Yeah, I am very confused by this persons experience. I have never once seen anyone utilize their school network, either to get a job or to bring someone on; every time we get a referral, it is for someone who they have worked with before, not who they went to school with.
I have worked with people for YEARS before i even learned that they have or don’t have a CS degree. I have interviewed many dozens of people, both as a hiring manager and a peer, and we only look at schooling if they have zero professional experience.
In my experience, a degree can help you get your first job, but after that it is all about your work experience and the connections with the people you have worked with.
> I have never once seen anyone utilize their school network
I've only seen it at one company in Los Angeles where the founders were from USC and several USC students ended up interning with us through their networking program, a few of which joined the company full time later on. It's been the exception so far.
And when thinking about that first job you have to remember that you're burning 3-4 years of full-time work experience on the degree. That's a lot of time to fumble around and find your fit!
Commonly true, but in my five years of engineering school, in my summer after my freshman year, I was already employed in computer programming. The rest of my school had co-op periods during which I had summer stints in computer-programming-related jobs including at Bonneville Power Administration with a team working on computer monitoring of the system, with the idea that was to lead to control of that system; a stint as a co-op student at Wayerhauser Plup Bleach plant, working on a program to model the flow of pulp through a tower measuring the dose of chlorine-based bleach, working at a medical lab with odd jobs including generating a plot of a sensor measuring tremor in a patient's hand; working at an IBM sales office writing a program to measure the proper fill of a tanker truck based on the day's projected temperature, and finally as the first full-time employee of a company producing the first computer-based commercial electrocardiogram analysis service, all before graduation.
My first job, of course, was prior to all that, driving various vehicles on my Dad's dryland wheat farm in northern Montana.
So I feel that I was particularly lucky about finding good co-op positions, as many of my colleagues were at less interesting gigs at Motorolla, sorting resistors by color code.
I have worked with people for YEARS before i even learned that they have or don’t have a CS degree. I have interviewed many dozens of people, both as a hiring manager and a peer, and we only look at schooling if they have zero professional experience.
In my experience, a degree can help you get your first job, but after that it is all about your work experience and the connections with the people you have worked with.