjoyable. It felt like high school, no enthusiasm, like every HAD to be there. Classes were painfully slow and sequential, stripped of any creativity.

shafqat• 18 years ago

BSE computer engineering and economics, Penn, but don't use any of it at my startup!

amohr• 18 years ago

Half a BS in physics, half in Economics, both UIUC

parbo• 18 years ago

M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics (no, not two degrees, a combined syllabus). Oh, and I'm a programmer. Or something.

astrec• 18 years ago

BS Comp Sci / BA Philosophy - Monash University (Australia)

dawnerd2• 18 years ago

I decided not to go to college and instead work 100% on my startup. Life has been good. I can work with PHP if you want to consider that programming...

DarrenStuart• 18 years ago

dropped out and coded in.

carpal• 18 years ago

BBA in CIS from Georgia State University

danohuiginn• 18 years ago

That's an impressive number of philosophers. And of replies in general; turns out we do all like to talk about ourselves ;)

My degree is in sanskrit. Programming was as obvious a detour as any after that, once I figured I wasn't cut out to be an academic.

arvid• 18 years ago

BS Math CMU, MA Math UPenn. Both too long ago to matter anymore. A programmer and failed mathematician. On good days, a software developer. Never a computer scientist or software engineer.

gojomo• 18 years ago

BA Comp Sci & Economics, UC-Berkeley

pdsull• 18 years ago

BA in Philosophy from the University of Montana and a JD (in May) from the University of Pennsylvania

culley• 18 years ago

BS Material Science - Rice Took no comp sci in school, but I've been coding since I was 8 (Drawing Mr. T in VB) Currently work as a coder, never used the degree but.. co-workers who do my same job without a degree pull 20k less a year and are career limited (in that they can't advance anymore until they get a degree of some kind)

seshagiri• 18 years ago

Engineering degree in civil engineering. self taught programming while in college and switched to full time programming career after a year stint has a civil engineer on the field.

andrewf• 18 years ago

BSc (Computer Science) from Curtin University, Western Australia

doubleplus• 18 years ago

BA Political Science, UC San Diego. Still learning programming. Stuck in insurance atm.

codewhisperer2• 18 years ago

M.S. Computer Science, CIMS NYU. Actively programming when not wrangling departmental politics.

mfruhling• 18 years ago

Generic Information Systems from Villa Julie College in Maryland. The courses taught me Visual Basic and SQL. I've taught myself everything else and have so much to learn.

agotterer• 18 years ago

B.S. in Management with a concentration in MIS from the University at Buffalo. Transfered out of comp sci from the University of Delaware (I was bored and had no pretty girls in my classes).

mxyzptlk• 18 years ago

BFA, Illustration, Ringling School of Art and Design, and a programmer.

nadim• 18 years ago

B.Sc. Software Engineering - Universtity of Calgary

garethm• 18 years ago

BSc Computer Science from University of Cape Town 1997

ibsulon• 18 years ago

BA in communications from the University of Arizona - minor in CS.

They were restricting the students going into the major and I flubbed up the first semester. (I got a D in discrete math. None of the concepts were difficult for me, but they combined it as a proof class and I just couldn't get the hang of them.) Also, I knew I was pretty good with the computers, it was the interaction with people I was lacking.

I'm strongly considering going back for a Ph.D in cognitive science, but I'll likely have to shore up some of my undergraduate weaknesses first. (The years in industry have taught me that as much as I am frustrated with academia, it suits my personality much better.)

ardit333• 18 years ago

Computer Science major, minors in Physics and Mathematics at Radford university, in VA.

A party school, so my gpa wasn't perfect, but I had a good time. I had a full academic scholarship though.

omakase• 18 years ago

BASc in EE from University of Toronto (in 3 months) -- already into my first startup

wlievens• 18 years ago

Master in Applied Computer Science from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Brussels, Belgium).

Novash• 18 years ago

Working on my degree now. Two more years to completion, suposing I ever attend the classes. I live in Brazil so the name of the University is probably meaningless to you all.

sanj• 18 years ago

MIT^3

Depending on who you ask, I was either trained as a rocket scientist or a propellor head.

geldedus• 18 years ago

MSc in Civil Engineering. Always worked as a computer programmer, never as a civil eng..

gloucester120002• 18 years ago

BS on CS (Concentration: Machine Learning and Computational Logic) from GA Tech. Currently working as a Python (30%) and Lisp (70%) programmer for a startup.

brlewis3• 18 years ago

What gloucester does your username refer to?

gloucester120002• 18 years ago

It's from Hamlet. I chose the name because it's somewhat sui generis and thus not too many people will be using it as a user name.

ALee• 18 years ago

B.A. Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE)- Claremont McKenna (small lib arts college in SoCal); non-hacker, but man do I wish I could hack...

My partners are:

BA PPE & CS, Claremont McKenna BA Economics & CS, Claremont McKenna

gregfjohnson• 18 years ago

bs math Pomona College, ms statistics, ms,phd computer science U Wisc -Madison Am a programmer; love what I do. 6-word novel describing my life: "It worked! Still can't believe it."

jkush• 18 years ago

High school dropout who has been a programmer for about 7 years now. Voracious reading habits on a wide variety of subjects, a willingness to work hard along with a constant assessment of knowing what I don't know has served me well.

I stretch but know my limits.

trick• 18 years ago

3.5 years studying CS at Georgia Tech, life forced me to pull out and I'm working at a startup in Orlando.

MaysonL• 18 years ago

No degree, but 990 GRE in maths, and 3 top 200 scores on the Putnam. First programmed in '63, unless you count wiring a Brainiac, which I did some years earlier. Finally getting around to studying Lisp <(+ grin groan)>.

Ask YC: How many people here have a degree and are programmers?

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