Ask HN: Are irrelevant degrees at all useful?

Re:Ask HN: Are irrelevant degrees at all useful? by ig1 on Wednesday July 21, 2010 @08:14AM (#1534972)

For CS: Firms generally look for CS or a related degree (Maths, elec eng, etc.) - although if you can prove you can program (open source projects, etc.) they may well be flexible. Typically for most degrees you can do a few "open units" in other subjects, so if you did some in CS that would help as well.

For Business/Marketing: Specific degree is less important, although some firms prefer degrees with mathematical content. Again having relevant extra-curricular activities or internships are much more important if your degree is in an different subject.

It's worth noting that most people (~60%) go on to careers completely unrelated to their degree so don't worry too much about it.

Feel free to email me if you want more advice, I used to run a non-profit that did analysis on degree -> career paths in the UK so I'm pretty familiar with the area.

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Re:Ask HN: Are irrelevant degrees at all useful? by corin_ on Wednesday July 21, 2010 @10:38AM (#1535270)

I'm confident I can gain experience for any area I might want to go into in the future - where I am currently, mainly focussing on marketing with an slight techy twist, I've created expensive advertising campaigns for companies like Dell, AMD and PC World, having had no experience prior to this job, plus on the side I've played a big part in various events, and management of 20 or so servers/websites.

Basically the last few years I've been doing my best to build up experience in as many of the areas that interest me as possible, partly because I love what I'm doing and partly because I want my CV to be non-restricting to any future path I might want to take.

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