Software Engineering - Lebanon

Career advice: If you're aiming to continue your studies with the prospect of landing better jobs/salary within software development through a higher degree, you're doing it wrong. Nothing will let you land a job other than experience and loving what you do. You have to wake up everyday and think about what problem you will be solving today. Read, learn, program and repeat over months.

A bachelor's degree, most of the time is nothing but a ticket to be employable add to it enthusiasm and self learning and you're good to go. A masters is your ticket to a Phd or career in the academic world or prestige. It could be enjoyable, yet won't add a single dollar to your salary as an entry or mid level software developer without any experience.

The Lebanese University have a software engineering degree,as a PSM (Professional Science Master) you can check it on their website

m.sabra wroteThe Lebanese University have a software engineering degree,as a PSM (Professional Science Master) you can check it on their website

Except you can't be a member in the syndicate.

Maybe we can ask rahmu, didn't he graduate from france too? I'll check his bio on his site, maybe he can confirm my answer or give a better one

@Fischer: What you say is not exactly correct, but there is some truth to it.

Disclaimer: I studied engineering and still live in France.

First of all, there's no such thing as the "engineering syndicate" (نقابة المهندسين) here, so there are several things you can study to work with computers. My colleagues have very different backgrounds, from the Math PhD, Engineer school, BTS, one kid graduated from the army, physics major, CS, etc. So keep in mind that, while I do make a distinction between CS and Engineering, it has more to do with your studies than your potential work later

In France, CS and engineering are 2 separate things.
Computer Science is usually taught in public universities and follows the same path as most science major: Bachelor (Bac+3), Master (Bac+5), Doctorat (Bac+...).

Engineering schools are usually private institutions that teach engineering over the course of 5 years. Traditionally, the first 2 years were just about Math and Physics (Math Sup and Math Spe), then the last 3 years are pure engineering. However, since the schools are private they are allowed to bend the rules a little. As a result, you don't have to do the first 2 years anymore to join an engineering school. A lot of CS students, and other science major, go to engineering school to do one or two years to get an engineering degree (because a lot of old school recruiters still believe that engineering is "better"). But also, there are people coming from BTS and/or other technical environments. We had a particle physics phd aged 29 years old come do one last year with us so he could get an engineering degree.

Basically, there are several ways to join a private engineering school in France. If you have a CS degree, you're good to go.

PS: I don't know anything about Lebanese schools.

well you know better than me and you gave the best answers.

here's the website for the lebanese engineering syndicate

http://www.oea.org.lb/

the syndicate is famous, and what i said, is that my cousin could join the syndicate in lebanon whenever he wants to, i didn't mean in france

eliokdc wrote @ayman nice answer, i was thinking just the way you describe it. I work as a developer at a business software company, but the salaries sucks, that's why i'm thinking about Masters, it was just about the $$.

Not really. Salaries of software engineers do not suck. You're probably working for a tiny company that cannot afford paying decent salaries. If you look around, and most importantly, if you have a decent skill-set, you can definitely land a good paying job in the software development industry.

One thing to note though, don't choose a company just because they have good packages. There are much more important factors (doesn't mean that $$ is not important) that should bias your decision. For example, if a company pays you $3000 per month but does not give you the opportunity to grow and build a decent career, then you should probably go for the company that offers you $1500 and gives you that opportunity. On the long run, if you choose the latter, it will definitely pay off.

Final note: whether you have a masters degree or a PhD degree, it doesn't matter much to companies. What matters the most is how skillful you are, and how much productive you can be. Academic certificates rarely mean anything in our industry; they say nothing more than "this person has passed a few courses which introduced him to programming".

@eliokdc

If you are seeking a higher pay and higher position, I recommend MBA.

Fischer wrotethere's nothing called a good programmer, at least not anymore, all the programmers are good (or bad, depends on how you look at it) nowadays thx to google and stackoverflow lol :P

I hope that's just a joke :)