BS vs MS in Computer Science/Software Engineering

[Social_disturbance]

I haven't been back on this site for a while...Logged back in after 6-7 years, read some of my old posts/threads, and got a little nostalgic.

Anyway...Long story short: I have a non-science BA degree, that is not related to Computer Science. I have worked office jobs for a number of years, and started learning programming 2 years ago. I'm done with one year of Community College, getting my Associates in Computer Science, although the primary goal is actually to get my pre-req's out of the way for College/Grad School. For what it's worth, I know C, C++, Java, C#, HTML/CSS, SQL, and some JavaScript & Objective C (iOS language).

I'm in Southern California: BS degree means probably limited financial aid, and I have to take two classes of physics, and one of another science. For the MS, I just have to take computer-science related courses, which might be a bit easier. I also have to take the GRE, and perhaps a thesis (not sure). Also, the elite schools in California flat out don't take 2nd bach. students (**** you, UC's).

So, that's kind of my dilemma - I'm also wondering about a MS in CS vs Software Engineering - Software Engineering actually has a couple less required courses than CS in a couple of the schools I've looked at.

I'll stop ranting now. Thanks in advance.

 

[Cejay]

What position or type of position are you trying to get? Do you have a target industry?

CJ.

 

[Social_disturbance]

Hard to say about the target industry - I looked into some web dev. stuff with ASP.NET, and it looks very interesting. Also, building mobile apps sounds like something pretty cool - I've always thought that something with business would be pretty cool. To be honest, it's hard to say...but I definitely would like to be coding side for right now.

Having flexible hours (ability to work wherever I want to, at times), and perhaps not having crushing pressure and tons of hours would be nice...Perhaps having all of those things would be unrealistic, but some of them would be nice.

 

[Cejay]

Every job is going to have stresses but flex hours and working from home should be doable. I have been full time WFH for ~6 years now, though I travel a lot as part of my job and I work from anywhere. That last part is a bit harder to find but also doable.

If you are looking at web or app programming you really don't need a lot of education. You can learn/practice on your own, build and release "stuff" as a portfolio. You can also get involved with Open Source projects as a good way of getting experience/learning.
I saw some really good articles a while back about some guys that skipped university all together, programming and did pretty well for themselves. They worked pretty hard but saved them a ton of cash. If you google around I'm sure you can find advice on this.

The reason I asked industry is if you want to work at a krusty, large financial institution, aerospace, etc. you will likley need said education.

I went the DBA route. Most DBAs basically apprentice in. Its a good gig if you are good at it. There is a lot of cool stuff going on in Data these days. (Like Hadoop, NoSQL, etc.)

If you go with a new technology then you even out the playing field because nobody has experience (or much) with it.

CJ.

 

[BetterCallSaul]

If you really like coding and development, that's great. You shouldn't have any trouble finding a job. With that said, try to see this from a company's point of view. Most companies want good coders/developers. They typically can gauge this by asking what sort of things you worked on in the past or maybe a short problem during the interview they'd ask you to write some short code to do something. Having a masters in CS? I think most companies are more interested in someone who can actually perform well rather than bleat out a laundry list of advanced degrees or certs.

 

[Cejay]

BetterCallSaul said what I was trying to say. (Better than I did )

You're going to have to work your ass off and make a big financial and time investment to get those degrees. You can probably be just as successful with out the degree(s) and by focussing a time investment.

I was thinking about your post as well as my own career. Here are some random thoughts.

There is so much free knowledge out there, you can augment with a Safari O'Reilly or books24x7 membership. Then work on learning on your own, use Windows Azure or Amazon Cloud services as your "lab."

Some focused technical training in subjects you're having a hard time mastering.

Find/Get a mentor doing what you want to do.

Blog about what you're learning.

Build stuff and publish it.

Make connections via Linked in (self promoting your blogs and stuff)

Attend networking events (See Meetup.com and similar)

And I bet if you work moderately hard you will have a job coding with reasonable pay. If you don't let up, with in 1-2 yrs after (and if you are willing to job shop a bit, be particular about experience) you will probably start to move into great jobs.

CJ.

 

[Social_disturbance]

Got dayumm...Thanks guys for the great advice - It's nice hearing it from someone who's not 20, and who has real life experience

I actually agree with you guys about self-teaching. That is where I learn most of what I know (I really love Pluralsight, Lynda and LiveLessons). I spent a lot of time this summer brushing up on the languages I know, and also spent time on stuff like HTML/CSS, bootstrap (can't believe that bootstrap sh*t aint cheating!), JavaScript, Objective-C, SQL, XML (creating xml files and reading them).

It seems like it's much easier to build a portfolio with websites/web apps/front-end stuff, in general...rather than with desktop apps. That's sort of why I'm trying to learn ASP.NET (MVC), and JavaScript, JQuery...By the way, not to go too inside here, but I still don't understand why you really need the "controller" in MVC, when the user interacts with the "view," and the data gets processed by the "model." Seems like you can easily cover your bases with Model and View...Just seems like it's enough.

Anyway, thanks for the advice, I think the biggest obstacle might be to publish my first few, "presentable" web-sites/web-apps.