Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

miguelrochefort.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 387 posts

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

#151

Post by trophycase »

rfrey wrote: post #119
abfan1127 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I paid off $240,000 in 3 years by not being an idiot with my money. I got on a budget with my wife. We cut up our credit cards because we always double or triple spent our money. We budgeted for things like Christmas. We followed Dave Ramsey's plan. We're 2 months from paying off our house now. Edit - I went back and checked, it was $140k.

That means you earned more than $80,000 post-tax income surplus to your needs. That surplus is a third more than the US average total household pre-tax income.

But the average household probably also isn't in 240k of debt unless they made very very poor financial choices.

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

#152

Post by kevindong »

D13Fd wrote: post #64

For anyone who is wondering, the school he listed (Western Governors University) is unfortunately not ABET accredited as far as I can tell.

ABET accreditation doesn't mean much for CS however. For example, none of these schools are ABET accredited for CS:

- UC Berkeley

- CMU

- Stanford

- Cornell

- University of Washington

- Caltech

- Princeton

https://amspub.abet.org/aps/category-search?disciplines=19&d...

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

#153

Post by jventura »

While I praise the author's effort, as a professor myself (I teach CS in a local polytechnic school - something like the US community colleges) I really doubt the quality of either the WGU and of the knowledge retention.

As an example, this semester I'm teaching Operating Systems concepts (definitions, processes, threads, semaphores, mutexes, signals, memory layouts, IO, etc.), and even if I take the theoretical concepts out (like not explaining how a fork() works under the hood), I still have 20 hours of labs and some 60 hours for two projects. How can this author ever reach the same level of competency as my students who let these concepts "sink", as he dedicated 15 hours in only 2/3 days.

Second example: in 2019 I taught some classes for a 4 month course on basic programming and web apps. Even having 7h of classes per day, things had to be really succinct, and in 4 months, although they were capable of doing some web apps, there was a lot of confusion in their heads because of the fast pace.

Some other examples on his post: 9h30 minutes for Discrete Math I. Either trivial things were handled, he is a math wiz, he rushed through all the exercises, or no exercise solving was necessary..

Again, I don't want to undervalue the author's effort, but as someone who as been teaching for quite some time, and has taught people from the 7th grade to MSc, I'm really suspicious of the quality of the degree and of the knowledge retention..

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

#154

Post by brighton36 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #94
brighton36 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That I get. Habitus is important. But, here, there was no transmission of habitus, due to the online courses.

> Habitus is important. Agree, though I think the value will depend significantly on the person. For some folks this will be the majority of the value, others it'll be wasted on.

It really seems like an a society, we should just offer habitus reform schools in deficient precincts..

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

#155

Post by doytch »

abfan1127 wrote: post #132
stevewodil wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>by not being an idiot with my money It was also due to the fact that you were making $80k/year ABOVE your living expenses.

Living expenses is a flexible item. You learn to keep your living expenses down.

Yes but it's a touch difficult to keep living expenses below $0, which most people in the developed - let alone developing - world would need to do on their salaries to save the extra $80k/year.

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

#156

Post by johncessna »

jayd16 wrote: post #113
ajkjk wrote: post #36

> In 2012, I studied computer science at Concordia University and dropped out after 1 semester. > On my first day, I attended 2 lectures. I quickly realized that a 2-hour commute to listen to someone slowly recite a PowerPoint wasn’t the best use of my time. It's so depressing that a lot of expensive higher education is this pathetic. I wish our education system worked enough like a market that it could hold lecturer…

You don't pay for the slides, you pay for the course design, the office hours, and access to experts in the field that not only know the course material but can also guide you to further learning outside the syllabus. ...But you have to actually show up and talk to your professor.

You're paying for the brand.

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

#157

Post by nwsm »

kevindong wrote: post #152
D13Fd wrote: post #64

For anyone who is wondering, the school he listed (Western Governors University) is unfortunately not ABET accredited as far as I can tell.

ABET accreditation doesn't mean much for CS however. For example, none of these schools are ABET accredited for CS: - UC Berkeley - CMU - Stanford - Cornell - University of Washington - Caltech - Princeton https://amspub.abet.org/aps/category-search?disciplines=19&d...

Add WGU to that list and tell me which one doesn't belong.

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

#158

Post by umanghere »

wincy wrote: post #87
skeeter2020 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't fully understand this mentality. We don't look at everything we want to accomplish and say"what's the fastest way to get there?" a 4-year university degree certainly isn't if you want a job, money or credibility. The journey is amazing; I have 2 undergrads and a MSc not because of the material benefits, but because I absolutely loved school, especially the second time around. #3 grad school was a little disap…

I think the problem is that once you're working in the field, not having a bachelors can be perceived as you lacking in skill for the positions you're applying for, regardless of if that's the case. And the bachelors is (improperly) being used as a gauge for competence rather than being shown as a jumping off point toward a career in software development, which can be reached by alternate avenues. I also discovered t…

Speaking from experience, that's not necessarily true. EU countries accept equivalent experience in lieu of academic qualifications.

Assuming that you are offered a position that pays well, and have around 5-ish years of experience, emigration is a breeze.

My experience with getting might not be universal since I work in a niche CS field, but getting a work permit (also alluded to by other commenters) was trivial and likely applies to everyone.

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

#159

Post by fayten »

vmception wrote: post #97

How do you guys feel about this? He signed up at an accredited university and then used non university resources to transfer credits in, which weren’t universities at all Is that concept new? Is this something we can all be doing for other degrees or is this barely accredited and will come under fire very soon and stop being respected long before

Those online classes he took are ACE or NCCRS accredited. Study.com for example can be transferred to many Universities: https://study.com/college/school/index.html#transferSearch

Take a look at ACE and NCCRS: https://www.acenet.edu/Programs-Services/Pages/Credit-Transc... http://www.nationalccrs.org/policies-procedures

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

#160

Post by Bakary »

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…

It's been a while since I read Dilbert but I've come to find you can often learn just as much from the Wallies of the world as from the Elons, and I don't mean it as cautionary knowledge.
Post reply on HN