[LRUG] Important to be a graduate? (was Re: Code samples: To do or not to do)

[Tim Cowlishaw]

>
> On 7 Apr 2009, at 16:53, Sebastian Komianos wrote:
>
>> So, the question is: If you are not
>> interested in becoming an academic, does graduating from a top-15
>> university give you extra points in comparison to someone that  
>> graduated
>> from a university ranked, let's say, 35th, but who has other work to
>> demonstrate as well?

I graduated with an almost totally unrelated degree from an almost  
entirely non-notable  art  college in the suburbs, and have worked  
full time as a programmer for the last two years, as well as holding  
down a few regular freelance clients for a while longer, after  
graduating in 2005.
I think i've been lucky - the first company to employ me as a  
developer unquestionably took a big gamble in hiring me, and i learnt  
a lot from some *very* clever people while i was there. YMMV, but I  
think in general, prospective employers are more interested in  
demonstrable programming skills and knowledge than a particularly  
specific formal set of qualifications. Providing evidence of these  
skills and knowledge is the tricky thing to do without a relevant  
degree or previous work experience however, which brings us right back  
to coding tests and github accounts :-)

Cheers,

Tim