Non-CS here. Is this degree worth it?

onlinelearning.seas.upenn.edu/mcit/

It's 26K...

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only if you go into postgrad and focus on security

Well this would be a masters. I have a BA in History and need to get out of retail. Are you saying I would need another degree after this one?

It's completely worthless. I never went to college for anything. In fact I have a GED. And I'm a developer.

Programming is as easy as learning how to write simple instructions because computers are retarded.

Learn the basics of programming. Variables, functions, loops, etc. Then learn how to use them in writing algorithms. This is the most important thing because it's pointless to jump straight into learning a programming language when you can't even write a program in English.

Once you have an understanding of how to program and understand recursive programming, dynamic programming, etc. then learn a language. And it should come pretty quickly if you understand programming.

Then go on GitHub and find your favorite open source software that you use. Convert it all to English. The file structure. Open up each class and write out what exactly it's doing. This helped me tremendously.

Just keep reading and you will begin to understand things. Jumping straight into writing code when you can't understand programming to begin with will lead to failure. I failed to understand that for almost 8 years. I kept jumping around from language to language hoping to find something easy enough to learn. But the problem wasn't the language, it was me not understanding how to program.

Programming is easy when you sit down and write out instructions of what you want to do in a way that you can understand it first. Whether it's just a written list, mind mapping, etc. Then convert it into a language the computer can understand.

This may sound like common sense to those who actually went to college, but it was the most difficult hurdle for somebody like me that was self taught and dropped out after the 10th grade..

>Are you saying I would need another degree after this one?
if you want the "we make bank and aren't totally interchangeable with some dumbass college grad who knows ruby on rails" meme that Jow Forums always talks about, then yes, you need to have some sort of background in computer security.
doesn't have to come all at once, most workplaces will pay for at least some of your continuing education too

>dropped out after the 10th grade.

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Admirable. But HR requires a degree these days. It's not 2012 anymore. HR in 2018 would probably ding Von Neumann for a job if he didn't have the right "credentials" or know the right "buzzwords"

Wheree did you learn? I'm also a GED brainlet trying to get somewhere in life

HR wants competence because high turnover and/or shitty employees makes their job look bad because they chose to hire them. The "requirements" in most job postings is just there to make their jobs easier. If you're experienced at something or know somebody that can coerce some confidence about you to the HR department, then your chances are better.

The team I work in hires a lot of different people. Some went to community college, some went to University, and 2 others like myself didn't go to college at all. But then again this is Texas where human beings are human beings not California or New York.

Some things that I did,

Watched free course lectures online from MIT, Stanford, etc.

Looked up the syllabus' to colleges and found PDFs of their textbook requirements.

For learning languages, I read the documentation on their official websites instead of some YouTuber that is teaching Java yet says you need to download both JDK and JRE versions of Java even though the JDK comes with a JRE.

Just read code on GitHub writing them out in plain English.

Starting contributing to projects I could fully understand. Got to know developers and learned a lot by working with them.

I got my job through a friend I played WarFrame with. He got me a phone interview which led to a webcam interview. I'm from Virginia and he was living in Dallas. I moved down there in July of 2016 and been here ever since.

What would you recommend learning if I just wanted to escape this hell and get my foot in the door doing entry level IT? I have no college because I didn't know what I wanted to do at the time and now I don't want to waste four or more years of my life paying for a piece of paper. I don't need to be rich, just comfy enough that I don't have to worry.

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>second year CS
>learning how to parse input
What a joke.

CompTia can provide an entry level IT position depending on your location. It's 99% common sense but paying for the certification is an actual standard requirement because of contracts many have to follow because they're contractors.

Depends what field. If you want to do support then you could probably get A+ certificate and get help desk work.

That's fine and I'm okay with paying for certs, it's the degree I'm not fond of wasting my time or money on.
I guess I haven't really decided since I only recently started looking into it.

user I went back to community college with a strong IT program.
20 hours a week, 5 hours a day at 7am, learning how enterprise IT works.
It wasn't a well rounded program but a vo-tech school, just focused on job-related skills
Got a job doing desktop support out of that school
Taught myself to program while being a support monkey, automated my work away
Job hopped a bunch, roles with increasing skills/responsibility
4 years later, just got hired as a dev doing security at a major financial company

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I had also looked into Georgia Tech's OMSCS. Main issue was timing (had to do a bunch of prereqs even though I have some programming experience) and time commitment of the courses. I prefer to learn on my own time, but just need this piece of paper to get through HR Screens

It's a very well respected online program, I've been thinking of doing my masters there (I did ee for my undergrad).
I think your head is in the wrong place about all this stuff. Getting a degree isn't a ticket to a job. All it says is you MIGHT know about IT/engineering/whateveryoumajor in. STEM is pretty saturated, you'll be competing against a lot of other people. Maybe do trades if you're not committed to a lifetime of learning.

>26K
Lmao sucks to be an ameritard

I would agree, except for things like contracting (gov), you need that degree due to the all the bureaucracy. I doubt I will ever become a superstar in SV or anything. But I would cherish a reasonable job at a defense contractor or government contractor or some cushy Work from home opportunity. I'm fine with learning new things for life, but at my own pace and my own schedule.

>But I would cherish a reasonable job at a defense contractor or government contractor or some cushy Work from home opportunity.
Would you be able to get a security clearance?
opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/sf86-non508.pdf

Good shit man, thanks.

I believe so. Truth be told if I did something like EE or even any engineering discipline, I would be going for a more advanced MSCS.

>le current year
>having a skill set that allows you to work from literally anywhere at any time
>having a skill set that allows you to start business with virtually 0 overhead, virtually 0 location dependence, virtually 0 startup cost, and total anonymity if you so choose
>voluntarily choosing to become a wagecuck
>voluntarily choosing to become a wagecuck in the United States
>voluntarily choosing to become a wagecuck in the United States to the United States Government
lmfao fucking faggit

OP, what no one here has pointed out is that you're talking about an MS from a FUCKING IVY LEAGUE COLLEGE!
Yeah son, if you can get accepted, go for it!
The price can't be beat either. If you're working retail, you'll have that paid off in a year.
>t.boomer corporate tool with 20+ years skin in the game.

Thank you so much! Any chance I can get an interview at your company?

No. You can literally make six figures with no degree.

Do any type of call centre job for a couple months. It will get you comfortable talking to strangers on a phone.

Then apply to help desk positions with your computer experience, if you can make rdp shortcuts, troubleshoot printers and outlook you cover 80% of helpdesk

>gets a BA in history
>gunning for an online degree in CS
why do you always set yourself up for failure at every opportunity?

Besides Trades and networking, how?

Hey, I respect your determination and that you had enough humility to change what you were doing when you realized it was wrong.

My parents were the type to be impressed that I was the first in my family to get a college degree. And said I could major in anything and do well afterwards.

fuck HR, i'm an entrepreneur these days

would you take financial advice from someone who is broke, but loves you?
why did you take education advice from someone who is academically broke (as far as credentials are concerned)?

Edison had 4 months of college or something

I'm a non-degreed developer too but I would recommend anyone who's young and capable of going through college to go to college. Regardless how useless the actual degree is, it opens more doors. This world is all about appearances. Many people will still judge you by your credentials than your skill.

I'm more comfortable talking to people over the phone than I am face to face honestly.

Edison was more of a businessman than an inventor.

When you are 17, you tend to think your parents with a wealth of life experiences know best.

Varies by the individual. A lot of people nowadays are influenced more by the media.

I always try to explain this exact phenomena to people, but never had the nuance of words you used right now. This makes perfect sense. I need to tell people this now. The whole "it's useless to write programs when you can't program in English" is the exact phrasing I was looking for. Thank you user.

I'm sorry you go to a shit school desu

Fuck off, we full. You can crash in sales if you want.

I have a GED and want to get a CS degree what should I do

Doesn't CS have a lot of open positions and growth?

I have a high school diploma and want a sandwich what should I do

It looks pretty expensive for classes it provides.

>paying for education
based third-world country

Any alternative also seems expensive. Taking prereqs at the local university would cost a bit as well. I'm not saying it's cheap, but the price does seem fair...

Well, if it's mostly about the degree than yes. If you want just to get into the programming I wouldn't recommend it because you can get almost every course for free on edx or coursera. Or pirate an ebook on some topic if there is no course

What do you learn in second year?

im young and completely new to programming. I was going to start on python but now I want to take your advice and learn the way you say so. Where should I start then?

I dropped out of Uni after my second year, got CompTIA A+, N+ and CISCO certifications instead. Self-studying took about a year and a half on top of working full time.

I'm now making more than my two friends who completed their degrees and I'm the head of IT for a school district.

Skip school unless you're going for further education because that's where the real money is.

They'll both be making more than me if they complete postgrad.

Are online programs generally considered on par with the on-campus programs from the same school? I've kicked around the idea of going back for grad school but I can't really justify quitting the stable work I already have to take on full-time studies at a traditional on-campus program, and I wouldn't want to take the online course route if it doesn't match the quality/employability of a traditional program

Some things you should know about the program and the field from my experience so far.

I very much disagree with the argument that you will need a masters or higher. This only applies if you want to work with research straight out of the gate, and usually your company will pay for your masters if they deem it necessary and will otherwise see you as overqualified for the position. In some areas it is mandatory to have a masters in order to hold a management position, but that depends very heavily on the company and region.

Another important point is that you will NOT be locked into working within software/theoreticals with a CS degree, i know people who started with CS and went to mechatronics, mech eng and even business. and I also know mech eng people who came to the CS field and one who went into business. It's all up to you and your professional development DO THE CO-OP PROGRAM THIS WILL BE INDISPENSABLE

Fundamentally your degree will get you into interviews much easier, this degree will say Computer Science but most of the currently available jobs on the market will be Software Engineering. Computer science being writing up theoretical models and proving those models using mathematics, while software engineering being the design, development, maintenance and basically the architecture of software. Software development workday jobs top out at Architect level, idk where theoretical jobs top out, research fellow maybe?

nobody gives a shit about your education after your first 2 jobs. DO THE CO-OP PROGRAM, preferably split it into multiple short terms so you can scout which field/work environment you like/can tolerate most.

tl;dr cs degree is a good paper to get you through the door, do the program which offers co-op preferably multiple small terms, make connections and use shit like linked-in. if you played with shit like lego as a kid and loved it, you will like software dev, if you watched shows like south park you will fit in with the culture

Oh yeah also for your first job out of university you should probably start looking for a different placement after 1 year and be gone in 2 years tops, you need to get some diverse tech on that resume so you can meet more people and learn to tackle different types of problems to avoid building up a bias. But this also depends on your situation, so ultimately you should assess and decide for yourself.

Also this is based on my experience in Canada, and a tiny bit in the US. so it may vary where you are. Good luck!

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start with python, people will tell you to "learn the basics" by doing c, but that's retarded, that's like learning OS architecture by installing gentoo. humans learn top down, high level concepts first then the pattern matching kicks in. learning low level shit at the beginning will fuck you up HARD. i am very heavily biased against python but even so I will still recommend that shit for your first language, it's an excellent entry language

I feel like it is easier to grasp OOP concepts with Java.

yeah that's actually fair enough, java is pretty good as a first language as well and will definitely teach you OOP because the whole language is autistically designed to be entirely OOP to the point where it actually hurts at certain points. It's actually the one I started with. I still think python is easier for a total beginner because it has a lot of comprehensive tutorials on the web, and a ton of easily pluggable libraries. I'd argue that OOP is a more advanced concept and it's simpler to start out monolithic, but i guess that depends on how you like to tackle problems

I dropped out after my second year too. I was working at the same time and couldn't keep up with the commitment to school. I ended up designing consumer electronics. School is alright, but it's not a requirement for success, and IMO, things are the way they have always been: hard work combined with a little bit of knowledge earns success. Most schools today are just teaching kids to be entitled.

I started learning programming with pic related. The way the subject is presented in that book doesn't make C look that hard. I think the issue has more to do with pacing and how the material is presented.

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>Is this degree worth it?
not, it scam

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is there a specific beginner playlist you would use for the mit and stanford courses?

Your degree won't get you hired in the tech field unless you're a trans POC. It's really hard to get a job now days if you're a white male. So much bullshit PC SJW pandering and diversity virtue signalling in every tech related company

hooray for neo-marxism and the democratic party

Vast majority of programmers are still White males.

datausa.io/profile/soc/151131/#demographics

Programming is easy when you have stack exchange to solve the novel problems for you. But lets say there comes a time when a novel problem presents itself that requires much more than just "muh programming", then you're no better than a code monkey.

Figure out what you want. I've got my sights on Software Engineer because i get to boss people around while i program maybe for 3 hrs each day. If not then Data Scientist, AI researcher, or Roboticist.

and the vast majority of sugar farmers are indian males. what is your point?

and the vast majority of human beings on this earth are chinese males. what is your point?

>It's 26K...
Jesus Christ, a guy I know is a Carpenter/Construction worker and he gets paid way more than that.