

DIY Masters in Computer Science - adaptives

I have been experimenting with Do-It-Yourself learning. This year I thought of actually doing a self-study masters in Computer Science and understand if it is possible for someone to be able to do a DIY masters, to gain knowledge and build credentials.<p>If successful I am also hoping that my experiment will demonstrate a process which can be used by self learners.<p>What do you think of this experiment, and the process? Can you suggest any changes in either?<p>Here is the main page where I am consolidating everything.<p>http://opencs.wikidot.com
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RiderOfGiraffes
Clickable: <http://opencs.wikidot.com>

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aitoehigie
Very cool idea. I do not have a formal degree in comp. science and most times
I feel that there so many things that I don't know which I ought to know. Is
there any place where I can do a DIY undergraduate comp science degree?

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rick_2047
Well I don't think an UG DIY degree would be a good idea. The UG degree has
more courses than the PG (as they should be, so you have atleast a basic
survey of the key topics in CS). This increases the workload on the student.
Further more, the UG degree is not only about getting the knowledge. Its an
essential part of social life one must go through. Joining clubs, games,
groups build your character. This is likewise true for Masters courses. Its
not only about the knowledge, its also about the exposure you get out of the
Uni. campus.

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jwhitlark
Useful part of social life, perhaps. Essential, I disagree. Furthermore,
someone could get these experiences elsewhere. Finally, the poster didn't
state that they didn't have ANY degree, just that they didn't have a CS
degree.

Of course, your post might be satirical; in that case, just ignore me ;-)

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HilbertSpace
Of what is worth careful study in computer science, your old Master's in CS
likely is still just fine.

For what you want to learn now, e.g., Web site development, profs in a
Master's program in a CS department likely won't know it either. Uh, they
don't spend their time doing Web development! So, what you want now really
isn't an up to date Master's or a Master's in Web site development.

If you want 'credentials', then give people the URLs of some Web sites you've
developed -- in the job market, that's mostly regarded as the best
'credentials' anyway.

Like essentially everything else in such 'practical' computing, if you want to
learn Web development, then develop some Web sites and read and learn what you
need to know as you need it.

My Web site is based all on Microsoft software. So, the Web site itself is
based on ASP.NET and the .NET version of Visual Basic. When I need to interact
with SQL Server, I use ADO.NET.

To start, I got a copy of Buyens book, 'Web Database Development, Step by
Step, .NET Edition', which is quite well written for an introduction.

I also have the Belena's book on Visual Basic 2005, and it is helpful.

For most of the rest, I've downloaded about 1000 Web pages of documentation
from Microsoft's MSDN, etc. sites. As I keep developing, I keep downloading:
If do anything a little new, then I download another 30 pages or so.

To store the downloaded pages, I have one directory for each of Visual Basic,
ASP, ADO, etc.

Then, in each directory, to find things, I have a file I maintain with my
favorite general purpose (programmable) text editor that has an 'abstract' of
each Web page I've downloaded. So, those directories are my main source of
what I need to know.

In addition, for some questions, I search Google and find other Web pages and
download and abstract those similarly.

The Express version of SQL Server Management Studio can be helpful when
getting started, e.g., setting user names.

I do my Visual Basic programming and ASP.NET programming just using my
favorite text editor, In my source code, I document what I'm doing, e.g.,
often will give a reference to documentation details. So, when I download a
page, the HTML part goes to a file, and I can put the tree name of that file
in a source code comment and, with one keystroke of my editor, have my
favorite Web browser display the file. Or if the detail is in Buyens, etc., I
can put the page number in a comment.

In the end, code samples are good, and there many of those.

For SQL Server, I'm mostly just using the MSDN pages. So far I just write
simple T-SQL code, executed via ADO.NET or just the command line SQLCMD.EXE
that comes with SQL Server.

Yes, one 500 page book, another 600 page book, 1000+ Web pages is a lot to
work with, but I've had no trouble understanding what I've read and making
corresponding code work.

If you want to develop with Microsoft's .NET, etc. the above is a good outline
and should be enough to get you started and, then, self sufficient for as
about as far as you want to go. For versions of Unix, likely something similar
would work.

Uh, in the history of the US computer industry, actually university courses
have had relatively little to do what what the workers learned that they
needed to know.

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rick_2047
Why not make a UofReddit course out of it? Rope in a mentor for what you want
to learn. Make a four/five week study plan and do social learning. While that
would somewhat give you the credentials and openness that you want, it will
take away some of the flexibility.

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adaptives
UofReddit seems very interesting. Will check it out.

