College Degree Required?

ROSE Blog: Rikki's Open Source Exchange
Last night I had a conversation with a friend of mine – a freelance writer – about the state of journalism, journalists, bloggers, and "the media." Without going into too much detail, let's just say that I went off on a tangent about people saying "the media" when they mean "bloggers," and how not all bloggers qualify as journalists or members of the media and not all journalists qualify as good writers or researchers and it's all just a big mess that will eventually shake itself out (or so I've been saying for the past few years). I concluded with a "having a journalism degree doesn't automatically mean you're are better qualified to report than the writer with no degree who actually gets out there and digs into research and writes an in-depth, clever blog post that you really wish you'd thought about writing first."
Meanwhile, Esther Schindler has been thinking about computer science degrees and whether they make you a better job candidate than the applicant with programming skill, minus the piece of paper. On the JavaWorld's Daily Brew blog, Esther writes, "A degree does not guarantee that the job applicant learned these skills. Programming skill is not a sun lamp. Being exposed to it doesn't mean you soak it in."
Check out Esther's well-written article, which covers the shortage of IT workers vs. the reasons why employers think a college degree makes someone a better candidate, including the "it demonstrates 'commitment'" claim.
Happy Ada Lovelace Day!
comments powered by DisqusSubscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 is Available
Linus Torvalds has announced that the latest kernel has been released with plenty of core improvements and even more hardware support.
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
-
Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.
-
Fedora Linux 43 Beta Now Available for Testing
Fedora Linux 43 Beta ships with Gnome 49 and KDE Plasma 6.4 (and other goodies).
-
USB4 Maintainer Leaves Intel
Michael Jamet, one of the primary maintainers of USB4 and Thunderbolt drivers, has left Intel, leaving a gaping hole for the Linux community to deal with.
-
Budgie 10.9.3 Now Available
The latest version of this elegant and configurable Linux desktop aligns with changes in Gnome 49.
-
KDE Linux Alpha Available for Daring Users
It's official, KDE Linux has arrived, but it's not quite ready for prime time.
-
AMD Initiates Graphics Driver Updates for Linux Kernel 6.18
This new AMD update focuses on power management, display handling, and hardware support for Radeon GPUs.
-
AerynOS Alpha Release Available
With a choice of several desktop environments, AerynOS 2025.08 is almost ready to be your next operating system.
-
AUR Repository Still Under DDoS Attack
Arch User Repository continues to be under a DDoS attack that has been going on for more than two weeks.