That's not exactly true. It's not that an undergraduate degree is worthless, but it's become pretty standard. You may not stand above the rest with just a degree, but you certainly fall below the rest without one.
I don't mean this from an intelligence or skill perspective, some of the smartest people I know don't have college degrees. But when the big companies are recruiting from college career fairs or listing it as a job requirement, you can and will be passed over for jobs because you don't have one.
I have a friend who worked for 5 years at a big consultancy company and he got stonewalled for getting promoted to a team lead role because he didn't have a masters degree. Like, he was getting top marks every year at performance review, clearly knew how to do the job, but some internal policy somewhere said that you can't be a lead without a masters degree, sorry.
He did manage to arrange with them that they would pay for him to take a 1-year old masters in CS in his own spare time, and if he passes he would be promoted - and he was. Still, I'd say it was an absolute waste of time and he ended up switching companies a year later anyway.
At a consultancy, credentials you can market when "selling" your consultants is part of the job. Depending on the field, a certain level of accredited knowledge (i.e., from a degree, or certification perhaps) is part of how the bill-rate is justified for employees at given levels.
We don't have an education lock on certain roles/levels at the company I work for, but we do have roles at certain levels that require a given certification no matter how proficient one is in the specified tech. This isn't a small-brain move that misses the forest of knowledge for the trees of credentials, but a recognition that it will be more challenging to staff that employee at a given level without it.
> This isn't a small-brain move that misses the forest of knowledge for the trees of credentials
It is a second-order small-brain move: the clients are the ones missing the forest for the trees, while your company is just going with the flow. I get it, my company did the same thing, but in the end it's one of those "how business is done" things that add together to create a culture we all freely admit makes no sense.
I think viewed uncharitably, it makes no sense. But I think it is plenty logical on its own. The reality is my org. - and many like it - have choices. We're not choosing between an incompetent person with a relevant credential and a competent person without one, we're choosing among many competent individuals (as far as we've assessed), and verifiable (marketable) indicators of competence beyond us "vouching" for them is an extremely valuable resource. It may not be ideal for a given person's career, but I don't think it has that much effect on our clients' outcomes.
I'm sure there have been exceptions to this, and firms that aren't as confident in the capabilities of their people may suffer more.
That might me the case at larger consultancies. Also, some jobs even require a PhD, because it is super specialized. But overall, the ROI of degrees have plummeted. A friend of mine finished a Mechanical Engineering degree and couldn't find decent paying work for 2 years. He then moved onto website design.
Your friend may have struggled but overall Mechanical Engineering is one of the top 10 highest salary college majors. Most graduates are doing pretty well.
Almost didn't catch the fact that the data he pointed out only really counts people who actually got jobs. What kids need nowadays is to know which majors generate the largest percentage of graduates who get work in their respective fields. That would be a better indicator of your chances of being hired after college.
It does most of these kids no good to know that a given type of engineer can make 150k right out of college, if less than 2% of them are actually able to secure work in the field right out of college. In fact, I'd wager that prior to going into a field, most kids would rather know about the "less than 2% are able to secure work" part rather than the "150K starting salary" part.
Unpopular idea, but that is why I use the word "engineer" sparingly. Engineers doing real engineering is becoming a smaller part of making tech products, especially software.
Software developers can be at least as highly skilled and intelligent as can be engineers, but, most of the time, they are engaged in a highly skilled craft rather than engineering. Making software is sometimes more creative and more integrative than engineering.
But a software engineer isn't a member of a state-sanctioned professional association. They cannot be struck off for bad behaviors, nor are they licensed to do anything beyond the norms of any other citizen. They are not members of a true profession like doctors/lawyers/engineers.
I'm not sure what "state-sanction professional association" means but there are many professional associations like IEEE (covering tech as a whole) or ACM (that covers computing specifically).
There's also ABET - Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology - which establishes formal requirements and standards for the teaching of Software Engineering as a discipline: https://www.abet.org/accreditation/
So I think those pieces are there, they're just not the norm yet.
The State of Oregon already tried to sue someone who was a software engineer for not being a "certified 'Engineer'" and the state's own supreme court ruled in favor of the defendant.
State sanctioned means there is law mandating that only one group is in charge of the profession and they, outside government, regulate that profession. Lawyers only have one bar association in each state. Doctors have only one medical board.
I'm personally in favor of such an organization but it really goes against the meritocratic spirit of tech. Lots of us have used tech to bootstrap a better life through sheer mastery and not a "professional" track
Also software can change radically in ways physical engineering doesn't - we may continue to make refinements to steel alloys, but you won't come in to work tomorrow and discover that everyone is now building bridges out of glass.
This is certainly a common thing at large companies, but it also is one that goes back ten to twenty years, possibly more. Millenials hit this frequently, it's not just a Gen Z change.
> I have a friend who worked for 5 years at a big consultancy company and he got stonewalled for getting promoted to a team lead role because he didn't have a masters degree. Like, he was getting top marks every year at performance review, clearly knew how to do the job, but some internal policy somewhere said that you can't be a lead without a masters degree, sorry.
Well, that's part of the job - are you able to figure out what needs to be done to reach the objective, and then do that? No? Well, no promotion for you.
> He did manage to arrange with them that they would pay for him to take a 1-year old masters in CS in his own spare time, and if he passes he would be promoted - and he was.
Seems like your friend did figure out what hurdles to jump.
Part of the reason that employers require advanced degrees is so that they are assured that the individual in question can figure out what steps need to be taken to fulfill an objective, and then take those steps.
> This is the common refrain, but I think it's equally likely that it boils down to "I did this, so you should have to do this, too."
The reason is probably irrelevant: the organisation tells you what steps to take to get a promotion. If you fail to take those steps they consider you unsuitable for the promotion, not because they consider those steps to prove your capability, but because you have demonstrated an unwillingness to meet the minimum requirements.
Why the minimum requirements are what they are is irrelevant.
>Part of the reason that employers require advanced degrees is so that they are assured that the individual in question can figure out what steps need to be taken to fulfill an objective, and then take those steps.
it seems like if some individual has been working with you for years, you should probably have access to better metrics for this than degree/no degree, such as personal acquaintance and familiarity
> it seems like if some individual has been working with you for years, you should probably have access to better metrics for this than degree/no degree, such as personal acquaintance and familiarity
But it isn't about the employee's competence, so how would metrics help? It's about the employee's compliance.
Look at it from the point of view of the organisation, not the point of view of an individual within the organisation: an individual literally gets told what steps are needed to reach some objective, and then they fail to take those steps!
That does not bode well for that individual in terms of making business decisions, hence they shouldn't be in a position of more power and/or influence anyway, because they are unable to achieve an objective even when it is spelled out to them.
Or, they achieved the objective, but they found their own solution instead of being forced to have it spelled out for them. I commonly encounter people who have these degrees but are unable to figure out how to accomplish an objective unless every step is presented as a bullet-point list in the task description.
Having a degree is not the objective, being able to do the work is. Confusing the two is an example of a cargo cult. I don't want people working under me who are incapable of understanding which objectives are important.
> Or, they achieved the objective, but they found their own solution instead of being forced to have it spelled out for them.
The objective here is getting the promotion.
> I commonly encounter people who have these degrees but are unable to figure out how to accomplish an objective unless every step is presented as a bullet-point list in the task description.
Irrelevant - the company isn't using the degree as an indicator of competence, they are using it as an indicator of compliance.
> Having a degree is not the objective,
You're correct. Getting the promotion is the objective.
> being able to do the work is.
Being able to do the work is irrelevant if the candidate does not meet the minimum requirements set by the organisation.
A Master's degree is what you make of it. A student who only wants the credential for short-term career purposes can skate through without much work or learning. But if you have it the opportunity to attend then why not put in some effort and learn interesting, challenging topics? I find that usually opens up unexpected opportunities later.
It's a bit silly for employers to focus on arbitrary educational credentials instead of actual ability. But on the other hand for large organizations managing thousands of employees it's challenging to treat everyone as a unique individual. Some level of forced standardization is the only way to make it work efficiently at scale.
> He did manage to arrange with them that they would pay for him to take a 1-year old masters in CS in his own spare time, and if he passes he would be promoted - and he was.
Well, at least he scored a degree out of it.
I'm torn on this. I'm not sure I see it all that different than if they wanted to make sure someone they were moving into a managerial role had knowledge to back it up, and wanted them to take managerial courses. It's good that the company paid for the courses, a bit less good that it was in personal time (but it's also theoretically beneficial for the person and isn't tied to the company, so I don't fault that much).
If they outright offer this path in in this situation and it doesn't have to be brought up by the employee, I think that's a pretty acceptable solution to requiring that degree for the position, if the company thinks it's really important to have for some reason.
I disagree. By that logic any CS degree is worthless. I have two years of college under my belt but work as a lead engineer at a well funded startup. I didn't need college to get good but that doesn't mean it doesn't help 90% of people to do so. I imagine that same is true of a masters degree, certain people will definitely benefit from it.
Add to that the fact that not all degrees are equal... there are plenty of "degree factories" that pump out useless people who don't know anything marketable.
Having a degree is, as you've said, a requirement (I have a 2 year... I'm out on some jobs because of it)...
Not having a degree is bad. Having a useless degree is worse as you now (generally) have the debt of a paper that means nothing.
Personally, I'd say "weird subjects" - or, if not weird, not marketable. The proverbial "basket weaving" degree or stuff like that. I think the more common "liberal arts" line as well.
> But when the big companies are recruiting from college career fairs or listing it as a job requirement, you can and will be passed over for jobs because you don't have one.
I’ve started to get the impression that even in software development there are certain domains or industries you would be hard pressed to get into without a degree, simply because majority of entry levels are done through campus recruitment.
Worthless? Probably depends on the degree. Miseducation is worse than the absence of education. STEM at least has some market value, but man does not live by bread alone and market value alone does not elevate the university above the level of trade school. Trade schools are a good thing. Turning universities into glorified trade schools (which they are) is not.
People need more of the intangible but true. A consumerist society is condemned to wallow in mediocrity and misery. It does not rise to the level of human dignity and maintains a level of existence better suited to worms than men.
You may get as philosophical as you want on the topic of whether degrees are necessary. As someone who did college recruiting for my company I can say first hand that degrees don't mean anything about someone's skillset. I've talked to hundreds of students with a 4.0 and a degree that couldn't tell me the Big-O of a hash vs searching a list. But if you are working in a field where the job requirements list a bachelor's degree and you don't have one, you are automatically at the bottom of the list. If I have 3 positions open and 25 similar candidates, things like fulfilling the job requirements (like having a degree) start coming into play.
Very obviously if you are working in a field that does not list that as a requirement, then of course you don't need one. But it's still not worthless. As someone pointed out in another thread, if you're trying to move up in a company, a degree can be the differentiator.
A degree at least means a candidate can probably read and write. I meet too many 20-somethings who think they are hot stuff because they can make a website dance, but are totally incapable of creating a document explaining how they did it.
My favorite legal recruiter question: give them a topic to research online, one where you know the wikipedia entry is wrong. Not many without post-secondary research experiance would pass that one.
Edit yes, but whether your edit survives whatever person is king of that particular corner of wikipedia is another matter. Try making an edit from a brand new account. Correcting errors on a website isnt worth such fights.
This is also my experience with Wiki. After having a few edits reversed that were obviously wrong (with sources!), I gave up. Ignoring the problem of edits, I still love reading Wiki.
> If I have 3 positions open and 25 similar candidates, things like fulfilling the job requirements (like having a degree) start coming into play.
The problem is when jobs don't truly need the knowledge granted from a degree, and is just used to thin the heard, because hiding managers don't know what else to look for.
The value is thus generated by convenience to the hiring manager rather than possession of relevant job knowledge.
American universities do not really seem to be playing the role of exploring deep questions or search for meaning or knowledge for knowledge sake, either.
It's mostly about expanding the gravy train of administrative staff and shiny new dormitories and eating facilities and gyms, alongside a narrow ideological political indoctrination with little enthusiasm for debate or considering unpopular opinions.
Without the trade school aspect it's difficult to see what value they still provide.
I don't mean this from an intelligence or skill perspective, some of the smartest people I know don't have college degrees. But when the big companies are recruiting from college career fairs or listing it as a job requirement, you can and will be passed over for jobs because you don't have one.