Completing a part-time Master's in computer science while working
alexanderell.is
alexanderell.is
But, as the author said, doing something you choose, something that makes a better you, something where what you do is valued (instead of "soft skills") is extremely enjoyable, although exhausting and stressful... I'd do it again, but at maximum 35 years old :-)
Like many on here, I think I had a high potential - low discipline brain. I was never setting the world on fire, and even if as I age the potential ceiling of my cognitive capacity has come down, it was never an ceiling I was in danger of hitting, and now with a little more willpower I'm getting more out of the (possibly diminishing) total mental horsepower I have, than I ever did as a younger me.
Of course it's also true one's younger self had other distractions, so it can be hard to compare.
As a young er student, I had tons of "side projects" (like coding games) :-) So I was definitely not studying all the time. Nowadays I'm 100% focus so it means I work about 8-10 hours a day on my courses. I have very good sleeping habits, I eat well (vegetables but just too much chocolate), I walk 45 minutes 5 days per week and practice taichi about 20 minutes a day.
I tend to outperform students (about 2 standard dev above mean) in practicals but for examinations, where I have to memorize the whole course, that's another story, I perform just as the average BUT I pass half the exams so it means I'm really underperforming... The stress is a big issue but the memorization is the biggest one. It just doesn't work like when I was 20. It's super frustrating.
I have a master im compsci + 2 years phd preparation. But after 20 years, data science is totally foreign to me. It's just math math math, I don't recognize anything I know (so it's super interesting, but I'm really lost :-))
Also I chose data sciences because I was scared to see some COBOL programmers who didn't jump into the web/java/you name it track and who are now old and can't make the effort to switch). So I felt, business intelligence is moving outside the realm of application developpers (because many companies now know how to to business processes with IT) to the realm of data sciences (because that's where there is more room for improvements). I hope I was not too wrong :-)
On the practical side it makes total sense that you're better, because young people generally have not practiced long term productivity.
I've made it into a mantra to never accept this kind of sentiment (even if it were to be scientifically proven some day). It's dangerous and only serves to undermine motivation. Sure there is an overrepresentation of old people who are tired., but that doesn't mean you have to be.
The positive side is that I'm in the second year and things have improved. I suffer less from stress and many maths are now "restored" in my mind. So it gets better. But the price is high :-)
I guess that by the end of the thesis, which is less about emorizing an dmuch more about understanding, I'll feel much better and self confidence will be boosted...
There's also a use/abuse aspect. My older body creaks not necessarily because it's old, but because I have used (maybe abused - I started Jiu-Jitsu at 40) it physically for 40+ years. I suspect the mind is similar. If it's been abused through stress and/or drugs or let go out of shape by watching TV all day, then yes it's less sharp. But age isn't the driving factor in that case.
This is only if you let it. The human brain has something called neuroplasticity. If you exercise your brain, regularly and with variety, you can slow/prevent a degradation of neuroplasticity. Some example activities include doing coding in new programming language, learning a new spoken language, doing sudoku and other puzzles, doing painting if you are right brain dominant (or logic puzzles if left brain dominant).
The OP's statement also is one of the key reasons touted for ageism within our industry, and ageism is a major problem. The benefit of vast experience drastically outweighs the minor (or no) degradation in neuroplasticity if they've kept their brain active.
But as I kept learning, I saw that a certain set of people decided that they were just done learning new stuff the second they were done with college, and resisted any change that wasn't taught to them by their professors. This affected young and old people at roughly the same rate (at least from what I observed), but it's more apparent for the older people just because they've been half-assing the learning for longer (and because what they learned in college is probably more out of date).
This is also why I make it a point to attend conferences where I am the "dumbest guy in the room" like ICFP. These things are a bit intimidating (I do not like feeling dumb), but work as exceptional ways of highlighting gaps in my knowledge, and giving me a "path to google later".
To be clear, this isn't about IQ or number-of-wrinkles-in-brain or anything like that. If I were to talk to a carpenter about carpentry or Taco Bell worker about food preparation I would feel stupid since I know basically nothing about either of those subjects.
Just be careful as there’s no such thing as left/right brained people. It’s an old idea.
After that I can understand more complex stuff: GAN's, GLM's, SVM's, PCA, you name it... Things that were totally alien to me 1.5 years ago.
But well, just do it, in any case you'll be better! And proud of yourself!
How do you even quantify that?
For example, I went to school for a video game programming/design B.Sc. First couple of years were super basic programming to get non-programmers up to level, so to any of us who programmed since gradeschool it meant no studying/effort for a year while we breezed through simple loops/conditionals/Java stuff.
Obviously, things cranked up a notch when we finally got to new material.
I started my master's at 50 and finished it 2 1/2 years later.
> Your brain has slowed down by a factor of at least 2.
My brain has never been better. I had decades of experience to lean on, and was an unofficial TA in most classes. It was fun and challenging, and only one course gave me any problems due to my lifelong math disability (I love it, it hates me).
Work is full of ambiguities and complexities whereas academic work has straightforward success criteria and you're always starting from a blank slate. I enjoyed it, but I was also lucky to have the support of my family to spend my time that way.
It was my third time going to school. The first one was to take a undergrad+grad in CS when I was 18. I did not even know why I was there. The second one was I was 29 for grad school in quantitative finance, why? Because everybody in my professional environment was doing it. I definitely did not enjoy that either and did not learn much. My third time, well I clearly knew I wanted to learn becase I truly enjoyed the matter, no professional need but I simply liked it. And I knew about the math part.
Now I am almost 40 and I know almost for sure I am in the same shape or even better to go to school again and enjoy it. To me is just to do something because you like it, not because of social pressure, professional reasons or hype. Also, I think to have a good time while doing it you have to be aware of your personal situation. Mine was totally favorable.
So if someone says their brain is slower, they may be talking about how much harder it seems to be at learning new topics. I’d bet dollars to donuts they’re as fast a thinker on things they’ve been doing for 30 years as ever.
I note the older students (40+/50+-year-olds, with families, etc) getting their work in way ahead of schedule whilst actively participating in discourse, moreso (dare I say) than the significantly younger ones in our cohort.
I had to be very ruthless with my main job. Working strictly 9-5. This really annoyed my boss and I almost got fired, but I just powered through and held my ground.
I had to work every evening for about 3 hours. I developed the habit of working even when very tired. Turns out you can do calculus even when exhausted.
I had to be very disciplined in saying ‘no’ to nearly all social events. (But still saw my girlfriend/now wife).
This whole experience was great fun and I would recommend it if you like learning new stuff. Especially if you want to change career.
While effort isn’t best depicted as a single value, some attributes of effort that I found making the act of getting a MS particularly easier and more enjoyable involves how professors bend to the life of students, rather than students to professors.
For homework this looks something like how common and easier it is to get an extension, extra help, adjustment of assignment/test, and so on. For schoolwork this looks something like whether class attendance is required, class sessions and professor office hours are time/location specific, and so on.
The original article talks about someone that made the decision to do school in person and then about how there were issues when it became remote. I opted to take an online program offered at a standard institution in hopes of increased flexibility and the same piece of paper at the end.
All my classes were pre-recorded lessons I could watch at my convenience. We would complete assignments and talk about them in a comment thread (usually required to do one OP and 2 comments per week), and also have larger projects etc. in groups. On about half of my classes I asked for and was always given extensions of anywhere between 30 days to complete and assignment to 3 extra months to finish 80% of the class I haven’t even touched yet due to increased demand at work.
As a side comment I’ll say you miss 100% of the extensions you don’t ask for, so if you ever feel stressed for time give it a shot and ask for an extension before the official due date or even on the day it’s due. Especially in higher education, I’ve never heard of a professor not working with a student. At the end of they day they have a financial incentive to keep you in the program.
It's especially important for math and science STEM fields -- I wouldn't be making any progress on my math degree if I didn't request accommodations and left it up to individual instructors whether to approve or deny my requests for extensions
That one event ruined my whole MS experience at GT
Edit: It’s called the office of student life.
https://catalog.gatech.edu/policies/student-absence-regulati...
They handle dealing with all excused absences. The professor could have responded and told you about this, but I’m assuming it’s just that no one got back in under 24 hours. It’s also expected that you read the syllabus and know this stuff already.
Was brutal, but worth it! Thanks to Georgia Tech. for creating this program!!
Program link: https://omscs.gatech.edu
All in all, I know it's not the exact same program taught live (although they say it is), but the classes are available online are good quality, I learned a lot, and at $841 per class, the price is unbeatable.
Downsides: I have a job and a kid. The workload for some of these classes is massive, so weekends (at least full Saturday) is gone for the duration of the semester, if you study at night every day - then Sundays are yours. Except for the ML class; that was pretty fucking insane and incidentally, the class where I feel I learned the least so far.
Short answer = Yes. Learned a lot and some more. (but of course depends on what courses you end up taking).
In fact, its quite common to see alumni taking courses after they have graduated (case in point: many folks from my batch enrolled in the newly started DL class, just for the sake of learning).
Also, I would say - if you don't hurry through the program and take 1 course at a time, it's worth giving it a shot. You must start slow, gradually you would have an intuition of how to pace your life along with the studies.
Hope this helps & all the best.
Agree some of it was brutal, but I really enjoyed it all as a whole. The key to me getting through was being disciplined with when I would do the work / watch the lectures. I read the book Deep Work by Cal Newport just as I started the program in 2017 and I think it really helped to set me up for success here.
I'm glad it's done, and I really enjoyed some of the subjects - a couple I didn't get to cover in my undergrad - especially HPC, GA and AOS were my favorites.
As a longtime coder I've found it interesting to dive back into some basic algorithms. Something about how it is taught to students makes it harder than just learning it as an already experienced dev. I find I can gloss over a lot of the stuff, but there are still details that I don't understand.
One thing that helps a lot is modern learning resources, basically websites and videos about the same topics, done by someone else. It's quite different from when I was in uni and you were stuck with the people you had around you and the same old books. Now if I don't quite understand insertion sort, there's a variety of explanations.
For those interested there's a number of UK universities that offer a remote master's. Takes a year full time and two part time, and you can often pay by the module. You might also be able to use the virus situation to get a "non-remote" master's remotely, which my wife managed to do last year.
Would you say it is worth pursuing Masters from the UK university? If you dont mind which university would you consider worth it?
For someone who's never done anything technical it's quite a leap, but not impossible. I can see she's increasing in confidence from learning this type of stuff, which is really positive.
If you're doing it to get a job, then it does seem likely that a CS master's will get you some interviews. Certainly the content is what you'd expect. It's a red brick (certain unis that were established I think in the 1800s?) she's studying at, so pretty good rep but not Oxbridge, which has its own aura. But worthwhile for sure, people won't look down on a red brick.
Yes, although they're not particularly well regarded for CS (not bad, just not better than other places). They have a reputation for being overly focussed on theory, and this is also a discipline that other universities do very well.
I really like the look of Oxford’s computer science courses, but that’s partly because of the theoretical/philosophical bent to them.
The Oxbridge aura extends to every course, nobody would really know anything other than that you went there.
Whether it's good or not, my guess is it's much the same menu as anywhere else in any established broad degree course. There'll be optional courses that take you more theoretical or more practical, totally up to you, but the content ain't gonna vary terribly much.
For most it comes down to some evening courses or courses crapted together on a few days so that the other days are available for part time working.
At my university we had it a little different. For Bachelors it was:
- 1. Semester: Studying (Full time)
- 2. Semester: Studying (Full time)
- 3. Semester: Working with writing a paper on some work project specific stuff to gather some more Credits
- 4. Semester: Studying (Full time)
- 5. Semester: Working with writing a paper on some work project specific stuff to gather some more Credits
- 6. Semester: Studying (Full time)
- 7. Semester: Working with writing a paper on some work project specific stuff to gather some more Credits (3 mo) + 3 months bachelors degree (most of the time based on the stuff you worked on before)
The Semester breaks we needed to work full time but also needed to take our 30 days of vacation in that time.
So I think we got the best of both worlds. Hands on experience on the work and full time studying on campus.
In the companys I joined since then I'm heavily opting to get some cooperative students. Usually by the time of the 4th semester they are up to speed and help a lot in the 8 months they are there.
The most hilarious part to me was that I did my undergrad at BU and it was ~$200k total over 4 years for a CS degree pre-2010 (BU has since gone parabolic in cost and is now over $75k per year!). My entire masters at night was ~$30k from 2012-2016, and I get the same institutional signal on my resume.
Why? Grad students taking night classes have to typically pay out of pocket, and want value for their money. Undergraduates, especially the enormous quantity of non-STEM majors, are not thinking rationally and take out huge debt for an experience.[0][1] This colors my opinion on why the government should not guarantee unlimited undergraduate debt - the cost problem would be solved overnight if students had to actually pay their way.
[0] BU has an indoor lazy river that they try very hard to de-emphasize and keep images off the internet of. However it does exist as a "recreation pool" https://legitcampus.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/hey-boston-univ...
[1] BU is a school full of rich foreigners and trust funders. When I graduated (granted it was shortly after the iPhone was invented) the total number of CS students graduating out of a total class of almost 4000 students was 30! 30 whole CS majors out of 4000! The communications school was something like 1000 students. CS classes were in the basement of the math building, and the ceiling was falling down, pipes were banging, and I'm positive asbestos was rampant. A rich donor has now funded a new enormous CS building, but the capital cost will continue to add onto BU's enormous tuition as it expands ever further into Kenmore and Brookline https://www.bu.edu/articles/2021/update-on-bus-center-for-co...
I heard good things from a friend about the MET CS master's program too. He said that his Theory of Computation class in that program made a lot more sense than the required undergraduate Theory of Computation class with Leonid Levin, haha.
But about the size of the graduating class: When we declared CS as our major in the mid-2000s, that was a historic low point for CS enrollment at all American universities, not just at BU. It's my understanding that CS departments boomed in the late 1990s, but then conventional wisdom after the Dot Com crash was that majoring in CS was a bad idea, so enrollment plummeted. I suspect that the market and compensation for software developers might still reflect this period of over-correction today. Basically, there are relatively few folks in their mid/late 30s today with a CS degree.
It was still worth it in the end. Similar experience coming from no CS undergrad. There were about 3 good classes that were very valuable, like Algorithms, Cloud Computing, and Embedded Systems. The rest was not that great, especially with remote. When I think about ROI compared to a bootcamp, it's a tough one. Really successful bootcamp grads are already self-selecting going into the bootcamp, same with the really smart students in my master's program. But going to a master's program seems to have a better ROI just based on quality of instruction/institution alone.
6 months after graduation and my pay bump has more than covered it. I was feeding the master's program cash cow, so I think of it as I'm helping fund my US and green card classmates' master's. Most of my peers had 50% or full ride scholarships.
This is just an insane amount of money for a a masters degree. I had no idea it was that expensive. And why did it take you 2 years if it was only a masters? It is only supposed to be 30 credits. I guess spending a year working on just the thesis could explain that.
That's to be expected. These programs are "cash cows". And they send a pretty bad signal [0] [1].
> BU did not have scholarships or aid for international students, because saying you need aid is admitting that you lied on the visa application.
That's also a red flag. Serious programs (that are research focused) are typically need blind when applying; if the lab wants a certain student, it will secure funding for him.
> Similar experience coming from no CS undergrad. There were about 3 good classes that were very valuable, like Algorithms, Cloud Computing, and Embedded Systems.
Interestingly, with these masters, the admission bar is often much lower than the undergrad at the same school, so these are watered down classes.
[0] https://blog.alinelerner.com/how-different-is-a-b-s-in-compu...
I read these two articles along with many others in the gap year I spent after undergrad, before deciding. I was pretty confident that I could have landed a SWE job without going to grad school with 6-12 months of serious study. But I could not do that while on visa. I was ineligible to be a SWE in the US without a degree related to CS.
I think I talked to ~20 people who went to grad school, bootcamps, or were self taught. I asked them what they liked and disliked about their program/learning path. I came up with two main requirements: the ability to take rigorous undergrad-level courses with structure, and the ability to interact with peers beyond the same course or subject (for a broad view of the industry). I also could not take a post-bacc program because my visa would not be valid unless it was for the next level (no OPT unless MS or PhD). So that brings it down to do an MS, or get deported in 3 months to a country with less SWE opportunities.
> That's also a red flag. Serious programs (that are research focused) are typically need blind when applying; if the lab wants a certain student, it will secure funding for him.
This is less on the school program and more on the US government. As part of the visa application, you need to show your bank account with liquid assets that covers the one year of tuition plus living expenses. I had a relative act as my sponsor, and I supplemented the funds through part time work. Additionally, I was applying for a terminal masters, and most programs only secure funding for students on the PhD track. While I talked with some PIs and expressed interest in joining their labs, this was not factored into my application packet. During the program, I considered remaining in my research lab for a PhD but I decided against it due to the high opportunity cost of not entering industry.
> Interestingly, with these masters, the admission bar is often much lower than the undergrad at the same school, so these are watered down classes.
This is true. I also asked the graduate office what the admissions rate for my program was and they said they don't keep track but would estimate it to be between 50-70% depending on the year. The reason they gave was that the applicants were very self selecting. The majority of my cohort had over 3 years of work experience, albeit in a different field. Some had 20 years. Most of the peers I talked to knew exactly what they were getting out of the program and only applied to 1-2 schools, the other being Georgia Tech OMSCS or a post-bacc program.
I specifically picked this program because I had to take undergrad courses at the school for 1-2 semesters. They were hard, and a lot of undergrads did drop. I ended up being a TA for two of these courses and saw first hand how some students were not cut out for university-level CS.
At the end of the day I feel like my decision was worth the time and money investment. In about 10 months from now, my income after expenses would have more than paid for the 2 years I spent in grad school, and I feel more equipped to pursue a PhD at some later time. Hopefully when I have a green card.
Did that a few years ago, started when I was 47, completed with 50. Was easier for me. Distance Learning University in Germany. And I had the opportunity to do it at work. One could call it a side project.
Since about two years I try my hand at a bachelor in mathematics at another Distance Learning University in Germany. Guess I will pull that stunt around 2025.
Anyway, I was thinking maybe I should do a comp sci masters so that I can move on to comp sci PhD and keep going with my research interests.
Did you do your degree in English or German? I live in Germany, but my German is not quite good enough for advanced academic instruction.
Well, congrats. I finished my MS at 44, though I did it full-time in person, which itself was a weird and fun experience at that age.
Sorry, the website is just in German:
https://www.hochschule-trier.de/informatik/fernstudium/studi...
There is at least one non CS undergrad path to a master in Germany through distance learning at the Fernuni-Hagen. Website also not in English:
https://www.fernuni-hagen.de/mi/studium/msc_prinformatik/ein...
And I seem to remember a study opportunity for a master in informatics for people with undergrad in humanities at the TU Chemnitz, when I looked back then. In presence not via distance learning, so there probably are more opportunities out there now.
https://www.fernuni-hagen.de/mi/studium/index.shtml
Sorry, both websites apparently just in German.
https://www.mygermanuniversity.com/studyfinder?p=1&pp=25&sor...
For about two years. 'Since' is not the same as 'seit' here.
(When I learned German native speakers would constantly correct me for using 'für' when I should have used 'seit' so I am repaying the favour)
How else can one improve and pay respect to a foreign language?
On the other hand, if they did, it would have been a lot of work.
Thank you!
I seldom can be bothered to read postings older than a day or so. Which is a bit rude, I think.
I thought about a master (my UG degree was electrical engineering) but I was wondering if it was just an ego thing that would take loads of time, cost loads of money and not really make any difference.
Both are valuable, but for different reasons. Whether pursuing a master's degree is worth it depends on your individual circumstances.
A job at Google won't bring you even close to be able to learn all of that on the job. The real world version of most of such projects are orders of magnitude more complicated, take years to develop and have tens to hundreds of people working on them.
Since you lack both the theoretical and practical knowledge of writing a kernel, for example, you will not be designing the solution for it at Google. At best you will learn to implement a piece of it, and it will take years (think of working on Fuchsia with no prior kernel experience).
A (master's) degree isn't an automatic ticket to becoming the lead developer on Fuchsia, but it gives you the chance to learn the theoretical portion of the domain and apply it in a controlled environment, at an accelerated pace, under the guidance of a person who specializes in teaching (not jaded Joe who's waiting for his RSUs to vest), so you have a large foundation on which to build the real world practical skills on the job.
Even if you switch teams every half, you will still not be able to cover the breadth of the material in a master's program on the job, not to mention having to perform to get a good enough rating to stay employed, while having essentially no prior knowledge of the topic.
You could supplement by taking some courses or reading books after work, but this would essentially be a diy masters without access to experienced professors, that would take much longer and be several times more stressful and inefficient.
In many classes I chose what project to work on and I chose to push myself to work on difficult projects (e.g. I could have chosen to implement a basic stack machine with a small instruction set, instead I chose to implement an ARM CPU, which lead to many overnighters to meet the deadlines; the 3D game was my choice as well - I could have picked to implement an easy visualization in opengl).
In all honesty some of the intro courses were not worth the price tag, but the advanced ones I'd consider taking again just for fun. If your employer covers the tuition, then I'd say that any course taught by instructors at SEAS (Harvard's engineering school) is absolutely worth taking.
- Enjoying taking classes
- Interest in learning about breadth of material that I wasn't seeing as a FE eng (even at Google)
- Some minor concern about having CS credentials (less these days, but very much a concern earlier in my career)
- Interest in learning about academia and doing research
> in your late 20s/early 30s, it pays off more to put in the hours at work and to start a family in what’s left of your days
Another reason why I'm not continuing with the part-time studies! I've joked with my wife that in my free time, we _could_ have kids, or I could do a part-time PhD for 5 years...
Important note: the author seems to not have a CS background. A solid undergrad CS experience covers a lot of the pluses mentioned.
I think you always want your children to go through less hassle than yourself?
I personally believe that guiding children through struggles we experienced is not a good idea of parenting.
Disclaimer: I didn't finish college as well, for same reasons as you.
Edit: I've realized my comment might've sounded like a critique of your parenting methods or anyone else's. That wasn't my intention, just that I know that it's hard to realize those things sometimes, especially if you're not a parent. I've always seen making life easier for your children as a bad thing, now I see this as the most important thing to do in life. It gets bad when you could move it further, helping people around making their life easier, but you don't - essentially making sure money "stays in family".. Again only my 2c.
That said there is a huge expectation in the US. 90% of the time professors or admins mentioned paying for college they assumed people were getting parental assistance or financial aid. For better or worse paying for your adult child's higher education is not really a parental strategy but rather a societal norm all but written into law.
Stuff like Project Management, Quality Control and even formal real-time system analysis are probably not concepts I would have learned on my own. Coming from an EE background, it definitely gave me a leg up. Not to mention the class discussions with people from widely varying software niches give really useful perspectives from outside your own little bubble.
While powerful and topics that need to be taught somewhere, that's not the takeaways I would've expected from a masters in computer science. I suppose we're talking about a masters of software engineering, which makes those topics feel more relevant. Perhaps that shows the importance of program selection and concentration.
TBH, I didn't intend to get a degree when I started. I took a couple of interesting courses, but then all the other ones that looked good (like real time systems analysis) had required prerequisites. Once you've taken those prerequisites, you might as well just take all the credits required for the degree.
Software Project Management was one of the required classes and it turned out to be one of the most interesting ones of all!
We'd also get into the habit of taking him to soft play centres (for those unaware: think warehouse full of padded climbing structures over multiple floors and a horde of kids running rampant through them; a total nightmare if your kid insists you join in, or quite relaxing when they run off by themselves) during the weekend so he could wear himself out totally and then go home and have a couple of hours nap when he did.
Until that horrible day when we got home from the soft play and he didn't go down for a nap... I can still remember the disappointment (we ended up still taking naps, but having to take turns)
BTW in restrospect doing a master's degree wasn't such a good choice anyway.
Curious why you feel that way? I did mine because my employer paid for 100% of it - I don't think it would have been worth it if I'd had to pay for it myself, but otherwise I got a lot out of it.
Despite interviewing a great deal since then and getting a few different positions no one in industry has ever really cared about it, except to call my background 'academic' in a vaugely negative manner at some smaller shops. I make very comparable salary to my peers who just have their bachelors. I usually recommend people not to go this route unless they just want to learn for the sake of learning... which I did, but I thought it would help career wise too and it really hasnt. Honestly I think there are a number of people in startups who will actively hold an MS against you, seeing it as a sign of failure. I have outright been told when interviewing that it is being held against me, because successful people don't need one.
Also agree on "where did my money go". I've always assumed a huge amount of it went to administration and groundskeeping.
I enrolled in a masters of CS (online) at a prestigious university and was able to complete the first 3 credit course. I enjoyed it and did well, but ended up dropping the next course. My thoughts were:
* At the pace I was going, it'd take at least 5 years to finish (3 credits / semester). While working full time, it meant that at least half my weekend was spent on course work, and often times the other weekend day and a few evenings within the work-week were also. Looking at the next 5 years of my life being consumed so much seemed daunting.
* Tuition cost is insane these days, even without all the on-campus fees, expensive text books, etc. The masters would have ended up costing about $60K by the time I finished.
* From a career perspective, I'm not sure how much the it is worth. The software industry just does not value higher academic / professional degrees as much as others, where its often times absolutely required (e.g. law, medicine, academia itself, etc).
* From a financial perspective, it seems that grinding Leetcode and "studying" interviewing would be a far better use of time. A masters might end up providing a $10K / year salary bump for the remaining 15-20 years of my career. A FAANG position might provide $100K+ / year increase... or more now that FAANG salaries are hitting $500K+, while typical F500 engineering are still stuck in the $150K range - a true bimodal situation where Leetcode and interviewing skills have a 100X ROI vs a masters.
Though, I wonder if in 10 years the masters would have brought me more personal satisfaction (accomplishment, prestige, etc) than the extra money (assuming I even follow the Leetcode/FAANG path to big bucks).
Plus, it's under $10k for the entire program.
Having gone through one academic program (molecular bio/biochemistry at both BS and MS level), that was the real value, i.e. I was lucky enough to get and keep a undergrad job in a cutting-edge research laboratory and that really taught me more of real value than all my classes combined, and opened doors to future graduate research as well.
Now I'm learning programming and compsci, having gotten a bit burnt out on underpaid lab tech work, and having gone through an intense year of school up through the basic data structures, algorithms, architecture and assembly, with networking and web programming on the side... kind of doubt that much more schooling of this type (online course work, etc.) will be all that beneficial. The cost factor alone is very off-putting. A two-year hands on program in cutting-edge robotics hardware and software development, though, that would be pretty worthwhile I think.
P.S. Age isn't that relevant, I don't really feel any dumber now trying to learn new material and develop skills than I did in my early 20s. It's always an uphill struggle. Organization is much better now so that helps, and my mental flops don't seem noticeably different as far as I can tell.
1. Unlike a B.S., having money is a gamechanger in terms of QOL
2. It's forced me to actually start time managing. Charitably, I'd always been a shamelessly mediocre student, and this has started to change.
3. I wish I would've done this earlier (~5 years out of school), but work experience has definitely been a positive.
4. Instructor goal setting has been worth every penny; I shotgunned a bunch of half-baked ideas self-learning, but I admit I need a guide; there's too many weeds to get lost among, and it takes a lot of work to get some topics to sink in. Without understanding what/why/how things are worth learning, I would typically lose interest once the going got too tough to entertain passing interest.
5. I don't have my heart set on any particular use for the degree, but it does seem to be a door-opener even as a student.
- leave home at 7:30am to arrive to work at 9am
- work from 9am to 16 (so 7h, my company allowed me to do so with the corresponding pay decrease)
- university from 16 to 18 (sometimes 16 to 19)
- back at home between 20 and 21
- go to bed at around midnight
I did this for a year (I was 25 years old). It was hard. Main reason to do it was: don't lose a year of work experience, don't lose a year of salary.
- Out of bed at 7:30am, at work at 9am.
- Leave work at 4:30pm or so for the 60-90 minute trip to campus
- Class until 8:30pm
- Home at 9:30pm
Classes were held two nights per week, so on the non-class nights, I was usually home from work by 6:30pm and would have a couple hours of studying to do.
It was an exhausting two years.
I’m thinking a 30 year old transcript with a ~2.0 GPA isn’t going to move the needle much.
There were exceptions that were worthwhile, but it was largely an exercise in documenting my existing knowledge. I couldn't test out of things, and most subject had compulsory exercises, so I spent a lot of time basically proving what I already knew rather than learning new stuff. It was clear to me in advance which courses I could have easily skipped, so from that perspective I would not have skipped useful knowledge.
That said, of course the problem is that to give me an actual degree the university needed to know I actually knew those things and verifying that only with tests is hard to get right.
The big downside at my school is the fee for this approach is the regular cost of taking the course, paid before you take the test, and nonrefundable in the event you don't pass. But not passing doesn't appear on your transcripts, so it only dings you financially
Also, you're only allowed to test out of a handful of requirements for your major. It was explained to me this is so no one can effectively "buy a degree" over only a semester or two.
But I've found most instructors willing to let someone in their classes who doesn't have formal prereqs who has relevant work experience
I'm in a similar boat in that I'm in my 30s now back in school. when I was 18 I dicked around for a couple semesters and dropped out. Thankfully my old community college has a system for expunging bad grades that are more than 7 years old, and I don't think that's very uncommon
Then once you have all that out of the way, you can take the upper level classes in CS at the university instead of the community college.
Anyway, I do like the academic side of things and so many topics that I would have never gotten into (compilers, formal methods...), so I wouldn't want to miss it. Just wish I had finished sooner...
How does someone go from junior experience to a job at Google? Are they really hiring "normal" devs that haven't gone to the big schools?
While I have a well paying job, part of me always wonders about going back and getting a better degree. I wouldn’t even know where to start. The article gives me a little hope for the idea however.
> A typical applicant will have at least two years' experience in a professional environment, and an undergraduate degree in a related subject. However, more extensive experience may compensate for a lack of formal qualifications
I guess it all comes down to which state you live in.
I feel seen
It can definitely be interesting, but like any program, it depends on the course and professor. I’ve had some great courses (like the intro AI course I took last Fall) and I’ve had a terrible course (decent relational database course, but the only TA who responded to questions was absolutely terrible to students).
I enrolled in the program because I don’t have an undergrad in CS. I wanted to strengthen my credentials and, more importantly, my foundations. So far, I’d say the program has definitely helped with that. It is also a lot of work, but one course a semester isn’t going to preclude you from having a life. Two will keep you seriously busy though.
Others are amazing: Big Data for Health, AI, Compilers, Deep Learning, Operating Systems, Computer Architecture.
All in all, for the price (and the right classes) it's a steal. Another thing to note is that courses are mostly run by TAs - professor availability/involvement is rare.
Not sure if I can manage more than that + work, and also being able to enjoy time with friends or away from the computer.