[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Would you get a CS degree today?
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Ask HN: Would you get a CS degree today?
I'm looking for feedback from the community. My son made a plan to
get a 4 year degree from a decent state university in computer
science but is having second thoughts. He is looking at ~$130K in
costs and 4 years of not working vs trying to find work and build a
resume organically. He's a fine young developer who loves C++ and
learned Java, web dev, and EDA in his teen years for fun. His
written several languages and toy compilers, ordered PCBs for his
own gaming device, and built a social network in the 6th grade.
He's looking forward to higher level coursework but dreading the
intro classes. His motivation for getting a degree was to be
marketable to employers, but also to gain a better understanding of
fundamentals. With AI making entry level programming jobs scarce,
does it really make sense to invest the time and money? If not,
what sort of pathway into a programming career would be a good
alternative? Any and all advice appreciated.
Author : reilly3000
Score : 15 points
Date : 2025-08-10 21:10 UTC (1 hours ago)
| dustingetz wrote:
| upvoted for visibility, quick reaction - not for $130k no way, is
| he self motivated enough to spend a year at home self of self
| study? i am a 39yo tech founder who also learned C++ at high
| school age, the world was different 20 years ago but 130k is a
| huge amount of debt, and my career was generated almost entirely
| from side projects. My actual degree is in computer hardware
| engineering despite the software career. It made no difference
| mariocesar wrote:
| If the goal is to learn about computer science, then yes
| absolutely. However, if the goal is to better one's chances of
| securing a meaningful and well-paid job, the answer is no.
| linguae wrote:
| Disclaimer: I'm a tenure-track community college instructor in
| computer science in Silicon Valley.
|
| Assuming your son is in the United States since you mentioned
| "state university," an option for reducing costs is attending a
| community college to get the lower-division courses in CS, math,
| physics, and liberal arts finished at a considerably lower cost.
| This also allows your son to buy some time and assess the state
| of the market two years from now. Two years of community college
| tuition is much lower than two years of university tuition, and
| depending on the state it might even be tuition-free.
|
| If your son is still in high school, I also highly recommend he
| take Advanced Placement tests and score sufficiently well on them
| so that way he will get college credit for those courses. This
| could potentially save time in college, thus reducing costs.
| the_gastropod wrote:
| +1 this. This was the route I took. I'm old now, so my
| experience is maybe less relevant. But the price difference
| seems even more extreme now.
|
| I also think it's worth a real discussion about what your son
| hopes to gain out of a college education. If the value for him
| is more vocational, then this strategy above seems almost like
| a no-brainer. If he's hoping to get that kind of intangible
| university life experience, community college probably isn't
| going to deliver.
| legerdemain wrote:
| OP's son programs confidently in 6 languages and develops toy
| compilers and custom hardware on his own. If he is "dreading
| the intro classes" already, imagine what two years at a typical
| community college will do to his momentum and enthusiasm, all
| to save a bit of money.
| rcfox wrote:
| I graduated 15 years ago, so who know if my advice is worth
| anything anymore...
|
| I think the best part of my computer engineering program at the
| University of Waterloo was the integrated co-op system.
| (Basically, internships.) It meant my degree was 5 years instead
| of 4, but I got work experience and professional connections at
| several companies and came out with a slight profit instead of a
| ton of debt. I even turned my last internship into a full-time
| job after I graduated.
| Smeevy wrote:
| Absolutely not. I feel terrible for people coming out of school
| with CS degrees right now.
|
| Life is already difficult for young people right now and 6
| figures of college debt is just putting another obstacle in their
| path.
|
| For what it's worth, I don't know that the open source route is
| particularly fruitful either. I hear people recommending that as
| a way to get hired, but I never hear much about it making a
| difference in the hiring process.
|
| Just my .02, though.
| al_borland wrote:
| For what it's worth, college for me played a much bigger role in
| developing my soft skills than it did the hard skills. I find
| these things sorely lacking with many people I work with,
| especially those who are extremely technical. I think these
| skills helped to advance my career more than anything else, and
| would be transferable to nearly any type of job.
|
| I did end up with a CIS degree (computers in the business
| college), rather than a CS degree (engineering college). I'm not
| sure how the required coursework might influence the development
| of various soft skill. It was never something explicitly taught,
| just things I was forced to develop in order to get through to
| graduation.
| Oras wrote:
| > His motivation for getting a degree was to be marketable to
| employers
|
| In my 20 years in the industry, I was only asked once in an
| interview about my degree.
|
| > but also to gain a better understanding of fundamentals
|
| I believe there are many courses online, such as Coursera and
| others if he wants to learn more. None of them will have the
| social aspects or networking, but they are far faster and cheaper
| than the traditional path.
|
| My suggestion is to sit down with your son, and start looking at
| the job market for junior or graduate jobs and see if it will
| make sense to invest $130k and 4 years of his life.
|
| If he realises that this is not the way forward, I would suggest
| he start looking for local hackathons where he can join, learn,
| network and have fun.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| I work in a big tech company and interview candidates for
| software engineering jobs every day jobs. I don't pay too much
| attention to the resume but I don't think I've ever interviewed a
| candidate that didn't have a college degree. A lot also have PhDs
| too.
|
| I don't know if AI will reduce demands for SWEs, but it seems
| pretty risky not to get a degree IMHO.
| trenchpilgrim wrote:
| Knowing what I know now, I'd do mathematics or a hard science
| degree and learn programming on my own.
| lostdog wrote:
| Absolutely. I learned so much from my degree. Even at a decent
| school, the top level classes walked me through algorithms,
| compilers, operating systems, and graphics in a way I might not
| have done myself. Plus, the best people in my class were great,
| and discussing how to problem solve with them for coursework was
| very very helpful. The whole thing was very helpful as practice
| in a bunch of different areas of CS.
|
| On the practical end, your degree is still a big filter for how
| companies screen applicants. A lack of a CS degree makes it way
| more difficult to get in the door. I know there are
| counterexamples, but 99% of my coworkers had CS degrees. Unless
| the money is a huge burden, or the school you would go to really
| is crap, then yeah, the degree makes the rest of the journey much
| easier.
|
| As advice, try to get evaluated out of the intro courses and skip
| to higher level stuff. Often if you can show a prof that you can
| program (before the school year begins) you can place right into
| a course that is at your level.
|
| The AI arguments are also facile. A CS degree is still the best
| training to be ready to use AI effectively. You understand more
| about how it is built than everyone else, plus you know way more
| about every tool surrounding the AI, and would have an easier
| time making your own.
|
| I know some people have success with alternative paths. But the
| main road is the main road for a reason here.
|
| Edit: Please also look at the best schools for CS, and don't just
| discard them as options. My coworkers out of these schools got
| even more out of their classes and costudents than I did. Your
| son sounds talented, and the best schools can help talent go even
| further.
| mrbombastic wrote:
| 4 years is a long time, especially these days, it is hard to say
| what the world will look like in 4 years let alone the CS
| industry but if he enjoys programming to the extent that it seems
| like he does to me it absolutely makes sense to study it and
| build his skills if doing that won't put you all in massive debt.
|
| My personal belief is that not hiring entry level engineers is
| unsustainable unless we get AGI capable of both outputting and
| _maintaining_ software better than humans, and if that happens
| all bets are off anyway.
| nicbou wrote:
| I dropped out halfway through because I had a job offer after an
| internship in Berlin, and working for money and exploring Europe
| seemed a whole lot more fun than finishing my degree back in
| Canada. It was the best decision I've ever made, and our tuition
| was only CAD 5000 per year.
|
| I don't know. Some people will do better if they follow the
| established path. Others blaze their own trail and don't do well
| in rigid environments. I know I did not.
|
| Ten years later, the best part of my studies are the ones that
| felt like a distraction and a waste of time back then: mandatory
| engineering and liberal arts classes. I would have learned
| programming on my own either way, but these other things added so
| much depth to my life!
|
| I think that there are so many ways to live your twenties and
| grow as a human and as a professional. I strongly doubt that
| saddling yourself with debt is the best way to do it. Given four
| years of your full attention, you can achieve so much more,
| provided that you have the curiosity and discipline to try. I
| just wonder where the strength to explore the world beyond your
| main interest would come from.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Yes, but my recommendation for decades has been to study CS if
| you want, but if _anything_ else interests you then get a CS
| minor or double major. If he 's designing PCBs of his own, he may
| be interested in EE or CMPE as a major (and if he does CMPE,
| depending on the school, it's already effectively a CS minor).
| Programming is relatively easy to get into without a degree or
| with an unrelated degree, other disciplines are much more
| difficult to break into without the diploma.
|
| If he's actually interested in CS, then a CS degree (or minor)
| makes sense. If he's interested in programming, study just about
| anything else and minor in CS or double major. Being an AE or
| MechE that has a much better than average (for the discipline)
| grasp on programming is a better edge career wise.
| matt3210 wrote:
| I work in a FAANG company, and our recruiters know better than to
| send us candidates without a 4yr degree minimum in any
| engineering (no CS required but degree required)
| happytoexplain wrote:
| I've had a manager tell me to lie about not meeting a degree
| requirement, though it wasn't at a FAANG.
| gnulinux wrote:
| Maybe, ever since I graduated from college I learned again and
| again that pretty much anything worth thinking about in life
| boils down to math for me. I'd maybe/probably study CS, as a
| minor or double major, but Pure/Applied Math programs can be more
| intellectually enriching in this day and age. This is a
| completely person analysis, it'll change for everyone.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| If he wants to move and work abroad, he's likely going to need a
| degree to meet visa and sponsoring requirements. Doesn't have to
| be a CS degree, though.
| lexandstuff wrote:
| I'm a CS professional of 15 years, getting a CS degree for visa
| purposes. I'm doing it via the University of London's World Class
| on Coursera [1], and it costs around ~20-25K USD for the whole
| thing. If all continues to go well, I'll be done in 3.5 years,
| all while working full time.
|
| So that's another option to consider: do the CS degree part-time
| while working on breaking into the industry. You can adjust your
| workload each semester depending on circumstances, so it's
| flexible for someone job hunting.
|
| [1] https://www.coursera.org/degrees/bachelor-of-science-
| compute...
| beej71 wrote:
| Your son is not the average student. He will level up in school
| and will get hired if his interpersonal skills measure up to his
| tech chops. We have students who have not written their own
| compilers getting hired straight out of their BS today.
|
| The competition is fiercer now, but good devs will still get
| hired. Average devs have a lot more trouble these days.
|
| Does your son need to go to school? Maybe he's hireable as-is.
|
| Finally, has he looked at financial aid? It can take a bite out
| of that debt.
| hazek112 wrote:
| God no.
|
| I'd just study law or something incredibly hard that hasn't been
| tokenized yet.
| rKarpinski wrote:
| > a decent state university ... He is looking at ~$130K in costs
|
| 130k seems high for public school. How much of that is room and
| board?
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(page generated 2025-08-10 23:01 UTC)