I much rather be paid and learn all those on the jobs than take a Masters degree.

You don't need a degree if you can code and think well. I only recommend taking CS/SE degree courses for those who are still young as they can make the best of those early years networking and there's no harm/risk taking their time to learn foundational knowledge.

As you get older, time is no longer on your side. Better to just learn on the job. MIT has their materials all available publicly too, so you can always just use that.

Outside of research fields, any post-grad qualification is just noise. Generally when going through resumes I de-prioritise if there's too many qualification (e.g. certs, masters, etc) without much experience.

Generally no. The software field is actually one of the fields where degrees don't play much of a role.

There is some level of gatekeeping, normally having a degree is sufficient. Doesn't have to be in IT/CS. Of course if the degree is in something harder like math, physics or engineering you get a leg up other candidates. Often even above the IT grads.

Yes, this is generally true. Which is why I don't recommend bootcamps. Bootcamps are vocational training, which is going to limit your growth if you don't pick up the basic foundation knowledge. There's only a small subset of people who actually benefit from bootcamps, and that is someone who is intelligent enough to learn all the coding and theory stuff quickly but requires some structure in lessons to get them on the right track.

90% of people don't fall into this category.

I interviewed many people who did bootcamps, mostly those from design background trying to get into frontend dev. I really really really wanted a designer who can code, but most can't. Even after attending bootcamps.

You won't make it up with a masters. Most masters are 1-2 year courses vs a bachelor degree that is 3-4 years. Do you think they can cover the same amount?

Master degrees are mostly scams in my opinion, they offer so little but cost so much. The only people who take masters are people who need certification to prove themself for some reason or another, and that to me is generally a red flag.

Our industry doesn't even need bachelor degrees, what more a masters. I advice those starting out from high school to take CS degrees not because of the cert, but because of the exposure of knowledge and like minded peers.


You need to be able to study on your own, its part of the job mate. Having a mentor is better of course, but you can find that in the company you work at or in forums like this. Not sure about something, ask and someone can guide you to the answer or expose you to the subject.

see what I mean

Most people think that masters programs like what you're taking is a step above a bachelor's degree. Most of the time, it is not.

As you said, you're cramming a few years of syllabus into 1 year. Even a 4 year degree is barely sufficient to cover the bases, so you're definitely losing out on a lot of important knowledge in your course. The course will have to be marketable, so it will filter for "industry needs" and teach you that. Nothing wrong with that per se, but its really just a glorified bootcamp.

There is a niche that master degrees fulfill, but that niche has nothing to do with actual knowledge/talent in the field. It really exists for bureaucratic reasons.

Feels like I've answered this before.

Just think about it this way. When you clicked on the link to view this page. Do you intuitively know what's happening from the mouse click all the way up to the page loading and displaying infront of you.