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

#241

Post by abfan1127 » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

Bakary wrote: post #186

ljm wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

I completely agree here. I've never been poor. I can't imagine how some families feel that grew up in the south Chicago projects. The stress has the be very brutal.

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

#242

Post by gxs » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

asddubs wrote: post #165

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…

You know the things you learned exist, at least approximately what they're useful for, and what you have to search for to look them up. I think it's definitely not a perfect system, but having programmed a long time before I started studying computer science, it did fill a lot of knowledge gaps I didn't even know I had. If you're working in a team you might not notice this as much, though, as long as at least someone…

Going to college is this peculiar process where what you get out of it is commensurate with what you put into it, 100%.

I was a math major in college. A lot of my exams were open book - because exactly like you said - it's mostly about do you know how to think about something, do you know how to unfold something, do you know what to search for, and how it's useful.

Over the years I've had to help nieces and nephews with calculus homework, and it's been interesting to see this at play in the "real" world. I approach math a little differently now than a high schooler would, and usually my mind starts to wander around thinking, "you know, I'm pretty sure I remember xyz theorem that we can use here, let me look it up." Most of the time it works every time. From there it's easy to put it into the context of their current lesson and go over it in a way that makes sense with how and what they are studying in class.

When looking at job applicants, if someone has a degree, at the very least it means they had an opportunity to put a lot of effort into it and HOPEFULLY it means they got a lot out of it.

Sure, it's possible, maybe even most common, for it to just be a piece of paper - and that's OK. That's why we interview and a degree isn't the be all end all.

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

#243

Post by jbrogers63 » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

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…

This was essentially my experience with WGU as well. I started in November and was done by the following August. Most of my classes from community college were transferred and I had ~90 CUs (EDIT: Just a guess on the number. It's been a while...) I to complete. I was able to complete several courses a week for the first few months, but started tapering off to about 1 course a week as time went on. I was exhausted by the end, but it was worth every penny and minute spent.

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

#244

Post by 0xffff2 » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

dumbfounder wrote: post #73

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.

I assume this matters if they want to go to grad school, but does it matter for any other reason? I think employers attribute value to programs they have heard of, whether it is ABET or not is not something I have ever considered.

The US government is very big on requiring ABET accredited degrees for engineering. I've never gotten a straight answer on whether this is the case for CS or not.

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

#245

Post by war1025 » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

abfan1127 wrote: post #221

cxr wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

At the risk of more down votes, I'll disagree with you. There are certainly smarter people than me who are less lucky than me. However, its a much smaller subset than many would believe. Many claim unlucky when in reality their luck is a consequence of their past choices. They've taken risks and those risks didn't work out.

You can only get downvoted on a post to -4, fyi. I stopped caring nearly as much about being agreeable once I learned that.

For what it's worth, congrats on what you did. I'm in a similar position and I completely agree that for the majority of people here it wouldn't take anything beyond stopping making bad choices.

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

#246

Post by the_only_law » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

0xffff2 wrote: post #233

kevindong wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn’t the point of ABET mostly so that you can obtain engineering licenses. I don’t imagine most software development jobs would even bother looking up if your program was accredited because you aren’t going to need a license.

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

#247

Post by IkmoIkmo » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

I wonder what his earnings were last year to approximate his opportunity costs. A $100 an hour job at 600 hours would've cost him $60k in opportunity costs. In my personal experience (I did go to uni right after highschool and graduated) it was important for my entry-level job, but once I gained 6 years of experience, nobody cared, discussed or looked at your credentials. The hiring/promotion stuff was done entirely by network, reputation, work experience.

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

#248

Post by abfan1127 » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

theplague42 wrote: post #193

trophycase wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Or student debt; a doctor going 200k into debt for med school probably isn't exactly in dire financial straits.

I'd feel bad for a med student halfway through that gets sick. 100k of debt and no degree. yikes!

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

#249

Post by the_only_law » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

caeril wrote: post #196

I see a lot missing, here. No assembly, compilers, linear algebra, or digital design courses that you find in every other CS program. How did this courseload get accredited? (and I say this as someone who never graduated - just showing some respect for the courseload required by some of my peers, here)

To my knowledge, certain accreditations are easier to get than others.

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

#250

Post by abfan1127 » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

war1025 wrote: post #227

Privacy846 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s amazing what you can do when you earn way more than the median household.

Yea. You can get $240k in debt. Good luck getting anyone to lend you that kind of money if you're actually poor. Someone who is able to get deeply in debt basically by definition has access to money. They would not be granted loans otherwise.

the largest portion of my debt was student loans (over half), which anyone can get in the US (not sure about other countries).