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A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

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Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#151

Post by autobodie »

w10-1 wrote: post #149

Starting from work with high personal contact and trust (waiting, teaching) which cannot be outsourced, you want to move to work that is highly-technical, highly-ageist, first in line for disruption, with high barriers to entry, and highly-competitive (where you can compete with programmers world-wide for a job)? That's a recipe for soul-crushing long-term unemployment. TBH journeyman computer work today is plumbing…

Yes, I graduated with a CS degree at 37yo in 2021 and thankfully got in before the layoffs. My first advice would be dye your hair if it's turning gray and never tell anybody your age unless uou have to. Of course, your managers will know it anyway.

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#153

Post by sonicvrooom »

1. ASSEMBLY and how CPUs and human long and short term memory work, and how which networks in the brain exchange between these blocks (among others, but shhhh)

2. Math, Tensors (you'll get why later) and Matrix Transformations, and all that sin cos tan stuff

3. Ben Eater-ish stuff on YT because it's 2025 and Computer Science is about to (you are ADHD, so anything from 2 days to 7 years) change without anybody noticing ... think AIs having a preference for certain voltage drops and materials ... ... ...

4. the while 37-year-old part is irrelevant because, again, it's 2025, and pretty much any PhD can be caught up with within 10000 hours aka 3-4 years ...

5. you should start a reddit thread where people suggest stuff you SHOULD do instead of CS and thinking in general and some rich guy should hire some people to remind you of all those suggestions multiple times a day

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#154

Post by 1over137 »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #131
lisp2240 wrote: post #130

Nobody else will tell you the truth: nobody will ever hire you as a software developer. You will never get past the filter. I tried to enter the field at 35. I couldn’t get an interview with a CS degree. I did everything right. Good GPA. Portfolio. Professional resume help. Sent applications for two years and heard nothing. Now I’m 45 with nothing to show for it. All those late nights studying coding interview questi…

What filter? Why would age matter at all on the filter?

Age matters because ageism is rampant. That’s the filter.

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#155

Post by gosub100 »

dickstrawng wrote: post #129
klipo wrote: post #32

Good luck! I’m going through a similar journey. I’m in my late thirties and only started software engineering professionally 5 years ago, without a formal CS degree, but with a hobby-level affinity for computers. It seems like you have an intrinsic interest in the subject. I think this is THE key, because you will grow the most by figuring things out in a play-like fashion, this will solidify your understanding and b…

I don't know how comfortable I feel throwing around terms like computer science and software engineering. I know a lot of people who can program but I would never have them design a medical system or anything having to do with life or death situations.

the keyword there is "design". systems engineers/architects design those things, not coders. And they are made safe by entire teams of academics, clinicians, engineers, testers, scientists, and even lawyers.

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#156

Post by raddan »

tkcranny wrote: post #119
andrew_lettuce wrote: post #110

I see people conflate computer science with computer programming regularly. If you are motivated to build things you probably want to pursue the latter, and dig in to understand how the things you use work. Maybe your want to go deeper academically in certain areas, but do you want to be motivated by real world application or theoretical underpinnings? True comp sci is a lot closer to mathematics than most people's t…

“Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes” — Edsger W. Dijkstra

I have always found this quote annoying. There are many ways to solve problems, but when you constrain yourself to solving them mechanistically, that is what makes computer science computer science. Virtually every theoretical CS paper implicitly presupposes a specific model of computation. Sometimes they even say it explicitly.

Sure, computer science is not about a specific computer. But it is definitely about computers.

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#157

Post by admsmz »

Your best bet at this point would be https://mathacademy.com/. Their CS course will be launched between okt and dec. In the meantime I would recommend levelling up your math using the same website.

I noticed this line at the end of the article about the things you would like to build: “Education apps that leverage learning theories, community learning and game design to make learning more inspiring and accessible for students”

That’s a perfect description of mathacademy.

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#158

Post by monkeyelite »

lisp2240 wrote: post #130

Nobody else will tell you the truth: nobody will ever hire you as a software developer. You will never get past the filter. I tried to enter the field at 35. I couldn’t get an interview with a CS degree. I did everything right. Good GPA. Portfolio. Professional resume help. Sent applications for two years and heard nothing. Now I’m 45 with nothing to show for it. All those late nights studying coding interview questi…

I agree you're going to have a tough time landing SWE at meta, but I think there is more to this story.

> I did everything right

This can't be true.

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#159

Post by monkeyelite »

deadbabe wrote: post #80

Being a 37 year old wanting to learn computer science out of personal interest is still way better than being a 22 year old who just learned computer science because they want an easy 6 figure job in the tech industry. We turn away the latter more and more these days. In the past, hiring a junior software engineer meant you were probably getting an enthusiast of some sort, the kind of person who had their own side pr…

yeah the culture is completely different. People are more ambitious and better at certain things, but it's just not the same interest and experimentation.

Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

#160

Post by kmoser »

gosub100 wrote: post #155
dickstrawng wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how comfortable I feel throwing around terms like computer science and software engineering. I know a lot of people who can program but I would never have them design a medical system or anything having to do with life or death situations.

the keyword there is "design". systems engineers/architects design those things, not coders. And they are made safe by entire teams of academics, clinicians, engineers, testers, scientists, and even lawyers.

I would argue that even if other people have designed an entire system and "all" that is left to do is to write the code, things can go very wrong if the coder isn't good at designing their code well (e.g. to be efficient, robust, etc.). It's "design" all the way down; there is no imaginary line where design stops and coding starts.
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