The Academic Background of the .NET Community Leaders
Back in October Phil Haack wrote about his first anniversary at Microsoft, and in a part of the announcement, he pointed to the difference between guys like himself or Scott Hanselman as industry hires and college hires, and the fact that college hires are more than industry hires at software giant.
At that time I sent an email asking him about the general distribution of college hires in the company and he gave me some information. I was curious about this topic to some extent, so did some search and studies on the known software leaders and developers on the community. We all know that academic background can play a single role in the success of a person is software industry, especially software development. Along with academic background (even without it), people would have other characteristics to be good developers, however, academic preparation is a must for higher positions, especially leading positions.
Having this background, I tried to collect some statistical information about .NET community members (especially those who are known to the community as leaders and active members) and their academic background (degree, major, and university). I thought it may be a good idea to share the statistics here.
Of course, I just used LinkedIn as the main source to collect this information because it appears to be the best social/business network website that gives academic details in a good level. I just started from my own profile and tried to gather data about those who were more known to me and to the community.
As a side note, I should state that academic and education systems vary by countries and there isn’t a single education system to evaluate. In the United States or Canada, university degrees are separated in a different way than many European countries. Similarly, some Asian countries have their own systems like India. However, this is not an important case here because except one person others are graduated from American universities.
Likewise, majors are grouped in a different way in each education system and there isn’t a single clear distinction for major fields of study in all the countries, specifically when we talk about computer-related degrees. In some bigger countries like the United States, even the distinction of majors and fields vary by university and you may see a major field as part of a department in a university while it’s offered in a different department in another.
By the way, Computer Science and related fields cover a wide range of major and minor fields that may or may not be related to software development, but in rare cases I saw someone with a degree in a non-related Computer Science field (i.e. AI) who’s occupied in software development.
But the statistics for 25 community names that you know:
- Scott Guthrie: A degree in Computer Science – Duke University
- Scott Hanselman: BS, Software Engineering - Oregon Institute of Technology
- Phil Haack: BA, Mathematics - Occidental College
- Rob Howard: BBA, Management Information System - Baylor University
- Jason Alexander: BS, Computer Science - University of North Texas
- Scott Watermasysk: BA, Economics, Political Science, Finance - Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey-New Brunswick
- Steven Smith: BS, Computer Science Engineering - The Ohio State University & MBA, Business Administration - Kent State University
- Jon Galloway: BS, Physics - United States Naval Academy
- Scott Dockendorf: BS, Business Computer Information Systems - University of North Texas
- Scott Allen: MS, Computer Science - Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania
- Simone Chiaretta: Bachelor, Computer Engineering - Politecnico di Milano (Italy)
- Jeffrey Palermo: A degree in Management Information System, Computers, Management, Software, Business - Texas A&M University
- Tim Heuer: BS, Criminal Justice - Northern Arizona University
- Alvin Ashcraft: BA in Economics - Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania
- Mohammad Azam: BS in Computer Science – University of Houston
- Ken Robertson: Computer Science - California State University-Sacramento
- Caleb Jenkins: AS, Multimedia Design - Mt. San Jacinto College & AA, Humanities - Mt. San Jacinto College
- Keith Elder: BMA, Music, Computer Science - University of Southern Mississippi
- Sam Gentile: BSEE, Computer Engineering - Northeastern University
- Jason Gaylord: Associates, Information Science and Technology - Pennsylvania State University
- Alex Lowe: BS, Information Systems - Grand Valley State University
- Scott Koon: BS, Biochemistry - Wichita State University
- Nate Kohari: BS, Computer Science - The University of Akron
- David Laribee: A degree in Psychology, Economics - Hobart and William Smith Colleges
- Travis Illig: BS, Computer Science - Portland State University
Of course, I think that I could add 20-30 more names to the list but unfortunately some of the community members haven’t put their educational details on LinkedIn at all, or have put them without enough details, especially their major fields.
As of the statistics, if I assume that Computer Science is the field relevant for software development, and also assume that Mathematics, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and some information business majors are related, and neglect other majors as unrelated fields, I can summarize the results as follows:
- 10 members (40%) have a relevant major.
- 9 members (36%) have a related field of study.
- 6 members (24%) have an unrelated major field.
Obviously, this isn’t a very true statistical approach because I’ve picked up my instances from a limited group, and my intention was not this. I didn’t want to draw the conclusion about the whole software development community, the .NET community, or even its leaders. Instead, I was going to show some statistics that can only introduce the claim that everyone with any academic background can be a successful software developer, and even can succeed in other positions. You see that Tim Heuer has a Criminal Justice major which isn’t related to computer stuff (unless he decides to apply his major in Microsoft to control MSFTs!). Similarly, Scott Koon is a well-known .NET community member with a B.S. in Biochemistry, or Scott Watermasysk has a B.A. in Economics.
The other conclusion from this list is the degree of members. Most of these community leaders have a Bachelor degree and haven’t had graduate studies.
But in my opinion software development is the outcome of fundamental academic majors in Software Engineering and Computer Science especially in graduate level. If you take a quick look at the profile of those who had inventions in Software Engineering, you simply can notice that they all have solid academic background in Computer Science/Software Engineering. Here is the border between academic people and business fans. The first group devote their life studying in a specific field of Computer Science, and the second group try to apply these findings in action to keep the progress.
Finally, I just thought it may be interesting to know that Alvin graduated from the same university as Scott Allen did (Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania) and Scott has started his studies in Computer Science in the year when Alvin completed his Economics. Sometimes you eventually find interesting stuff!
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24 Comments : 12.12.08
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@Mohammad
Yes, I had the exact same feeling when I left the school in 2006:
nayyeri.net/.../Goodbye-Semnan
But I would confess that during the time my mind is changed completely. In fact, it's a matter of personal interest for your field of study to enjoy education or not and this is the main reason to encourage students to apply for their fields based on the personal interest.
Generally, schools tend to teach you some theories that you usually use in your daily work but you never notice them. Such changes are not visible everywhere but have become a part of your native skills. People usually learn more techniques and notable skills from business than academy.
@Azam, Strange Azam, Because I thought any USA university would be much more better than Middle Easter ones. I was graduated from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt! and I cannot ignore or deny that I learned a lot!! It was a great experiance and my frist steps in software engineering. I am happy that I am graduated but also proud that I was part of that university & part of Computer & Information sciences Faculty.
Any good luck to everyone. :o)
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@Keyvan,
Maybe some schools are different than others. I learned absolutely nothing in school. They forces you to use a certain languages and frameworks. I am glad that I learned some .NET during school on my own and used that to land a decent job.
Anyway, if you are in school then try to enjoy!
HA! That is pretty interesting. I often think about getting more formalized education in Computer Science. I wonder if I'm missing out on something by not having had that background. I know I'm missing out on the jargon.
A side note: I did actually do some graduate work, but I don't have a degree associated with the work. I took some graduate classes and did some research in BioChemistry after I got my degree while I was applying to medical school. None of it was related to Computer Science though.
@Muhammad Mosa:
I'm glad you're satisfied with your academy. That's great and can help you in your profession very well :-)
@Mohammad
Yes, I think that the environment and major field has a huge impact on the satisfication and interest. I had a bad impression on my undergraduate program while my classmates were different.
@Mohammad Mosa,
Yes the school in states are different then in India, Pakistan etc. They are MORE expensive. I think you can learn a lot more if you just study the thing that you love.
For U of H I always tell the freshman:
If the studies won't kill you then the bad management will.
The staff work really hard to make your life miserable!! That is their duty!! This is the only place where the client (Students) are treated like CRAP!
@Scott
You may be right about the jargon but I don't think that it will have a huge influence on your career. If you have such a burning passion for Computer Science to move you forward, then I think that you should apply and study for your personal interest only :-)
BS degree is equivalent to B.Tech or BE in India. This is an engineering degree which is essential to get employment in companies as software engineers.
I'm a commerce graduate but I learned computers independently although I did attend few private institutes. They supplied some materials but did not teach according to my satisfaction.
Nowadays, schools in my state (Kerala, India) have implemented practical training in addition to regulare theory sessions. Exams are not based on questions but it requires little thinking as well. This system is being welcomed by students and parents.
From my point of view, an enginnerring degree is not essential to become a community leader. It's just a passion for learning which matters.
Anand N
thanks for this great post,
I agree with you.
although it is possible to be a good software developer even if you didn't study in a computer science university. universities graduates have more chances to be even better because of the solid and organized program they took.
One member of the community you didn't mention is Stephen Walther(http://weblogs.asp.net/stephenwalther/about.aspx) who is a program manager at microsoft but didn't attend a computer science university.
@Anand
Yes, I think that it is exactly what I tried to introduce and support.
@Marwan
I didn't mention Stephen because I think he's still a graduate (Ph.D) student at MIT, so there wasn't a clear degree for him.
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The worst developers I've ever worked with have had the highest level of education. It takes passion and commitment to excel in this industry, not some piece of paper. From my experience most universities do not prepare students for the real world. The only thing that a degree helps is to get your foot in the door, after that it's up to you.
@Kevin
You're right to some extent, but your view is not very true. I also have seen many great developers who had solid academic background.
One thing that you would understand is that all the development stuff is a side-effect of academic researches and activities.
Keyvan,
At the end of the day developers are supposed to solve business problems, all too often the academic based developers get caught up chasing dragons not solving business problems. Of course acadamia has it's place, but developers need to remember that we are paid to solve problems, not find the most efficient algorithm to process something. I have never met a new grad that has the proper skill set to solve problems, or even the ability to ask the questions to find out what the real problem is.
Maybe a shiny degree is the way to get "in" Microsoft, but considering the hell that MS catch for delivering solutions that don't solve the real problems commercial developers face maybe it's time MS take a look at that process (Of course I think they already are with some of the most recent hires, but the track record speaks for itself)
Also I disagree that all development stuff is a side effect of academic research. There is more to software development then writing code. How come Academics aren't leading the charge for Agile development? I've never met a new grad that a clue what the hell a Unit Test was...Maybe this has changed since I last interviewed grads for jobs, so maybe this has changed, but I don't hold much hope.
@Kevin
First of all, thank you for leaving your thoughts. I really appreciate that :-)
I don't think it's a very logical conclusion to come from not seeing a graduate with business skills to the point that academic background is useless or has less influence than business background.
Yes, you haven't seen someone with that level of skills and many other people should have the same experience, but don't forget that this just depends on individual students. I don't think something is wrong with academic preparation. The problem is the students. If someone wants to get the best out of his field, then he definitely can. The problem is that many students don’t have the necessary passion for learning computer science, but they study this field. This is of course a world-wide problem. From the United States to the lowest level countries in education systems, they all suffer from the exact same problem.
And also it’s true that you are paid to solve a business problem, but it’s left to you to choose the best possible way. A Civil Engineer is also hired to build a house. Is he allowed to build something that can be destroyed with a weak earthquake? This is a general rule in all fields. When you hire someone to do something, you already don’t know how to do that (if you knew, then what was the value of this employment?). You expect the expert to know the field and do it with best quality.
Unlike what you think, I think that a good academic preparation is a vital part of success especially for higher positions in software development industry. As I wrote in the post (and maybe you haven’t paid enough attention to it), academic preparation is one of the several parameters in the success in this industry (like all the other industries without any exception).
Finally, a business innovation has usually many weaknesses when it comes to accuracy, while academic researches and findings have a high level of guarantee. Agile Development is a reaction by the software business not a finding or innovation, it’s just a classification of something that people were doing in a constant theme with minor differences. Agile as is, has many weaknesses for its own, and you cannot gainsay this fact, and it’s mainly because there has not been such a classified research on it.
Also don’t forget that if a student doesn’t know what a Unit Test is, it’s not a proof for the weakness of academic preparation and its uselessness. It’s just a sign to prove that student is not such a diligent person to succeed in software industry. In academy you learn the principles not the techniques, and these are all classified as techniques (that are of course an inherent part of this job but not all of it).
I hope this makes sense.
Keyvan,
The civil engineer may build a house that can withstand a earthquake but would he build a house that can be used day in a day out? I'd say no he wouldn't as it is outside his body of knowledge.
I'm not saying academic prep is wrong. I am saying that the academic training provided tends to miss out on real world problems and solutions and that's where more focus needs to be given.
I'm not trying to come down on you for your point of view. Maybe I'm a bit jaded as I do not have any exposure to computer science at the university level, and nearly all the best developers I've worked with have had no computer science training, and the worst developers have been the ones with the most. And the margin of difference was huge. So no, you do not need to have a cs degree to get the concepts, you don't need a cs degree to rise to senior levels.
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@Kevin
I don't think we'll agree on a point because we're mainly relying on our experiences as our supporting evidence, and experiences vary by person.
But as I said before and in the post body, I don't assert that academic prepration is the only parameter that plays a role in the success but it's one of them (at least in my opinion). Referring back to above comments, you see that there are some people who think that academy has had a good influence in their career while others have a different opinion.
However, this was not my intention of this post. I just wanted to give a statistical report without judgment and conclusion.
I think the academic background has more to do with writing about it than actual developer ability. So yes community leaders probably do have a higher percentage of degree's. As far as making beter developers, not so much. Being a good developer is an art that just can't be taught in a classroom. So I agree more with Keyvan. Most of the really good developers I've worked with over the years majors wern't computers or were mostly self taught on the job. In fact some of the worst garbage programs I've ever seen were written by a person with a masters in computer science. Not saying a comptere degree is abda thing just that it's not a requirment to be a good developer.
Not saying a computer degree is a bad thing, just
In the past 3.5 years of blogging, I haven’t had such best pick up collections in the end of the year, but now that everybody is writing one, why shouldn’t I write my own?! Collecting this list, I could realize some interesting facts that completely changed
#1
Mohammad Azam
12.12.2008 @ 3:19 PM
Nice analysis!!
Although I graduated from U of H I like to point out that I learned nothing from the University. I would not even give 0.00001% credit to the university. Actually, the university tried to create obstacles whenever I tried to learn anything. I hated every single day in the University and I would never go back ever. 3.5 years of wasted college. I am glad that I am graduated!!