Lazycoder

College and training.

.NET Undocumented: Looking Back at My CS Education A Decade Later

I can’t debate the usefulness of a CS degree since I got into programming without one, but I often wonder if I wouldn’t benefit from some of the algorithms taught in a CS program that I don’t know now. But the things you learn in college sprout up in many different places.

I got my BS in Biochemistry, and spent about a year after than taking graduate classes (enough that ,I think, if I were to enter a masters program I would just have to complete my thesis). The idea was to enter Medical School and get into an MD/PhD program. Long story short, programming paid better in the short term and I’ve stuck with it since (although I often think about going back and entering the Immunology PhD program at UW). Since I was writing mainly business applications, I never had any need for the information I acquired in college. All of my programming skills are self-taught (or glommed from other people). Then I got a job at a company that specialized in applying complexity science principles to solving business problems. Ant algorithms to solve shipping pathway problems. Complexity scientists often look to biology for solutions, or algorithms, to problems. Suddenly, my degree was relevant to my job again! At least in a small way.

Now I work on clinical research applications, combining the critical thinking I learned in college and at BiosGroup with the programming skills I’ve picked up along the way. Medical information isn’t quite like any other kind of information. Knowing about the science behind the data helps me to understand how the data could be used and how to model it using a relational database.

So if you ask “should I go to college”? Well that’s a personal choice. I know a couple of people who are very talented programmers and have never set foot in a college classroom (at least not a CS classroom). But I also know that no one has ever been turned down for a job BECAUSE they had a college degree.

P.S. Our good friends in computer virus scanning companies and in various System companies could learn a lot about security from the immune system. I feel that future security systems will be based on our own immune systems since they will be too complex for the “dutch boy finger” approach to security that we have now.