Ask HN: Getting a Cs Degree After 15 Years in the Industry? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Getting a Cs Degree After 15 Years in the Industry?

28 pointsempath7518 comments

I’ve been in the industry for 15 years and I’m a senior software engineer at a very large company, but I also dropped out of community college and I’ve never taken a cs class.

I have, however invested a lot of time learning higher math and advanced computer science topics on my own and I’d like to get a degree, but the idea of having to spending all the time and money going through undergraduate prerequisites feels like a waste for me.

Is there some way to get credit for work experience so I don’t have to spend a semester doing a basic algorithms and data structures class and so on?

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Here is what I would do: 1. Find online degree at REAL university. 2. IF they don't let you challenge the final exam, then let the videos run on a separate machine while you work. THEN take final.

List of REAL universities that offer REAL degrees online:

http://ecampus.wisconsin.edu/

http://online.unl.edu/

http://online.missouri.edu/

http://bamabydistance.ua.edu/

http://asuonline.asu.edu/

http://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/

http://online.wsu.edu/

It took me a while to compile this list. They don't advertise. I'm sure there are others that I missed. Many good PAC-12 schools in that list!

Upvoting this as some of the analytics programs look really interesting with a good mix of Traditional Statistics and Learning. Also the turion plus fees make them much more attractive than a boot camp with possibly better recognition. Thanks for sharing and doing all the hard work.

A colleague of mine read and thoroughly recommended 'The Imposter's Handbook' for devs in this situation - it's a CS overview for developers without CS degrees. Data structures, Big O etc.

I don't think going to university after 15 years of industry experience will reap any benefits. Something like this could just plug the gaps in your knowledge for less than a hundred dollars and a fraction of the time.

https://bigmachine.io/products/the-imposters-handbook/

> I don't think going to university after 15 years of industry experience will reap any benefits. Something like this could just plug the gaps in your knowledge for less than a hundred dollars and a fraction of the time.

I think OP knows this and just considers it for the piece of paper at the end, probably to help ensure future employability.

I am making an assumption here as you have not stated so explicitly. May be you are less challenged at your job and hence the thought to go get a degree, as getting a degree has probably always been at the back of your mind.

You are already learning higher math and advanced CS topics, so better to design your own curriculum and go for a more difficult domain, if you are not in one.

Instead of a degree, do side projects related to the curriculum you design, get it added to your portfolio, if possible keep publishing the stuff you learn and it will be a better ROI.

Also leaving job and just going to school may not be so much fun in other aspects as well (no income, working on subjects that you may not enjoy learning); for the no income part if you go do it part time, it can be insane hard work.

Look at CLEPing out of as much class time as possible.

https://clep.collegeboard.org/

I love CLEP. I did it a long time ago, no prep just walked in and knocked out 12 semester hours. I was a freshman, would have scored 18 hours but I had already taken calculus.

You can easily get out of your first year. Cost now is about $85 a class. But you need to check that your targeted university accepts the CLEP.

Western Governors is an interesting choice to consider.

Once you get admitted somewhere, you can perhaps talk to the faculty about skipping classes. You should have an advisor or set of advisors to talk to, and they should help you get something out of your education, including skipping requirements for things you know.

You'll have to do a certain number of credit hours either way, but you can perhaps avoid sitting through a lot of stuff you already know if you can convince them you know it and just don't want to waste the time (not just your advisor; they might have you talk to faculty who can evaluate you); you can, perhaps, skip to classes full of material you won't know, perhaps even graduate courses for credit as an undergraduate. You'd probably have to know the stuff you want to skip pretty well.

Honestly, your advisor should work with you to make sure that you're not wasting your time at a minimum. If not, you can drop out of the program.

Is there some way to get credit for work experience so I don’t have to spend a semester doing a basic algorithms and data structures class and so on?

There are books on this subject.

As someone else suggested, you may be able to get class credit via passing standardized tests. The CLEP is the most common one, but it's not the only one. I can't think of the other big name right now.

Some colleges will assess your experience and give credit.

If you have taken any kind of courses at all, you may be able to get college credit for that. For example, a lot of American colleges have standardized what military courses they will count as college credit. From what I have read, military members basically get exempted from having to take any kind of PE classes.

Get a book on the subject. Contact local colleges and ask questions. You may need to take some classes to wrap up a degree, but if you can cut it down some, that can really help.

I skipped undergrad CS and went directly to a masters.

There are ‘working professionals’ masters degrees that are geared towards this type of thing. They don’t have the cachet of Stanford or whatever, but can be interesting and useful if you apply yourself.

If they accept you, they will make you take a prerequisite class to ensure you are at the right level.

I wouldn’t expect a monetary gain from this as college is quite expensive, it isn’t clear a degree noticeably increases your salary. I would recommend doing it primarily out of personal interest.

It does make the ‘foot in the door’ at a bigger company easier, but it’s not clear that it has directly helped me in that way due to the size of companies I normally gravitate towards. The knowledge has been very useful, however.

> I skipped undergrad CS and went directly to a masters.

Did you have any undergrad credits or degree?

I had some credits, no degree. I didn’t want to take calculus and at the time (I think it would have been 4 courses in it, amounting to 1/8 of my credits).

I wasn’t particularly bad at math, just uninterested in rehashing calculus. Other stuff was more interesting than a double major. (Music, English, Science).

I had been working as a software engineer for about a year, so that helped.

It also helped a lot that I have had some very supportive mentors in my life (willing to recommend me).

Why? Why do you want a degree?

Is it purely a personal satisfaction thing, prove to yourself that you can do it? If so then you probably suck it up and do the full thing.

Is it the nag that you missed something or may not be percieved as good as others in your job? Moocs are a very good way of leveling the field here, get the paid cert, get it on your linkedin, do some hard ones challenge yourself. They are literally badges of merit, but don't do the simple trendy ones, do the compilers one or some other advanced foundation CS ones (not be a data scientist in 24 hours type rubbish).

My personal advice is that while learning CS is helpful but University degrees are expensive and may not give you a ROI.

The right course taught by the right person and learnt the right way will. And often, I found that some MOOCs have a way better structure and content than the ones I was taught in my University back in the day.

I'd suggest going through them and strengthening your concepts yourself - and if you feel all you need is a degree (or) a course that offers you far better discipline, then go for it.

> I have, however invested a lot of time learning higher math and advanced computer science topics on my own and I’d like to get a degree, but the idea of having to spending all the time and money going through undergraduate prerequisites feels like a waste for me.

If you know you can learn it yourself and you've got this far without a degree, why do you want one?

Higher salary?

Genuine question but after 15 years working experience when is a degree going to make a difference when looking to get hired? Does it even make a difference after a couple of years of experience?

You do not need to be present in class a whole lot in most CS curricula. You can do exercises and homeworks on your own and only need to be present for exams and presentations.

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