School, does where you go truly matter for employers?

[Wwadsworth]

One thing I want to make clear right from the start. I do not let school get in the way of my education. I am a self-taught HTML, Python, Java, and C/C++ coder. I also taught myself how to solder (fixing up broken TI 83 when it was profitable now I can't make a living off it because too many people are doing it now) and fix smartphones, tablets, and laptops (thank you, Louis Rossmann). I am currently studying Linux (don't know why it took me so long to get into it), PERL, and C#. I am constantly looked over in job applications (input from a specialist) because of my lack of education, or rather school education, and experience. This includes low-level "intro" jobs, whatever that means. So I am now attending BYU-Idaho online ($830 for 15 credits and no expensive books sounds great to me!) I will be moving to Idaho next year to finish my degree (Computer Engineering), mainly because of the price it is to go there physically and to live there. I live in AZ and for a 2-bedroom apartment costs around $1100 and you have to pay utilities (electric is killer here) whereas in Idaho it is $700 with utilities and high-speed internet. 

I work in a call-center for Safelite and I was talking with an older gentleman who owns his company and would rather hire someone from a first-rate school (he said I should go to MIT and with what I already know that could help me get in) then go to a second-rate private school like BYU-Idaho. Despite the major differences in costs (BYU-I a sum $4k and MIT $47K). Of course, if I could get into MIT with a scholarship that would pay most if not all tuition I'd take it but the likelihood of that happening is like winning the lottery to me. 

To anyone who is a hiring manager or high in the tech industry would the school that I attend really matter? Even if I have a high GPA (currently 3.7) and all credentials/certifications? Any thoughts on this would be great to have and I may look into a course redirection if necessary. 

 

P.S. I didn't care about anything in high school so I had a low GPA and no SAT scores. If anyone out there reads this, don't make the same mistake I did and actually care about what you learn. 

[Canada EH]

5 minutes ago, Wwadsworth said:

I am constantly looked over in job applications (input from a specialist) because of my lack of education, or rather school education, and experience. This includes low-level "intro" jobs, whatever that means

Yes, employers look at education for a clearer picture of intelligence and an insight into how you apply yourself.

 

5 minutes ago, Wwadsworth said:

school that I attend really matter?

yes and no

 

5 minutes ago, Wwadsworth said:

low GPA and no SAT scores.

education is the key factor when it comes to income and job growth.

 

Also work history plays a crucial role in the hiring process.

The interview plays an all important role as well. You could have an A+++++AAAAA on resume, but in person some could be a Z-----ZZZZZZ

 

You could "Consult" or build your own software, go find employment with a employment agency whether temporary, pt or ft. You just have to get whatever jobs come your way in the field you are in or want to be in and plug away at it.

[Spotty]

For highly specialised and technical jobs, such as a surgeon or lawyer, it probably does matter. For less specialised degrees it probably won't matter as much as long as you have the required accreditation/degree to perform the job.

For an employer it will be just as or more important to see a good employment history, experience in the field, and good references.

[Wwadsworth]

1 minute ago, Canada EH said:

Yes, employers look at education for a clearer picture of intelligence and an insight into how you apply yourself.

 

Okay, getting the degree will help prove my knowledge. 

Quote

school that I attend really matter?

yes and no

1

This is somewhat confusing but also reassuring, I guess?

Quote

education is the key factor when it comes to income and job growth

Yes, but proof of said education is the key to this. I know one too many people that get a degree, get a good job, then stop learning. Learning doesn't have to stop in a classroom, I have a little over 200 books in the last 5 years, some classics but most are self-help or learning books. 

 

On a side note would me getting a Redhat, Cisco, and/or CompTIA A+ certification help me out?

[Wwadsworth]

2 minutes ago, Spotty said:

For highly specialised and technical jobs, such as a surgeon or lawyer, it probably does matter. For less specialised degrees it probably won't matter as much as long as you have the required accreditation/degree to perform the job.

For an employer it will be just as or more important to see a good employment history, experience in the field, and good references.

Yeah experience is shot for me even for internships. As far as references go I did a few computer odd jobs and wrote a few programs for one of the lead accountants at Intel here in Chandler. But again education would be key there I'm sure.

[asus killer]

it does.

[Wwadsworth]

1 minute ago, asus killer said:

it does.

Any kind of elaboration or dod my explanations nail it on the head?

[asus killer]

1 minute ago, Wwadsworth said:

Any kind of elaboration or dod my explanations nail it on the head?

i could go out on a rant about this subject, but is just as simple as that, it does. 

Generally you always employ someone from the best school possible. Considering that they also cost more because they are more sought after. 

The only way this is not true is if it's a non skilled job and/or you have lots of experience preferable on a top firm. 

[Wwadsworth]

19 minutes ago, Canada EH said:

Also work history plays a crucial role in the hiring process.

The interview plays an all important role as well. You could have an A+++++AAAAA on resume, but in person some could be a Z-----ZZZZZZ

 

You could "Consult" or build your own software, go find employment with a employment agency whether temporary, pt or ft. You just have to get whatever jobs come your way in the field you are in or want to be in and plug away at it.

That's what I feel like I have to do to get myself going. I have had a few consulting opportunities that turned put very well for me. Though I feel like I could have charged more in the end. I upgraded a Dr's office (referred by a friend) for $6k. My friend told me after I was done that next bid was $20k! I felt like I really under-sold myself. I did make 4500 from it though since I just switched the doctor older hardware over to Fedora instead of updating it to Windows 10 since all of his software was based in Firefox.

[Wwadsworth]

2 minutes ago, asus killer said:

i could go out on a rant about this subject, but is just as simple as that, it does. 

Generally you always employ someone from the best school possible. Considering that they also cost more because they are more sought after. 

The only way this is not true is if it's a non skilled job and/or you have lots of experience preferable on a top firm. 

Okay that makes sense. Even if the top school student was a "C" average and the bottom was an "A"? I guess I should take a class pr pickup a book on business practices to fully understand it all. I'm little naive and dont know where to start when it comes to business practices.

[TheKDub]

29 minutes ago, Wwadsworth said:

 

Does the school you go to matter? Yes and no.

 

If you go to a school that does a crappy job in the area you're interested in studying, then that won't be worth much.

If you go to a high ranking school for the area you're interested in, then that'll be incredibly helpful.

And if it's in the middle, then they're pretty much all equal.

 

"Long" story short: Pick a college/university that has a decent program for what you want to study, and don't go to a shitty school.

[Wwadsworth]

3 minutes ago, TheKDub said:

Does the school you go to matter? Yes and no.

 

If you go to a school that does a crappy job in the area you're interested in studying, then that won't be worth much.

If you go to a high ranking school for the area you're interested in, then that'll be incredibly helpful.

And if it's in the middle, then they're pretty much all equal.

 

"Long" story short: Pick a college/university that has a decent program for what you want to study, and don't go to a shitty school.

Well out of the miriad of schools out there would you say among the top 50 (according to business insider) be a good place to look? I really don't like the idea of going into 100's of thousands of dollars in debt for a degree or taking 10 years to get a bachelor's.

[asus killer]

15 minutes ago, Wwadsworth said:

 Even if the top school student was a "C" average and the bottom was an "A"? 

then it depends.

Because generally it's also easier to get better grades at shitty schools, some hand over grades like candy. So the answer can only be it depends. One may know "A" level of nothing, and the other may know "C" level of a great education.

Probably harder in a large country as the US, but i guess it could apply to a state in the US, they can know some teacher there, someone that works or some relative of someone  there knows the school, and they can ask how is the grading there. Some may even call the school.

In a good job all this is checked, at least in my country and i imagine it would be similar in the US. This is not throwing darts blindly 

[TheKDub]

1 minute ago, Wwadsworth said:

Well out of the miriad of schools out there would you say among the top 50 (according to business insider) be a good place to look? I really don't like the idea of going into 100's of thousands of dollars in debt for a degree or taking 10 years to get a bachelor's.

You don't need to go for a hugely expensive school. Try finding one in-state that has a solid computer engineering program, that'll save you a large amount of money.

[Lurick]

I have literally NEVER seen a job application where they gave two craps about what grades I got. There are some jobs where I'm sure they might care or if you are fresh out of college with zero resume experience then it might be good to put a GPA or something down but in reality probably 90% of the jobs out there care that you have a degree or education of some sort, period. You could have a bachelors degree in Basket Weaving Mastery for all they care if you can answer the interview questions with thought, honesty and intelligence then you have a better chance of getting hired than someone with "insert specific degree here" who lies in the interview, hums and haws their way through it, and doesn't seem like they care to be there.

I'll chat with a couple hiring managers at my work who's reports are mostly programmers and whatnot and see what they say but I have a feeling I already know the answer. A degree isn't as important as being able to apply what you've learned in a real world scenario and give honest answers when you don't know something.

 

Story time

I've helped interview about a dozen people for positions where I work and the difference between hiring them and not never even had to do with what degree they had and where it was from. It came down to how they could apply their knowledge, the thought process they used, how well they explained and articulated that process to us (even if the answer was incorrect btw), and showed us that they wanted to learn and grow. Had three people in a single day who interviewed over video calls and none of them got the job because the spent the interview GOOGLING answers to questions on the f-ing call and not admitting when they didn't know something. We can see your eyes move and your hands shuffle on video calls even if you mute the microphone of the computer/phone

[LogicalDrm]

Not in my country. Grades matter only for certain areas, and I don't think IT is among those. Employers look more at what courses you took, what kind of projects you did as student, what was your BA or Masters about. They might look at how long it took for you to finish, but approve longer time if you have been doing projects for companies. More projects and more practical training is always better than acing some theoretical course. Employer is happier if you can just go in and start working and they don't have to spend days training you, and so losing 1-2 experienced workers for teaching you.

 

The things I hear about US, people take reputation of school way too seriously over skills of actual person. Just going into best school doesn't make one best. It rather gives them easier route into business where someone going to lower rated school has to work more for gaining same baseline reputatuion.

[Sauron]

I think your best bet is to figure out where you'd like to work and ask them what they look for. A degree is nothing more than a certificate of competence, it all comes down to whether or not the employer trusts the institution that gave it to you. It also wouldn't make sense to drop 50k on an MIT degree without knowing for certain that your ideal employment requires it.

[AHaskin14]

I would say that it does, but it's not necessarily bigger school= bigger job. I work for a major department of defense contractor who hire's heavily from medium sized schools that have good reputation in the northeast. There's plenty of nationally known big schools in the area, but we prefer the quality of person that the smaller schools create. At the same time, we aren't going to every community college career fair in the area either. So do you need MIT? no. Would something middle of the road probably work out? likey.

[Wwadsworth]

7 hours ago, asus killer said:

then it depends.

Because generally it's also easier to get better grades at shitty schools, some hand over grades like candy. So the answer can only be it depends. One may know "A" level of nothing, and the other may know "C" level of a great education.

Probably harder in a large country as the US, but i guess it could apply to a state in the US, they can know some teacher there, someone that works or some relative of someone  there knows the school, and they can ask how is the grading there. Some may even call the school.

In a good job all this is checked, at least in my country and i imagine it would be similar in the US. This is not throwing darts blindly 

That's what I would hope for. BYU has a stroct honest policy and almost all of the teacher truly know their students which is refreshing.

[Wwadsworth]

7 hours ago, TheKDub said:

You don't need to go for a hugely expensive school. Try finding one in-state that has a solid computer engineering program, that'll save you a large amount of money.

All of instate once will cost upwards of 6k to go there. Hence why BYUI is my choice. It's cheaper but not easy. 

[Wwadsworth]

3 hours ago, Lurick said:

I have literally NEVER seen a job application where they gave two craps about what grades I got. There are some jobs where I'm sure they might care or if you are fresh out of college with zero resume experience then it might be good to put a GPA or something down but in reality probably 90% of the jobs out there care that you have a degree or education of some sort, period. You could have a bachelors degree in Basket Weaving Mastery for all they care if you can answer the interview questions with thought, honesty and intelligence then you have a better chance of getting hired than someone with "insert specific degree here" who lies in the interview, hums and haws their way through it, and doesn't seem like they care to be there.

I'll chat with a couple hiring managers at my work who's reports are mostly programmers and whatnot and see what they say but I have a feeling I already know the answer. A degree isn't as important as being able to apply what you've learned in a real world scenario and give honest answers when you don't know something.

 

Story time

I've helped interview about a dozen people for positions where I work and the difference between hiring them and not never even had to do with what degree they had and where it was from. It came down to how they could apply their knowledge, the thought process they used, how well they explained and articulated that process to us (even if the answer was incorrect btw), and showed us that they wanted to learn and grow. Had three people in a single day who interviewed over video calls and none of them got the job because the spent the interview GOOGLING answers to questions on the f-ing call and not admitting when they didn't know something. We can see your eyes move and your hands shuffle on video calls even if you mute the microphone of the computer/phone

My school constantly sends out emails about internships with Samsung in Austin and it states you need to have a 3.4+ GPA. That's just for an Internship. They also have a Micron facility about 2 hours away that is always at job fairs there also ask I g for a 3.0+ GPA.

 

Would you be able to ask them (hiring managers) what kind of questions are asked? The one interview I got they gave me because I knew someone there and I didn't have the specific language they needed me for (C++ at the time) even though I was able to gove them an answer in Python. Which to me Python is a easier language to write that is less fickle.

 

I am always willing to accept a cut in pay if it meant that I can intern/apprentice under someone to learn something new too. Is that something that would be good to say?

[Lurick]

4 minutes ago, Wwadsworth said:

My school constantly sends out emails about internships with Samsung in Austin and it states you need to have a 3.4+ GPA. That's just for an Internship. They also have a Micron facility about 2 hours away that is always at job fairs there also ask I g for a 3.0+ GPA.

 

Would you be able to ask them (hiring managers) what kind of questions are asked? The one interview I got they gave me because I knew someone there and I didn't have the specific language they needed me for (C++ at the time) even though I was able to gove them an answer in Python. Which to me Python is a easier language to write that is less fickle.

 

I am always willing to accept a cut in pay if it meant that I can intern/apprentice under someone to learn something new too. Is that something that would be good to say?

Internships are different and I did skip over those but yes, for an internship grades are usually needed because it ties to school work and they want to know it's not just someone looking to collect a paycheck or goof off and waste the time of everybody involved. As for the questions it would depend on the job in particular and what they are asking for in the posting so those can go a lot of ways. For a more green individual they would probably keep it higher level, get a feel for how you would problem solve and what skills you do or don't have. A good interview will find a weakness you have and drill down until you can't answer anything else and then go just a bit further before moving on to something else but regardless, if you don't know or aren't sure give your best ANSWER (ie: do NOT guess) or say that it's something you want to look up to make sure. Don't start with I don't know, at least try to give an idea of how you would approach an unknown, and show you can balance self reliance with asking others who might be able to give a better answer.

 

As for pay, never mention it during the interview, don't even think about it. That's always something that can be discussed later after you pass the interview portion.

[TacoSenpai]

19 minutes ago, Lurick said:

 

 

As for pay, never mention it during the interview, don't even think about it. That's always something that can be discussed later after you pass the interview portion.

Agreed.  Now to be fair it might be something they ask about in the interview at the end most likely.  If they do I would answer with a range (not too wide mind you).  At this point they've already decided whether or not they want you regardless of your answer (just don't be ridiculous and say you want 140K for a mid-entry level position). 

[Canada EH]

8 hours ago, Wwadsworth said:

I feel like I could have charged more

Live and learn

Leaving cold hard cash on the table is a great learning experience.

 

Yes, you have to weigh what your time is worth for the skillset you have, and what the market is charging, but also the most important aspect is to get a feel for your client.

 

I rolled up to houses in a rich neighborhoods, they were selling a vehicle, so some light banter to get the lay of the land, then show them you mean business with literally cash in hand which is aways a good motivator then bam some reasonable low ball number and the car was on my trailer in 10 minutes and sold quickly after for a good chunk of change. Sometimes the woman is going through a divorce and getting revenge, other times they need the cash now.

 

A more mainstream situation would be residential roofing, going door to door mail box pamphlets and judging the state of which the roof is in, the yard, vehicles parked in the driveway. Either walk past or drop on a flyer. If the residents are outside, light banter. When the time comes for a quote you have to be on the ball, for risky residents a quick highball offer, for low risk a good salesmanship approach with an average offer or a higher then average offer, then go above and beyond expectations for repeat customers.

 

 

[Big Head Tech]

9 hours ago, asus killer said:

i could go out on a rant about this subject, but is just as simple as that, it does. 

Generally you always employ someone from the best school possible. Considering that they also cost more because they are more sought after. 

The only way this is not true is if it's a non skilled job and/or you have lots of experience preferable on a top firm. 

I tend to disagree.  The only time a school might matter is specialized fields without experience, or if 2 candidates are identical, fit the personality profile and the only difference is schooling.  Obviously if you go to a very low end school, one of those scammy trade schools, etc that may be held against you.  But otherwise not really.