Ask HN: Is a Masters in CS/Engineering worth it for a mid-career PM?

I transitioned to SWE later in life, I did a postbac CS crash course that got me automatic entry into the CS masters program at the same school. I did two terms in the MS program and then got a full time SWE job after an internship. Some lessons learned/logistics:

* I did pre reqs as cheaply as possible while working. I went to school full time after, the cost benefit was better for me because of the expected income jump. Either way, I worked really hard in school, keeping a full time job wouldn’t have been possible for me with a full load.

* If you do a CS program, allow the time to really enjoy the material. It will move fast. If you don’t enjoy a class, or a prof, find something better if at all possible.

* A MS degree has so far not been necessary (I didn’t finish the degree), but a significant amount of CS coursework plus an unrelated BA has absolutely been necessary for my SWE jobs (I work as a backend/platform engineer most of the time)

* If you’re doing it for the money, a CS education can do a lot to unlock better jobs— just be really clear with yourself that that’s what you’re aiming for. School involves a lot of hoops. Don’t do what doesn’t serve you. If you’re there for personal growth and learning, set yourself up financially and take the leap to go full time. You’ll enjoy it a lot more if you spend the time saving, take intro courses and then allow for a deep dive. Your interests and goals will shift over time.

* I really benefitted from landing in a program where I had a small in person cohort. I studied with my classmates a lot and made at least one life long friend.

Anyhow, good luck! It’s so exciting to go for a big goal.

I'm nearing completion of my Cybersecurity Masters degree. It's fully online and takes around 20-40 hours per week of work. No thesis, but I do have a project/capstone course right now.

I don't have a computer science undergrad so for me the motivation was both in the potential for advancement, but also a chance to study the field I've been working in for the past decade.

School has some clear advantages:

* It standardizes taxonomies, frameworks, and methods. You'll be able to talk to others who are more ingrained in things like distributed systems or other deep fields and recognize the terminology and use the correct references.

* Things like ethics, establishing trust, and reliability of data are hard to learn "on the job" except in cases where you are directly prompted. These skills can be easily taught in a classroom setting.

* The efficiency of classroom learning is hard to beat. A well defined lecture and reading guide will show you just the right content to most efficiently convey a topic. Obviously this requires a lecturer to be good enough at their job to successfully perform.

Frankly, some of the arguments here against higher education are alarming. You should not be acquiring specific skills in your classes. You should have learned logic, algorithms, and how DAG works in your undergrad or through self teaching. Mastery of Apache Airflow is your own business, but much more straightforward with the aforementioned skills.

After continuing in my IT career and taking college courses, I have continued to regret my time as a younger administrator. I was given too much permission and it's only through luck and coincidence I never caused turmoil. Without any formal training I had access to so much data and potential to inflict problems. I can't see a world where that kind of malpractice is allowed to continue. In the same way that we ask forklift operators to guarantee the safety of those around them by passing a test, we should be asking our IT workers to prove their basic abilities before handing over domain administrator logins.

What causes 4 day old questions like this to resurface with the timestamps showing hours old instead of days?

Hm what's your evaluation of the program then? What did you learn, and did you learn what you wanted to learn?

You don't have to take GA anymore if you choose the new specialization.

https://omscs.gatech.edu/specialization-human-computer-inter...