Hello all. I've been writing code for a couple years now. I've done side projects, contract work, and volunteer work. I've been clawing my way into a development job for some time now, and finally got the chance to jump into being a developer for SCADA systems. I'm excited to start, even though it's not the technology I thought I would be working with. However it's a foot in the door and a way to write code professionally. What I want to talk about is, now that I'm here I realized that I've become so quick to jump in as a developer that I never really figured out what I wanted to do with it. Now looking into the future I see all these opportunities ahead of me with all the different sectors of technology growing (data science, machine learning, cyber security, computer animation, etc) I find myself wanting to do more. I don't really want to run a business. I'd like to be the person getting lost in the technical thickets solving problem. I think that journey starts with going back and getting my undergrad and graduate degrees while I'm still working. I'd love to get into machine learning, and programming artificial intelligences. I'd also love jumping into cyber security (which I kind of do already), or I'd love to someday work in computer animation. All of those, while I can study outside of school and gain experience, are really boosted by having degrees. Going back to school is something I've always wanted to do, as I have a love of learning and a drive I didn't have when I tried it out the first time. I don't expect it to be easy, but it's something I think I want to pursue. Really the discussion I think I'd like to have is with those with undergraduate and graduate degrees or pursuing them. What are your experiences? What helped if you pursued a degree while working? Do you wish you could go back and do something differently? Do you have any thoughts or reactions at all? Let me know, and thanks for reading!
George Offley
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Going back to school after starting your career for a BS and graduate degree
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Top comments (4)
Hey George, I understand your idea totally and think learning profoundly is a good idea at any point in any career. Actually I'm about to do the same: after ~10 years of professional front-end development experience I'm going to attend a college to pursue a math/CS degree. I anticipate it being an interesting yet pretty tough time though :-)
So I'm basically just following the discussion to check what other people think (my personal biggest concern is "is college degree worth the time you spend in comparison to self education?") and also recommend to take a look at this repository: github.com/open-source-society/com.... Seems to be something very helpful.
That is definitely a concern, being that most of the information and all of a CS degree can be found online. I do have a few thoughts in response to the thought though. One being, that you spend the money for the education and the degree. The degree being the piece of paper that offers legitimacy. That said experience is just as important if not more. One of the reasons I want to go back is to be able to learn to think like a computer scientist. Another thought I had is that for someone like me with attention issues it helps to have a structure conducive to learning, rather than me reading as much as I can online. Additionally I want to pursue a graduate degree and maybe participate in the shaping of great technology. That also includes working in machine learning which is going to require a degree.
I'm excited but scared and I'm also curious what other people think. Congrats on heading back to school though. I know what you're going through! Good luck to you.
Entirely agree with all you reasoning. The only think I'd question is "attention issues". For sure, I've experienced it a million times - when a task is big or boring or difficult to understand or I'm just not prepared well enough and lack basic knowledge (as could be with any algorithm that needs some math, for instance). All these lead to procrastination and what one could call an "attention issue". What I've realized, if we're speaking about the same thing, is that it's not an issue with attention, it's more of an issue with attitude and right preparation.
By saying "attitude" I mean expectations about myself and my results. If I expect too much when taking a new task (whether it is a job-related task or just a new technology I'm curious about) and don't realize that I'll have to spend time making mistakes, the first one will make me feel like a failure. It's also very important to stay in tune and keep more or less constant pace not sticking to unimportant details and finalizing things at the end of the day. By saying "right preparation" I mean having enough basic knowledge. I suppose no machine learning is possible to understand if you don't understand statistics and probability and the latter are hard to get if you're bad at algebra. Maybe these thoughts might help you with your "attention problems".
What I like about the university as opposed to self-teaching, is a constant pace requirement (you cannot just skip a month because you're not in the right mood), access to (supposedly) good teachers and just folks interested in same matters and, finally, kind of status you get with your diploma. What I dislike in online studying is isolation and lack of any help, although it might not be a real issue now when we have access to hundreds of online communities.
Thanks for kind words, best of luck to you too George!
I'm preparing to do the same thing. I've been putting together learning materials for myself with the intention to teach myself computer science, and planned to pursue some tech job with my IT degree and make a lateral move into a Software Engineering position once I learned more CS. But I got to thinking about the future, and how a CS degree would make me more "marketable" and help me advance my career. No doubt I think CS could be self taught, but to me, I think I also want the fancy piece of paper to show off all my hard work you know? :)
I've talked to advisors at a couple colleges already, and to my surprise they're dealing with a lot of prospective students seeking 2nd bachelors or Masters degree in CS. So I'm more confident that this was a good decision! I'm interested to see how this plays out for you and others, there's not a lot of information about people going back to school to enter or advance careers in tech.