Contemplating a degree?

[trilerian]

So let's just say, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, lol.  The problem is, I'm grown up...  So maybe a little about me.  I'm a network engineer, I've been in IT almost 15 years, only recently transitioned from being a systems administrator to a network engineer, about  2 years ago.  I have an associates degree in physics, but really that doesn't mean much.  And it has been so long since I have taken a class I'm pretty sure I have forgotten almost everything.  If I decide to go back to school, I only hope I can skip the humanities classes.  Ok, so without going through my life's story, which nobody wants to know anyway, I'll shorten the story and just say that I struggle with the small things.  I like the big and flashy, well maybe not so big and flashy, but I generally tend to skip the tiny nuances of the subjects.  I study what I need to study to complete a project.  While this can be great, and to others it may seem that I learn something really fast, what really happens  is incredibly inefficient, as I don't learn the basics. most of the time I find the basics too boring, and I struggle with my attention span while learning. 

Anyway, I find myself in a predicament, my current career is starting to get, let's just say a little dry.  I am not intending on quitting my day job and going to school, but I get no enjoyment out of my job anymore.  But that is also status quo for me.  I thrive on new knowledge, then move on to something else.  Working in IT that has led me through all sorts of different jobs, but still in the same relative field.  Now though, I have started my own business as a "maker" for RC racing products.  No, my business isn't profitable, lol.  I think I may be down about $10k this past 8 months.  But alot of that is all the tools I have had to buy, plus R&D is expensive, lol.  Then distributers want huge margins...  Anyway, I digress.  The point is I have found this new hobby that I have turned into a business, and kind of want to pursue it.  But I think I actually may need to learn a bit more of the small details.

All that to say, I maybe want to go back to school.  Or if not school some other structured form of learning what I need to know.  I am a one man shop as far as my business is concerned.  I've learned CAD, 3d printing, basic electronic theory, how to use KiCad for schematics and designing pcbs, and how to stumble through programming a 328P mcu.  I'm scared of all the other mcu's out there, lol.  Again though, I'm not planning on quitting my job, so it will be school, job, and side gig.  Which means my wife won't see me a lot, but that is alright because I stood by her when she worked a full time job and got her MBA at the same time.  If I get a degree maybe, maybe I get a job as an EE.  But I can't say for sure that would happen, also it will take quite a while, and like I said, I'm already grown up.

Let's get to the brass tacks here.  If a degree, online vs in person.  Good school vs unknown.  If not a degree, what structured programs are out there to learn.  Left to my own ends, I'll skip the boring stuff and be right back here, so I need some structure.  But I'm a little scared.  An EE degree isn't an easy degree, and my mind isn't what it was 20 years ago.  But a 4 year degree would be nice to get.  Despite my experience in IT, not having a 4 year degree has hurt some of my career choices.

Well, anyway, I appreciate any responses.
Thanks,
Andrew

[abeyer]

So let's just say, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, lol.

Can we start a greybeard peter-pan club pinned thread? 

Despite my experience in IT, not having a 4 year degree has hurt some of my career choices.

I suspect you're right that even though it may not be better/necessary from an educational perspective, having that piece of paper opens some doors that wouldn't otherwise -- it's usually a silly box-checking thing, but it is what it is.

I otherwise don't really have any answers to the fundamental question, but actually am in a vaguely similar position and curious to hear what others say.

[SiliconWizard]

Well, we all know what we'll be when we eventually grow up.

[Veteran68]

Do you really want to be an EE, or do you just want a working knowledge of electronics to allow for the design and repair skills necessary to support your business?

If the former, you don't have much choice than to go for the degree if you want a new career as a "real" EE. Not that I believe the degree is necessary to be a great EE, but you wouldn't likely be formally recognized as one, or more importantly, hired without one. As was said, it's a door opener more than it's a requirement for competency.

If the latter, then I'd say at this point in your life/career, you might be better served by a trade/vocational program. You will learn much more practical skills, not have to waste time with those humanities, and the cost will be considerably less. It sounds like you need/want the structure, but if you had the self-discipline you could even go with a self-driven course of study to pick up those fundamentals you say you lack.

For most smart people, degrees are highly overrated. My career is in IT as well, and I've been an IT leader for the past 15+ years. Some of the best programmers I've known had no degree. Some of my best hires did not have a degree (I told HR years ago that I would not consider a degree a requirement for a job if they had work experience), while my two worst hires had multiple graduate degrees. My mentor, the smartest person I know who made his first millions in his 30's, didn't finish his degree until he was in his 50's and mostly retired, and then it was only as a personal goal thing and not because he needed it (he's owned his own business since before he dropped out of college in the 80's).

I'm not discouraging you from pursuing a degree, I'm only suggesting you ask yourself what your end goal is. If that goal IS the degree, or if that goal is to become a "bona-fide" EE, then go for it. But don't think it's necessary to grasp the fundamentals and skills necessary for practical work. Especially in support of your own business.

[nctnico]

Do you really want to be an EE, or do you just want a working knowledge of electronics to allow for the design and repair skills necessary to support your business?

If the former, you don't have much choice than to go for the degree if you want a new career as a "real" EE. Not that I believe the degree is necessary to be a great EE, but you wouldn't likely be formally recognized as one, or more importantly, hired without one. As was said, it's a door opener more than it's a requirement for competency.

For HR droids a degree is a checkbox item.

Still I think a degree is worthwhile persuing because a big part of the training is learning to analyse a problem methodically and getting tools in your toolbox to do so. Or put differently, a degree doesn't make you an excellent engineer but it provides to tools to become one. So it is a good idea to get some education. I have come across a few self-thaught engineers but they always lacked the ability to approach a problem in a structured manner leading to be inefficient or outright incompetent due to lacking basic math and physics knowledge.

And don't be afraid to be old. 2 years ago I wanted to pick up wave surfing but since I had no idea on where to begin, I booked a few classes for adults. I was the oldest 'student' by far every time.

[EPAIII]

...<snip>...

Still I think a degree is worthwhile persuing because a big part of the training is learning to analyse a problem methodically and getting tools in your toolbox to do so. Or put differently, a degree doesn't make you an excellent engineer but it provides to tools to become one. So it is a good idea to get some education. I have come across a few self-thaught engineers but they always lacked the ability to approach a problem in a structured manner leading to be inefficient or outright incompetent due to lacking basic math and physics knowledge.

...<snip>...

I think this is the best comment on the page. I have a degree in physics but have worked as an engineer all my civilian life. It is the ability to solve problems that has helped me the most. You can pick up the knowledge needed for a problem, for ANY problem, but that does not solve it. You must be able to find a solution in that pile of facts.

Was that ability just innate in my nature or did I pick it up while getting that degree. I suspect it did exist, but was really sharpened and polished in the degree process.

I fear that far too few people realize this. And too many of them are in management and/or HR.

I also must strongly agree with the need for that tool box of skills. A knowledge of math and physics has helped me through most of the problems that I have faced. If nothing else, it has allowed me to quickly dismiss many things that others may consider possible but which could never actually work.

Of course, problem solving ability also helped in my years in the military.

[Smokey]

That's a tough one.  Even with a BS EE degree, you only really learn anything useful on the job.  But it's hard to get a job and have someone train you to do something useful without the degree. 
With the amount of job hopping that goes on these days, I have a hard time understanding how any smaller shop can afford to take the net negative hit of hiring and training fresh grads to have them leave once they finally get productive. 
The good news is that you already started a business, which is the part that a lot of "real" EEs never get to.  Keep that up and don't worry what other people might think about your qualifications.  Once you start making enough money, hire a "real" EE as an employee and have them teach you stuff

[Wallace Gasiewicz]

When I was in engineering school the curriculum was tough. Look at the classes you need to take. There is calculus and advanced chemistry and physics. I attended for two years before switching to another field. It is no cake walk.  The first two years are almost all basic science.   
Then the real engineering classes start.I did manage to get OK grades while working an almost full time job, 

30 years later I did complete a Masters degree on line. It was OK but not easy. 

Here is a suggestion: Look at the curriculum and see if you want to complete the equivalent of the first two years as a night time student, whether that is on line or not. You probably have some of the credits.
Then go from there, After the first two years, the curriculum gets specific for the type of engineering you will go into.

[Veteran68]

It is the ability to solve problems that has helped me the most. You can pick up the knowledge needed for a problem, for ANY problem, but that does not solve it. You must be able to find a solution in that pile of facts.

Was that ability just innate in my nature or did I pick it up while getting that degree. I suspect it did exist, but was really sharpened and polished in the degree process. 

I 100% agree that critical thinking and problem solving are crucial to being a good engineer (any type of engineer). I always tell people that at its core, engineering is problem solving, period. However in my almost 40 year career I've learned that critical thinking skills and effective problem solving skills are more innate than taught. Don't get me wrong: there are many valuable lessons to be learned from higher education, so I'm not dismissing it as entirely useless. I'm just saying they don't necessarily (or even commonly) produce the best engineers (or teachers, or lawyers, or doctors, or...).

My major was Computer Science, not engineering, yet I myself have a strong innate problem solving drive (an obsession, really) that has served me extremely well in various engineering roles in my career (I started out as an embedded systems engineer and then a software systems engineer before moving into systems architecture and management). I was self-taught in electronics and programming, including 6502 and x86 assembler, before graduating high-school in the mid 80's, and was published twice in mainstream computer magazines by the time I was a freshman in college. When I was a young embedded systems engineer I was often called into tough troubleshooting and debugging problems when people got stumped. Sometimes I'd ask just 2 or 3 probing questions and their light bulb would go off, but other times I had to actually show them a solution.

These skills are the #1 trait I look for in hiring candidates. I've worked alongside, and hired, a lot of engineers over the past 40 years, of all kinds (Electrical, Mechanical, Chemical, Industrial, Process, Systems, and Software/Embedded Systems) and without question the absolute BEST ones were the self-taught ones, who started out young and would have already been competent engineers in practice before they acquired a degree (if they even have a degree).

Unfortunately, I'd say a considerable percentage of the people I've worked with that attained degrees -- including advanced degrees -- in various engineering disciplines have frankly substandard problem solving skills, which has led me to believe that without a basic innate affinity, these skills simply can't be taught in a classroom. Sure, you can walk them through a curriculum and workflow to solve something, but they struggle with doing it on their own in the real world. They might be fine at designing from a given spec and following a script, but fall apart at the first sign of a non-trivial bug or with thinking outside the box. It boggles my mind that people invest so much time and money into education for a career that they're simply ill-suited for. And this isn't limited to engineering, my wife and both daughters work in public education, and I see it there too.

[armandine2]

to selectively quote you, with I:

[I didn’t] know what I want[ed] to be when [I grew] up

I'm a network engineer

I've been in IT almost 15 years, I transitioned from being a systems administrator to a network engineer about  2 years ago. 

I have an associate degree in Physics.

I only hope I can skip the humanities classes. 

I struggle with the small things, I like the big and flashy, I generally tend to skip the tiny nuances of the subjects. I study what I need to study to complete a project. I struggle with my attention span while learning. I am not intending on quitting my day job and going to school, I [now] get no enjoyment out of my job. I thrive on new knowledge.

I have started my own business as a "maker" for RC racing products.

I may be down about $10k this past 8 months. [I digress] all the tools I have had to buy plus R&D is expensive…. distributors want huge margins.

I want to pursue this new hobby that I have turned into a business

I think I actually may need to learn a bit more of the small details.

I maybe want to go back to school.   

I am a one man shop as far as my business is concerned. 

I've learned CAD, 3d printing, basic electronic theory, how to use KiCad for schematics and designing pcbs, and how to stumble through programming a 328P mcu.  I'm scared of all the other mcu's out there

I'm not planning on quitting my job which means my wife won't see me a lot, I stood by her when she worked a full time job and got her MBA at the same time.

If I get a degree maybe, maybe I get a job as an EE.

I need some structure.

I'm a little scared.

[trilerian]

I appreciate the sincere replies.  To answer the big question...  I would say that I would not be pursuing an EE degree to become an EE.  I would be pursuing the degree to gain the knowledge I feel I need to be more competent in the field and hopefully get better at designing my projects.  But maybe that just comes with the experience of doing it to begin with, right?  Fake it until you make it?  I would say though, that if I got an EE degree, I probably would look to change careers. 

And yes, I do understand an EE degree would be extremely difficult, hence some of my hesitation.   

[Infraviolet]

If you were "younger" that is to say earlier in your career I'd definitely recommend a degree, and then a PhD. But as you've already got a career, and you've already got a side business started up using your skills, I'm not sure a degree would benefit you that much. Some online courses maybe might be worthwhile to give you a deeper understanding of electronics, or in your situation some sort of "coaching" for how to grow a business, but not a formal degree. A degree will teach you the fundamentals of a subject, but you probably already know them. It will also teach you best practices (industry standard: CAD...) common in wider business in the field, but you've already learnt some sort of practice, so you might well have to unlearn this first. And while if you were going in to a job working for/with others in the field that would be valuable, for someone already able to do what they need to (with your informal understanding of things you seem to be already making things which work well?), by the means they're already using, it might not be very worthwhile.

"I study what I need to study to complete a project" I've known that feeling ever since mid-way through my PhD*, to do otherwise now would be absolute torture for me thesedays. I suspect it might be for you too. In a degree you study an awful lot of stuff you don't immediately, or perhaps ever, need, because you should know it to be fully rounded in the subject. I don't know if I could manage that again after my first degree and my starting years of the PhD. Ask yourself if you could manage it?

I can't recommend a particular online course, but I strongly suspect a good one could give you the understanding you might want to add to your current abilities more straightforwardly than a degree could. The point of a degree is to enter you in to a field, and do so in a formaly recognised way, but you seem to already in the field in practice.

*My undergrad wasn't in electronics, my PhD was, in theory. In practice my PhD was in an electronics department, but I was doing robotics, so while I did a lot of stuff with circuitry it was informal "work out a design to aid this electromechanical embedded software assisted system in meeting that goal and debug until it does the job", not electronics from the starting point of theory onward.

P.S. "I'm scared of all the other mcu's out there, lol" In your context you might not even need to program others, for what you do. But if you do, you pick an alternative which meets your requirements for hardware/performance/package footprint... and apply the same techniques as you have for the 328p, just with the particular registers which interact with hardware changed. You don't have to use arduino libraries for it, but as I suspect, given its the 328p you've learnt, that you're familiar with the arduino IDE, you'll find vast numbers of other microcontrollers for which the chip-specific compilation and the flashing of code to the MCU can be performed by that IDE directly, or by it coupled with a programmer device such as "Arduino as ISP" (you write a program to an arduino which reads from the serial port shared with the PC and then uses that to pass the program over ICSP wires to the chip you're flashing). A degree would probably just pick one MCU throughout for the most part, and teach you that one in almost all contexts, prhaps one module where you encounter somthing different. And thesedays the one the degree focuses on might well be the 328p anyway.