On Sun, Jun 25, 2006 at 10:19:36PM -0700, William Chops Westfield wrote:
> 
> On Jun 25, 2006, at 8:43 PM, dal wheeler wrote:
> 
> > he'd be the first one to tell you its not the easiest way to
> > maintain a career.  I've seen these people in other companies
> > and it is very difficult for them to change jobs...
> 
> That matches the experience of assorted friends and relatives.  In
> times of significant company loyalty to the employees, a non-degreed
> engineer can do fine.  But if, say, the Internet Bubble pops, your
> company goes Poof! (and with it your chances of glowing recommendations
> and identifiable accomplishments), and you find yourself with a mortgage
> and kids to support at the same time as thousands of people with similar
> skills, similar resumes, AND college degrees...  Well, you'd better have
> a good nest-egg or many and/or wealthy friends.
> 
> A 4 year college degree is probably worth 2 or 3 years worth of "real"
> experience (of the sort that it is very hard to get when you're 18.)
> It doesn't exercise the SAME skills as actual work, but the skills it
> does imbue aren't as worthless as some people think.

I'm in the middle of a 4-year arts degree, every single thing I make
uses stacks of complex technology in the fields of electronics, computer
science, and machining. Add in some contract work and I've got a few
years of "industry" experience. At my school people who have already
gotten engineering degrees, even in electrical engineering and computer
science and who worked in industry for awhile, ask me for advice on
building things all the time.

That said, I'm still very seriously considering getting a second degree
once I graduate. It'd be worth it just to get a better understanding of
math for one. And this is my thinking *regardless* of if I can launch a
successfull arts career, if I do, I'll just get my degree part time.

What can I say, it took me a good 4 days of solid work to to figure out
the math needed to display and rotate a wireframe cube on a PIC chip.
That's just basic high-school matrix math. If I'm going to ever be able
to write something like a PID algorithm I've got a lot of studying ahead
of me.

-- 
pete@petertodd.ca http://www.petertodd.ca
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist