How's it going everyone?

x BlueRobot said:

Shadowjk said:

A degree does have some weight with it and will help you get into the interviewing room but when it comes down to it experience is key and new graduates won't have that therefore it is expected for them to start out at a help desk job and then progress there way up. After getting a job and earned your degree you should look into certifications to prove to your employer that you can do the more technical roles.

College in the UK is like High School for US

I understand that self teaching can be more valuable and I will agree to some extent. I learned more about computers myself than my IT lessons at school however some specialty's like networking or system support can only be fully taught in a class. That being said self study is just as important and the internet can be an extremely useful tool in helping however I personally wouldn't depend on it.

If you want to just complete self study then certifications are the only way of proving your hard work

Just my opinion,
Josh :)

I self taught myself everything about debugging and programming, I brought books and used the Internet :)

Programming you can get a qualification, if I haven't seen or heard of any debugging qualifications, unless it's part of a driver development course?

A computer science degree is normally where programming is I believe however debugging I don't think there is and is one of them topics you learn yourself I think.

It all depends on what you want to do really :)

Josh

andrew129260 said:

College is such a waste of money. Not a single person I know has benefited from it. They are all working minimum wage.

That's like your opinion mate..
I'm on for my double master in International Law and Politics and I learn more in five minutes in class than in an eternity on the web!
I completely agree with Josh here:

Shadowjk said:

Anyone can look up the commands on how to setup a router with NAT but to really understand what you are doing you need to understand the concepts, this is where the internet falls short

Altho that's for setting up routers, the concept still applies.

And on the minimum wage jobs, it's crisis, a mate of mine just got his Honoris Causa in Civil Law and he works at McDonalds! There simply aren't enough jobs for everyone.. Wait a few years until the crisis is over and see where they'll be working. I bet that their degrees will benefit them then

Shadowjk said:

£9000 ($14000) for a decent masters degree is quite a lot...

Schooling is expensive, I'd even go as far as to say that's it's to expensive. Here in Holland we pay €36.000 ($48.000) minimum for a master and €10K+ for a bachelor>_>
I'm not saying that getting a degree is a necessity, but it's definitely not a waste of money, however much you end up paying for it.


Nommy

£31,000!?!?!

Hah, that's only the fee to be able to attend uni, the grand total of my course will be well over €120.000,- (£103.190.88 / $160.080,-).
But that includes books, additional uni fees, housing, travel expenses and all that stuff.

Oh, I'm also going to do a year in France, costs for that will be approximately €7.500,- (£6.449,43 - $10.005,-).

And for good order, the State only gives about 300 - 450 bucks a month to students (depending on income), so that's virtually nothing. And you'll need to complete the course in five years, if you don't then you'll need to pay back all money to the State (about €21.000,- on average).

So if I were to study 4 years and fail then I would have a debt of approx €150.000,-.
However if I were to graduate within five years, the State will pay a good part of that, and I'll be left with less then a 50K debt for myself.

Whoever said that studying was fun probably wasn't Dutch!

Anyhow, now.


Nommy