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A contract I'm interested in states ; must know or will train you in Matlab, whilst I know what it is I've never used it - anyone here used it ?
We can’t stop here, this is bat country - Hunter S Thompson RIP
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It is commonly used in Universities and I did use it quite a lot there, but I am no expert. As a programming language, it reminded me of C++/C#.
Doing math related stuff was brilliant, with tons of different build in functions. Normal programming with functions, GUI etc, felt a little strange and quirky to me at least.
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Yes I have come across it often. It was generally used for prototyping complex numerical algorithms. So in image and signal processing it is the perfect way to test an idea. I never became an expert but found it easy to learn and use. A lot of new hires straight out of university were very proficient and this proved quite useful. Once you know how to use it you may find it is often the first port of call for prototyping so the offer to teach you is a good one.
Peter Wasser
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
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I did use it during university. Once you get used to its syntax and environment, you can do amazing things. Simulations, predictions, optimizations are way easier and faster to do in Matlab.
While UIs are a little poor and hackish. It is mainly a "scriptish" environment
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I used it college, ages ago. Perhaps it's gotten better as the years have passed, but I found it both powerful and stunted at the same time. You could/can do some insanely powerful things with it, but things as simple as formatting output were unnecessarily complicated.
I can't speak to how it is now though; I certainly hope it has gotten easier to use.
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So here is the deal. I have 22 years of experience in IT, with the last 15 in software development. I'm up to date on many of the latest technologies and constantly learning new things (thank you Code Project for your help with that). I have recently started looking for a new job after having worked at a place for 7 years doing C# .Net programming with a hint of PHP/HTML. Of the places I've looked, I have found that they "must" have a B.A. in Computer Science with 3 years of experience.
Does my 22 years with 15 years in software design and development not count for anything? Should I go back to school to have them "teach" me things I already know just to have the paper that says I could pass some classes?
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Do you really want that job ? If not, just find another company.
I think there are many companys dont care about those papers, they just care about what you can do.
In code we trust !
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even if they do employ us. the benefit and opportunity will be less. I still think it is better to get degree.
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I have applied for some that offer "or equivalent experience", but seriously the position that I really wanted wouldn't even consider my resume because my degree was not in Computer Science.
Now that I think about it, I should have pointed out in the first post. I have a degree, but it was geared toward Law. I found that I really didn't care about Law as much as my mother wanted me to so I just started working in IT and have never looked back.
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if nothing stopping you from going. Just go and good luck. And ready to learn and do useless module for the sake of degree  .
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There's always simple solution.
Add to your CV:
i>"I sue people who discriminate against me because my degree is not in computing"
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I also in the same situation as you. I saw a lot of 3k above job need degree as minimal. I think I already reach the bottleneck for technical diploma. A lot junior level that is degree only requirement which pays lot more even for junior position. although they alway say degree cert is not important but truth not everyone is lucky to meet a company that is cert blind. Even if employees do employ you, pay and benefit are still different between degree and you. As like automatic feel cert below degree much get low pay. Even though you have done the same amount of work. it better to get degree as HR or recruiter still filter you based on cert for your position and benefit. Most important is to able to apply more job so as not filter out by the paper. And it helps you in the long run as it will benefit you. from my experience. 
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This is what I worry about. I think that they don't care that my experience and knowledge would let me teach the classes they want me to take. And, unless things have changed since I was last in school, The things they teach in school are last year tech at best.
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Tell you a joke. A job agent asking me how much I want for the next job. I told him 2.6k. he told me diploma can not get this much and ask me how much I got have for job i hold. I told him i have 2.4k as diploma and with one year experience. He ending the call after that. Another job agent from IT specialize agency call me and give me better pay than U stated above without me apply. See the different!! Cert is just to get pass the gatekeeper
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That's a tough one, because I've met plenty of quality IT people in a similar situation. You need to figure out if it is operational and economically feasible for you. For example, if you have children that you are raising, maybe you don't have time to do the studies. Maybe you're only planning to work 10 more years; so it might not be worth the time or money to do invest in it. If you have no college credits, it wouldn't be a piece of cake as you'd be forced to take all those social sciences, math, history, humanities, ect..., but if you are are junior standing, then you should probably finish it.
If your current employer has tuition reimbursement, I'd utilize it. You can deduct college tuition from your taxes; so the monetary cost could be low.
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I'm looking into the feasibility of taking classes and using my old credits, of course they are over 20 years old now. And like you said, I'm really only looking to put in about 10 or 15 years before I hang up the hat and enjoy the rest of my life while I'm still spry enough to do it.
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That is difficult to answer. If you feel you can go back to school, I think I would recommend that.
I was part of a hiring campaign in our company earlier this year. I participated in +10 interviews and passed my recommendations on to my manager. I did not have the deciding vote on whether or not to hire, but I had a good say in the matter.
I personally do not weigh a person on the level of education as a primary factor - I have worked with people that only had a two year degree, but were just as brilliant as the ones with Master and PhD degrees. However, by the time a candidate's resume gets to my inbox for evaluation, it has gone through an HR person and at least one manager above me.
So, I might vote for hiring you without a degree (no, don't send me your resume, it doesn't work like that  ), but you have to pass through a number of filters first. And I am afraid your salary will be lower without a degree, but I don't actually have any numbers on that.
"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty
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Depends on the region. After consulting for a while, I've notices that the HR departments in some parts of the country and certain companies, regardless of where they are at, balk at non-degreed engineers, even if they have 28 years experience! Note that most hiring managers don't care, but their HR departments sure do. This is all amplified when you have an engineering recession.
Further, I know of a few companies which will grab up people with masters degrees regardless of actual experience or capability.
I partly regret not getting my masters when I thought about it back in 93, but even now the idea bores me to death. Back then it was even more theory and UNIX.
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Firstly.
A number of company adverts are heavily sanitised by HR departments before they go out and a company will add those sort of requirements as a default. However when it comes to weeding out the CVs, it is not generally done but HR and those musts are rarely true musts and other factors like experience / skill sets / attitude etc will count for more (depending on the Manager). So I would ignore that requirement and apply anyway.
Secondly.
If there is some special learning you are trying to achieve, then by all means.
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If you have being doing it that long, you shouldn't find it that hard to get. I am not an IT professional and it is not something I do everyday.
I went back and did a computing degree in 2007 and found it relatively painless, although, it ate a lot of my home time due to my offshore work schedule. The hardest part was getting my head round some of the AI stuff, and also remembering the different languages being used throughout, when constantly switching back and forth between Java, C#, VB.net, JavaScript and several others, particularly whatever it was they used for the functional programming, I often found I used the wrong code.
I hated writing code by hand on paper, during the exams!
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It is very common around here to ask for a degree in job description, but with a long and proven experience it never really matter...however lately CVs are 'read' by software and if no B.A. in it it will be dropped by the software, so there is a dilemma...
The best way I found is somehow get contact with the HR directly and let my CV seen by humans...
(Just saying, that learning for the parer will probably kill you )
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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School isn't worth it.
It takes lots of time, effort and money.
It sucks the energy out of you.
It doesn't actually teach you stuff you need.
The stuff it does teach you could've Googled when you needed it.
School is a slow way to learn.
I've met IT graduates who literally couldn't declare a variable in C#.
School always lags behind with reality. You'll probably be doing some old version of Java (don't do anything else either, because the teacher won't understand it).
You'd better find a new job if they value four years of schooling over 22 years of experience.
I may be a bit biased as I always hated school.
I liked programming really very much until I decided, like you, to go back to school.
Only now, after having done little schooling for about a year, am I finding my enthusiasm and curiosity is coming back.
If I ever start to hate myself and rather be brain-dead I'll go back to school again.
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I also hate school too but employee requires degree as they control what pay to give and chances for promotion and not everyone is lucky. I have to beat HR and recruiters as they only recognizes degree 
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Seems like your beginner luck has ended then 
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