In the C/C++ thread, there has been some discussion of the value of a degree.
Since I regularly make hiring decisions, evaluate resumes and such, I thought
I would throw in my thoughts.  First and foremost, an engineer is someone who
engineers.  It has nothing directly to do with a degree.  Some of the engineers
that I have respected most had no degree.  There was a group in the mid-80s
on long island (3 guys) who, on their own designed a 4Kx4K vector video display
using AMD bit slice components.  It could rotate and scale a wireframe in real-time.

All of the software was microcode (NOT code running on micros  -look it up).  They
were amazing.  Not a degree in the group.

Another friend of mine has been running a successful business for over 10 years.  He

has layed out and tested 100's of boards.  He can walk into a factory with a down
production line, open a motor inverter, understand and fix it without schematics,
save
them $10,000 in down time and feels he can't charge over $35/hr because he only
has a 2 year degree.

The last programmer I hired didn't finish his 2 year degree after attending 6
different
schools.  He did write games on the side, helped people set up networks, showed me
some well documented code, and answered specific questions with specific answers.
When I asked him how he liked object oriented code, he jumped out of his chair and
said 'C++ is sooo cool!' and sat back down.  This from someone in his early 30's.
He
is an fine programmer and now an excellent friend.

These people are all engineers.  Fine ones.  To me, as a perspective employer, all a

degree means is that someone has a detailed background in the sciences and math.  If

they did research, that may speak of real interest in a topic.  What I want to know
is
'what excites them?'.  What are their hobbies (robotics, ham radio)?  What is the
most
interesting project they have ever worked on?  How do they handle challenges?
Mostly,
degrees get in the way.  They set the financial bar too high for small companies.
The
average starting salary for an MS from RPI is about $68K.  With no experience.  Call

the career centers.  Without management experience (and staying out of Boston and
CA)
the same engineers max out at $90K with 20 years experience.  They will learn more
about how engineering works the first time they put 1000 hours into a real world
problem
where good enough is not 'good enough' than they did at school.  I know some of the
schools are getting more hands-on and that's good.  Co-op is even better.  A one
year
internship is best.  Only European students seem willing to do this.  I've had about
8
interns from Germany, France and now Poland for 6 months to a year.  Everyone
enjoys it, they are productive and walk away with real value (I think).  They are
all hired
into non-junior level jobs at any rate.  I am at least satisfied with their
abilities and sometimes
dazzled.  Also, I make sure that they are trained, not cheap labor.

Apparently, this is a subject that I had a lot of thoughts about.....

Steve Nordhauser
Director of New Product Development, Imaging Systems
IEM Corp

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