I have pondered this question since long before I graduated from University. I’ve worked with a mix of degree-qualified and self-taught people, and I’m still yet to nail the answer.

Being degree-qualified or self-taught both have their pros and cons, but at the end of the day I think that the person who has a good mix of both sides is the one that’s going to stand out. If you’re keen to make a go of your career then you should want to give yourself the best chance of getting work in the field by studying it formally at University. If you’re passionate about what you’re getting yourself into, then you’ll probably put extra time aside to learn the things that either don’t or won’t come up when studying formally.

I learned a lot from University, but not necessarily the things that I use while at work. I felt that Uni was a necessary step to give me a grounding and a level of understanding of things that I could build on when working professionally. I don’t feel that Uni covered every aspect, and I certainly don’t feel that the all aspects it did cover were covered sufficiently. I think that going to Uni helps by:

• Forcing you to study (and pass) subjects that you won’t like. Noone goes through Uni loving every single subject they studied, there’s always at least one that you just despise. Even though it’s a pain, you have to finish the subject and pass it to graduate. I think this is some proof to potential employers that you can face boring tasks and still finish them with a respectable level of quality.
• Teaching you to learn. This isn’t something that school teaches you very well (in my opinion - but that might just be the school I went to :)). I think that being bombarded with a hefty workload while at Uni you learn to manage time a little better, you learn to prioritise and you learn how to learn.
• Proving you can stick to something long term and see it through. Uni can be tough, especially if you’re working to stay alive during the course of your degree. Sticking at it over a period of years shows that you have what it takes to see something through to the end even though it can be quite challenging.
• Gives you a foundation of knowledge in areas you might not study by yourself. Bachelors degrees tend to try and give you a broad knowledge of your field, rather than just specialising in one area. Sure, when you get into the later years where you can choose your subjects you can select a few that allow you to specialise, but the point is that there are always some core subjects you are forced to take, and these expose you to some things that you might not encounter had you not attended uni.

Not everyone is lucky enough to get into Uni or college (for whatever reason), and so they put time aside to teach themselves the things that they need to know to get work in a certain field. Hats off to them :) This isn’t easy to do, and even when you do it it’s hard to find a company that will look past the lack of a degree and give you the chance that you deserve.

The problems with just self studying are:

• You only learn what you’re interested in. Let’s face it, when you’re doing things in your own time you focus on the things that you find interesting, and skip the boring bits. This tends to result in the person getting specialised knowledge in a certain area and not having a good coverage of other areas which would be required to get a job. I’m not saying everyone is like this as there are dedicated people out there who would force themselves to get through the boring stuff too :).
• Self-learning doesn’t necessarily allow you to get involved in group assignments. Teamwork is a huge part of a developer’s day job, and experience in this area is important. Working by yourself on all your projects doesn’t present you with the people challenges you’ll face while at work.
• If you’re unable to find a tutor or a mentor, you have a strong possibility of learning bad habits or practices which aren’t good.
• It’s much easier to get stuck in your ways, as you don’t have the constant nagging of a lecturer telling you that a certain practice is bad, and since it’s always worked, there’s no reason to change!

OK, I don’t want that to sound like I’m dissing self-learners, because I’m not. They have a drive that you don’t find in a lot of Uni students, and that’s one thing that I love about those guys. Unfortunately for self-learners, it’s getting harder and harder to find work without having a qualification. It’s becoming the “standard” to have a degree before you get a job in a lot of white-collar industries, particularly Info Tech. The only way to get round a lot of these issues for self-learners it to either get involved with an open-source project where they can work with other people to build some software, or to build something themselves. The key to this point is making sure that the project is finished. It’s very easy to start a million projects, it’s always hard to finish just one! So if you can prove to people that you can finish things you have started, then you’re already a step ahead of 99% of the contenders.

I do think that having a degree-qualified person who has made an effort to teach themselves other things that Uni doesn’t is the best option. From my experience, those people not only have the knowledge gained from the study, but they have the drive to see things through.

What are your thoughts and experiences?