I prepared for a decade to graduate in CS in three months • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by ghaff » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

skeeter2020 wrote: post #67

gspr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 understand both your perspectives. I have an ME degree that, at the end of the day, I did mostly for fun and have never really used.

On the other hand, I also understand the perspective of those who maybe don't care for school, want to/need to minimize the time and money they spend on it, learn "just the facts" they need to get hired to pursue software development mostly in the vein of a trade, and the paper that is often needed to get hired or pursue various types of opportunities. In that light, it's understandable they don't want to learn a lot of theory they won't use much, much less take unrelated science distribution and humanities courses.

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

#232

Post by abfan1127 » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

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…

The deepness of my debt and the steepness of my accent are just variables in the equation.

Many people are 1-2 paychecks away from total disaster, but they never take the step to make a change. It can certainly feel impossible. But the reality is "merely surviving" has a broad usage. I know lots of people that are living paycheck to paycheck, but have the iPhone X.

https://www.daveramsey.com/dave-ramsey-7-baby-steps

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

#233

Post by 0xffff2 » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

kevindong wrote: post #163

nwsm wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not arguing for/against WGU. My argument is that ABET accreditation isn't relevant to how "good" a CS program is. It does establish a minimum baseline, but lacking it just means you have to determine the program's value in other ways.

I think it is relevant though. Most of the mid-level schools I looked at were ABET accredited. Going unaccredited in CS seems to be a thing that you can only get away with if you have so much or so little name recognition that it doesn't matter.

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

#234

Post by astura » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

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.

I didn't mean to make this about finance or the ability to pay off debt, it just reminded me so much of the type of writing that is really, really common in "pop finance"-type publications.

I wasn't at all saying that I believe that it's impossible to pay off a large debt quickly or that nobody ever does - just that, of course you are going to if you're in such an extraordinary situation. So the entire thing ends up being not very interesting or actionable, yet the title promises that it will be both.

I guess there's an audience for it though, because they keep getting published.

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

#235

Post by Buttons840 » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

I'll repost my WGU experience from another comment:

I dropped out of traditional college. Last class I remember they were talking about what a GET and POST request were. I had been a professional web developer for years at that point. I felt it was a waste of time.

In WGU I had a similar easy class, stuff that was "way below me". Not to worry, I passed the class in a day and stopped worrying about wasted time.

I recently did a C++ assignment that was filled with artificial requirements making it artificially difficult, yet I learned some things about pointers and figured out the basics of CMake for the first time. Useful stuff. Now I'm doing a similar assignment with Java. I knew I would have to set aside my distaste for things like Java (gross!), and with that mindset things aren't so bad. I'm actually enjoying JavaFX.

WGU's calculus class was harder than calc 1 at my brick and mortar university, but easier than calc 2. Once again, I knew most of the material and passed after only a few weeks of casual review. I also found a calculus text book I personally like (and will happily refer to again in the future), rather that just using whatever the department chose.

I do agree that a CS degree doesn't teach as much as it sometimes gets credit for. I do believe WGU's CS degree is as good as many brick and mortar CS degrees, but with minimal "bullshit", though there is still some.

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

#236

Post by war1025 » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

cxr wrote: post #170

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.

Heads up: this is a common pattern of expression that makes you come off as really obnoxious to people who will never tell you that that's what's happening. If you can't understand why people have a problem with this, here's the explanation: there are almost certainly smarter people than you who happened to be more unlucky than you . You were lucky-but-stupid before, so you stopped being so stupid, and now your messa…

I would guess he is actually getting downvoted because he is pointing out an uncomfortable truth.

The majority of the people that frequent this site are above the median income. Being in the tech field gives you a huge leg up economically.

You can either squander that, or you can use it to stay out of debt and build wealth.

Having someone point out that you maybe don't actually make the best financial decisions is uncomfortable and makes people defensive.

Doesn't make the statement any less true. Most people on a tech salary (even outside the unicorn tech hubs) have the means to be debt free and live quite comfortably besides.

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

#237

Post by jacurtis » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

debaserab2 wrote: post #175

jacurtis wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I am in my mid-thirties right now. I dropped out of university in my early-twenties to pursue a career. I saw a lot of initial success in my career and was flying up the corporate ladder. But I always felt like I had this skeleton in my closet or dark secret of not having even a bachelors degree.

Early on in my career I could compensate for not having a degree with my experience and work history. I was mostly competing against people with Bachelors Degrees who had little or moderate experience, and I simply had more experience and could compete well for jobs against them.

I found that as I have started applying for much higher level positions now, the degree skeleton has come to haunt me much more. A lot of the positions I have been applying to lately actually ask for MBA's or Master's Degrees. I am competing against other applicants who have Master's Degrees, while I have a high school diploma and some nice experience. The disparity is getting much wider and I knew I needed to get rid of this unnecessary blemish on my resume/CV.

For any other young people reading this. You might feel like you don't need a degree because your career is going great right now. But I will say that life is a lot harder without a degree as you get into higher positions. I am not saying it isn't possible to get a VP or Senior position without a college degree, it is possible, but it is MUCH harder than simply having that paper. There are definitely jobs that you are more than qualified for that you want and you will be turned away simply because of the lack of degree. It is a sad stumbling block that I was sick of dealing with.

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

#238

Post by Bakary » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

xenihn wrote: post #197

I've been wanting to do an online MSCS program for years, but it probably won't happen anytime soon. I looked into WGU, but I didn't like the lack of accreditation. I found one school/program that seemed fair in terms of cost and time, but I couldn't fully test out of all of my pre-requisites, and I would still have to spend a considerable amount of time (and money) doing community college courses. I just can't justi…

What sort of non-stem degree field did you get into and and what point in your life did you learn the skills necessary for whatever career you have now?

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

#239

Post by 0xffff2 » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

NullPrefix wrote: post #68

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.

This should be at the top. What's the point of that paper if the issuer is not accredited?

The school may be accredited but not the degree. This is the case for CS degrees from several UC schools including Berkley. My CS degree from a slightly less prestigious UC is not accredited but no one has ever said anything about it.

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

#240

Post by the_only_law » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

Uptrenda wrote: post #33

I read something ages back about a lesser known process called 'testing out' where you are basically able to just do the exams at universities to get a degree. It's suppose to encourage life-long learning and its based on the assumption that many professionals and adults accrue relevant experience outside of academia. I had always wanted to look more into this myself but it seemed to require too much bureaucracy. OPs…

My understanding of “testing out” is that it generally refers to standardized things like CLEP where there are only a handful of subjects you can test out in, typically prerequisite academics.