How important is the school you attend if you want to be a software engineer?

Question

DUPE: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/191302/does-it-matter-where-you-get-your-cs-degree

1. Is an online degree as valid as a degree from a brick and mortar school? And in general, how important is the school you attend? For example, there are some schools that offer software engineering degrees that are well know as online only type schools like the Univ. of Phoenix and Walden who have the actual term "software engineering" in the degree title. Other schools are not necessarily know as "online schools" and offer things such as degrees in information technology like Colorado Technical University. This is also all online but they have a brick and mortar as well, so is it better to get an online degree from a place like that that is not really considered an "online university?" Finally, some schools that are higher up in the food chain (like the U. of Maryland) offer certifications that you can do online. I already have an undergrad degree in Psychology so is it better to pursue something like that? I guess my main question here is what is the perception of the IT world regarding where you get your degree?

2. How important is it to have the "engineering" status in the title of your degree?

3. Even if it is not as valid as some other shools degree, what kind of a job would you be able to get with a degree in Computer Engineering Technology from for example Devry University?

Answer 1

As Joel mentioned on a recent Stackoverflow podcast, having a well-known school on your resume will help get you short-listed. Getting accepted into a school with high entry requirements says a lot about you.

Answer 2

The "quality" of a school's degree, in any field, is subjective to the company that is doing the hiring. In an old-fashioned, traditional company, it's more likely that they would want to hire a VP of Sales with a business degree from Yale or Harvard. In a fast-paced start-up, they might be more interested in what your experience is over the college you went to. Of course, it never hurts to go to a school perceived as "good".

Conversely, some companies might look at your resume, see Yale or Harvard, and assume you will be requiring too high a salary. "The Rutgers grad will probably ask for less." It could also hurt.

Answer 3

1. You wont get much mileage from online degrees from a job-hunt point of view. They do help like if you are in middle of your career and want to update/refresh your skills - and may be help towards a promotion. But No, you wont land a job because you have an online degree in software engineering.

2. I have "Civil Engineering" in my degree but I am a successful programmer (9 yrs now). I have seen enough of talented programmers from various fields (including an arts major) that it does not matter.

3. Not every company is a Google or Microsoft. There are so many big/small companies that want someone to get something done: you should be able to get such non-fancy jobs.

Answer 4

You definitely notice when someone has an impressive school on their resume. You also notice GPA and the other bullet points.

That said though, the resume is just an entree to an interview -- which is the only thing that really matters. I've been in interviews where the candidate had an impressive-looking resume, went to a good school, had such-and-such skills listed (or at least appeared to be competent), but it was just a bunch of fluff and bluster. In the end, it doesn't matter so much where you went to school, but what can demonstrably do.

Answer 5

I would say school matters a lot. But not in the way you think...

There is such a disparity between the quality and focus of CS programs that "having a CS degree" is becoming somewhat meaningless. If I know that someone went to a respected university I can at least reason about the content of their CS program.

It's not that I'm picking one school over another as being better. It's that I can be more confident that it's a school that is still teaching CS fundamentals rather than cranking out Java monkeys. Something online-only schools are notorious for. Online-degree from a real university is completely different.