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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

#181

Post by jacurtis »

tmaly wrote: post #90
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…

Would it not be possible for a very focused, hardworking individual to take all the course on MIT for free then enroll in this school and finish fast?

I went to WGU. I spent 6 months and got my degree.

I really don't think it is possible to go any faster than about 3 months max. Even that is a slog and you will need to be going full time.

Most of the exams are 70-100 questions and you will need to do 2 exams per course. The final exam is proctored, which means you need to make an appointment and go through this whole process of verifying your identity, going through an anti-cheat process and so on that burns another 20-30 minutes between setup and take down. So I would say expect a minimum 2 hour block of time per exam. That is just taking the exams.

So even a class that I finished in one day because I knew everything still takes a FULL day minimum because you are taking 2 exams totaling nearly 200 questions. It is mentally exhausting even if you know the material.

But truthfully you are going to need to study at least somewhat for at least half of the classes. Plus you can only grind through full day exams for so long until you reach exhaustion.

Burn out is also very real. I was averaging 3.5 courses a week for the first month or so. Then 2 classes a week. And by the end I was lucky to finish 1 course a week. It really is a TON of work, even if you come in with a lot of knowledge and experience like I did and don't need to study as hard as other people. The courses are still a lot of effort and take a toll on your energy and brain.

But if you are VERY motivated, you can do it in one term. The way that WGU charges you, you pay per 6-month term. It is a flat fee that covers all proctoring, text books, exams, etc for as many courses as you can complete during the 6 month term. So you would pay the same amount of money to do it in 3 months as 6 months. But if you go into 8 months, then you have to pay for the full second term. So I would set your goal on getting it done in 6 months and if you come in prepared I think it is practical. But you need to have a lot of time to dedicate to it during those 6 months.

Edit: Oh, I forgot to add that not all the courses are exams. About 1/3 of the courses are "performance based". These are courses like History, English Composition and stuff that require you to do several graded assignments. These often culminate into a final assignment to do a large research paper to pass the course. All of the assignments are required and must be graded. So you will need to submit them, get a plagiarism scan, and wait for an instructor to grade it (usually 36-48 hours after submitting it). So these will also slow you down. The good thing is that these courses have less time dedicated to studying, but more time dedicated to working on all the research papers and written assignments. These also can slow you down.

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

#182

Post by confidantlake »

I applied to WG this year to get a CS degree. Work as a dev with no degree. My college transcript has AP classes on it so they wanted those sent as well. These were from 2 decades ago and I have virtually no chance of getting them. Emailed my "enrollment advisor" 3 times about the situation, no response. But every week or so he would send a canned email about how great WGU is and enroll now! Figured if they were so uncommunicative before they got my money imagine how it would be after.

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

#183

Post by abfan1127 »

trophycase wrote: post #151
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.

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

I went back and checked my records. It was 140K! oops. Anyways, here is my list.

85k in student loans 30k 401k loan 20k car loan 30k car loan

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

#184

Post by ChrisRR »

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.

Living expenses are only flexible when you have the money to be flexible.

If you're on a low wage, maybe with some kids. You're buying whatever inefficient car, low quality clothes that need replacing more often, a house near your child's school. Having that huge amount of disposable income offers you a lot more luxuries

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

#185

Post by [deleted] »

trophycase wrote: post #151
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.

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

[deleted]

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

#186

Post by Bakary »

ljm wrote: post #172
abfan1127 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 man…

Being poor is only something you can truly understand once you've tasted it yourself. The stress alone feels like it's shaving many IQ points from your baseline. Even then, I got only a limited understanding compared to people in the third world. (not going for the misery olympics here, just an observation)

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

#187

Post by ljm »

trophycase wrote: post #151
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.

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

Or they're in the US and had to go to hospital for treatment?

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

#188

Post by folkrav »

bavent wrote: post #140
abfan1127 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a sole provider making under $100k. Edit: salary. We were receiving small bonuses ($10k) at the time. but we learned to keep our expenses down, and every bonus we did receive we rolled right into debt before spending it on stupid crap.

This math doesn't check out. $240k for three years is $80k/year. Assuming you are already factoring interest in. So you and your wife lived off less than $20k a year? Where?

Must have had extremely cheap rent, be very frugal when it comes to eating and basically any expense, really. In rent alone I pay $10.5k/year (with what most people here extremely cheap rent). When I still was in school living off school loans, our frugal weekly groceries (almost no meat, very rare, mostly fresh produce in discount markets) came out around $80 a week, so about $4-5k/year. We're already at $15k. This leaves $5k for literally everything else. I'd wager no kids, no car payments, no cell phone outside maybe prepaid, basically nothing in utilities, buying used clothing, no appliances that broke, no internet above basic, next to nothing in terms of entertainment expenses, etc. Quick mental math keeping the strict minimum from what I pay right now and I'm already over $20k. This is weirdly cheap.

And honestly, if the numbers are right, good on him for having the discipline to do it, but this sounds like a rather awful three years.

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

#189

Post by bregma »

rsweeney21 wrote: post #117

Requiring a computer science degree to apply for a programming job has always been bizarre to me and this blog post is a great example of why. "The bulk of the effort was memorizing things that I normally would have Googled." And given how memory works, in a few weeks you'll probably have to Google them again. To earn my CS degree I learned a lot of stuff before starting my career that I never used. It would have bee…

Computer science is as relevant to most web developer jobs as quantum physics is to welding. You want job training to be a react monkey take a community college night course. If you want to study something truly fascinating and is not job skills training, study computer science.

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

#190

Post by theplague42 »

abfan1127 wrote: post #147
wffurr wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something is off with the math here. I don't doubt your story, but perhaps your numbers are a bit off? 240k over 3 years is $80k/yr in principal alone, substantially more with interest. If your post-tax take-home was $95k, that leaves only $15k/yr for living expenses for your household, which is extremely low. Maybe that's possible with a lot of beans and rice, paid off used cars, and second-hand clothes and such. Se…

no, you may be right (it was a few years ago). It may have been 3.5 or 4 years. I did receive small raises over the years, but we kept our budget fixed. I did receive a big windfall near the end from a company acquisition ($40k iirc). But at the rate were were paying stuff off, it brought it in ~6 months. The math still shocks me every time I do it.

So it was really around 100k over four years with the last 40k covered by your acquisition earnings. So 25k a year on a 100k salary (pre/post-tax?). Which is a lot less than 80k a year. Still impressive, and kudos, but let's not pretend that it's anywhere the same. That's a difference of two whole median incomes per year.
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