Do you need a CS Degree? : A Final Year Student’s POV
This has been an ongoing debate for the longest time and I will hopefully put an end to it. (I’m kidding that’s impossible).
This is my final year of university. I’ve been studying Computer Science at Africa University and for the first year of my studies I could not code. Yes we learnt Java, C# and Vb.net but I never studied further after Hello World. The lecturers never pushed us to work on our own projects and to be fair my goal was to pass my exams and make it to the next semester. Fast forward a year later the department signed 10 students up for the GADS program. I chose the Android path because well, Android is cool. So the program had four phases and the first one was mostly theory and learning the basics so I was safe. I even got a proficient score on my IQ assessment so all was good. The problem started when we had to work on projects. My theory was good but the practical side really confused me. We never did any coding in class so even using an IDE confused me, a lot. Fortunately I met some amazing souls that helped me throughout the program and I even made it to the project phase. Unfortunately I didn’t make the certification phase and wasn’t certified but I learnt a lot about Android development and if I am to ever choose that as my field of specialization I think I’m safe.
After GADS I had to do my mandatory internship for a year and this also required a lot of programming. The company was working on a health insurance system for their company and were using C#. I knew the basics but that didn’t even prepare me for everything that had to be done. I had to study a lot because I was working with people with five times the knowledge I had. This is how I found my passion for .NET. I can’t explain it, it felt right. Ever since I finished my internship in July I’ve been working on my .NET skills and I hope that by the time I graduate I’ll be worthy of the Fullstack .NET Developer status.
What I’ve learnt is that a degree can only do so much. It takes more than a perfect attendance and first class degree to be a good developer. It’s sleepless nights (which I’m against) and lots of coffee to sharpen your skills. What my degree has done for me so far is help me realize which field I want to specialize in. The curriculum covered everything from basic programming, networking, data science and a bit of AI. Although I got distinctions in Networking it just wasn’t my cup of coffee and my love for AI is still big but I’m limited by the resources I have available. I would like to believe that the degree has helped me connect with students from other universities through hackathons and meetups that were organized by the school. It’s been a great experience.
My advice is if you have the money and time to get a degree then go for it but if you want to quick start your career then don’t even worry about it but just do what works for you because either way you’ll make a great software developer. Take my word for it.
