Career Path Advice

[Arijit Deb]

Hi, dont know if my thread is in the right category or my question has been discussed thousand times; but I'd like know different opinions.

I've 2.5 years of working experience in a renowned company in java/J2ee. I’m SCJP-SCWCD.

I always wanted to work with a renowned product based companies. But as My B.Tech College and my result are not so awe-inspiring and I’ve a little industry experience, I was wandering if i would need any higher degree. Seriously I’m absolutely grey about what i could do now. But I’m totally sure that I detest coding for some lame application where i can’t be creative and the learning gets stagnant after some time.

Is this a misconception I have that a M.S or M.Tech degree is a ticket to where i can’t go with my 2.5 years of experience? Actually I’m quite not so sure in which major I should pursue the M.S/M.Tech.. Or should I be continuing my job and probably try to change my project and work on another lame application ;)
Some people are seriously creating some cool stuff (saw the google wave video in youtube another day), I wish to be part of that league...

[Deepak Bala]

Is this a misconception I have that a M.S or M.Tech degree is a ticket to where i can’t go with my 2.5 years of experience?

A degree may not necessarily teach you anything. A few days back a candidate walked in with a Masters degree from a supposedly renowned university. When asked to do a simple problem, he wrote some code. It was horrible. So horrible that we had to try real hard not to laugh at it. A person studying in high school would have written better code. Owning a degree Vs not owning it is not the question. What do you actually learn when you earn the degree ?

But as My B.Tech College and my result are not so awe-inspiring

Not a matter of concern. If you are skilled you should go through.

Why not write your own cool applications ? I find that helps a lot. You may not like what you have to work with at your job. But nothing prevents you from exploring a technology on your own. Speaking of wave, try setting up a XMPP server and host wave on it. Then use a command line client to talk to it. You will learn from the experience.

If you want to shift to a product based company, why not make a move ?