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

miguelrochefort.com

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

#381

Post by justinlloyd »

jng wrote: post #31

Does anyone know about similar programs for non-US residents? I understand the original author is Canadian, but it seems they got granted a "special exception" that is unlikely to be available to, say, people from the EU (my case), or other countries.

Look up Thomas Edison University, which will let you test out of many classes, transfer in other (US) college credit, does offer PLA credit (though that isn't as easy as just studying for and taking an exam). Also OpenClassrooms, which is project based, and offers many options for Bachelor level diplomas through a non-traditional route with many of the diplomas backed by reputable European universities such as Ecole de Paris and Lyon University.

Also check out degreeforums for other places that are legitimate.

I am not affiliated with any of these websites or businesses, but I have been through their educational programmes. If you are an intrinsically motivated self-learner/self-teacher that works well on their own with occasional mentor contact, then I can highly recommend them.

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

#382

Post by jng »

justinlloyd wrote: post #381
jng wrote: post #31

Does anyone know about similar programs for non-US residents? I understand the original author is Canadian, but it seems they got granted a "special exception" that is unlikely to be available to, say, people from the EU (my case), or other countries.

Look up Thomas Edison University, which will let you test out of many classes, transfer in other (US) college credit, does offer PLA credit (though that isn't as easy as just studying for and taking an exam). Also OpenClassrooms, which is project based, and offers many options for Bachelor level diplomas through a non-traditional route with many of the diplomas backed by reputable European universities such as Ecole…

Thanks! That may be very useful at some point.

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

#383

Post by loco5niner »

bonoboTP wrote: post #329
abfan1127 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

going into debt in the first place is the hard way.

People say "I learned it the hard way" when in the end they lost something for eternity, went through suffering etc. Like a recovered drug addict with permanent health damage or someone who turned on the path of crime and spent his youth behind bars or something. To me it seems like you had a pretty good life, took on some debt to live even more carelessly and then matured and calmed down and channeled more of your d…

Actually, "learned it the hard way" refers to making the mistake yourself, rather than learning from someone else's mistake and avoiding making the mistake yourself at all.

It's better to learn from others mistakes, than to "learn it the hard way".

"The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it." - Proverbs 22:3

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

#384

Post by bondolo »

908B64B197 wrote: post #313
bondolo wrote: post #261

I also dropped out of a Canadian computer science degree program but in my case I will likely never get a degree. I left University of Alberta in 1989 after completing about two years of my degree to co-found a startup with the thought that if it failed I would go back to get a degree at a better program. The startup was a success and I have never gone back to school. Sadly, in 1988 the University of Alberta CS progr…

> Sadly, in 1988 the University of Alberta CS program was stuck in a 1970s data processing curriculum and, for undergrads, had neither PCs or Unix I feel the landscape today is very different for CS degrees. Most universities standardized quite a bit around what CMU, Stanford and Berkley are doing. But you are not the first telling me that CS degrees were a crapshoot in the 80's. EE as a pathway to software was much…

At that time there was work in the ACM to standardize the college CS curriculum and, for me, the obvious differences between the proposed ACM curriculum and what I was taking was a stark indicator.

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

#385

Post by graycat »

barry-cotter wrote: post #365
graycat wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just think it would be misleading to imply that this is a path that most people can take. Yes, but if focus just on computing , in that field, there is, long amazing to me, evidence that "most people can" and, in a significant sense, do: I've long been impressed the degree to which the learning crucial for computing in the US has been obtained via self study much as in the OP. Okay, say what you will about an ugr…

> Oh, by the way, the OP mentioned a Georgia Tech Master's degree for ~$10,000. Secret: Commonly high end US research university graduate programs are very short on good students and long on tuition scholarships -- tuition should be about $0.00 for the whole graduate school effort. It’s vastly easier to get into a Master’s than into a grad school programme where everyone is supposed to be aiming at a doctorate. Most…

When I went to grad school, I just got admitted to the grad school and not specifically a Master's program, a terminal Master's program, or a Ph.D. program.

After enough courses, and maybe a paper (I wrote a paper, later published as part of a reading course) can get a Master's. I did that, got a Master's.

If want a Ph.D., then just pass the Ph.D. qualifying exams (QE), courses or not, Master's or not. After passing the QE, do some research. The standard was "an original contribution to knowledge worthy of publication", and the usual criteria for publication are "new, correct, and significant". So, proposed a dissertation research project (I already had a 50 page manuscript I had done on my own on a problem I brought with me to grad school), got approval to work on that as my dissertation, I did some research, derived some math, wrote and ran some software, wrote up what I'd done, stood for an oral exam, passed, and got a Ph.D.

I never paid tuition.

If for some Master's program Georgia Tech is charging a lot of money, they they should have something different from what I outlined.

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

#386

Post by tsjq »

amingilani wrote: post #211

I feel like some of the other comments are missing out on how it's possible to do this slower while still working, regardless: Thank you for this experience, it's super motivating. I recently got into the GA Tech OMSCS program myself. I had a non-tech BSc from a South Asian university that I barely survived because it wasn't my thing. Ever since I got out of school, I've worked in tech. I even managed to get a job an…

> it's possible to do this sort while still working.

This. Woah, I had to scroll down so much to reach this point! This is a very important aspect indeed.

Does the GATech OMSCS program have this flexibility? .

So they admit people from outside the US?

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

#387

Post by aketchum »

tsjq wrote: post #386
amingilani wrote: post #211

I feel like some of the other comments are missing out on how it's possible to do this slower while still working, regardless: Thank you for this experience, it's super motivating. I recently got into the GA Tech OMSCS program myself. I had a non-tech BSc from a South Asian university that I barely survived because it wasn't my thing. Ever since I got out of school, I've worked in tech. I even managed to get a job an…

> it's possible to do this sort while still working. This. Woah, I had to scroll down so much to reach this point! This is a very important aspect indeed. Does the GATech OMSCS program have this flexibility? . So they admit people from outside the US?

yes and yes
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