024 Can You Succeed as a C# Developer Without a Degree?

Employers often ask for a computer science degree. So how do you succeed in the industry without one? Do you need a specific degree to be a C# developer? What degree do I need as a C# developer? In this episode of Dev Questions, we will be diving into what benefits a degree offers as well as if you even need a degree to succeed.

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey. Join us each episode as we tackle the questions you are asking about a career in software development, understanding the industry, and new technology. If you're just starting out or you want to grow stronger as a developer, this is the place to get your questions answered. Now here's your host, expert developer and online educator, Tim Corey.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Can you succeed as a C Sharp developer without a degree? That's a question that Josh asked me recently, and I thought it was a great one to cover because the answer is absolutely you can. You see, I didn't have my degree when I became a developer. In fact, I was a software development consultant for about six years without a degree at all. And then I became an IT director of a college. And ironically, I didn't have my degree. It was only there that I ended up getting a degree in order to help me in the job market. So let's talk about when is a degree important, what is it used for, and those kind of things. So let's start out with what does a degree provide you? And that's a tricky subject. If you ask a college or university, what does this degree give me? They will give you a different answer than usually is reality. They will say, Well, we'll prepare you to be a software developer. We'll prepare you to be a software engineer. And they have all these great titles and neat names and all these classes that seem really cool. But the reality is the majority, and I'm speaking primarily as a as a US resident, talking about US education, your education experience may be different, but primarily there's a lot of stuff around a degree. We're talking the um, you know, languages and the arts and all this other stuff, math, science, all this stuff that goes into a normal degree, and then you have a piece of it, a small piece, that is actual training in your field. But the problem is that that training isn't necessarily cutting edge. When I was working in education, it took about three years for a course concept to become a course that was taught because it has to get approved and it has to go through the approval process, and then it has to be built, and then that has to be approved, and accreditation has to get involved, and then from there we have to update the catalog, and the catalog is updated, you know, a ways out so that new people can sign up for it. And it was a three-year process. Well, think about that in terms of technology. Three years ago, dot net core was just starting. We've already gone through.NET Core one, two, uh, three, and now we're in.NET 5 is coming out uh next week. So that's a lot of change that's missed because that three-year process. Now, sometimes you can shortcut that that cycle, sometimes you can get things moved in, um, but really that's that's part of the the hindrance of education. Plus, you have long-term teachers, teachers who are a teacher first and developer maybe second. Those are the people teaching you how to become a developer. And I'm I'm not totally knocking the education experience because there's a lot of good that can come out of it. But what happens is that when you come out of your college education, I estimate three to five percent is all you have as far as knowledge of the job you'll be doing. You'll need to learn the other 95% on the job. That's a big percentage that you're missing. And so, yes, there is some value in what you get in your education, but there's also a lot that's lacking. So, is it important that you get that for your degree? Not for the job. It it has really, in almost every case, no bearing on doing the job as a software developer. What it does do is get you in the door. And that's kind of the next question. Why do employers ask for a degree when it's practically useless? And the reality is it's not practically useless. It's just that are different criteria that it provides. One of the things it provides is knowledge that you have had the ability to be given tasks, to learn them, and to perform them. That doesn't have to even be software development related. Meaning, if in your literature class you are given a uh a paper, you have to write a 12-page paper on Macbeth. If you can take that and do it and pass the class, then you can be given an assignment and perform the requirements for that assignment. And you can you've do done that over the course of roughly four years. So you've proven that you can get in a job, perform various tasks that you've been asked to do, grow and learn along the way, and perform those tasks. So that's a big deal. It's showing a work ethic, it's showing an ability to stick with something and accomplish something. So that's one of the things that a four-year degree shows an employer. But the other reason that um employers ask for a four-year degree, especially in your field, is because at least it's something. You have somewhat of a layup and it's something they can measure. Software development is so hard to measure that having something, anything that can say, okay, that's a measurable thing, allows for an easier process in getting your evaluations of, let's say, a thousand candidates. If you can weed that down to a hundred, that makes your job a whole lot easier. And so having something you can measure helps there. So the next question is what's a good substitute if a college education isn't going to give me the skills I need to be a software developer? It may give me some benefits, but maybe not all the skills I need to be a software developer. Well, a big one, and you've heard me say it over and over again, is practice. The more experience you have, the more practice you have building stuff in code, the better off you will be. So that comes down to I have three keys to understand when it comes to learning to be a software developer and figuring out if a degree is right for you and really how to get that job with or without a degree. So, number one, experience is important. And that's why a degree is helpful because you've at least had some experience in school, especially if you have a degree in your field. You have had it in some way, you've had experience in school. So that's one thing. But you don't have to go to school to get experience. You can get experience in a lot of areas, and that's number two. Experience doesn't have to mean a job. It can be your degree, or it can be those those cool projects you did in class. And sometimes people put that in a resume. We've talked about that a little bit. Um, I wouldn't put that in your portfolio, but it's something you could at least have if you have nothing else. But you can volunteer places, you can get other experience other ways. And so experience doesn't have to mean employment. And number three, the most important thing, and this is what you gotta think through when you're talking about getting a degree or whether you are talking about just trying to jump in the workforce without one, whatever you're doing, the most important thing, the thing that employers are trying to figure out is your skill level. That's what they're trying to figure out. It's hard to figure out, it's not like there's a clear, oh, I'm this skill level. You may have seen resumes or you may even have a resume where you have the little bar chart with a one to ten and say, I'm a nine in C sharp and I'm an eight in SQL and I'm a four in what's that based upon? Okay, you're saying you know, you're looking at your own self and say, okay, that's what I think I am, but there is no clear-cut um diagram that you can follow and say, oh, this is what skill level I'm at. And so employers are just trying to figure out where are you? Because at the end of the day, your employer or your potential employer needs to get the job done. They have a job to do, they need someone to do it, and they need to figure out if you can do it. And so that's why for most cases, your degree doesn't matter at all. Because your degree won't help you get the job done. It won't give you, it won't impart skill. Skill comes through experience, experience comes through practice. So when it really comes down to it, when you're being evaluated for a position, that's what your employer, your potential employer is trying to figure out is do you have the skill to get the job done? Now, different employers are gonna ask it in different ways and be poor in how they go about trying to figure it out, or they're gonna ask irrelevant things and really be frustrating. I get that. And sometimes they're gonna say, you can't get in the door without a degree. And that's just because they want to have some way of filtering down those resumes, some way of having some kind of concrete evaluator. But even if you have the world's best degree, if you don't have the skill to do the job, you're not gonna please that employer. And conversely, if you have no degrees, but if you have a skill, if you can get in the door, that employer will love you. So a degree is important in some ways. I got my degree, I only have an undergrad degree, it's not even in computer science, it's actually in information technology. That's what it is. Um had to think there for a minute. Uh bachelor of science in information technology. It was a nothing degree. It really was. It was it does not add one thing to my job. And since I was already experienced in the field, what I learned in that in that degree was nothing. Nothing. I didn't gain one, you know. Ooh, that was cool. There was nothing like that. But what it gave me was a way to bypass that early filter. That filter that says, Do you have a degree? And that's why I got it. It was an expensive way to bypass that initial filter. So if you're asking, do you have to have a degree? Absolutely not. There will be employers that will hire you. There are ways to get a job without a degree. But if you're asking, will a degree be important or helpful to me? Important is is a depends. If it helps you get through the first step of an interview process and then you get the job, then yeah, it was important. But it's not going to be necessarily helpful to you. Most times, and I am speaking in generalities here. I'm not speaking necessarily about your specific college or university. There may be, there are some universities out there where the degree you get would actually be helpful. Um, if you can go to Stanford for your computer science degree, go for it. They they have a great program, they have to do some great things. But for the most part, most colleges and universities, that degree is not going to be helpful to you in providing much towards your actual job. So that's kind of the roundabout way of answering, and it depends, okay? But you can definitely do it. Either way, you can do it. Just evaluate that. And if you're kind of on the cusp of maybe you can't afford it and you're looking at lots and lots of debt in order to take on a degree, maybe go a different route because there are other ways to get that same skill, experience, and get in front of employers. So, just my thoughts. So thanks for asking the question, Josh. I appreciate it. If you'd like your question answered, either use the podcast page on I am TimCore or leave a comment below the YouTube video that's associated with this uh episode. Now, if you're listening on a podcast, I'd really appreciate if you would review the podcast. In doing so, you're helping me out and you're helping other developers get their questions answered as well. Now, either way, sharing this episode is always appreciated. Thanks for listening. As always, I am Tim Corey.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Dev Questions. Tim is committed to making it easier for you to become a developer. If you would like to help make more content like this possible, please like, subscribe, rate, and share Dev Questions. You can also send your questions to questions at IamTimcorey.com. Until next time, remember, you are too smart and your time too valuable to waste it making all the mistakes Tim did. When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to imtimcore.com and enroll in a course.