Just recently a German company showed interest in hiring me. I was very happy and surprised. They phoned me, and we kept in touch for a few weeks. They even asked me how fast could I go to Hamburg and how much I wanted my salary to be. It looked very promising and I started feeling confident. Then they asked me for my university degree and as I don’t have one, the negotiation was over. Too bad.
They main reasons I am not in University are the following:
1 – I don’t have time.
2 – I don’t have money.
3 – I don’t want to.
Nevertheless, it got me thinking: what if I had never quit university? Would I be a better developer now?
I tried to put all the above reasons aside and reason on the subject. I ended up concluding not only that I would not be a better developer, but I would likely be a worse. I will try to explain why. This is my personal opinion and I would love to hear from others.
One reason is that the quality of courses in Brazil are not that great. It is neither difficult to be accepted in the University nor to pass the classes. In fact, you just need to attend the classes, pay a bit of attention, hand in some home works and you are done. This reflects the culture of education in Brazil. We are students, but we don’t care about what is being taught and we don’t care enough to learn. We only want to pass the classes so we can get put those times behind us.
University is different. You get to choose what course you want to do. You will choose something you really like, or at least something you think will be very helpful. You will likely choose something you are really excited about and something you want to be really good at. So you will probably not face the music with a “let’s get it over with” spirit. Except that you will. But why would you do that?
You need a lot of money in order to attend a University in Brazil. Even if it is a public University, because if you are in a public University, you will have a very irregular schedule thus making you struggle to find a job, so you are most likely not to have one. Therefore you will be in a very stressful position. You will work as hard as you can during the day and will try your best to have a clear open mind at nights so you can get the best out off the University, but all you will be able to think is how you will deal with that big credit card debt you are in.
When you are in a situation like the above, you only want to get it over with.
I was taking the Computer Science Bachelor course. I know a few people that graduated on that very same course and they all agree that the course was interesting but it was not worth the time or money. No real benefit. They are not better developers because of it.
On the other hand, I know tons of excellent developers that acquired their very sharp skills mostly on their own, by being self taught and dedicated learners.
I view myself as a good developer. I am no genius. In fact I am very far from that. But I embraced good programming habits and developed good skills over the last few years. For instance, the most beneficial concepts and practices that I learned in the last years was Test Driven Development and SOLID. I am much more confident now that I embraced them. That is not the kind of thing that one tends to learn in University. And you will definitely have no time and will power to learn those things if you are studying in the university.
I know that is not the case in other countries, but it seems to me that it is like so in Brazil.
I hope to hear different opinions.
Edit:
I found this great post that I think somehow relates to the topic.
Edit 2:
The guys from the onboarding team managed to get a work permit and I’ve been working for Good Game Studios since January 1th, 2015!