Career advice for young system programmers

Re:Career advice for young system programmers by SuboptimalEng on Friday August 18, 2023 @08:11AM (#37174562)

I feel this is a weak argument. Like saying Bill Gates and Zuckerberg dropped out — but they dropped out of Harvard.

IIRC, George Hotz studied at CMU for a semester, took 4 difficult classes, got a 4.0, and won a CTF competition before dropping out.

My take is that the normal programmer (frontend, backend, systems, etc.) would benefit greatly from a CS degree.

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Re:Career advice for young system programmers by bena on Friday August 18, 2023 @09:12AM (#37175146)

Gates was also taking upper and graduate level courses as a freshman/sophomore.

And technically, Gates is on an extended sabbatical from Harvard. He took leave to see if this software thing would pan out. If it fails, he still has Harvard as a fallback plan.

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Re:Career advice for young system programmers by kubrickslair on Friday August 18, 2023 @07:45PM (#37183668)

Yes, but George Hotz went to CMU after already accomplishing more than many of us might accomplish in our entire careers. So the broader point on pigeonholing still stands.

I agree that for the average programmer, the CS degree still helps, but these outliers remind us that talent can blossom in many ways!

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