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I finished school and got a job straight away. The only problem I have come across for not having a degree is getting work permits abroad.
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I have a diploma, on the down side, I'm from South Africa so abroad that means less than toilet paper. 
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I did freelance web design for about a year after Matric, then got a job with Telkom's ISP in Midrand (awesome salary for a 19-yo :->). About 3 months later my family dragged me over to Australia  .. but that turned out for the better, didn't have much trouble getting work without a degree there - portfolio & experience was proof enough.
I got some telephony training in Kuala Lumpur. And this year I passed one of the MCAD exams for the hell of it.
You're right, not having a degree does give you more hurdles at some point - but offset that against the 4 years lost time & missed earnings - whether it was worth it (for me) in the long run, time will tell.
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza ~ Web SQL Utility - asp.net app to query Access, SQL server, MySQL. Stores history, favourites.
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Currently working for small software development company in Midrand, give me half a chance and I'm outa here
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Here, take this 'half a chance'.;P
We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them. Steve Jobs
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You really shouldn't have
He who laughs last is a bit on the slow side
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Good luck. I remember the highway to joburg was a nightmare during peak hour. But it was my first salary-job, so I was pretty stoked at the time. Moving country is always a setback, but in the long run it's probably worth it. (But I'm not originally from RSA).
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza ~ Web SQL Utility - asp.net app to query Access, SQL server, MySQL. Stores history, favourites.
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NeroToxic wrote: blow-up dolls in the car
LOL. sounds like a jeremy mansfield type stunt  (BTW is he still on the air these days?)
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza ~ Web SQL Utility - asp.net app to query Access, SQL server, MySQL. Stores history, favourites.
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It was his side kick, Wackhead, he still on the morning timeslot
He who laughs last is a bit on the slow side
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What's the chances of you being Afrikaans speaking, name sounds English but the surname is very Afrikaans
He who laughs last is a bit on the slow side
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Dutch actually. Spent Std 7 thru Matric + a year or so in RSA (mostly joburg). But yeah, I did learn Afrikaans in school.. forgot most of it by now tho (that was about 7 years ago).
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza ~ Web SQL Utility - asp.net app to query Access, SQL server, MySQL. Stores history, favourites.
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Shame on you... Such a beautiful language.
You can always catch jerramy on streaming.
He who laughs last is a bit on the slow side
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Paul Watson wrote: I finished school and got a job straight away.
Same here, apart from a few night-school courses to pass the time.
School didn't teach me much about how to write code and develop software properly, all the important skills I've learnt either on the job or in my own time.
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I'm working real hard to get my bachelors degree done by august 2007. There's one positive side: I got a job already, the company that I contacted offered me a final years project with a job. So if everything goes as planned I won't be unemployed after I finished school.
I wished more people had that luck, because from what I have heard and read it's much worse in other countries. Lets hope it improves in the next few years.
WM.
What about weapons of mass-construction?
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Paul Watson wrote: I finished school and got a job straight away. The only problem I have come across for not having a degree is getting work permits abroad.
Right. However, I can see another problem - http://thedailywtf.com is getting more and more popular. Even more popular than CodeProject is.
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What does no-degree and the daily WTF have to do with each other?
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Paul Watson wrote: What does no-degree and the daily WTF have to do with each other?
He is probably suggesting that no degree == more chances to create WTF code. I have to say that I've learnt more since leaving university than I ever did in university. I also learned that some of the things I was taught were just plain wrong.
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I think the computing they teach in varsity is great for one line of computing but horrible for any kind of business computing. They seem to think students are going to go out there and code weather simulators and research data analysers. It is all very scientific which is great if that is what you are going to be programming when you leave varsity. But most don't go into scientific computing.
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Paul Watson wrote: I think the computing they teach in varsity is great for one line of computing but horrible for any kind of business computing. They seem to think students are going to go out there and code weather simulators and research data analysers. It is all very scientific which is great if that is what you are going to be programming when you leave varsity.
Actually, I got very little in the way of scientific computing. My course was more business oriented.
However, some universities (e.g. The University of Edinburgh) do a more scientific course.
There is a joke in Edinburgh about the 3 universities there that if you give a 6 month project to a group of graduates from each of the universities the results will be that at the end of the six:
* The group from the Universrity of Edinburgh will still be discussing the relative merits of using an OO language.
* The group from Napier University will deliver the project a month late but it will look funky
* The group from Heriot Watt university will delivery the project on time and to specification regardless of what that specification was.
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Paul Watson wrote: I think the computing they teach in varsity is great for one line of computing but horrible for any kind of business computing
As Colin already suggested, it really depends on the school. I went to one that has the approach you described, but it is an engineering school so it was expected. Then, there are others with a lot of business/accounting/finances.
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I just want to say that no-degree is much better for thedailywtf.com popularity than for codeproject.com. Do not you think so?
P.S. Don’t worry, nothing personal.
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Errr. I don't know what you are saying Igor.
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Don't you perhaps think that it is more a case of people assuming they can do IT because they think it's easy, rather than people not having a degree?
If someone has no idea what is going on, then they will not know what is going regardless of whether or not they have a degree. Of course these types are far less likely to have a degree. But somehow I have still ended up working with people who have Masters degrees who are completely useless and other people without a degree who are brilliant!
However, I do think that it is necessary to have some form of professional qualification, it just shouldn't HAVE to be a degree.
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It sounds like the first requirement to be brilliant is not to have a degree
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