Poll: What is your highest educational qualification?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=595676

by naish • 17 years ago

58 127 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

mannicken• 17 years ago

I don't have a high school diploma but I'm in college. Voted for "elementary school" :)

chacha102• 17 years ago

I'm in HS, so I had to vote for elementary.

josefresco3• 17 years ago

Congrats on starting early, I only wish I was rockin' the startup world in the mid nineties when I was in HS.

tjic2• 17 years ago

I bailed out of high school after three years and went to college.

I tried to avoid getting my high school diploma (skipped my graduation), but they mailed it to me.

I tried to avoid getting my college diploma (skipped my graduation) but they mailed it to me.

I've got to come up with better tactics to avoid credentials...

philwelch3• 17 years ago

It turns out if you actually attend graduation, you don't really get your diploma then, either. It's too soon for them to know whether you passed your finals or not. So they end up mailing the diploma even if you went.

You do, however, manage to get out of spending an afternoon wearing robes and a squareish hat.

aneesh• 17 years ago

Given the age distribution of HN readers, it's clear many of them are still in school. So their responses to this poll may not be very meaningful, at least not in the same way as the responses of those no longer in school.

davidw2• 17 years ago

It would be useful to have something like:

* Still in HS

* Still in College

* Still in PhD program

to help weed those out.

josefresco3• 17 years ago

The question is pretty clear, and the 'high school' result should show those that are currently IN college/university.

castis• 17 years ago

Other: Google

josefresco3• 17 years ago

Other: School of hard knocks.

tokenadult3• 17 years ago

A J.D. degree from the United States is not exactly a master's degree, and not a doctorate in the way a Ph.D. degree is, so I chose "Other."

dhawest• 17 years ago

But it's a D. There are other D's besides a Ph.D.: there's the Psy.D and others: (from Wikipedia)

The Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.) degree is an applied doctorate on the same level as (in alphabetical order) the D.B.A. (Doctor of Business Administration), D.D.S. (Doctor of Dental Surgery), D.Div. (Doctor of Divinity), D.M. (Doctor of Ministry), D.M.F.T. (Doctor of Marriage and Family Therapy), N.D. (Doctor of Naturopathy), D.O. (Doctor of Osteopathy), D.P.M. (Doctor of Podiatric Medicine), D.R.E. (Doctor of Religious Education), D.S.M. (Doctor of Sacred Music), D.S.W. (Doctor of Social Work), D.V.M. (Doctor of Veterinary Medicine), Ed.D. (Doctor of Education), M.D. (Doctor of Medicine), O.D. (Dr of Optometry) and other applied or specialty doctoral degrees. Most of these degrees do not require either a master's level thesis or a doctoral dissertation.

Ardit204• 17 years ago

Seriously.....Doctor of Sacred Music?

joeyo• 17 years ago

It's even tricker because there are a couple other doctoral law degrees that can be awarded in the United States (S.J.D. and LL.D.) that are much closer in spirit to the Ph.D., as they are research degrees. Although in fairness, in many cases they are given as honorary degrees.

Additionally, consider the LL.M. degree. It further complicates things because it is awarded after the J.D.

edw5196• 17 years ago

So which one is best to have around if you happen to get hit by a bus?

cduan• 17 years ago

A J.D. is considered a terminal degree (there is no further degree beyond a J.D.; the S.J.D. is considered a different track), so technically you do have a doctorate.

But ethical rules are questionable as to whether you can call yourself a "doctor," because it's potentially misleading. So US lawyers are in the strange position of having doctorates, but being unable to say so.

Here's some more info: http://abajournal.com/magazine/lawyers_are_doctors_too/

raffi• 17 years ago

Don't lawyers (i.e. our friends with the J.D.) get to refer to themselves as esquire? i.e. Bob Jones, esq or something like that.

eduardoflores• 17 years ago

What J.D. stands for?

djahng• 17 years ago

Juris Doctor

erlanger7• 17 years ago

Pst. Don't exclude people without college degrees. They're often far more resourceful, in my experience, and there's little that college gives you as a developer. Hire the person, not the school.

jaxn3• 17 years ago

Yeah, I don't have a college degree.

jaxn3• 17 years ago

Why would this get down voted?

reconbot• 17 years ago

Me neither and there are a few instances where I regret it, but mostly during the time I "should" have been in school I was learning how to run my own company, live and provide for myself, taxes, health care and everything else. I have college educated friends who have gone back to working retail with no savings account because they don't know better. (I yell at them and teach them things from time to time, least I can do when I see friends making mistakes.)

I think in the long run it wont matter what level of education I've "completed", I'm always going to be learning and I'm always going to try to be good at what I do. Taking classes might help me one day, you never know.

falien• 17 years ago

If you're a person who doesn't need a university program, then you're a person who can get an incredible amount of value out of one as well. No school gives you anything, but you can take a hell of a lot out of a halfway decent program.

erlanger7• 17 years ago

Unless you'd rather be in the working world than talking homework with a bunch of rich, naive kids.

ekanes• 17 years ago

Absolutely, school has lots to offer, but what's often missing from the equation in discussions like these is opportunity cost.

People compare school vs "not-school" as if the alternative to school is sitting on your butt. In truth, one can accomplish a heck of a lot with that time and money.

It's a hugely personal decision of course.

_pius6• 17 years ago

there's little that college gives you as a developer

I hear this fallacy a lot.

A lot of people seem to give it a pass and nod along with it, maybe because it makes them feel better or maybe because it seems like the politically correct thing to say in a room full of talented hackers, only some of whom went to college.

While you in no way need to go to college to be a developer, I think people should be highly skeptical of this claim.

Look at the claim this way. Given two people with equal skill and ambition:

* the first one spent four years learning computer science and software engineering in school while hacking

* the second one spent four years hacking

The claim is that those people more or less have the same skill set.

It just seems unlikely that there's "very little" that the computer science program gave to the developer. It certainly doesn't match what I've actually seen in-field.

Of course, I'm biased: I went to school for computer science. Does anyone actually have evidence to support the other side of the argument?

erlanger7• 17 years ago

And you oh-so-effectively refute it.

tjr• 17 years ago

I have a bachelor's degree in computer science. I probably learned some topics better than I would have on my own, thanks to being forced to dig deeper for the class. But I was an avid self-studier of computer science, and I learned a whole lot on my own. For the amount of computer science knowledge I need to do my real world work so far, I'm not convinced getting the formal education made a noticeable difference.

That said, I really appreciate all of the other topics I learned in more breadth and/or depth while in college. I learned far more about psychology, linguistics, literature, history, etc., than I would have any time soon on my own. I enjoy reading, and enjoy learning a wide variety of topics, but I tend to hyperfocus on what I feel interested in at the time. I doubt I would have bothered to learn anything about Russian culture or listened to recordings of Jelly Roll Morton if I hadn't been required to for course credit... and I feel better about myself for having learned these things.

icey• 17 years ago

I've seen really good AND really bad developers with and without degrees. It really does seem to be more the person than the training.

Successful people without college degrees tend to take a few more years to move up the development food chain, they're basically opting to do on-the-job training.

Successful people with college degrees tend to have a stronger foundation in theory, which is useful; whether or not people want to admit it.

I don't believe they have the same skill sets, but they both bring something to the table.

Disclosure: My highest level of education is High School. I dropped out of college in my second semester to go work as a programmer. Over the years, I've hired lots of developers for various companies, and worked with hundreds of developers as well - with and without degrees.

HeyLaughingBoy2• 17 years ago

Here's the thing: I got a Masters in Software engineering 10 years after getting a BSEE. I studied all the interesting topics in software development I could find in the 10 years before going back to school. During my masters coursework, however, I was exposed to a bunch of things I had absolutely no interest in or knowledge of and I was blown away by how little I knew about the field in general as opposed to my little slice of it.

The problem with most self-taught people is that the knowledge is deep, but narrow. To be an excellent, innovative, developer you need breadth in order to be able to consider alternate approaches to a problem, but with sufficient depth in certain key areas to be able to do analysis when necessary.

College provides in 4 years what could otherwise take decades of "on the job" learning.

stan_rogers4• 17 years ago

It's not that a CS program has no useful content, but that the content is available to anyone interested in finding it. Knuth is accessible to a mathematically-inclined person with a tenth grade (equivalent) knowledge of mathematics (and three hundred bucks in his pocket), SICP is eerily transparent, the Dragon Book is certainly not beyond the ken of mere mortals, and so it goes. Admittedly, it takes more work to move beyond naivete without a formal education, but those who care about the craft will eventually get there. Those who do not care will still bubble sort despite their degree.

edw5196• 17 years ago

1 million lines of code written and deployed into production.

I'll match that against anyone's degrees (including my own).

luckystrike• 17 years ago

  1 million lines of code written and deployed into production.

Just curious. Any favorite ones that we can see? (Applications/Source Code)

edw5196• 17 years ago

Not without my customers' permission.

But now that you mentioned it, I'll work on putting up some of my favorites that I own. Stay tuned...

narag• 17 years ago

Assigned too many times to maintainance projects, I think I've deleted as many lines as I've written.

edw5196• 17 years ago

LifetimeLOC = LOCWritten + LOCDeleted

Think about it. In order to write 300 good lines of code, you probably wrote 1,000 lines of code before refactoring. Same thing, just that someone else put in all the refactorable lines before you got there.

sunir• 17 years ago

My favourite interview question for developers is "How many lines of code have you deleted?" Lots of junior developers boast about KLOC they have written. But the more code, the more bugs. I'm interested in knowing if the developer has lived with code, not just shipped it and moved on to the next project.

jhawk28• 17 years ago

I'm usually deleting 2 lines for every line I write in the Java world.

enjo• 17 years ago

I'll substitute that with a (better) metric:

100+ million users have utilized code that I've written.

edw5196• 17 years ago

Er, hi champ. What have you written?

kajecounterhack• 17 years ago

Lines of code != Code Quality

sid• 17 years ago

Did bachelors at sydney uni and masters at the university of NSW. If i have a chance in future i would love to go to school in america. Have plans to do so if all goes well.

rubing2• 17 years ago

Doctorate is not PhD, MD, or JD. please correct your poll

sangaya• 17 years ago

Doctorate is accurate. While PhD is technically a "research doctorate" and MD and JD are "professional doctorates", all three are types of doctorate degrees.

PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) MD (Doctor of Medicine) JD (Juris Doctor)

rubing2• 17 years ago

accurate, but not specific

Allocator20082• 17 years ago

LLD is a doctorate too (Doctor of Laws) - the next step up from the LLM (Master of Laws) - to be a solicitor or a barrister, one needs at least an LLB (Bachelor of Laws).

I (almost) decided to study law once which is how I know. I was so enamored with Cole Turner (Julian McMahon's character in 'Charmed') I very nearly decided to pursue an online law degree, since Cole was a lawyer. Who knows. Maybe I still will one of these days, but since all my experience is in SQA, it would not be the most logical thing in the world in the long run I don't think.

But anyway, LLD is also another kind of doctorate, along with Ph.D. MD, DDS, DVM, etc.

DirtyAndy• 17 years ago

I finished high school, spent 1 year full time at university, then 5 years very part time whilst I started a business. It's 18 years since I started that business and I still don't have a Bachelors degree, but it would be wrong to conclude that just because I never completed it I didn't get anything from it. Similarly I recently met someone who nearly finished their PHD, but has abandoned that to start a business. I am sure she got a lot out of the work she did towards that PHD even if she didn't finish it.

juliend2• 17 years ago

AEC in web development. AEC stands for "Attestation d'Etudes Collegiales". It's like a College diploma, but only in one field (web development; no philosophy courses or things like that).

More info (french) : http://www.cmaisonneuve.qc.ca/iti/aec_web-commerce/aec_web-c...

stan_rogers4• 17 years ago

Tough one. I'm a high school dropout, so I had to check Elementary School. Now, I've taught at colleges (electronics and linear mathematics), but I've never actually attended one as a student. Some lives are weirder than others, I guess.

carterschonwald2• 17 years ago

how did you get the certification needed to teach linear algebra?

stan_rogers4• 17 years ago

You assume that certification needs to fall within a particular discipline. And you have probably also assumed that "college" is at least approximately equal to "university", which is not the case in Ontario, Canada. What was required was a Teacher of Adults certificate and demonstrated competence. Short of posting my entire resume, I'll just say that there are areas of military avionics that require a little more than the mere ability to use an oscilloscope, and that I had had teaching experience in the interim period.

poppinphresh• 17 years ago

Other: Homeschooled kindergarten through the end of highschool when I started doing freelance web development. Two years after I began freelancing I got my current job as a software developer for a small startup.

_pius6• 17 years ago

You should swap "Doctorate" out for "Terminal Degree."

javert2• 17 years ago

Well, I won't actually be finished until a few hours from now after my exam, but close enough.

Ardit204• 17 years ago

I went for bachelors anyway although I get to finish this Friday. I guess the guy ain't a lawyer to take into consideration all the possible answers. I do not see what is the point of this poll though besides perhaps simply curiosity?

javert2• 17 years ago

OK, done. :-)

Now, on to grad school.

Mintz• 17 years ago

In college right now.

learusb• 17 years ago

Habilitation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habilitation

carterschonwald2• 17 years ago

In what topic? I've met A-list CS theory folks who wind up getting that only around mid career!

flooha3• 17 years ago

I attended a networking event recently where I was pitching to a guy who had a high rank in our local university's IT program and is respected as an entrepreneur also. Anyway, he was challenging me on everything I was saying (which I thanked him for at the end), and one question was: "If what you are doing is so great, why aren't the big boys already doing it."

My first response was that the key is to do it better, which he acknowledged. The second was that if I was the founder of Google standing in front of him 10 years ago, telling him that I was going to create "another search engine", he would have asked me exactly the same question. His response was: "Well, wasn't that guy working on his doctorate?"

My response was "and...?" He looked at me like I was an idiot. What I should have said was "Sure, doctorates are great and I could get one, but I don't want one. I'd rather spend my time creating wealth than creating a piece of paper that will make me more qualified to create wealth for someone else." Apparently "that Google guy" felt the same way, only it took him longer to make that decision. As an aside, my Bachelor's degree was one of the best investments of my life, so I'm not arguing against formal education here.

He also derided my location as if some guy from a small town in Ohio couldn't build anything worthwhile. Yes, I know pg's thoughts on location and there is some merit to that, but the assertion he made is a bit too over the top for me.

tjic2• 17 years ago

Guy sounds like a credentialed idiot.

> He also derided my location as if some guy from a small town in Ohio couldn't build anything worthwhile. Yes, I know pg's thoughts on location and there is some merit to that, but the assertion he made is a bit too over the top for me.

Amen.

derwiki• 17 years ago

Just curious: I met a lot of good programmers from small towns in Ohio when I went to Case Western, is that the "local university" you're referring to? (if so, I also have some guesses on who the "guy" was :)

flooha3• 17 years ago

"Case Western, is that the "local university" "

No. Wrong side. ;)

10ren5• 17 years ago

I don't quite understand what he meant, as "working on a doctorate" isn't an answer to "why aren't the big boys already doing it?"

However, Larry Page got enormous benefits from his PhD: he met Sergey; he had connection with Andy Bechtolsheim; great people around him; and Stanford supported his patent (they own it). Actually, these are mainly contacts acquired through Stanford (similar to "location"), not of a PhD program itself. I don't recall Larry learning anything from doing a PhD itself, as opposed to doing the work independently.

BTW: I had a very critical advisor like that, and it was really unpleasant. Not everything he said was helpful or relevant - but some were. And at the end, I was rightfully grateful - and also rightfully annoyed. I think seeing criticism as impersonal, specific and temporary is helpful; as well as responding only to the factual denotations, not connotations (including attitude and tone); and responding without connotations myself.

brent2• 17 years ago

"I don't recall Larry learning anything from doing a PhD itself, as opposed to doing the work independently."

Seeing as one major focus of a PhD is to learn to do independent research, this statement is essentially vacuous. It also disregards the influence on his thinking process from his advisor (Winograd) and fellow graduate students.

flooha3• 17 years ago

>>I don't quite understand what he meant, as "working on a doctorate" isn't an answer to "why aren't the big boys already doing it?"

It was a response to my assertion that his argument would have been wrong if I were Larry and it were 10 years ago. Essentially he was saying: "You can't compare you and Larry because he's smarter than you." That may be true, but people dumber than me have created successful companies...I think.

>>However, Larry Page got enormous benefits from his PhD

True, but that wasn't the point he was making.

>>BTW: I had a very critical advisor like that, and it was really unpleasant. Not everything he said was helpful or relevant - but some were. And at the end, I was rightfully grateful - and also rightfully annoyed.

I responded to his (slightly drunken) derision very positively and always had a fantastic comeback, except for the "and...?" response. I was actually very appreciative of his criticism and challenging posture because most people just shine you on when they hear your pitch and tell you everything sounds fantastic. In the end, I won him over and he said he would help me as long as I got a few other influential people on board.

Even though I think he's a bit narrow minded, I liked his no-bullshit attitude and honesty. As I said, I genuinely thanked him for challenging me and giving me the opportunity to change his mind rather than just blow me off.

metatronscube• 17 years ago

Got a B.Eng (Hons) and MSc (Distinction), the first one was a joint degree between CS and Electronic and Electrical Engineering and the last was straight up CS.

Its interesting to see the number of PhD's here. Always considered doing one but was put off when told that I had to defend my PhD 4-5 times a year and the PhD I was offered sounded very interesting but not quite my cup of tea (it was Planning in AI)

For the PhD's out there, was the experience worth while? Did you enjoy it?

yummyfajitas• 17 years ago

I got one. I certainly enjoyed the experience. Original research is fun, and beyond that I had no responsibilities. Hard to beat that as far as jobs go.

It may not have been worthwhile in terms of career benefit (jury is still out). I don't want to be an academic, though I may follow that trajectory a few more years if the market stays bad. I may be able to spin off a research related startup, but that isn't guaranteed yet.

Regarding opportunity costs, I definitely missed out on getting into finance during the bubble.

(Incidentally, if anyone is looking for a python/c++ dev with solid quantitative skills, feel free to contact me.)

jlees3• 17 years ago

Worthwhile, yes; enjoy, somewhat; not my thing in the end, also true. I left the program after 2 years of research because you can get very forced into a niche to satisfy supervisors' and the academic world's requirements. I wanted to do something vaguely real-worldy, and had to leave the bubble of academia to do so. I don't regret starting the PhD or leaving it though.

papersports• 17 years ago

Other = Law (J.D.)

cubicle67• 17 years ago

Highschool.

I've actually done all bar a few units of a Bachelor's Degree (Engineering), but quit and went travelling for a few years instead

Jem• 17 years ago

I have A levels (UK), so I voted high school (the closest out of that list, I guess).

tynman• 17 years ago

Master's.

HeyLaughingBoy2• 17 years ago

M.S. Software Engineering. It was fun and definitely worth it. Having an undergrad in EE, I learned a lot and it prepared me for my current Technical Lead position very well.

jcapote• 17 years ago

Glad there's an option for us high school drop outs :)

yardie• 17 years ago

They do have one thing going for them. Unlike the narrow defined parameters of American higher education they do have a variety of outlets. You can stop your education at any time and basically have a degree (I think it's called a license) for each year complete: Bac+1, Bac+2, Bac+3. I have so many friends that have nothing to show after 2 or 3 years of school because they stopped for health, financial, or personal reasons.

jawngee• 17 years ago

1 year college.

15 years kicking ass (built my first website when Mosaic ruled the roost).

10ren5• 17 years ago

Roughly (at 4 hours in):

  bachelor's: in the top 75%
  master's:   in the top 33%
  doctorate:  in the top 10%

(I'm assuming that a higher degree is "better", though some would differ. I've heard evidence that startup success inversely correlates with education. Some high-profile anecdotes: Bill Gates doesn't have a bachelors, Woz didn't have one at the time he designed the Apple, and I think the only degrees that Larry and Sergey got were their bachelors).

Renai• 17 years ago

I dropped out of high school, got a GED, and am now going to college. Marking "elementary school" does not seem quite accurate. ^.^

rms• 17 years ago

I'm really good at surfing the internet.

Allocator20082• 17 years ago

COMPTIA A+, Network+ certifications

fugue88• 17 years ago

Other: autodidact

Greater than any other "qualification...."

;)

qeorge• 17 years ago

Finished high school, attended 4 years of college, dropped out as a senior.

Might finish one day, just because I don't like having things unfinished.

nphase• 17 years ago

College Dropout, and fairly satisfied with my results. YMMV

Poll: What is your highest educational qualification?

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