Does College Matter in Software Engineering? - AiA 388

Lucas and Subrat delve into a thought-provoking topic: the significance of a college degree in the job market. They share their insights and experiences, discussing the impact of not going to college, the importance of networking and experiential learning, and the varying requirements in different countries and industries. From the benefits of attending a prestigious university to the changing landscape of hiring practices, they explore the factors to consider when deciding on the path to success.

Hosted by: Lucas Paganini • Subrat Mishra
RSS Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube Amazon Music

Show Notes

Lucas and Subrat delve into a thought-provoking topic: the significance of a college degree in the job market. They share their insights and experiences, discussing the impact of not going to college, the importance of networking and experiential learning, and the varying requirements in different countries and industries. From the benefits of attending a prestigious university to the changing landscape of hiring practices, they explore the factors to consider when deciding on the path to success. 

Sponsors


Promoted Links


Social Media

    YouTube @FunOfHeuristic https://www.youtube.com/@FunOfHeuristic

Transcript


Lucas Paganini (00:01.381)
Hello, welcome to Adventures in Angular, the podcast where we keep you updated on all things Angular related. This show is produced by two awesome companies, Top End Devs and Unvoid. Top End Devs is where we create top end devs who get top end pay and recognition while working on interesting problems and making meaningful community contributions. Unvoid, which offers remote design and web development services with specialization in
 
for companies that truly care about quality. In today's episode, we will talk about does college matter? So we're gonna talk about going or not going to college and even levels in terms of if you went to college, does the university that you went to, how much does it influence on your overall chances of getting a good gig? So yeah.
 
That's gonna be our topic for today. My name is Lucas Paganini. I am the CEO and founder of Envoyed and your host in the podcast. Joining me in today's episode is Subrata Mishra.
 
Subrat (01:12.042)
Hello everyone.
 
Lucas Paganini (01:14.741)
So, for those of you that may not know, Subrat has a YouTube channel and this topic is coming because he recently did a video on exactly this topic, the Sculledge Matter. So after listening to this episode, I highly suggest also checking out the video in his YouTube channel and also subscribing because he has a lot of interesting videos, not just about
 
career advice, but also about advanced Angular techniques too. So there's a lot to learn there and a lot of things for free that truthfully, he should be charging a lot because it's some really, really advanced content that I myself have a lot to learn from watching his content. So highly encourage you to check out Fun of Heuristics on YouTube. All right.
 
Subrat (01:58.67)
the
 
Lucas Paganini (02:13.141)
So yeah, Subrata, let's get started. So I think we should tackle this in levels. So kind of like, I see at least four steps. There might be more as we go deeper, but I see like not going to college. And then the impact on that is gonna differ from culture to culture. So I can speak from my experience with Brazilian and United States companies.
 
Subrat (02:16.027)
Yep. Mm-hmm.
 
Subrat (02:26.507)
Yep.
 
Lucas Paganini (02:42.709)
Maybe you can talk about the experience from the countries in which you work from. And then after that, they went to college, they have a diploma, but it's not necessarily of a very renowned university, so they have the degree in the area, but it's not a university that is going to ring a bell to most recruiters. Then there are...
 
Subrat (02:46.72)
Mm-hmm.
 
Subrat (03:01.216)
Mm-hmm.
 
Lucas Paganini (03:11.341)
country-specific renowned universities and worldwide renowned universities like MIT, Stanford, etc. So starting from the ground up, let's talk about just not going to college at all. Like what is your experience in terms of how hard does it make for people entering the job market? And also if there's any situation where this is like
 
Subrat (03:18.263)
Yep.
 
Lucas Paganini (03:41.021)
not even just making things harder, but it's a full on blocker. Like if you don't have a diploma, that kind of work you simply cannot get because everybody requires having a degree. What's been your experience so far with that scenario?
 
Subrat (03:58.922)
Yeah, just before answering this question, I would just like to add a point on which points are you going to cover for the listener like we'll also going to cover like if you are not from a good college or if you haven't been from a great college and you are doing a job now and how what should be the mindset so that you will be succeed in your career and coming back to your questions.
 
its defense on various countries maybe in terms of India I can say or maybe in terms of Europe so India and Europe is completely different so first I'll go as India so most company most means approximately 99% companies need a degree at least they don't care about where you get the
 
Subrat (04:56.682)
but you need a degree. Maybe for software development, it should be any engineering degree. It should not be a computer science or IT or information technology. It should be any. For example, I was a mechanical engineer. Similarly, a lot of people from my college got hired in Infosys, and they don't check which
 
degree which stream you have degree on. And at, but currently some companies are changing like new startup are coming, coming to the market who doesn't really care about you have a degree or not. Uh, like some, uh, job I saw with like people got a software come software job without having engineering degree, like they are.
 
in commerce or they are from history and they just changed their career and started doing software development and slowly companies hired them maybe from the greater profile or their past experience. So this is I am saying only for software development job but if you compare with other jobs that's a different scenario like it's complete different scenario.
 
So yeah, that's what for India. But for Amsterdam, it's quite different. But I can say about you Amsterdam because I'm in Amsterdam right now and I don't have much experience though in other company, but where I'm working and related to similar level company, they do care about a degree if you are from other country.
 
So suppose for my scenario, I need to have a degree or a master so that I will get a HSM visa to work here. See if I would not have a degree, I would not have an option to come here and work in Amsterdam. But if you are a Dutch, like and that might be a different scenario for you. You just need to find a company.
 
Subrat (07:21.714)
which doesn't care about you have a degree or not. But that's, I think, but I think we will go to the next question when we'll try to specify you should have a degree or not, like should you go to the college or not? But before that, I would like to hear about how it's in US and Brazil.
 
Lucas Paganini (07:45.621)
Definitely. And I think even before contextualizing US and Brazil, I think you touched on a very relevant point. I was going to say an excellent point, but it's not excellent in the term that it's treating humans differently based on their nationality, but it is relevant in terms that it is true and we need to face the world the way that it is. So, I am
 
Subrat (08:06.423)
Yeah.
 
Lucas Paganini (08:15.629)
Brazilian and doing work with international markets, looking for clients in Europe, in United States, you know that you are coming from an underdog position. You are coming from the position of you're somebody that is not from their culture, is not from the same country that they are. So you know that there are going to be obstacles first.
 
legally speaking, in terms of logistics purely, but there are also going to be a lot of prejudgment on others in terms of, oh, like there's an assumption that India developers are cheaper and the quality is lesser than of US developers, which is simply not true because
 
Subrat (08:48.485)
Mm-hmm.
 
Lucas Paganini (09:14.361)
your cognitive abilities and co-quality don't come from where you were born. They come from the knowledge that you created and developed throughout the years and the effort that you put into it. But there is this preconceived notion, just like we talk about products being from China, as if this was a lesser quality. Like, oh, this is shiny.
 
Subrat (09:22.016)
Yeah.
 
Subrat (09:42.31)
Yeah, it's popular everywhere.
 
Lucas Paganini (09:43.941)
Yeah. And it's like, okay, but what does it matter if it's metal? The metal is the same in whatever place of the world, right? So we need to face this head on and know that if you're trying to do business with another country, you're trying to find a job overseas or in any other culture, you
 
every single thing that could be disregarded for a native, it's probably gonna be considered for you if you don't have it. So having a degree to work for companies in other countries, definitely, it's not just it helps, it might be a matter of if you don't have then the doors are simply.
 
most of them are gonna be shut for you. So, and I think that it's really interesting that you said that even in India companies, they do require a degree a lot. And my guess, and I might be wrong, but from my experience, there's a high correlation between whether the company asks for a degree or other forms of formal authority or not, based on if the work...
 
Subrat (10:44.351)
Mm-hmm.
 
Lucas Paganini (11:11.365)
is going to be done for the company itself or for clients of the company. So if the company is an agency that is going to outsource your talent to other companies, then you having formal ways to attest your knowledge becomes more important because you are the product of that company. So an India-based agency that
 
Subrat (11:37.318)
Yep.
 
Lucas Paganini (11:39.981)
looks to have clients overseas, they need you to have a degree so that it's easier for them to sell you because you are their product. But if you're being hired for a company that you're going to work for a product that they are doing for like B2C or something like that, then I think in those scenarios that's where you have the biggest chance of a degree not being
 
super relevant because they're actually looking for the person that is going to solve their problem, not for the person that looking at their resume seems like the best hire. But even in that scenario, it's going to depend from company to company, but I think that's where you have the highest chance of finding a company that is not going to care about your degree.
 
Subrat (12:24.43)
Mm-hmm.
 
Subrat (12:38.234)
Yep, I think that is one more reason in India there are a lot of people with degree. So we have a lot of like when you apply for a job like for a suppose for a position of three software developer maybe 3,000 people has applied and as a as a filter criteria you might be that might be the one filter criteria that you should at least should have a
 
Subrat (13:08.41)
As you told, a lot of companies outsource like a kind of a consultancy and they need to pass their resources and prove them. OK, we have these resources from these colleges and all. And that's a that's a good selling point for them to get a new client.
 
Lucas Paganini (13:29.485)
Yeah. So with regards to my experience with Brazilian and United States companies in Brazil, I can say that most startups, they are not going to care about your degree, but they might look for at least some form of formal authority. So maybe you did a bootcamp or they're going to.
 
like look at the certificates that you have. You're, so there are scenarios where just the portfolio is not gonna be enough. You're gonna need those certifications, but it doesn't need to be college level certification. It can be a bootcamp or something like that. But in a lot of them, just your portfolio and showing, because your certifications can simply be certifications from...
 
online courses that you completed. If you have enough of them and the courses have enough authority, then perhaps that's going to be enough. And then a combination of that and your portfolio, certainly. What I tend to do in my hiring process when I hire Brazilians is I consider all that to look for ways to...
 
Subrat (14:27.539)
Mm-hmm.
 
Lucas Paganini (14:53.837)
find excellent professionals that wouldn't be found by other companies. So for example, I don't care if the person has a college degree or not. Like at all they can have like zero degree independent of their, I don't care. I'm not even going to look at the courses that the person completed. I'm simply going to put them through practical tests and a practical project at the end which is paid.
 
Subrat (15:03.861)
Mm-hmm.
 
Subrat (15:13.909)
Mm-hmm.
 
Lucas Paganini (15:23.113)
by the way, even if the person doesn't get accepted. But that's my way of seeing the restrictions of other companies as an opportunity to hire excellent professionals that maybe are not being seen that way by other companies. But that does make my work a little bit harder when I am looking for clients. Because then when I'm looking for clients and I have to showcase to them,
 
how awesome are the people that I hired, I sometimes don't have enough formal proof to say like, this person is really good, look at those certificates, look at this and that. And most times the people on my team have worked with me long enough so that I have case studies about each one of them and then I can.
 
Subrat (16:02.274)
Mm-hmm.
 
Lucas Paganini (16:20.353)
showcase the authority of each team member through their case studies that they did working for my company. But if the person joined recently and they just finished our internal training and ramping up program, then they might not have enough case studies. So that puts me in a position where it is really hard for me to sell this person to a new client. So I...
 
I need to rely on including this person, which is already really good, but hasn't had the opportunity to have formal proof of that. I have to find ways to include this person in ongoing projects in which the clients already know that they can trust our quality and they don't care anymore about looking at the resume of our team members because they already know that if they're at Unvoid, they are good enough to work on their project.
 
Subrat (17:02.975)
Mm-hmm.
 
Lucas Paganini (17:17.897)
So it's a tricky situation, but I generally tend to lean towards making it easier to hire excellent professionals and making it harder to sell to the clients because I think in the long term, that's going to make me a better team than looking for people that are easier to sell, but maybe not so good in the practice. Then about US companies, I would say that...
 
It's the same feeling, so startups are going to be much more open to hiring engineers that don't have a degree, but that's also going to depend on the industry. Of course, if you're looking to work in a more regulated industry, let's say like FinTech or...
 
Subrat (17:55.726)
Mm-hmm.
 
Subrat (18:11.682)
Yeah.
 
Lucas Paganini (18:14.325)
magical services, then yeah, like I would say get a degree because you're talking to people that they have, it's already the norm to them to have those formal verifications. So if you don't, it's gonna just be weird to them. But if you're looking at martech or
 
technology for education or data analysis. Even like most recent technologies, there are simply, there's no formation because they're so new. For example, artificial intelligence and crypto, then I think you're gonna have a much easier time finding companies that are not gonna care about your degree. But even then it's gonna depend on the size of the company. As soon as they get to enterprise level,
 
or even mid-size like 200 collaborators or more, then the chances of them looking for candidates with a degree increase dramatically because they already have so many people that they are not really looking for the gems in all the candidates. It's more of a statistical game at that point.
 
Subrat (19:31.898)
Mm-hmm.
 
Lucas Paganini (19:37.833)
So as soon as the company starts looking at their collaborators as numbers, and that's a transition, it's not like one day the directors wake up and, oh, let's look at everybody as a number. No, it's a transition. As soon as you start hiring more and more people, it becomes harder for you to look at them as individuals, simply because there's too many people. Then as...
 
While you go through this transition, then it becomes harder for you to join the company without having a degree.
 
Subrat (20:11.106)
Yeah, I think we should also cater on like, as the time is changing, the world is changing. Someone should go to college or not, like at least from our opinion. Someone should go to college. So I will try to give my opinion on this. Like I would prefer if you know everything about the
 
Suppose you want to go for a software development, but you know that you can do software development for suppose you can learn Angular from YouTube or from any doing any courses and all. But still you should go to a college because college doesn't only teach you about technology, doesn't only teach us about syllabus or engineering.
 
College teaches you how to deal with your life. Like how you learn from multiple colleague. Colleague in the sense I'm saying when you go to the company, how you learn from them. But in college, you will learn from friends. How to deal with assignments. How to deal with deadlines and all. So that all will help you a lot in your professional career.
 
At least it helping me a lot in my professional career. And what I learned from college is like how to think basically. But if you so what happened, I don't know like the name, the actual scenario. But there is a God effect. Ah, maybe the effect name is wrong. So what the effect is, suppose you have surrounded yourself by people who
 
always says you that you knows everything you can do everything and then in your brain subconsciously you will think like I know everything I will do everything and it will going to pass but when you will go and hit the market it will be hard wall then you face the situation then after that you can go back to the college and all but don't be in the God effect mode
 
Subrat (22:38.714)
at least you will go to the college and you will know your potential because you will going to meet lot of people like lot of young people with your age and you will know that where you good at and you have various kind of option in your college various things to explore so even if you think college is not a good option at least go to the college
 
spend one year or two years. After that, if you're thinking it's not dropout, like I'm not saying dropout, but if you think it's just waste of your money and you can do better than what you are getting from the college, then you can drop out and carry forward with a life. But at least enjoy the environment, learn from the environment. And I think most big colleges
 
And like big colleges means MIT, Stanford, or in terms of India is IIT. In terms of technology, technical study, I'm saying. The main benefit is the friends you get there. You, the networks you have in the time of your college and after you pass out, like the alumni network and all, and that saves you a lot. That saves you to have, to have a big dream.
 
that saves you to like suppose for example if people a student from IIT might have a dream of opening a company just after the fourth year or they got a degree but from a small college it's very hard for them to think like that because they for their for them
 
their environment is not like that their environment is just to have a job or just to go to a like get through the life get a job and then switch jobs and go forward and that and that you will learn from good friends or good mentors so it's a better way
 
Subrat (25:06.242)
just go to the college and experience the environment to have a mentor, have a good friends and enjoy that time. What's your thoughts in that Lucas?
 
Lucas Paganini (25:20.945)
I think.
 
it's really going to depend on how comfortable you feel about recreating all those benefits that you would get from college in other ways. For example, it's not just a... I think you touched on a lot of interesting points that people don't usually think about with regards to deciding if they want to go to college or not. So the first thing that you think is what are you going to
 
Subrat (25:37.943)
Yeah.
 
Lucas Paganini (25:53.145)
other things that are going to be part of the experience. There is the-
 
Lucas Paganini (26:01.213)
annoying but truthful fact that we need to learn to deal with doing things that sometimes we don't want to do and delivering them on the deadline. So like as annoying as it can be to do a lot of projects that sometimes you're like, oh, I don't really want to do that. The thing is when you actually join a company, there are going to be things that you don't want to do, you'd rather work in another project, but
 
Subrat (26:12.143)
Yeah.
 
Lucas Paganini (26:28.513)
The company needs you to do that. And that's what it means to be a professional, is doing those things and delivering them well and on time. So you learn that through college. You also create networking with other people in the segment, which is gonna help you to find good opportunities because they can recommend you after they also join the job market. So I think it's a matter of...
 
Subrat (26:53.134)
Mm-hmm.
 
Lucas Paganini (26:56.929)
How comfortable do you feel with regards to sales and entrepreneurship to figure out a way to not only learn through other methods, but also extract the benefits of networking and communication that you would get going to college without going to college? Like, I, for one, feel very comfortable on that. I have not...
 
Subrat (27:20.735)
Yeah.
 
Lucas Paganini (27:26.877)
I don't have an engineering degree at all. I have a marketing degree, which honestly, I almost dropped out because it was just so easy that I got bored and it lasted three years and I didn't want to do the three years. So the first one year I was hyper-focused and I learned everything that I could. I even like read books from the next semesters in that first year. And then in the last two years,
 
I went to class, but I sat there studying programming during the marketing classes, and I still went well on all the tests because I had already studied all that in the first year. So to me, I didn't have all those benefits in terms of networking and even like learning to deliver engineering projects on time through college. I had that through other experiences.
 
and I am a very...
 
Lucas Paganini (28:36.653)
okay person in terms of doing uncomfortable things, that I can put myself in situations where I'm gonna develop those other areas and find networking in other ways. But you have to really be honest with yourself because what I'm saying here is not like I am, is not to say that me being the way that I am is better than being some other way. There are definitely things that other people do better than me.
 
Subrat (28:40.95)
Yeah.
 
Lucas Paganini (29:04.913)
and there are better developers in the world than me. So I think it's a matter of understanding your strengths and looking for the kind of life and professional career that you wanna have. If you see yourself as a very entrepreneur spirit, then it's gonna be easier for you to reap the benefits of college without going to college. If you're a more contrived...
 
personality, then it's going to be way harder for you to have all those benefits if you don't go to college, because college is going to put you in those situations whether you want to be in them or not. And if you are contrived and you decide to not go to college, then you don't just need to want to have those experiences. You have to actively seek.
 
Subrat (29:34.47)
Hmm.
 
Lucas Paganini (29:59.949)
out them in environments that were not made for that. So it's way, way harder for you to have such experiences. But I, for one, do not regret at all not having an engineering degree because during the period where I would learn and complete my engineering degree, I have done so much more. Like...
 
Subrat (30:06.679)
Yep.
 
Lucas Paganini (30:27.249)
I think I graduated in marketing when I was 20 or 21 years old, something like that. And right now, I'm about to turn 27 next week, August 15. So if you think of a five or six-year engineering degree, then if I had looked for an engineering
 
Lucas Paganini (30:56.909)
getting the engineering degree like this year. But in this meantime, I have already became expert in a lot of programming technologies. I have, when I say expert, I say from the outside view because I for one don't consider myself expert because I know how much I still have to learn on each of those things, but from the outside perspective, on some things I can be considered expert. I built my own company like...
 
Subrat (31:19.298)
Mm-hmm.
 
Lucas Paganini (31:26.389)
more than one company, in fact. And I'm not saying that to flex, but it's just look at the amount of experience that I had in the same time span that I would have spent on college. So to me, I think it was a good investment to not go to college. But it's totally gonna depend on the career that you wanna have, how do you see yourself.
 
and how much comfort do you need, you know, because it's very uncomfortable to go through this path. So I think that's how I would decide.
 
Subrat (32:01.422)
Thanks for watching!
 
Subrat (32:11.566)
Yeah, like one point I would like to reiterate upon, like what I have said, is not about doing an engineering job, going to engineering degree for an engineering job. My point was just to go to any college, just to have the experience of study with multiple people after you are 18.
 
So mostly after 18 you get some sense in your brain that you can relate and act upon like adult, adulty. So after you are 18 you should have experience of, for example like when you are in marketing school. You might have some.
 
assignment which you do in groups then from there you learned like how to manage groups and so I'm not saying it will have your curriculum will have direct impact in your career but like staying in a hostel or working assignment in a group working projects in a group those kind of things or like participating in events
 
participate in organizing multiple events in your college. Those kind of things will save you or saves you for your future activities. Like it might have happened with you, like you might have like volunteered in some activity in your college, you know, in your college time, maybe in marketing college time, and that is helping you now. Maybe you are not relate, like realizing that, but if you just...
 
sit and think back, maybe subconsciously it helped you a lot.
 
Lucas Paganini (34:14.405)
I think there's definitely chances of that being true. Yep. Well, now in terms of next steps, which is, okay, you're going to college. How much the actual college is going to matter? And there are levels to that, but I think we can tackle everything in a single answer because...
 
Subrat (34:35.788)
Yeah.
 
Lucas Paganini (34:42.693)
It's just a spectrum, right? Is how much authority the name of the college is going to have in the general public. So you can go from a neighborhood college, neighborhood known college. You can go to a countrywide known college to a worldwide renowned college, such as MIT or Stanford.
 
Subrat (34:57.826)
Hmm.
 
Lucas Paganini (35:10.237)
I think definitely nobody's going to be crazy enough to say that this isn't going to matter. If you have an engineering degree from MIT versus the university in your city that an international employer might not even have heard about ever in their entire life, of course MIT is going to have a way heavier...
 
Subrat (35:18.999)
Yeah.
 
Subrat (35:39.206)
Impact click.
 
Lucas Paganini (35:40.293)
impact. Yes, yes. But I think it's also a matter of in which point of your career are you going to use your degree the most to land an opportunity? Because when you're in your first stages, then you're going to have to rely a lot more on your academic authority to land a job.
 
because you don't have work experience to show off. So that's what you have, right? But after you've been in the job market for a while, then that starts to become less relevant. So if you go to a university that is not as strong as an MIT, Harvard, Stanford, whatever, then I think after your third...
 
Subrat (36:13.293)
Yep.
 
Lucas Paganini (36:38.185)
work experience, that's gonna become extremely irrelevant, because the other employers are gonna look way more to your work experience than the actual university in which you graduated. Whereas if you actually graduated in one of those really strong names, then even after your third or fifth work experience, that's still gonna have some weight, especially if you do...
 
But that's the thing, you can always have a okay university to get started, especially because not everybody has the luxury of saying that they can go and pay those universities if they want to. Because even if you are able to join, that you still have to pay huge tuition fees and it's simply not accessible for everyone. But you can always...
 
Subrat (37:30.672)
Yep.
 
Lucas Paganini (37:36.141)
Do the best that you can with the scenario that you have. And then if you really want to have the authority of such universities in your belt, you can have that through a master's program or something like that later on, which is actually going to have way more impact in your later career than just a degree after you in your third and fourth work experience.
 
Having a master at Princeton or MIT Stanford is gonna be way more important than having your degree.
 
Subrat (38:16.838)
Yeah, I think totally agree on that. I think I would like to touch upon similar, but different aspect. Like if you are deciding or if you're studying now to join a college, then go for the best, which you can. In terms of like for MIT Stanford, first you need to get the score, then you have to pay. There is various scenario, but for...
 
some universities which are good, which you need not need to pay much, but you need to score a lot more to go into them.
 
So one approach, like one thing is if you are studying now in your high school or before college, just study hard to go as good college as you can. But if you are already in not these colleges, MIT, Stanford or anything, then like it's not the end. I just would like to say that it's not the end. So
 
maybe 0.001% people goes there. And from there, also not everyone get the job which the media exposed. Like if you see the maybe on YouTube or LinkedIn or on the news that people are getting this amount of salary, like maybe a million or something.
 
And that's mostly due to those are the point one person or one person inside MIT or maybe inside Stanford. So not like the for everyone, it's not the same. But if you haven't go to a good college, what does think now what you can do now?
 
Subrat (40:27.786)
just we have iterate over like what college gives you just try to like take advantages of that try to take advantages of current situation which you have in your hand and which you can control like try to be friends with a lot of good people who have similar mindset even if try to be friends with the professors who have like a
 
who are expert in the things which you want to do in your life. Go with them, have discussion about what you want to do and all. And professor usually helps, but you just need to approach them. And even if you have a very small neighborhood college, your professor will be good because every university has a minimum criteria.
 
so that they can be a professor. So they are good. At least they if they are not, you don't like their way of teaching. But if you go and personally talk to them and personally have conversation, you'll know that they know a lot of things which you don't know. So instead of like thinking of I didn't got a good college. I didn't have a so like I didn't got a my
 
got admission to MIT or maybe from India point of view, I didn't got admission to IIT and all because in India, IIT is like too hard to get. It's not a, it's nothing related to the tuition fee. It's not the cheapest, but not the expensive also, but it's too hard to get. And it's like a big thing to be in a good, to go to IIT.
 
for every engineering student maybe. But if you are not there or if you are not in MIT or Stanford or any prestigious college that matters, like just think what you can do now. And as Lucas said, try like after two, three years or four years, it will not going to matter a lot. Obviously,
 
Subrat (42:48.714)
Like if you are from, suppose from MIT and you are going for a investor pitch and you will say that I am from MIT, that will be like a 20% inclined towards you because you are from MIT and you are doing a business. So they know that you have proved something in the past and now you can do that this as well. But the way the approach here will be like. It might.
 
It might take a little more time to get a good investment. But if you show them tracks and if you show them initial customers, some revenue, you'll get the investment. I'm just saying about business point of view. For job, it doesn't matter at all. Like suppose you want to join Google, Facebook or Netflix or any companies, like after two, three years.
 
They don't even ask you about your college degree certificate. Like I joined booking. I haven't given my degree certificate to them. It I have given to a third party for verification though. Like I had a degree or not, but just for the visa, but not for the company to join because I had already experienced with other companies. So they know that I know stuff. So that that's all like, you don't need.
 
to be worried about much but if you are in not if you haven't joined college try to be in the best college as you can.
 
Lucas Paganini (44:29.917)
Yep, definitely. I think that's all in terms of general advice. Of course, each person is going to have individual needs. So don't just listen to what we said and make a big life decision about whether to go to college or not, because maybe if we were talking to you directly and understanding your specific scenario and where you want to be,
 
Subrat (44:44.328)
Yeah.
 
Lucas Paganini (44:58.421)
in the future, then maybe our advice would be different based on your particular needs. So just remember that we were giving advice to a broader audience and trying to say things that we think are going to apply to most people. So try to adapt that to your scenario and what you want to build and then decide from there. But yeah, I 100%
 
stand by everything that me and Subrata said. I think it is what I have considered to make my decision and I think it was a good one and it paid off in my scenario. And just remember that this is all statistics. Maybe you don't go to college thinking that you did an excellent decision and then if you had went to college you would have met somebody that
 
Subrat (45:42.71)
Yep.
 
Lucas Paganini (45:55.397)
opened a startup and became a billionaire and you would be his partner in this business. How are you ever going to know? That's it. Everything, every decision is a gamble and you don't know what you are not getting from not going down that route and you're just never going to know.
 
unless you're a doctor strange and you can try all the possibilities in the universe.
 
Subrat (46:25.29)
Yeah, I just about to say that like it reminds me the like the endgame thing when Hulk go to the I forgot the name doctor strains and a teacher the lady with the with the thing He told like it will now change the course of time. So you don't know like If you do something Just have a effort to do something that might change your whole
 
course of your time.
 
Lucas Paganini (46:57.885)
Yeah. And that also applies to the other side. Like if you don't go to college, maybe that would have pushed you into putting yourself in more proactively putting yourself in situations where you would meet people. And then that's where you would meet your future business partner or life partner. Who knows, right? So...
 
Subrat (47:15.33)
Yeah.
 
Lucas Paganini (47:22.697)
I think it's just make a decision and extract the best amount of value that you can get from it without looking back too much. I think that saying don't ever look back, it's unrealistic because we're humans and we're always going to wonder how things would have pan out if we had went into a different situation. But just make sure that you don't live yourself considering what could have happened.
 
Just make sure that you do the best you have with the decisions that you have made and the scenarios where you encounter yourself in. So I think that's it. So, Subrat, anything else you'd like to say?
 
Subrat (48:01.686)
Yeah, one more thing. Yeah. One more thing I would like to say here is, uh, we are doing this podcast for vast variety of audience like, so suppose you are very strong and you can do everything yourself, then doesn't make sense to go to college and have a structured syllabus with structured mindset of people, but judging that
 
you can do it everything in such early age is hard. Like if you are like 15 or 16, like to judge that I can do everything in my life without having a particular structure is hard. But if you are 100% sure like dead sure, then it's your wish what to do, what not to do. I think you are already clear at
 
You don't need our advice for that. But if you are in a dilemma of, should you go to college? Should you not? Some of my friends are dropping out from college. Would I should I drop out? I saw like Steve Jobs drop out and did good thing. Mark Zuckerberg drop out and did good. So should I drop out? If you have thought like that. Then don't drop out. Just finish, finish it, because
 
It's not from your instinct. What I'm saying is suppose if you are in college and you are, you have, you have a venture and you are not getting time at all, uh, to study, or if you have a hard time to give, uh, time to your study, as well as to your venture or to your business, then it makes sense to drop out because that, you know, that like I have
 
something to run and I know that I like for you Lucas like you had a company and you run that company so you had the thing to learn from you learn in the practical way. Suppose you just dropped out from the college and do nothing after you drop out you thought okay I will do something and I will change the world just have a notion from maybe from social
 
Subrat (50:25.678)
What I'm saying is I saw a lot of young kids having this thought that if some people like one or three people have done so I can also do it. It's quite hard in real life. So the easiest way and the safest way to that's why we are suggesting everyone to go with a college degree.
 
If you know which certainly if it can help you without being a college, it's your ways.
 
Lucas Paganini (51:08.571)
Perfect. All right. So Brett, is there anything that you would like to advertise to the audience? Anything that you are working on that you think people should be aware of?
 
Subrat (51:21.574)
I think mostly from my YouTube channel, like as you discuss about this. So usually I don't put videos like this. It's mostly on a straight to the point of solving some programming related issue. But this topic came to my mind because I was going through some podcast and where I saw that. Like most of the people like podcast people are from IITs or IIM.
 
or maybe MITs and all and they are doing the podcast with the investors and all. So who are as a point of view listener, there will be a mindset like, okay, I'm not from IIT, I'm not from MIT. So I might miss something. I just try to give my opinion on that video. Apart from that, just go and check my channel. It is I'm doing mostly on web development and all. So currently it's most
 
has Angular related content, but in future might go and create tutorial on full stack development, back end, and everything. So have a look on that.
 
and I think we will add the link in the soon notes so we can find it there.
 
Lucas Paganini (52:37.566)
Awesome.
 
Lucas Paganini (52:45.974)
All right, awesome. Well, also check out the specific video that Sobret did on this topic, which right now is the latest video that he posted in his channel, but he's always posting a lot of stuff, so maybe there are new videos there too, by the time that you access his channel. And in my case, I'm simply gonna pick my company again. So one thing that...
 
Subrat (52:49.633)
Yep.
 
Lucas Paganini (53:12.837)
I have never talked much about because this podcast is so specific to Angular, I always position my company as simply being a web design, web development services company focused on Angular. Because that's what I think would the part of the business that would make more sense for the audience of the podcast, but truthfully, we are much broader than that.
 
We are actually a venture studio. And what that means is we help. Entrepreneurs, business owners to create tech companies. So our product is actually creating a company, not just creating a system. So of course there are going to be clients that they already have a business and they simply want help in the development process. There are clients that are going to want help in the design process, but
 
Subrat (53:55.822)
Mm-hmm.
 
Lucas Paganini (54:13.241)
If there is somebody that simply has the idea and they have the financial means or at least the investors backing it up and they need help to actually bring this idea into life, that's something that we do. That's actually our core thing. We do the entire discovery process including business strategy and brand.
 
strategy and then the visual identity and verbal identity and naming of your business, to then go to the design process, which includes the entire customer experience, user experience, user interface, prototyping and animations. And then we go to the development process, which is going to include everything that we did in the design process.
 
There's this entire spectrum of things that we do that I have never went very deep in this podcast because I wanted to focus more on the web development part of it. But I wanted to make this more clear from now on because maybe you who is listening to this podcast, maybe you find yourself in a situation where you know somebody or you are somebody that
 
wants to build a tech company, but you want help much more than just doing the development. Maybe the development is fine for you. The problem is in the branding, in the business strategy, is in the design, is in the marketing. So that's all things that we can help you with. So if that is of your interest or of the interest of somebody that you know closely, then...
 
go to unvoid.com and from there you can contact me directly and we can do a meeting so that I can understand your needs and see if I can help. And if I can't, I'm gonna point you in the right direction. All right? So yeah, that's gonna be my promo for today. I think that's all. You know.
 
Subrat (56:32.668)
Yeah, that's all.
 
Lucas Paganini (56:35.869)
All right, okay, so thank you for sticking up until the very last moment. We have very, very long episodes and I appreciate all of you for really sticking to the end. And yeah, again, thank you, Subret too, for your time and for all the view that you brought up in your experience. And we'll see you in the next one.
 
Subrat (57:00.971)
Yep.
 
See you guys, bye bye.
 
Lucas Paganini (57:07.126)
Bye.
 
Album Art
Does College Matter in Software Engineering? - AiA 388
0:00
57:10
Playback Speed: