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

#111

Post by ghaff » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

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?

20 weeks of 40 hour weeks is fast. Exams and assignments are going to consume some time and you probably won't know every nuance of a course even if you've taken a different and more rigorous variation.

It also probably depends how big a deal the 4-year degree is to you. There are other options like edX MicroMasters that may make more sense (and it wouldn't shock me if they carried more cred in at least some circles).

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

#112

Post by alisonkisk » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 4:42 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…

Reputable colleges won't give you credit for that, beyond skipping first year prerequisites. But you can get "a degree" for employers like government that pay based a formula based on credentials.

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

#113

Post by jayd16 » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

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.

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

#114

Post by torben-friis » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 4:43 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 mean, that's still contingent on having a decent salary relative to the amount of debt - I'm assuming it didn't happen with a couple of ~30k/year salaries.

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

#115

Post by alisonkisk » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 4:44 PM UTC

JamisonM wrote: post #56

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…

I am going to go out on a limb and say that most of getting a Comp. Sci. degree at Concordia University isn't actually "listen[ing] to someone slowly recite a PowerPoint". Having attended a public University in Canada myself it certainly wasn't my experience (and also not very expensive, Upon completing the article my main takeaway was that the author would have been a lot better off just toughing it out at Concordia…

Thing is, 20+ years ago you had to go to college to find a dozen like minded students to collaborate with. Today, reddit stufy groups are free

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

#116

Post by miguelrochefort » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

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.

You're correct. The path I took is not without compromises:

- WGU is not ABET accredited.

- WGU is not as rigorous as other universities.

- WGU is not as prestigious as other universities.

- WGU gives all graduates the same 3.0 GPA.

I probably should point them out in my post.

That said, I still believe WGU was the right choice given my circumstances. I don't value these things enough to justify taking 12 to 16 times longer to graduate.

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

#117

Post by rsweeney21 » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

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 been much more efficient to learn the things I needed on demand. I learned more about programming in 30 days on my first real programming job after graduation than I did in 4 years in school.

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

#118

Post by jankeymeulen » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 4:46 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.

Congratulations for that!

However, you also paid of that $240k by earning at least $80k / year.

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

#119

Post by rfrey » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 4:46 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.

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.

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

#120

Post by bserge » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 4:48 PM UTC

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…

Some people on Reddit did say they completed 2-3 month bootcamps/courses with no prior experience and got junior dev jobs (in the UK), so I don't even know. Then again it's online and on Reddit, so they may be just lying.

I believe it is possible to learn enough to be decent in 3 months full time, and then learn everything else as you go. However, I don't see anyone hiring with that kind of experience.

But then why pay for a certificate? Four figures, no less. You could go through a bunch of free programming courses in 3 months and print your own certificate, same thing as long as you can actually do a job...