Emanuel Carpenter ⋅ Alpharetta, GA SDR Master Class ⋅ 20 years experience

John:

If I was you, I would look at classified ads and job postings to get an idea of what skills are needed in today's marketplace. Look at job postings on LinkedIn, Glassdoor.com, and Indeed.com.

There are a plethora of very good, free online courses you can take on websites like Udacity, Udemy, and Alison.com. I'm not a developer but I'm teaching myself Python on Alison.com.

I don't particularly care for university curriculum that forces you to take two years of Liberal Arts courses before getting into your major. I think you should start with programming courses right away. You might be able to do that through a college like ITT Tech, Devry University, or Full Sail University.

I once worked for a software firm. We had one guy who had a degree in English. He taught himself HTML, and then XML, then C++. Plus he learned lots from our colleagues. Now he is a solid developer.

Hopefully, you have G.I. Bill benefits that will allow you to explore many avenues.

Best of luck.

Steve Hall ⋅ Beaverton, OR ⋅ 18 years experience

Hi John

I have worked in software development in a number of sectors for nearly twenty years. I do mainly technical work, have primarily worked as an employee, and I have been heavily involved in recruiting. In my viewpoint an education is a valuable thing, and is quite different from technical training in languages, systems configuration, or the latest fad for delivering a user interface.

What I have found is that an education provides critical thinking and critical analysis capabilities, and broadens our perspective in business, mathematics, and sciences. A first rate school will combine those elements of a classical liberal arts education with technical education that is germane and current.

I have interviewed many candidates, and recommended hiring many of them. Most have worked out very well, and frankly, some of them have not.

What I have learned: today every major company is in the software business. Simply put, software is a critical element of running the business and is necessary for gaining a competitive advantage. Accordingly, reducing time to market for software development projects is a necessity.

As companies seek to get higher productivity and faster time to market out of their software development shops, they are evolving from traditional waterfall development models to agile methodologies. Waterfall models involved command and control by trying to think of everything ahead of time and by providing a detailed design specification of what software to craft and how to craft it. In this model, perhaps simply understanding a programming language was enough. In agile models, such as Scrum, there is much less up front thinking, much less up front design specification, and consequently much less command and control. These organizations are looking for people who can write software, and apply critical thinking to solve business problems.

The world is evolving quite rapidly and companies are using software to derive competitive advantage. The ability to solve problems, to apply technology to do so, and to constantly evolve as new technologies evolve are some of the key elements of a long term viable career. While it is true that successful Software Engineers come to the job with a variety of backgrounds and degrees, it is also true that in the organizations that I have worked with, more than 99 percent of the Engineers have at least a Bachelors Degree.

Yes we like to see what projects are in a developer's portfolio. However, that alone is not likely to be enough. At the end of the day, companies are trying to solve business problems, remain relevant, and gain market share. Technology is simply a tool to help achieve those business goals. The ability to create a user interface in IOS and / or Android is only a small part of the overall solution, which typically involves complex back end services using technologies such as REST, databases, messaging systems, and more. In reality, all of that technology combined is simply another business problem to manage and is a small part of a much larger initiative. In short, the ability to create a user interface in the language of the day is of limited value in the grand scope of the business. Moreover, while there are rewarding careers working in user interface development, don't be deluded into thinking that its importance to the business is more than just a small element of a much broader problem and much broader initiative.

Finally, your ability to align yourself with the larger goals is important. Your education, skills, experience, enthusiasm, and teamwork are all critical elements of aligning yourself with the goals of the business, and thus having a rewarding career.

John Green ⋅ Cary, NC Information Technology ⋅ 40 years experience

To reinforce what Stefan said, if you want to be a programmer, technical training and job experience are worth far more than any degree.

For example, you could earn more than $200k per year as a Middleware developer on products like IBM Integration Bus or DataPower Xi50.

Note the hourly rate :

http://www.ibm.com/web/wcm/connect/connect/862414ac-11b4-4739-8a4d-488a3f9925ce/gsa_apndx_C_10012014.pdf?MOD=AJPERES

L. Entry level IT knowledge, with the ability to provide Level 1 System and Software Support.
Professionals have up to one year experience.

Rather than rack up a huge debt going to college to get a degree that is meaningless, why not shoot for getting a position that actually pays good money. The big money in mobile app development is really only achieved by those writing their own applications for sale as a business, and not the actual software developers themselves. Big money for software developers is made in the business sector writing applications for businesses that actually turn a profit every year.

My advice to you : skip the high-priced, low-value general education schools, and enroll in a bootcamp for software development.

http://devbootcamp.com/
https://www.thinkful.com/bootcamps/all
http://www.skilledup.com/articles/the-ultimate-guide-to-coding-bootcamps-the-exhaustive-list

Then get some good experience and good pay while you migrate up the food chain. In five years or less, if you parlay correctly, you will make more than $200k per year.

Rob Huey ⋅ Atlanta, GA NASCO, LLC ⋅ 14 years experience

Hi John -

I agree with Stefan, this is more of an IT Generalist as opposed to a programmer based curriculum. I also agree that your your portfolio of programming is more important than where you get your degree. The only caveat I would add is that many employers require a degree to considered for a position. Unfortunate, but true.

Outside of the job fairs, I would also recommend thinking through where you want to be in the future in terms of work and position type. My undergraduate degree is in Electrical Engineering (heavy on programming), my graduate degree is in IT, but where I found my sweet spot is managing people. I started in manufacturing and wound up in healthcare, which I like much more.

Good luck and feel free to reach out if you'd like more information.

Stefan Beyer ⋅ Kirkland, WA Wipro Ltd ⋅ 12 years experience

The degree you linked to seems to me to be rather light on the actual coding courses. It looks like the "Intro to Computer Programming" class doesn't happen until Semester 4, and the courses on Java and C++ aren't offered until the third year. The rest of the courses seem to focus on the theory of how the back-end systems are setup and interact with one another.

I've been in dozens of interviews (I do contract work, and have to do a new round of interviews each time my contract is up and I need to work for a different company), and I'm rarely asked about how systems are setup. The most common questions are "Write some code on the whiteboard that does X." Usually, that means manipulating characters in a string (reversing the order of characters in a string ("Hello" -> "olleH") or determining if a given string is an anagram). Mostly, what they seem to look for is whether or not you can code. Most companies have their systems setup in their own way (which may or may not match the model), so they'll be more interested in whether you're adaptable enough to learn how their unique system works.

If you're not sure what you'd need education-wise, I'd recommend going to job fairs and asking the recruiters there what they're looking for. Another good resource is to call a temp agency and see what they're looking for, as that's the more reliable way to get work in the tech industry (Hiring software developers as Full-Time Employees can be rare, depending on the company and the area; some companies also use contracts as a "trial period" to see if they want to hire you or not). I've used Volt a lot (http://jobs.volt.com/).

You should do whatever you're comfortable with and what aligns with your goals. Personally, I would look around for a degree program which has more hands-on coding; preferably starting in Semester 1. You'll want to know if you like programming before you've invested over a year into the program. Picking up a "Java for Dummies" or "Learn C++ in 30 days" book will be a good primer to see how you like it. Learning the commands for programming languages isn't that hard, as there aren't many of them; the challenge comes with deciding how to use them in order to achieve a goal (to use pseudo-military jargon: the "equipment" is easy to learn, but the "tactics" are what differentiate the good programmers from the bad).

To answer your other question, I think the projects you worked on are more important than where you got your degree. Projects demonstrate what experience you have, and are used by both yourself and the interviewer to discuss your abilities. Also, "accreditation" mostly means the school is able to receive federal funding, and some schools don't allow a transfer of credits (or let you take their master's degree programs) unless your school is accredited; generally it's a good thing to look for in a school.

Feel free to message me if you'd like any more help/info.

Hope this helps :)