Do I Need a Degree from a Prestigious School?

If you are reading this blog chances are you’re far beyond the age where you have to decide what college to attend. Still, you might have kids who are facing that situation, or young people might be coming to you for sage advice (hardly likely in this day and age, but you never know).

I once worked at a company that only hired people from the top schools. Places like Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Brown. Which made me wonder how I ended up there, as my Ivy League credentials were nonexistent. But in any event, what was the result of such selective hiring? Was the company a stellar development shop?

Not really. In fact, it was a dysfunctional organization that produced rather mediocre code. That was the result of their policy of hiring the smartest people from the best colleges regardless of their degree, resulting in physics, math, and psychology majors doing software development. Sometimes that worked okay and sometimes not so well. Pair that with a lack of formal processes, and you had a mess on your hands.

Anyway, as for the pedigree of your educational institution – the fact is, the longer you are out of school the less your alma mater matters. You can still highlight it on your resume if you’re proud of attending that top notch school, but at some point your experience and work accomplishments begin to matter much more.

Still, this doesn’t mean that getting a degree from Podunk State is just as good as a degree from Cal Tech. Your choice of school will matter earlier on when you are just starting out your career. Since you don’t have much of a track record by that point, companies will ask you where you went to school, what your major was, and inquire about your GPA. Any advantage you can wield at this point can be important in getting a first great job and laying a good foundation for your career.