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DevDegree: Work at Shopify and get a free CS degree in parallel

devdegree.ca

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Re: DevDegree: Work at Shopify and get a free CS degree in parallel

#51

Post by icelancer »

dwohnitmok wrote: post #26
codegeek wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP went to an Ivy league. Totally possible

Given the amount, that's actually fairly unlikely to be from the Ivy League education. Generally Ivy League schools cost less (sometimes way less) than public schools unless your family makes more than ~130-150k combined and/or has fairly substantial assets. One possible way for it to happen is if a student's parents have a high income, are unwilling to pay for the student's education and force the student to shoulde…

I was accepted to MIT and could not realistically afford it despite my parents having a low-medium household income. I chose a lesser private school that offered me a full scholarship instead.

I'm in my 30s-40s - was entering college before need-blind was a thing. It absolutely happens.

Re: DevDegree: Work at Shopify and get a free CS degree in parallel

#52

Post by chairmanwow1 »

ec109685 wrote: post #50
tybit wrote: post #34

This looks a lot more like an apprenticeship to me than a degree. Which I think is fantastic, Universities are generally terrible at teaching practical skills and fantastic at teaching theory.

Waterloo does this where they mix internships and study throughout their time.

And this is why I always love having a Waterloo intern / new grad on the team. They are just so productive.

They hit the ground _sprinting_.

Re: DevDegree: Work at Shopify and get a free CS degree in parallel

#53

Post by beering »

swyx wrote: post #3

i am wishing i could go back 15 years and do this now. i was dumb enough to go to an ivy league for an unrelated degree, then change careers and go thru a bootcamp, and i'm now still 100's of thousands in debt. if i was growing up today i would absolutely drop everything to do this. kudos to shopify but it really feels a little bittersweet.

Curious and want to ask: if this were available 15 years ago, would you have done it? It seems like you'd need to 1) have CS as your goal, 2) know about Shopify and their program, and 3) get in.

I know a lot of people don't even have CS on their radar when they enter college.

Re: DevDegree: Work at Shopify and get a free CS degree in parallel

#54

Post by dwohnitmok »

icelancer wrote: post #51
dwohnitmok wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the amount, that's actually fairly unlikely to be from the Ivy League education. Generally Ivy League schools cost less (sometimes way less) than public schools unless your family makes more than ~130-150k combined and/or has fairly substantial assets. One possible way for it to happen is if a student's parents have a high income, are unwilling to pay for the student's education and force the student to shoulde…

I was accepted to MIT and could not realistically afford it despite my parents having a low-medium household income. I chose a lesser private school that offered me a full scholarship instead. I'm in my 30s-40s - was entering college before need-blind was a thing. It absolutely happens.

Oh I don't doubt that top-tier universities can still be a tough call when the alternative is a free ride, especially from 20+ years ago. In retrospect my comment left out the fact that a substantial portion of students admitted to Ivy league schools (or MIT, all part of the Overlap Group that got prosecuted by the Justice Department back in the early 90s for student aid price-fixing) do in fact get full scholarships for other schools, which can make the calculus for these schools less rosy (e.g. 8k per year, while cheaper than a 20k state school, still is a lot more than 0).

It's just usually not the case that you'll graduate with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, at least these days. It's quite rare IIRC among students receiving financial aid to graduate with more than several thousand dollars of debt from an Ivy over four years, and if you go back several decades I'm fairly certain those numbers go up, but I'd be rather shocked if they went up by more than an order of magnitude.

The OP got really screwed by the Singaporean situation, where if you don't fulfill the post-graduation government work posting obligations, the Singaporean government will claw back all the money it gave you for college plus interest.

Re: DevDegree: Work at Shopify and get a free CS degree in parallel

#55

Post by donavanm »

ec109685 wrote: post #50
tybit wrote: post #34

This looks a lot more like an apprenticeship to me than a degree. Which I think is fantastic, Universities are generally terrible at teaching practical skills and fantastic at teaching theory.

Waterloo does this where they mix internships and study throughout their time.

+1 to waterloo. So many successful and productive individuals come out of there.

Re: DevDegree: Work at Shopify and get a free CS degree in parallel

#56

Post by curiousgal »

stonejolt wrote: post #44
tybit wrote: post #34

This looks a lot more like an apprenticeship to me than a degree. Which I think is fantastic, Universities are generally terrible at teaching practical skills and fantastic at teaching theory.

That's what we call 'Duales Studium' in Germany. You just do your semesters normally and in between instead of springbreak etc you work for the company.

It's popular in France too, "Alternance"; you spend two or three days in the company per week and the rest in school. It's mostly for senior grad students.

Re: DevDegree: Work at Shopify and get a free CS degree in parallel

#57

Post by tonyedgecombe »

cmwelsh wrote: post #25
faceyspacey wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just never pay the debts bro. Forget that shit and let it all go, and start stacking to live a debt free stress free life.

I know you’re downvoted for saying something that’s basically unethical, but I’m interested: how do you propose to buy a home using this strategy? All cash? In my area, I’d need around $200,000 cash. I know there’s trailer parks and etc. but they may not work for everyone.

I know you’re downvoted for saying something that’s basically unethical

It was unethical for the system to push an 18 year old down the route of taking on huge loans. I'm not sure that finding a way out of that is.

Re: DevDegree: Work at Shopify and get a free CS degree in parallel

#58

Post by JDiculous »

dwohnitmok wrote: post #26
codegeek wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP went to an Ivy league. Totally possible

Given the amount, that's actually fairly unlikely to be from the Ivy League education. Generally Ivy League schools cost less (sometimes way less) than public schools unless your family makes more than ~130-150k combined and/or has fairly substantial assets. One possible way for it to happen is if a student's parents have a high income, are unwilling to pay for the student's education and force the student to shoulde…

I'd be that most Ivy League students have parents making more than $130-150k combined, probably substantially more. That's only a middle class income, and at least anecdotally most Ivy League students I know tend to come from upper class families.

Tuition alone is $50k/yr, which would equate to $250k for a 4-year degree not accounting for living costs. Even at 50% off the sticker price, you're looking at over $125k in debt upon graduation.

Re: DevDegree: Work at Shopify and get a free CS degree in parallel

#59

Post by ligand »

keenmaster wrote: post #45
xupybd wrote: post #39

Wait how do they make money out of this. They're paying salary to people that can't yet code? I've seen companies strugle to make money with mid level devs.

When you’re the first large provider of tech apprenticeships, you want apprentices to stick around after graduation. The problem is that Shopify generally can’t force employees to stay (companies hate suing over breach of contract for education subsidies). One work around is to pay a low salary during the training period. That’s exactly what Shopify is doing (160K over 4 years = 40K per year). This could be a cheap w…

> On top of this, Shopify pays students' tuition, a competitive salary, and vacation, for a total financial support of more than $160,000.

From https://devdegree.ca/pages/student-experience. It appears that you dont get paid 40k. 40k per year is the total they will expend on you, with tuition being part of that.

Re: DevDegree: Work at Shopify and get a free CS degree in parallel

#60

Post by JDiculous »

swyx wrote: post #37
chrisseaton wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> now still 100's of thousands in debt Is that hyperbole, or literally your debt is that much?

not hyperbole. there were some compounding factors i didnt mention, but the bulk is quite literally college tuition. i dont need to put my screwed up financial life on display but it's the single worst decision of my life, all for imagined prestige. i'm lucky enough that i will earn my way out of it, but it is quite literally preventing me from starting any businesses right now, which is what i actually want to do. t…

I made the mistake too, going $128k in debt to pursue a unrelated master's degree at an Ivy only to end up pursuing software engineering.

Are your loans from the government? If so, you can likely qualify for the Pay-as-you-earn program where your payments are capped at 10% of your disposable income, and debts are forgiven after 20 years (though you have to pay taxes on the amount forgiven I believe). Of course it still stings to see $1.3k/month get sucked out of your bank account to pay the interest on this student debt scam, just know that the pain is mostly psychological. I just choose not to think about it, because it's too depressing otherwise.

I honestly believe that student debt will be forgiven within 10-20 years. Candidates like Elizabeth Warren are already pledging to eliminate student loan debt. Once the younger generation is in power, they will likely kill this giant pyramid scheme and forgive all student loans. And no matter what happens in Congress, if all of us collectively strike on our student loan debt, then the government will have no choice but to fix this problem they created.

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