For coders, are these 100% online, accredited programs any good?

[steelerfan]

THF,

Numerous people here are telling you that you don’t need a CS degree. It seems like you are hell bent on “you doing you”. Believe them. You probably are at or over 30 based on when you joined this forum. My son got his dual BA degrees at Boulder (CS/Math) in 4 years. It worked out for him. But plenty of the people he works with had different paths to get there. Honestly it is about learning the skills to do the job, getting in, and demonstrating you know what you are doing. Your soft skills you already have count for a lot. Making friends and getting along matters. Spending more money getting another degree after a point just makes you look like a professional student. Once you get in your employer may even pay for some of your school if collecting degrees is your bag. Getting in the door is what matters.

My son took computer classes at a tech school as part of his HS diploma. He has a friend that never went to college and he is killing it as the top computer guy at his company. Without a degree. He is 23 BTW and owns his own house in Austin. People end up in IT/CS with lots of backgrounds and life skills. You are getting to the point where you could be reporting to a boss that is 10 years younger than you. Do you think they will be impressed or even care about the classes you took or your Ivy creds? No… After a point it may even be a negative.

Just get in there and do it. In the end if you fit the profile and have the right stuff it will all work out assuming you do your part. Good luck.

[TopHatFox]

@steelerfan, my boss is like 50 w/ a PhD, & youngest person in company is an intern in their early 20’s and there’s only one. Several ppl in the company have 2 master’s, and all the coders have a CS degree. I think only reason this is a good job is because I now have 6 yrs of xp on resume, good opportunities don’t generally go to 23 YOs, and if they do, they’re of the “work you ‘till you drop variety (like consulting or IB or FAANG).” A boss aged 23 in 2023 is very likely the founder of their own company. Every technical interviewer tech lead I’ve talked to is at least 40.

[Viktor K]

I looked at the course offering for the CU Boulder one. I don’t think they’re very applicable to majority of software engineer jobs.

Having been on the interviewer side, I paid no mind to CS degrees and would not give an applicant my vote based on them having one or not. As in it didn’t carry weight on the interviewer panels that I was part of. When reviewing resumes I was specifically looking at years of experience, and examples of skill application related to our tech stack.

Waste of time and money unless it’s as you mention just to avoid questions that you got about not having one, or targeting a specific market.

And further, given these applicants:
A) CS cert + your current position
B) bootcamp + your current position
C) self taught + your current position

I would favor B, C, then A in order of most preferred to least preferred, on paper. That’s due to the applicable knowledge and (ideally) experience that B and C have working with the technology.

In the interview itself it would be algorithm test (maybe), plus asking specific questions about technologies we use.

And if any of those 3 have the experience with for example AWS, React, and some backend, and can speak about it intelligently with relevant work or personal project examples to back it up, that candidate would get the vote over the others, doesn’t really matter their schooling/lack of schooling.

Opportunity cost for me personally, plus my general disinterest in all things engineering and computer science (besides the job perks), would be too high for any of those programs.

That you can pay it off with an uncommon $15k bonus is not really an argument for it. Jumping jobs every 2 years or even less once your foot in the door can easily get you $10k+ salary increase.

In the back of my mind too I have this feeling that a 22yo CS graduate is who you would be competing with and may even have a slight ageism and mold-ability/naivety preference, depending on the company.

Another exercise you may want to consider is something I’ve done in the past. Looking at the people who have what I’m working towards, do I want to be them? Or is there a better example that I should be following?

Whatever you decide, good luck and I hope it works out for you! You seem to have your mind set, so depending on how stubborn you are (me too) this may just be a second dissenting opinion for you to ignore.

You’re also in the difficult position of not quite having a software job yet, and having to consider between CS, bootcamp (my vote), or self taught. I think either path, as long as you stay the course, will work out for you.

It’s just a consideration of time, focus, opportunity cost (financial and time), and target market. My web dev team earn 120k-175k depending on experience, and it’s the easiest job ever. Buttons, fixing little bugs, building APIs… no comp science just the most popular web dev stack. Easy enough to spend an hour or two on a task and then close my laptop for the rest of the day. CS degree has never come up and I’ve actually had managers complain about CS grads and how complicated they make everything haha. CS certificate would not get you in the door, but a portfolio of web dev or work experience would.

I thought your company was going to transition you to software anyways. I’m a slacker. If I was in that position, I’d just ride the salary until I got moved over, get the work experience, and then jump to an easy no CS role like I have now. Or if I had a little more energy and drive, I’d sandbag at work and build projects while continuing to apply for entry level software position, or even do an evening bootcamp.

Programs seem legit, I looked at the courses. Not for me, but legit, and cover a wide variety of topics that I’ve never learned (nor needed).

It would be interesting to hear the opinion of engineers at your company, or other CS degree/certificate holders. Also companies in different areas on the conservative vs liberal axis. Ive noticed in more conservative areas, the pay and benefits lower, more in person, and higher requirements, for small to medium size companies. Also harder interviews (more algorithms, big O, class based architecture).

Good luck, happy to follow up but otherwise don’t think I have much more to offer besides reiterating my bias. Hope whatever choice you make works out for you

[WFJ]

For anyone applying to grad school in the US, this provides excellent data on what to expect. Summary, Grad students have more debt, Universities charge more and students are no better off.

https://lesleyjturner.com/GradPLUS_Feb2023.pdf

I can't comment on every grad program but can attest that many "grad" programs for adults have lower standards than undergrad degrees in the same Universities. A non-zero number (maybe most) grad programs are nothing more than hotels or airlines where load factors (how many students are enrolled) is more valued than any student learning.

[white belt]

This seems like an imposter syndrome issue more than anything else. Getting a CS degree won't magically make you into a good programmer or into a cool STEM cat. You already broke into the tech bro club with your recent job, so from now on your experience and skills matter much more (as others have indicated).

[ertyu]

not imposter syndrome, this is a desire to control everything and make quadruple sure they can't take this opportunity or your life from you; i have it, too. it's a reaction to whatever there happened when you were growing up in terms of conditions. you also see it in, "i can't ever get married because the judge can take my house." (i'm not arguing whether this is or isn't a legitimate worry; i'm pointing out the vibe of "everything can be ripped from me at any time it's all provisional and conditional and i have to strive and protect myself triple-hard")

@thf, up until now, this desire to control has driven you to excel academically, to go to a very good school, to work hard to leverage its alumnae network to get the job you want, etc. it's worked *for* you. however, i wonder whether you're not hitting a stage of your life where it's holding you back and working against you. in the particular case discussed in this thread, it might be pushing you to use your time and resources sub-optimally: im not into cs or it, but from what i read, many who are are saying that while a degree definitely won't hurt you, it might not help you as much as you think it will and it might have opportunity costs -- your time and energy might be better spent networking, for instance, or doubling down on job-related skills. on a wider scale, the drive to control and protect yourself might be keeping you from having relationships that are deep and secure and healing. when it comes to women, you're keeping yourself militantly safe. it's not hurting you in the sense of causing you harm but it might be depriving you. and yes, im fully aware im speaking as someone who's pulling a lot of the same shit albeit in different life areas; im not presuming to speak to you from some higher vantage point or whatever. im pointing out what i see because imo you're at a stage of life where a GOOD therapist (and I mean GOOD, a mediocre one is unlikely to be of any use beyond what you can do for yourself) -- anyway; you're at the stage of life where you've landed the job + you have good income: might be a good time to get into this fear and desire to control and see the ways in which it's keeping you rigid and inflexible and may be causing "inefficiencies" in how you approach life.

[TopHatFox]

@ertyu, yes, exactly — I don’t trust anything employment-wise to last because it hasn’t. Also don’t trust anything court-related because you see example after example of successful guys losing their shirt over a legal relationship. Job tenure is shorter than ever. Trying to solidify my position in what seems to be the best job/field I’ve had so far, perhaps by getting the CS degree or doing every single tutorial on TeamTreeHouse. I don’t like therapists, most of the time they’re enablers, not to mention $$$. It kinda does seem like everything is provisional; I’ve been unemployed longer than I have been an employee, and not only is it not from lack of trying, but it’s not uncommon either. Best thing I can do is optimize my chances of getting the next thing.

[Viktor K]

Teamtreehouse + creative resume writing / wording? That gets you future job opps with very little opportunity cost. You get in the door because of resume, and can nail the interview because of team treehouse background.

For current job, if they have agile or standup, maybe you can sit in on those if you haven’t already to get perspective on what you’re missing / don’t understand.

The CS degree in the family swears by teamtreehouse as well, fwiw.

I feel that as well ertyu, even though it was about thf, feel like I could have wrote that same things about myself in many areas/times of my life. Insecurity + fear quite strong emotions

[TopHatFox]

@Viktor K, that's how I got all my interviews, yup. TeamTreeHouse is the shit. My new resume is shiny as hell, but it does feel like it's missing the official seal of approval of a CS degree. Insecurity sucks, and I've known it a lot from growing up to 20's. Interesting part is that it can be WAY worse. I've met ppl from SA here in Miami that have literally seen family members killed in the favelas of Brazil or in poverty in Cuba before escaping to the US. I signed up for an info. session on the CU degree next week, so I'll ask them a bunch of questions there. I also still have a few technical interviews, so I can ask the recruiters and possibly the tech-leads about what they think of a CS degree and specifically this CS degree.

[ertyu]

I feel that as well ertyu, even though it was about thf, feel like I could have wrote that same things about myself in many areas/times of my life. Insecurity + fear quite strong emotions

oh me, too, i don't think it's all that unusual. it often takes me some time to catch myself overcompensating and grasping in an attempt to counteract anxiety about this or that being uncertain or precarious. to a point it can motivate one to keep striving, but there is absolutely also a point beyond which it's counterproductive. As long as it's on one's radar, i guess

@thf, you're the boss of your life, you know what works and doesn't better than any rando on the internet that read three text posts about your life. i had the thought so i shared it in case it might be useful. you've aced things so far, im sure you'll keep acing them

[Slevin]

I’m literally a tech lead who has hired dozens of people, and I couldn’t care less about the CS degree. The only time it matters at all is for the first job in the industry. Past that, you’re pretty “proven” and I care about whether you can do the job and be competent with all the tools / infrastructure we use.

I’ve seen competent devs go back and get a CS degree after they have the job — it usually stems from a strong sense of insecurity, and almost never is actually useful because a software engineering job rarely has anything to do with what you are taught in a CS degree. It’s mostly digging through and understanding mountains of legacy code written by someone else and documented poorly because it didn’t make monetary sense to do it the correct scaleable way as a startup and welding on new features. Or cleaning up that old legacy code to work better. If you get really lucky, you get to be the guy writing the OG code that everyone will hate 5 years from now. If you are really really lucky, you end up at the 1/1000 company who takes their time to do things the right / scaleable way and documents it well. But mostly it’s about learning the ins and outs and quirks of the behemoths built before you, and being able to work with them. You get better at that by doing it repeatedly, not by listening to lectures and doing CS homework.

Side note that I’m a devops engineer not a full stack dev, but the full stack devs are the same. Many of the best devs I know don’t have CS degrees.

[Scott 2]

@THF - sometimes you ask a question, get the answer from experts, and then choose not to hear it. Before forging ahead with the original plan, you might also explain why those who tried to help are wrong.

This thread is a good example of the pattern. Sometimes it feels like what you really want is an audience for your greatness. When someone doesn't know you, it can be aggravating.

Do you do that at work?

I ask because you're obviously very smart. And already well educated. I can't believe issues related to keeping a job are aptitude or credential related.

But, people are fickle. They don't like to be disregarded or made to feel dumb. Especially if you really are better than them. What if you unintentionally act in a way that feels condescending to leadership or peers? Politics could quickly burn you.

[mountainFrugal]

As a follow-up to @scott2's questions...

Can you name a specific time that you got non-technical feedback at your work and incorporated that into a behavior change in how you then interacted with co-workers? Every company and organization has a different culture. This might help you determine what @scott2 is getting at.

[TopHatFox]

I succeeded at all of my jobs interpersonally. If anything, where I failed is the technical portion, like not knowing how to invest actively in bonds or how to do detailed government TPS report X within a short time-frame. At work, I just do whatever they tell me & reflect however they wrote their email, message, or conversation. You guys aren’t work tho, so I can push back. :0 I think I’ll just do both, do all the stuff on TTH, and if that doesn’t get me the full coding job, do the online MSc. The stuff on TTH is more likely to be applicable right away, so makes sense to do it first. Either way, I’m getting paid well IMO, so I have time to burn. I’m just hoping this lasts against sources outside my control (like company going under, etc).

[Scott 2]

I couldn't be more wrong!

Mountain Frugal's question generalizes my point well.

At some orgs, you win by mirroring the boss and doing exactly as asked. In others, that's seen as lacking initiative.

[7Wannabe5]

At some orgs, you win by mirroring the boss and doing exactly as asked. In others, that's seen as lacking initiative.

Also good advice when dating.

[macg]

I will reiterate that it's a waste of money. Spend the money on certifications if you must spend money. Cloud certifications will be handy, or if there are any machine learning ones, etc.

I graduated with a minor in computers, and after the initial job (which you have), no one cared about my college degree. As a former IT manager, I didn't care about the college degree, even when looking for college interns, I just looked at body of work/attitude/learning style and potential.

[TopHatFox]

Well dang, if an MSCS is so worthless, why do ppl even bother completing them. At this point, I'll just do TTH & hope for the best. I'm not sure if Implementation Specialist is even considered a Software Engineering role, or if it'll even turn into a Software Engineer role in a year.

[mathiverse]

There are many reasons to do an MSCS. It just isn't a great way to meet your specific purpose which I gather is ensuring you'll have job security.

Here are some of the reasons I know people have gotten an MSCS.

• Get a post graduation work visa for 18 months (iirc) if you are an immigrant.
• Great way to get into the running for an H1B if you didn't do an undergrad in the US and you are having trouble getting offers from abroad
• If you didn't get selected for an H1B or your H1B ran out or you were fired/laid off from your job and you couldn't get a new one, then it's a good way to stay in the US and get a new work visa post-degree
• Improve H1B visa chances if you have an undergrad from the US (H1Bs are easier to get if you have a grad degree.)
• Having a job specifically requires one for advancement (eg some (all?) national labs make it hard to advance to management without a masters or better)
• Some people do the masters to break in rather than your route of being self taught (but once you've broken in like you have, it drastically drops in usefulness)
• It comes with passing through to a PhD program.
• Getting a one year master after your four year undergrad is common due cheapness, not being ready to leave school, or maybe curiosity about grad school
• Probably other reasons

I'm pretty sure the majority of MSCS graduates in the US are international students. All the visa related reasons are basically why that's the case.

[Scott 2]

One developer I worked with had a bachelor's in math. She was on a successful career track. But decided to get the masters anyway.

We learned why when she quit to become a professor. Quite the pay cut, especially considering long term prospects. She wanted to teach, at a college that shared her religious beliefs.