IT Schools?

NickDavid

New Member
Guys,

I have a buddy that is looking into a career switch. He's interested in knowing if he should go to Devry or Chubb.

Any opinions?
 

MixMastaMM

Team Bulldog Rider
I would say the help desk support position does not need at reciept from one of those schools. He might be better off just taking some adult classes at a local school/college. I sure know that my CS degree from NJIT did not prepare me for the IT field. Its all hands on knowledge that I got on my own.
 

Glancing Aft

Active Member
crap, I'd like to think that my piece of toilet paper from NJIT is worth something, but perhaps you're probably right.
 

Fogerson

Former Resident Nerd
I would say the help desk support position does not need at reciept from one of those schools. He might be better off just taking some adult classes at a local school/college. I sure know that my CS degree from NJIT did not prepare me for the IT field. Its all hands on knowledge that I got on my own.


I think that is ubiquitous. I have a BS in CS and Mathematics (yeah, I was a crazy double major) from the University of Oregon back in the 80's when they were trying build themselves a reputation like MIT. I don't think they ever succeeded, but it was a hard-ass program (<20% CS majors who started the program finished it). I also have my master's cert. from Stevens. Not slacker programs by any stretch.

Anyway, I learned more in my first year on the job than I did in all the years I was in school. The VP of R&D at my first company told me that the only thing a degree does for you is to prove to a potential employer that you can take enough bullsh!t to be employable.

I agree with him a little...though I would say that my education did provide a base/language in which I could learn the "read deal" from. Of course, I think I could've learned all that in less than a year...but then I wouldn't have had the credentials to get hired. Which I guess, in a sense, brings us back to what my VP said oh-so-long ago.

I can also say that over the years I've had software developers from all over work for me. I've had PhD's from MIT work for me, guys with degrees from party schools, RPI, Carnegie-Mellon grads, Columbia, you name it... Some of their pedigrees were impressive, but there was NO correlation as to how well they did when they hit the real world. In fact, the bigger the degree and snootier the school, the worse they were as developers.

There is a big difference between theory and practice. The PhD's from MIT can come up with some very elegant solutions, but they take 10X longer to implement than a "solid good enough" solution. I guess pragmatics isn't on the curriculum and that is an ugly lesson to learn in the "real world" for these folks.
 
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