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I prepared for a decade to graduate in CS in three months

miguelrochefort.com

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Re: I prepared for a decade to graduate in CS in three months

#41

Post by cstejerean »

reidjs wrote: post #30
cstejerean wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my motivation for finally going back to school. I dropped out originally due to running out of money and having to take a full time job. Or rather I told myself I'd continue school part time, but never did. Lack of a degree was never a problem professionally so there was no reason to go back and spend a pile of money and a lot of time. But then I got to the point where I wanted to advance my knowledge of var…

Hey can I talk to you about that course? I’m switching into a new job in supply chain management (I currently work as a sys admin/IT admin) and feel pretty overwhelmed trying to figure out how that industry works

Certainly. Email is on my website and link is in my profile.

At a high level for anyone else following along, I'd highly recommend the MITx SCM Micro Masters. I learned a ton from those courses and then followed it up with a 1 week SCM bootcamp in person at MIT. The bootcamp was more expensive than the entire previous 5 classes but it was a great way to fill in some additional things that you can't really do online, specifically doing case several case studies and having awesome group discussions.

Re: I prepared for a decade to graduate in CS in three months

#42

Post by chrisdhal »

TuringNYC wrote: post #20
miguelrochefort wrote: post #2

Author here. I'd be happy to answer your questions.

I'm very impressed with your tracking of effort on each course. How did you track the hours? If you were doing two courses at a time, how did you split your time tracking?

He specifically says:

"During my time at WGU, I focused on a single course at a time and made sure to complete it before starting a new one."

Re: I prepared for a decade to graduate in CS in three months

#43

Post by paxys »

This is interesting, but from what I have seen in the industry a CS degree is only really useful if you are starting out or are a relatively junior developer. With 10+ years of experience, an additional "BS degree from XYZ University" line on your resume is worth pretty much nothing.

Re: I prepared for a decade to graduate in CS in three months

#44

Post by gspr »

yters wrote: post #12

Comp Eng PhD here. The fields can indeed be dramatically compressed. Lots of trivia obscure the main points in each comp sci topic.

This comment summarizes much of the the whole thread: a bunch of people who think that getting an academic degree should be like trade school.

Re: I prepared for a decade to graduate in CS in three months

#45

Post by ghaff »

djsumdog wrote: post #32

Almost seems like the writer treated the process like playing a video game, without all the pretty colors and sounds that give you that dopamine hit. I feel like I did get a lot out of my Computer Science degree. I got it in 2004 and I picked up a lot of stuff I don't think I would have learned on my own. I also went to a small state University in the middle of nowhere that' wasn't very expensive, and I didn't rack u…

>Going back to games; I wonder if this type of education and training would be more accessibl if it was gameified.

Standard stuff like GitHub stars and so forth notwithstanding, my sense is that more extreme gamification has sort of fallen out of favor. MOOCs tried a fair number of gamification "tricks" and by and large I don't think they really helped much.

Re: I prepared for a decade to graduate in CS in three months

#46

Post by skeeter2020 »

simoneau wrote: post #21

Does anyone have a good sense how online degrees are perceived by employers? Or graduate programs? I wonder if the pandemic will be shifting these attitudes.

They are perceived poorly, but not because they're online, but because they are an unknown. This may change as specific institutions and programs gain a solid reputation, but an online degree from a virtual school no one has ever heard of has a very steep uphill battle. Programs from established bricks & mortar universities have a better reputation but still fight the stigma. Some of this is fair. A university is not supposed to be a factory for pumping knowledge into your head as fast as possible; it should be a full community and we've learned this past year how hard it is to build fully online communities. Ironically as many successful in-person universities rush to hand out as many degrees as possible they are weakening their key differentiator from online competition. I suspect online-only will become more competitive and respected but it will take time.

Re: I prepared for a decade to graduate in CS in three months

#48

Post by kemiller2002 »

djsumdog wrote: post #32

Almost seems like the writer treated the process like playing a video game, without all the pretty colors and sounds that give you that dopamine hit. I feel like I did get a lot out of my Computer Science degree. I got it in 2004 and I picked up a lot of stuff I don't think I would have learned on my own. I also went to a small state University in the middle of nowhere that' wasn't very expensive, and I didn't rack u…

He also mentions in the article that he wasn't working at the time. He's still driven, but that makes doing it a whole lot easier.

Re: I prepared for a decade to graduate in CS in three months

#49

Post by ehejsbbejsk »

As a CS major, I can honestly say the ONLY thing of value was a couple of algorithm classes I took. And even then it was from a text I could have read on my own. Unless you’re what I call one-percent talent, CS theory is not going to help you much in your career.

Re: I prepared for a decade to graduate in CS in three months

#50

Post by burger_moon »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #14
brighton36 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why bother getting the degree?

- To be able to work abroad. - To be allowed into graduate school. - To stop having to explain why I don't have one.

Thanks for writing this is up!

I've been thinking about enrolling at WGU for their CS degree and was just chatting about it yesterday.

I'm also self taught but with only half a degree completed. I think about moving abroad especially for retirement reasons. Having that paper makes all the difference. Without it it's much harder to live anywhere outside a home country permanently.

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