Will I be at a disadvantage with a B.A. in Computer Science?

Question

I'm currently pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science at NYU. Job postings almost always call for a B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science (or at least recommend it). For example, Google claims to require at least a B.S. to be eligible for one of its Software Engineering jobs.

I feel like the B.S./B.A. distinction is an arbitrary one, especially since it is determined on a school-by-school basis. For example, my school doesn't even offer a B.S. for Biology; all Biology majors will get a B.A. degree when graduating. On the other hand, I know of some schools where B.S. degrees are awarded more liberally, in topics such as Political Science. And I'm just not sure how important the distinction is at the end of the day. I know for a fact that there are students who graduated from my school working as Software Engineers at Google. But that's only Google, and I'm unsure if other companies are as receptive to B.A. degrees.

How important is this distinction for job seekers? Will I appear less 'qualified' simply for holding a B.A. instead of a B.S.?

Answer 1

I believe what is important, is that your degree is in Computer Science from a credible institution.

Answer 2

The BS is nice, but it'll really only be considered for your first gig (or maybe two) after school. Beyond that, you'll qualify under equivalent experience.

But I think you already knew that. ;)

Answer 3

It may matter more to the HR department who might apply arbitrary filters based on technology/level of education. Once in the door for the interview though, I doubt it will matter.

As someone who does many interviews, I barely glance at the kind of education you received. I want to know about interesting projects you've done either in school, by yourself, or at a coop/intership. Specifically I look for:

• What were the specific technical challenges?
• Can you satisfy my curiosity for additional details of these technical challenges?
• Did you have to learn something new? How did you do that?
• What specifically did you learn?
• Did you have to document anything? What did you go through to do this?
• Was it a team project? How did you get along with others?

I want to leave the interview feeling like I learned something I didn't know before. I want to feel like we were able to enter a process of mutual discovery and curiosity. This also helps me figure out if you are passionate and would be a decent person to get along with.

Other than that, the other main criteria would be some basic FizzBuzz style programming problems to make sure that you do in fact have a capacity to program. So many smart sounding people fail the really basic stuff.

Answer 4

Because B.S.'s are more commonly given for computer science, the usual word for a bachelor's degree in computer science is B.S.

But, as another person with a B.A. degree instead of a B.S., I can tell you: When you leave college, nobody notices the difference.

Answer 5

If it is any help, I'm quite proud of my B.A. in Computer Science and it hasn't hurt me in the least. When I'm interviewing others, I like to see that folks have more in their life than just the scientific/logic stuff. I tend to think that folks with more Arts in their life have different and sometimes more "out of the box" approaches to the normal challenges. Many are also better communicators as well, which helps immensely.

As long as you know your stuff and can show it, BS vs BA shouldn't make any difference.

Answer 6

Don't worry

No one cares about B.A. vs B.S.; it's obviously completely arbitrary depending on which school a University issues the degree from.

Now, I suppose it's conceivable that a computer program or a clumsy recruiter doing a keyword search might miss your entire résumé, but you could deal with that by just adding the B.S. keyword with or without a cryptic explanation, perhaps in a very tiny font.

I do not think it's worth worrying about, given that you are unlikely to get a job without some personal contact, and that will completely bypass the keyword filter stage. And for that matter you probably don't want to work for someone that hires people in such an uninspired fashion.

Answer 7

At my university (you've heard of it), the B.A. / B.S. distinction meant merely whether you took liberal arts or engineering classes -- in addition to the computer science classes for the major, and the mathematics, physical science, English writing, and other core classes required of all students. And in practice all of the engineers I knew took many liberal arts classes, and all the liberal arts majors took several engineering classes, so the difference was almost nil. (I think the difference was mostly social: did you hang out with the philosophers and historians, or with the mech-E's and EE's?)

In terms of the name of the degree, I've never heard of it being an issue, and it certainly hasn't been for me (I have a B.A.). Note that your example of a company requiring specific degrees is one founded by a couple of guys who dropped out of their degree program to found the company. :-)

In terms of the skills, I highly doubt it's an issue. College is about learning how to learn, not a specific technical skill. (After all, if it was about specific technical skills, then what would happen to all the old guys with B.S. degrees when FORTRAN was all the rage? "Run, runner!")

A couple of the best programmers I've ever met have degrees in seemingly unrelated fields, like philosophy. JWZ never even went to college. Having a B.A. from NYU, a disadvantage? Srsly? I'm having a little trouble imagining that.

Answer 8

No.

And seriously - do you want to work for an organisation that filters out people based on B.A. versus B.S.?

Remember that even in these times an interview is a two way process. You are seeing if you want to work at the company, and the company wants to see if you would fit when you work there.

What an employer does want to see from education is:

• Motivation. Did you finish? Did you get a reasonable passing grade?
• Appropriateness. This matters a bit but less as you gain experience.
• Enthuiasm. Did you have fun?

Once you graduate and go looking for jobs, a recruiter will want to know what you did during your course. The final result of your degree isn't so important so much as hearing you describe what you did, how you went about it, the processes you followed and suchlike. This will help them understand if there's a "fit" with their company and whether you're likely to do well there.

As an aside, one of the most insightful developers I ever worked with is an English major. He had a tremendous understanding of what our customers wanted: these "soft" skills are becoming much more important now that developers tend not to code in a corner by themselves so much.

(Personally: I've a B.Sc. in Physics with Astronomy. That's never held me back.)

Answer 9

There is also a B. Math type to go along with a B.A. and B.S. There is also a B. of Applied Science for another type of degree that I've heard of a few times. I've gotten a couple of questions about my degree and had to show a photocopy of the diploma as some people have a hard time accepting that there exists a degree like mine which was:

Combined Double Honor's Bachelor of Mathematics with majors in Computer Science and Combinatorics & Optimization

It is quite a mouthful at times. I also did a Pure Math minor, but that isn't on the diploma.