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Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?

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Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?

#61

Post by BatFastard »

rripken wrote: post #34

Are you willing to put in a significant amount of work? Look into Georgia Tech's OMSCS program. Do some searches, read (or watch) some of the press coverage of the program. Its very affordable. But the program is not a gimme - you will have to do significant amounts of work. When you complete the program you will have the knowledge and credentials to pursue some of those cool jobs you see. Seems like the credentials…

My son is currently in the GA Tech Cybersecurity online Master degree program. Seems like a good program over all, very project oriented. I would say he spends 15-40 hours per project, and you have a new one every 2 to 3 weeks. Project are not for the faint of heart...

Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?

#62

Post by davidgrenier »

At 36 I couldn't stand working for people who didn't realize building cheap software cost a fortune and sadly, that's just about every business out there. I believe there are very few sectors that will give you the luxury of building the right things.

Unfortunately, I had a C+ GPA in my comp.sci bachelor's degree which welded grad school shut. This however gave me the perfect excuse to do a math degree which is an opportunity I regretted. I sold my house and enrolled, graduated winter 2021 right before my 40th birthday. I'm doing a couple of computer science classes this semester and am enrolled back in the computer science master's in Winter 2022.

Here's what I learned:

- If you don't have children, 30 is stupidly young.

- The oportunity cost is obviously 500k+ (gross), but that matters only if your concern is accumulating wealth. All the houses/hotels and money go back in the box at the end of the game regardless.

- The first semester is really difficult but you'll get most of your mental nimbleness back mid second-semester.

- Your memory and intuition will be worst than your peers but 20 year olds don't have a work ethics so your discipline and consistency will prevail in a major way.

- After your first semester, evaluation will be 0-stress.

If you already have experience in computer science then the path from Mathematics -> grad Computer Science is just as smooth and common. The mathematics program may be more challenging however.

Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?

#63

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

lmeyerov wrote: post #59

Speaking as someone actively hiring here and having worked with top teams on the PhD + industry side: Pick an area, get dangerous over say 6-9mo on your own time through a mix of planned practice (vs random noodling) + projects, then get more dangerous via an employer with senior talent happy to train some junior talent over 2yrs. From there, you're firmly in. That's not an option for everyone (aging parents, needy k…

How is any amount of practice going to get past the ML filters that reject all "unworthy" submissions as determined by somebody in HR filling in some config settings?

Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?

#64

Post by avmich »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #63
lmeyerov wrote: post #59

Speaking as someone actively hiring here and having worked with top teams on the PhD + industry side: Pick an area, get dangerous over say 6-9mo on your own time through a mix of planned practice (vs random noodling) + projects, then get more dangerous via an employer with senior talent happy to train some junior talent over 2yrs. From there, you're firmly in. That's not an option for everyone (aging parents, needy k…

How is any amount of practice going to get past the ML filters that reject all "unworthy" submissions as determined by somebody in HR filling in some config settings?

Tell computer that you have an education. Get to talk to the human. Prepare a good explanation why the education part is not so straightforward as a computer may think. Some humans will understand.

Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?

#65

Post by davidgrenier »

davidgrenier wrote: post #62

At 36 I couldn't stand working for people who didn't realize building cheap software cost a fortune and sadly, that's just about every business out there. I believe there are very few sectors that will give you the luxury of building the right things. Unfortunately, I had a C+ GPA in my comp.sci bachelor's degree which welded grad school shut. This however gave me the perfect excuse to do a math degree which is an op…

I'd like to add that I'm highly skeptical you would learn as much while studying and holding a full time job. I knew I would learn a lot but didn't expect to learn so much.

If you want a sense of everything you'd learn from a Math bachelor's you can install Anki and download my database: https://github.com/davidgrenier/AnkiCards

Unfortunately 90% of the cards are in french.

Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?

#66

Post by artificialLimbs »

>40 years old. [Hardware] tech all my life. Slacked off, lazy. Never thought I could program. Started programming 3 years ago. Knocked on doors until I got programming spot at a Uni. Going back to school for free. 1 class per semester. Will graduate in 2029 maybe. Remembering to have gratitude for all things in life. ALL things. Have discovered that attitude and aims are important.

Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?

#67

Post by wheelinsupial »

throwaway_pKmOh wrote: post #31
pizza234 wrote: post #23

> if I were to do that I would still feel like a massive screw-up for going back to university in my 30s There's no shame in this; I'm wondering where you got this feeling for, especially, because radical changes in 30s/40s are generally considered success stories (when successful, of course ;)). > until I came to university, where I could never seem to care about the course material or putting effort into my classes…

> There's a big risk here of liking the idea of something more than something itself. It's a good point. Worth noting that my degree was not in CS, but in another engineering discipline. > If your current career is not the one you want, you're paying a "very high" opportunity cost by not changing it. [...] To be kept in mind that taking a 3 years break for work, for education, especially in the early 30s, does no har…

Did you start your education in Canada? If so, are you still in Canada? (You mention university in the initial post, and I don't hear that from Americans very often. Though, you may be outside of North America too.)

Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?

#69

Post by Jeff_Brown »

Sacrifice money in the bear term for time to study. Get a job like security guard where you can listen to classes on the job (to the extent it's possible to do both).

Be promiscuous with your study materials. The great freedom of being self taught is you don't have to stick with a book, or even a topic, that's not working.

When you feel unmotivated, meditate. Not in a woo woo feel the universe way, but in a practical one -- stepping back, considering your priorities and your history and the possibilities afforded by the world.

And if possible, find peers who care about the same thing(s). If you can't find them locally, you can always find them online.

Re: Ask HN: Messed up my education, now 30 and regretting it. What to do?

#70

Post by rripken »

sinnet11 wrote: post #40
rripken wrote: post #34

Are you willing to put in a significant amount of work? Look into Georgia Tech's OMSCS program. Do some searches, read (or watch) some of the press coverage of the program. Its very affordable. But the program is not a gimme - you will have to do significant amounts of work. When you complete the program you will have the knowledge and credentials to pursue some of those cool jobs you see. Seems like the credentials…

Doesn't this require a bachelors degree though?

You're right. I overlooked that part of their question.
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