College Dropouts: Job Situation

[nihilist]

Anyone know the job situation for college dropouts in America, specifically in the IT sector? For personal reasons, I am contemplating on dropping out of my CS degree.

I currently have an A+ certification and can easily pass more, but my true passion is programming. I have the motivation to self-educate myself on most languages in a couple months.

As to the issue of the success of college drop out, I am cautious and aware that this is unexplored territory. My best bet would be to land a job as a technician. Hopefully, I would get some experience there after a few years and then embellish my resume with the skills of programming. But this could all just be a fantasy.

I would appreciate anyone's advice since I lack the courage to ask anyone in real life.

[CoHo]

Not that great.

Your best bet is to continue with college until you have a job offer then move to taking night classes.

[garak]

Why not build up your programming skills in your spare time? I did that for a couple years and then got my first job coding because someone saw something I wrote for fun and thought it was cool, and recommended me. Then after that I got my current job programming because my first boss recommended me to my second one.. etc.

And when I started, I still hadn't even graduated high school (I eventually did, 2 years late). Going to community college now and I don't feel like it anymore. I've lost motivation for it, I miss class all the time, and just generally don't give a shit. Smaller cities are generally pretty bad tech job markets, so if you live in one, perhaps look into moving. That's my current plan.

edit: moral of the story is -- a degree is great, but ability and networking are better.

[CoHo]

edit: moral of the story is -- a degree is great, but ability and networking are better.

I don't think that a degree is important by itself... but this is my experience with companies and their interview process:

The easiest way that a company reduces the number of applicants is by removing those with no college or college dropouts. It isn't that I agree with it, it just is what happens.

In a big city you may have up to 200 applicants for a single job offer…

[int]

Finish college.

I got A+ and Network+ certified, only to impress employers until my correspondence courses expired and I finally got my grades - and graduated (red tape caused a serious delay in the process, so bad that I was losing jobs to people less qualified).

It's good that I got the certs, as they helped land me the job I have now, but the degree was the most important part. I did work part-time as a tech through college though. But once I was able to show my econ degree the people I wanted to look at me finally did.

I find it a crock of shit, but degrees are pretty standard these days. Simplifies things in the long run. :\

[Hypnos]

I think the choices are either manual labor or billionaire shareholder of NASDAQ corporation.

Good luck!

[Miss Anthropic]

Anyone know the job situation for college dropouts in America, specifically in the IT sector? For personal reasons, I am contemplating on dropping out of my CS degree.

I currently have an A+ certification and can easily pass more, but my true passion is programming. I have the motivation to self-educate myself on most languages in a couple months.

As to the issue of the success of college drop out, I am cautious and aware that this is unexplored territory. My best bet would be to land a job as a technician. Hopefully, I would get some experience there after a few years and then embellish my resume with the skills of programming. But this could all just be a fantasy.

I would appreciate anyone's advice since I lack the courage to ask anyone in real life.

You won't be any worse off than some college graduates from other fields. You can always go back if you have to. With programming it seems like your competency is the most important. But what do I know, I'm one of those low-paid graduates from another field who is going back to school.

[SheepDog]

Having a degree in anything will open some doors, strange as that is. I program for a living, but my degree has nothing to do with programming. Still, it has helped me both get jobs and also get more money in those jobs.

Certs don't mean too much in my experience. If I had A+, I probably wouldn't put it on my resume for a programmer job, as it would probably hurt more than help. The only certification that would be imporant might be one that was very targed to a specific area. If you wanted to work in a IT Security job, CISSP might make a difference, for example.