I would tend to say experience more so than education, because you can learn so much while your back at home without any surrounding distractions although a basic bit of education before hand can help if you are not that familiar in the comp sci field.

If you're interested in the Computer SCIENCE field, you're talking about working in an academic setting, doing theoretical studies and general research. It's highly political, who knows who, impressive credentials, which professor publishes the most articles, which theory gets the most attention. In this setting, your academic credentials are the most important asset that will get you connected and moving ahead. If you're interested in the Computer ENGINEERING field, you're talking about working in a high-tech business environment. Here they don't care who you are. Companies only care about making money, getting the job done cheaply and immediately. So the biggest qualification to landing a job is that you are excited by it. If you eat, breath, sleep, dream computer stuff 24 hours a day, a hiring manager will see that you are unstoppable! They can see that you'll solve the problems and make it work, one way or another, mostly by your enthusiasm. If you have recent experience (in the last year) with similar tools or technologies, you're a shoe-in. In the engineering business, people with advanced Masters or Doctorate degrees are often avoided. They can be so theoretical and abstract that they can't actually build something that works "good enough" by this Friday. Do you want to study or do you want to build?

experience....i have a computer certificate but nobody wants to talk to me because i have experience in the painting field. I got one job to pay for the schooling and in the end still can't get the job, but things are looking up i have had a few offers since i'm taking web design classes to add to my portfolio of languages

Experience. Education only matters to people who don't actually expect any meaningful work to get done. Unless you want to be a teacher, get a few basic certs and then work on getting documentable experience.

I just graduated with a degree in Computer Science. Honestly, I was hired solely on my Experience that I gained during my internships and part time jobs. I was hired over people I know for a fact had a higher GPA. My advice is get an internship, hell get 3. As long as it is related to what you want to do, you will get hired before anyone with a 4.0 GPA.

Education is extremely important but there are so many things that can only be learned by doing. In my opinion, experience.

Generally,education counts equal to experience.But one is the complement of the other.This holds true-in my opinion of course,in CS too.I haven't a CS degree-though I'm seeking to do this,I have web developer degree,but my knowledge is growing gradually far beyond there.So,I think that this debate goes roughly to the cause - effect principle.Experience alone(only basic knowledge in CS assumed),tends to work with results but doesn't know "how tos" and "why",so demands a long time to understand things that a good knowledge background, would give in much sorter time-in a snap in some cases.On the other hand an only educated Computer Scientist(minimal experience assumed),knows "why the wheel is turning",but he can't easily make it spin!Bottom line:study hard,be patient to get the required experience.Of course,no one can do this in each and every aspect of CS.We are talking about one or few subfields of CS.

There is no universally true answer to this question. Lots of other things intrude and make a difference. Like the size of the place where you seek work. If it is big certificates gain in value because a HR dept rarely understand computing well enough to understand your experience and how it relate to the job to be done. If it is small you get to talk to a computing professional who can do that as long as your experience is relevant to the job in hand. Computing is still a new field, developing at breakneck speed. One effect of that is that whatever experience you have is likely to be obsolete in a couple of years. And so are whatever certificates you have. The ability to Learn and apply the next thing may well be a more important criteria than either of those. regards JakobA

Each year of education is worth 2.5 years of experience. It counts for both interviews and salary. A degree will get you about 10k more right from the start.

it depends on your employer (primarily the size of it). i think that smaller companies are more willing to go with experience if you can get the job done and save them money that they would have had to pay to someone with more education (but who would have done the same job as you). but, you also might get a small business employer who's fixated on seeing a degree. in general, the less experience you have, the more education you should have to show the employer that you are capable of doing the job.

Experience is certainly more important. But don't forget, aptitude in computer science is paramount. You can know a lot of the current technology today, but they are going to become obsolete in another few years' time. Thus, it is crucial that we must be able to learn new technologies fast enough to catch up with change. A very interesting blog that you may be interested in: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/

Education is important but you actually learn a lot of practical things while on work. Last year i attended Nokia conference and trust me the amount of knowledge i got from there was just overwhelming. You get to meet so many developers from all over the world and experts there. It is going to take place again this time in Bangalore, India. Well knowledge has no end. And education does help you get a good job in the beginning but after that what matters is experience.