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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

#171

Post by ChrisRR »

abfan1127 wrote: post #107
astura wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of every single one of those "how I paid off $100,000 in debt in 1 year" articles. It's always like "dad got me an executive job at his company and grandma gave me a condo as a graduation gift so instead of living in it I moved in with my parents rent free and turned the condo into income stream. (Aren't I smart!?!) Since mom always had a gourmet hot meal prepared for me I could put all my income into my l…

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.

What the hell? So you're literally earning $80k above your living expenses. Waaaaaay above average

I'd be more surprised if you couldn't pay that sort of money off

Re your edit: I'm even more sceptical now. Your figures were off by a third. I know exactly the value of my mortgage when I took it out. That figure is burned into my mind. I don't know how you could be out by $100,000

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

#172

Post by ljm »

abfan1127 wrote: post #131
rfrey wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're right. But I also changed my mentality. We became intentional with our money. Its amazing how you can find money in a budget to put towards debt. Its also how you stay out of debt going forward. You learn to prioritize your spending.

I think you're getting downvoted because you're missing the point somewhat. You had the opportunity and means to change your mentality and become 'intentional' with your money, and learn how to prioritise your spending, because you've had such a surfeit of wealth compared to the average that you won't have faced the same problems others would (and still) have. That's fantastic for you, don't get me wrong, but for many people it would sound quote tone-deaf.

If you can afford to put aside almost 100k a year and still live comfortably you are decidedly not in the class of people for whom saving is, if not an impossibility, a luxury.

We're not just talking about Pratchett's Boots Theorem[1], but also the fact that such people are quite literally only one or two paycheques away from total disaster. These are the people who can't afford to save because every penny is spent on merely surviving, and they can't amass the bare minimum amount of wealth it would take for them to be able to lift themselves out of that situation.

[1] https://moneywise.com/a/boots-theory-of-socioeconomic-unfair...

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

#173

Post by Bakary »

andjd wrote: post #148

I think the takeaway point from this is how dumb it is that most organizations value credentials over experience. It shouldn't come as a surprise that someone who has a decade of work experience in the field can sail through a college curriculum like this, and it is really a failing of society more broadly if the author feels that he needs to get a diploma to be taken seriously.

It's not dumb, it just hides a cynical compromise. Companies need to wade through tons of applications, young people want a path through which they have some degree of certainty (pun semi-intended) that their work will lead to social capital + being with other people their age in a common setting. The college experience leaves no one very satisfied but many chunks of society tolerably satisfied.

Of course, the social contract is weakening and a new compromise will have to be found. That may simply be the broader acceptance of online degrees and certificates.

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

#174

Post by thrwawayacc5212 »

mateioprea wrote: post #57

Does anyone know something like this, but in Europe?

There are some universities that require you only to pass exams, and don't check attendance. You'd still need to "wait" for 3+ years. I've never seen such a course myself, only heard some stories, so it may be an urban myth.

There definitely are universities that allow taking courses at your own pace. I'm currently doing Bachelor of CS at University of Wroclaw, designed as 3.5 year course, and there are people finishing it in 2.5 years (though that's rare, it's much more usual to see 3.5 years turning out not to be enough time). Sadly, offered only in Polish, and requires a lot of time and effort.

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

#175

Post by debaserab2 »

jacurtis wrote: post #138
pokler wrote: post #24

I think the subheading may be a better title -- 'This is the story of how I prepared for a decade to graduate in 3 months.' This seems feasible only for a specific set of people: those with previous experience & looking specifically for the credential and not so much the learning experience that comes with a traditional 4 year degree. Not to take away from the author's achievement, I just think it would be misleading…

I agree that this is a much better title. I actually also attended WGU during the pandemic and got a degree over the course of 6 months for about the same amount of money as the author. I came in with 42 transfer credits, so I completed 90 credits at WGU to complete my degree. The degree took me 6 months for about the same number of classes as the author. So I was going about half the speed of the author of this post…

Congratulations on finishing the degree and being proud of the effort you put into it.

If you don't mind me asking: what motivated you to pursue it?

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

#176

Post by regera »

Scott H. Young completed entire 4-year MIT curriculum for computer science in one year [1]. That was in 2012 when MOOCs was still a new thing. Good luck, I hope your WHY is strong enough to push through difficult days.

[1] https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/myprojects/mit-challenge-2/

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

#178

Post by x86ARMsRace »

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.

I would say that the idea is you pay for those things. Sadly however a lot of Universities put together programs for the sole purpose of offering that program. Often times CS programs (like the ones at my University) are put together for that reason.

I've had an inordinate number of instructors who treat the lecture as the only teaching duty they have. No matter how much you would like to engage outside, the instructors have to participate as well. Many do not, and have no interest in doing so. As a consequence, the end result is often that you're just buying powerpoint slides and an optional seat in an auditorium.

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

#179

Post by trogdor3000 »

jventura wrote: post #153

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 conc…

The sad thing is that no one cares abou the quality of the degree outside of academia. All they care about is seeing the BS on your resume.

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

#180

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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