Programmers: Do you have to go to school to get a job at software development?

This sounds more like Tech than OP, but I can speak to this.

It's possible to teach yourself to program well enough to get a job, but it requires aptitude and the ability to learn quickly, with little guidance. It's rare to find a self-taught game programmer. That is one specialty that requires a high degree of math skills so unless you're a natural math genius, work harder at school.

Most jobs require experience. There are internships and entry-level positions around that will let you learn on the job, but you'll have to demonstrate an aptitude for it before they'll hire you.

Some programmers work from home, but they are the exception and not the rule. Most programmers in corporate settings work in cubicles.

In other words, I highly suggest finishing High School at the very, absolute minimum. College, even at a junior level, is recommended as well.

more and more game studios are looking for developers with degrees. those that don't have them generally have an impressive track record of shipped titles.

it's highly unlikely that a game studio would hire someone without a degree and without solid experience. you could potentially work your way up from a QA spot, but you'd have to be of an uncommon caliber to rely strictly on being noticed in the QA pool as someone special.

there is a do-it-yourself avenue of creating your own games (small online, usually flash-type) and using that as a springboard into the industry, but again, you'll be a relatively small fish in an ever-expanding pond.

Like the others said, it's not impossible but it's much more difficult to even get your foot in the door. I've done a good bit of technical hiring and it's a flooded job market. Typically there have been dozens of applicants for every job and any strike, such as lacking a degree, will make you the first one eliminated unless you have a long and impressive resume.

One avenue, if you do learn programming and develop your chops, is to try to get on with a consulting agency such as Robert Half. They can typically find you temporary assignments which match your skill sets and you can gain experience and make connections.

My advice, like Stone Table's, is to buckle down and find a way to earn your degree. You'll never regret it.

I can tell you right now it won't work.

If you're having trouble in high school, you won't have much luck trying to learn C++ on your own. Independent learning--especially to the level you would need--is hard.

Put it this way--I'm a high 90s student. I'm currently pulling a 98% in a math course that a large majority of my class is failing. I'm also taking three correspondence courses, and they're tough. They're grade 11 and 12 high school courses. I'm barely staying in the 90s (and that's just most of the time) and I'm working my tail off. I took a very basic C++ course at home and did okay, but it, too, was tough. If you don't have high school math skills, don't do well at high school, your chances of learning much past very basic C++ are extremely slim. Therefore, whether or not you can be employed with self-taught C++ is really somewhat irrelevant.

I'm not trying to be mean. I'm trying to be a realist.

You won't get a job in programming without a high school diploma. Heck, you won't get a job as a software tester or QA specialist without a diploma. There's just too much competition for too few jobs.

I work in a software company with groups of programmers/developers, QA, and testers, and most of them have a fair bit of education under their belts, college, university undergrad, masters.

Don't give up on your diploma, even if you have to go for an equivalency test after your age-mates graduate. Do whatever you have to do to get that piece of paper because it'll open a world of opportunities.

If you have connections, and if you are super smart, and if you start out as the lowest man on the totem pole (in game development, that's a tester, which requires both good written communication and gaming skills), then you MIGHT be able to get a job in the computer gaming industry without a COLLEGE degree. No high school? Forget it.

Get your high school diploma.

I will tell you something: My husband hates school. He's brilliant - 1600 on his SAT, good GPA in high school. But in college, he nearly flunked out because nobody forced him to go to class and he hated it. Finally, after 2 extra years, he got his degree. And he had a hard time getting a job, initially, because everyone saw his college GPA. Most of the people he interviewed said something like this: "If you don't have the dedication and perseverence to do well in college, why should I believe you will be any better here at work?" The place that finally hired him did so because he had a very dependable friend working there who could vouch for him. Now he's proven himself, his GPA means nothing, but getting your foot in the door is hard.

Get your diploma.

Education IS experience.

Get your diploma. If you don't you're severely limiting your career choices across the board. Keep at it until you get it. It's too important not to.

BlueLucario said:

At this point, graduation is impossible. I did my best in class, and for the third quarter I get a GPA of 1.4. I have a 2.002 GPA for my high school career. You need a 2.0 to graduate and I'm so close to going down that line. After realizing that my third quarter grades are bad. Even straight A's (I can't go that high.) won't help this time.

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Have you talked to a guidance counselor? To your teachers? So often if you show these people you are determined to succeed, they will do everything they can to help you.

If you don't graduate high school, study and take your GED. Then go to a junior college and take some classes specific to your field of interest.

That's why I asked. I don't know why education is preferred over experience.

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What experience do you have? Teaching yourself C++ is not experience, because-- surprise surprise-- the way it is used to create actual games and programs is very different from the theory, or so I hear from my husband. People who come in straight from college have to learn a lot about actual application. Now, if you have a portfolio of small games and programs you had created yourself, you MIGHT get somewhere.

Blue, do not, no matter what you want to do in life, do NOT drop out of school. If you have to get your GED to get that H S diploma, then get it.

Don't 'give up' on your attempts to graduate. Double up, work twice as hard.

Believe me, if you think that graduating is difficult, wait until you try to make it anywhere in life without that degree. Then you'll see what hard is really like.

Just think of this time in your life as a chapter. You just need to re-write and revise. Don't give up.

You're intelligent enough to decide that you want to write a novel. That shows that you have some sort of smarts. Writing takes intelligence. I think, from reading some of your posts that you may tend to doubt yourself. Don't doubt that you are intelligent. Give yourself some credit and buckle down and do the one thing that WILL make you better at everything you will do in the future, and that is, GIVE yourself this BIG break and finish school and graduate. You deserve it, and you owe it to yourself to be the best that you can be. It makes no sense to handicap yourself right out of the starting gates.

we know you can do it. YOU know you can do it. Now, just go DO it.

My bad - I was thinking you were talking about a college degree, not a HS diploma. No, you won't be able to get a programming job without a diploma or GED. But lots of people get their GED's so don't think of it as a stigma. Talk to your guidance counsellor and try to graduate. Barring that, get your GED. Then go to a Jr. College and take some computer courses and learn college-level study skills. For personal study, don't do C++, it's too advanced. Get comfortable with HTML first.

Oh, and enjoy being young and healty. Lots of VERY rich people would trade every penny they have to be a healty teenager again for a week. Seriously.

BlueLucario said:

Hi, I looked at my grades and concluded that i won't get a diploma. I don't have any money for a cap and gown. So I decided to give up my attempts at graduation. I wanted to be a software developer, and a game programmer and I plan on teaching myself C++. I was wondering, do I need to go to school to get a job? Do companies hire based on experience?

When I become a programmer, is it possible to work at home? A cubicle? Or have my own personal Office?

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You need a degree, unless you're a wizard, a genius. Most companies require at least a Bachelor's; many want to hire Masters.

I mean, given so many Comp Sci and computer tech graduates going into the market these days, your competition is extremely tough without a degree. Granted, there are a lot of jobs out there, but most require at least 2-3 years experience. The entry level jobs you're qualified for -- there will be many applicants with degrees.

If you can't go to college, at least get a tech degree. But you still need to have a HS diploma or GED. You just can't slip by. The field is hot, and there are many people who want the same jobs.

There are other ways to get into the business: internship, for example, or do consulting work (web design, etc.) and then work your way up. Or doing subcontracting -- many employers may not consider diplomas when they hire subcontractors, but those jobs are difficult to find.

As for working environment, it really depends. I've had small cubicles. I've worked at warehouses. I've had my own spacious corner office overlooking the park or Union Square, New York. I'm working from home nowadays. It depends on the job.

Blue, I don't know if it will make you feel any better, but I'm 21 and still trying to get my high school diploma--and this year, I WILL.

Yes, I'm lucky enough to have a relatively easy time with the work. But, unfortunately, I fell ill when I was 16. For several years I was virtually bedridden, and it put me behind. I'm still somewhat limited in what I can do.

Do I feel silly or stupid still trying to get my diploma? No way! I feel smart and proud of myself for continuing to fight for it. I admit I was apprehensive at first. I was out of class for several years (I hadn't been on a regular basis since Spring 2002) and returned to (one) class this fall. But now, it feels fine.

Keep going. Please. Think of how proud you'll be when you get through it. Take your time, learn the material. If you can't find or afford a tutor, look online. There are so many message boards that will help you out. You found AW, so you can find them!

You can do it. You should do it.

Work w/ your teachers and get your diploma, Blue. W/o it, you don't have anything.

Then, at the very least, like Ray said, you can go to a trade school. But you've got to at least have a high school diploma.

Another avenue, once you get your HS diploma or GED, is the military. E-school in the service can be challenging, but once you graduate, some of the billets are beautiful, and you'll be working with some cutting-edge gear. Plus having vet status in the civilian world is still considered a good thing (unless you're planning on working someplace like Ben and Jerry's, I mean).

It's not an all-or-nothing proposition: i.e. if you don't get it this year you'll never get it.

If you don't think you'll be able to get the grades to receive your diploma by the end of this school year, repeat the year. Or, if possible, upgrade in summer school.

I spent over 10 years as a tech recruiter. I would not consider hiring someone without a high school diploma. I rarely even interviewed self-taught programmers unless they had actual experience in the market - and a lot of it. Entry-level positions rarely go to people without degrees. Entry level positions go to people with 1-2 years experience and almost always require a college degree. Without the experience, the only people who get entry level jobs in this industry have college degrees.
The people I have hired without college degrees are the exception, not the rule. A degree and no experience will get you an entry level position FAR faster than self-taught, no degree will.
Higher level positions sometimes allow for people with no degree but they have massive amounts of actual experience over several years.

I've never hired anyone inot a programming (or even clerical/administrative job) without a high school diploma.

Get your diploma.

I'm married to a programmer and my oldest brother is a programmer. Both have worked from home programming. Yes, it's possible. BUT they are both exceptions to many rules.

My oldest brother started programming in the 1970s. He didn't get his bachelors degree because it was a waste of time. At that point in time, he had more hands on experience than the professors who taught him - he got the hands on experience at the local community college when he was still in high school. He managed to get employed earning a very high salary for the time period and for his experience, but he's also bloody brilliant beyond belief. He now works from home and he's the alpha alpha geek - the other alpha geeks turn to him for help when they're stumped. But he didn't get where he was because it was easy - he worked his butt off proving what he was capable of over and over and over. And when he started programming (1970s), it was a different set of rules.

My husband has a diploma in programming. He's had programming jobs that took him to Saudi Arabia and the US. He's capable of programming in well over a dozen languages - he's an intuitive programmer and my goodness, he's another alpha geek with a huge talent for structure, organization, and all the rest. He's miles ahead of where other programmers are in terms of his abilities - he can build a program that's actually intuitive to users and easy to use, to boot, and he picks his programming language/tools based on what the finished product needs to be and what will work best to achieve that outcome. On the other hand, he doesn't have a degree, so even with his years of experience and tonnes of successfully completed projects behind him and his ability to program absolutely anything, there are a lot of jobs he won't qualify for because a degree is required and the people doing the hiring won't see past his existing success, experience, and abilities. He's been able to make things work for him, but only through a lot of hard work.

Like the others have said, finish your high school diploma. Find a way. It doesn't matter if it takes an extra term or two or three - just get it done. Without that, you won't get very far at all. Then, if you want to be a programmer, get a degree. It's the best way to start a career with a wide number of options open to you. Without a degree, it'll be really frustrating very fast.

Try politics. You don't need a college degree and you'll get the chance to help people.

Get your diploma or GED. If you get your GED, then try to get a little bit of college. Meet and greet. Get your foot in the door doing grunt work. Join a local group that specializes in some sector of technology. Go to lots of free sales events sponsored by large firms -- free danish rolls.

Going to work for a gaming company is like getting signed to a record deal. There's far more work in the business sector.

You don't need math as much as you need structure. Abstraction is a tremendous gift. Fortunately, grammar and lit are good foundations. With today's tools, you're so far removed from the processor, it doesn't matter if you don't have math. But you MUST have logic. They're different animals.

I am a 25 year veteran, Senior VP at a boutique software firm. Microsoft MCSD, Oracle OCP, with more acronyms on my resume than the whole military operations handbook. I am not Al Gore, and I didn't invent carbon either.

When I "flunked out" of college, it was possible to get programming jobs without a college degree. Now I have 20+ years experience, mostly in electronic design and embedded programming, but nowadays no one hires undegreed engineers, nor engineers my age...

III said:

My bad - I was thinking you were talking about a college degree, not a HS diploma. No, you won't be able to get a programming job without a diploma or GED. But lots of people get their GED's so don't think of it as a stigma.

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I got a GED in 1976. I think I told that story on AW before but I can't find it (but see below).

III said:

Talk to your guidance counsellor and try to graduate. Barring that, get your GED. Then go to a Jr. College and take some computer courses and learn college-level study skills. For personal study, don't do C++, it's too advanced. Get comfortable with HTML first.

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I don't even see a connection between HTML (a scripting language) and C++. Anyone interested in C++ should have already dabbled in HTML, Visual Basic (uh, MS Word and Excel "macros"), and other such things...

Why are you interested in C++? Is it because you've heard games are written in C++? IMHO, that's the wrong reason, though you might end up learning it in spite of that. If you're interested in it because it's a programming language, you should already know HTML the way you know third grade English.

Have a compiler? The Borland one was freely downloadable for a while. If you're really interested, you should already know something about it. Heck, there are free C++ courses online.

But wait...there's more (!) to life and even to getting a job than C++ (or even the "more modern" languages such as Java, C#, .net, whatever...). Programming is NOT just about coding. It's also about reading the Knuth books.

Long story not-so-long, I didn't do much of the work in high school, I mostly stayed in the library and read/studied what I wanted to (science, math, SF), and due to that ended up doing well on the SAT. When I was age 18, re-entering 11th grade in a new school at the new school year, the counselor saw my SAT score and suggested I take the GED. Within three weeks I had passed it and become a freshman in college, ending up where I was "supposed to be" for my age. I got three years of credit in four years toward an EE degree, and managed to have a career as an electronics designer/embedded programmer, but I'm now "too old" for that kind of work...

But nowadays there's no way you can get away without at least one degree to get any kind of job in any technical field. Even 25 years ago I ran into lots of companies I was trying to interview with who said they wouldn't even consider hiring someone without a four-year degree (strangely, it often didn't matter what the degree was in, but that's a different rant). The last time I was hired "out of the blue" (without personally knowing someone at the company with hiring authority) was 1995, back when I was still under 40. If I had started to aim myself for a management path at that time in my career (and I damn well knew I "should" do it at the time, EE Times was filled with articles about age discrimination against engineers over 40, but the idea of being in management was unappealing to me and I also knew I didn't have the personality for it) I might still be employed, but that's a different lesson...

MichaelDeVere said:

Get your diploma or GED. If you get your GED, then try to get a little bit of college. Meet and greet. Get your foot in the door doing grunt work. Join a local group that specializes in some sector of technology. Go to lots of free sales events sponsored by large firms -- free danish rolls.

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Do the "Co-op" thing in college, that way when you graduate you not only have a degree, you have actual job experience in the industry your degree is aimed at, putting you ahead of other graduates. As the saying goes, do as I say, not as I do.

MichaelDeVere said:

I am a 25 year veteran, Senior VP at a boutique software firm. Microsoft MCSD, Oracle OCP, with more acronyms on my resume than the whole military operations handbook. I am not Al Gore, and I didn't invent carbon either.

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Isn't Carbon another one of those newfangled programming languages, or are you talking about the element? And I alway think of Ponds and Fleishman when I see Cold Fusion...

If you REALLY want a torrent of advice from those in the field, submit this as a question on Slashdot...

Blue--

Get off the internet. NOW. Ask your parents to disconnect from it entirely. Spend your spare time studying. Talk to your teachers; see what you can do to bring your grades up. If they are not helpful, get your GED. But whatever you do you HAVE to realize that you must have at least a high school diploma or its equivalent to even be considered for jobs that you may think of as demeaning. I'm serious. The internet will be there when you graduate. Everything will be. You don't need to be worrying about finding a job (and IT is NOT the route to go without the degrees, trust me. My husband has been building computers and programs for a decade and a half, but without the degree he can't get hired at a HELP DESK) you need to buckle your ass down and work on your schoolwork.

I went through this last year with my younger daughter. She was so convinced she would fail that I (literally) dragged her through the high school doors to take her finals--and made her take them in the principal's office while I sat next to her working on a manuscript. She graduated; she took some CC classes to help her get her study habits recitified, and she goes to nursing school next fall.

You can do it; it's just a matter of actually doing it. No matter what career you want to get into, you must at least learn the perseverance and self-discipline to get at your books.

NOW.

So says the ex-programmer:

You need a college degree. But first, you need to graduate high school in order to even think about a college degree.

You might think you know a lot about software development, but you don't. A lot of places don't care much about C++ anymore unless you land a job supporting legacy projects. Sorry, that's just how it is. Even gaming companies are starting to move on. Look into newer languages such as Java and C#. You can't really go wrong with Python--a lot of places are using that for scripting nowadays, replacing Lua.

And even if you manage to teach yourself all that--which you probably won't--software development is so much more than just knowing a programming language. You use all sorts of tools for various tasks from design to implementation to testing to documentation. You need to know how to talk to your customers and work out requirements. You might even need to know how to work with unrelated stuff, like databases and content presentation languages (e.g., markup languages).

And then if you somehow finish learning all that, you need extensive mathematical and logical training in order to tackle anything more than trivial business applications. Game programming, for example, doesn't require in-depth knowledge of binary space partitions, pathfinding, occlusion, collision detection, transformation matrices, etc. anymore... but you'll still run into problems with shaders and such where a lack of education and practical experience will kill your productivity.

This ain't something you can just pick up in your free time. There's a reason they pay us lots of dollars.

GET THE DEGREES. Stop wasting your time if you really want to succeed. It's a lot of work, so get to it.

Warning: I hate programming and I wish I had never started on the path which led to me being a software engineer. If I could go back in time and tell myself to do something else, I wouldn't hesitate to change the course my life took. I'm trying to be a writer now... see?

Programming is NOT just about coding. It's also about reading the Knuth books.

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Dude. Couldn't have said it better myself. In the software world, the math is the only redeeming virtue. Everything else is boring tedium.