
Ask HN: Should I drop out of my second bachelors? - orange_county
Currently in my late 20s and will be transferring from a community college to my local UC for my second bachelors, which will be completed in March of 2017. First degree was from the same school with unrelated, non-math, non-engineering degree.<p>Had a talk with my friend who is in the industry, and he said I should just start applying for jobs and teaching myself instead of wasting money. For jobs like web and mobile dev, it makes less sense to go for a full CS degree, since in those fields you can showcase your work and get hired a lot easier. I currently have one app in the app store and I&#x27;m active in open-source, however I still feel a little too green to start applying yet.<p>So now I&#x27;m stuck in the middle. I quit my job in January 2015, and I feel like I am at the halfway mark of completing the CS degree. I feel like I am already in too deep to turn back.<p>If I do apply, I won&#x27;t be able to start until late March 2016, which is when I&#x27;ll be done with my first quarter at my university. Fees are already paid and I don&#x27;t want to drop out in the middle of a quarter. How do I format my resume in a way that I want to put my schooling on hold, especially when they see on their that I am currently attending school?<p>Is this the right choice?
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Mz
This doesn't have to be an either/or situation. There is no reason you can't
go looking for a part-time job in the industry and frame it as "looking for a
job to help get your through college." Sometimes, employers have a hard time
filling weird slots where they want and need quality candidates, but it isn't
a full time gig or has odd hours. That might be the perfect thing for a full
time student.

If you get said gig and feel like the usual course load for full time is a bit
much, you can look at what the minimum hours are to be considered full time to
keep whatever grants and the like you may have that are dependent upon full
time student status.

When I was in college, typical course load was 3 classes each worth 5 credit
hours for a total of 15 credit hours. But one quarter I took the minimum of 12
credit hours because I needed a break from the pressure but did not wish to
drop out. Later, I took an overload, 4 full time (5 credit hour) classes for a
total of 20 credit hours that quarter. I had to get approval to do it. I think
18 hours was the point at which it was viewed as an overload.

So dig around in the college policies a bit and consider looking for part-time
jobs that would help you get your foot in the door.

Best of luck.

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brudgers
"The right choice" is the right choice for you. Having a CS degree is unlikely
to harm your career at any company worth a significant sacrifice. As a
credential it may open doors.

But really it comes down to the value a degree has to you. There's usually
nothing wrong with prioritizing employment over an uninteresting education
over the long run. There's usually nothing wrong with prioritizing an
interesting education over employment in the short run. The other corners of
the matrix make one's interests obvious.

Finally, it seems that you aren't chomping the bit to drop out of school. That
is what you are saying to yourself. If your friend was in your position, it's
ok that they might choose differently...it wouldn't _really_ be your position.

Hoid luck.

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viraptor
Others already commented on the whole idea, but I wanted to add:

> I currently have one app in the app store and I'm active in open-source,
> however I still feel a little too green to start applying yet.

So here's the reality: a lot of people who apply for jobs the first time don't
know how to program, they don't know what opensource is, could not create and
publish an app to save their lives, and definitely don't have experience
collaborating with others. Compared to many people applying for their first
programming job, you're overqualified. You can likely find a job that's not at
entry level at this point - just present your skills and current OS
contributions.

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Ologn
> So now I'm stuck in the middle. I quit my job in January 2015, and I feel
> like I am at the halfway mark of completing the CS degree. I feel like I am
> already in too deep to turn back.

Why is it an either-or thing? If you get full time work, do one class a
semester, either a weekend class, or a class that meets at night (one or two
days a week). If you're not working and have the opportunity etc., take more
classes on. Working full time doesn't mean you can't take one night/weekend
class a semester. Lots of people do that - I did. Also, you tend to learn that
subject pretty well, and get a good grade in it.

> For jobs like web and mobile dev, it makes less sense to go for a full CS
> degree, since in those fields you can showcase your work and get hired a lot
> easier.

That makes sense if your life goal consists in that first hire at that first
job. I am mostly doing mobile dev right now and lean on my CS degree all the
time. I recently needed to figure out how to transform a binary injective
function into a proper output, and then derive the variables from the output.
I first thought of Gödel numbers, but knew from my computational complexity
classes and processor register classes how those could get big quickly, so
then I settled on a function where the output of (1, X) would always be a
triangular number. Without a CS curriculum, I would have never thought of
this. It also allowed for my app to exceed the capabilities of even Google's
app that dealt with this feature.

A case from a year or so ago - I had to deal with a race condition in someone
else's code. My knowledge of mutual exclusion, critical sections and so forth
from school helped me fix the problem. In this case it was critical, as it was
a bug in revenue-generating production code.

Right now, I am working with some excellent programmers on a project. My
architecture and code looks like junk compared to theirs, and they fix code I
wrote with major improvements and simplifications. At least I'm at the level I
am now, with a CS foundation and some experience. I feel sheepish enough about
the quality of my work next to theirs, I am thankful that I'm not lacking the
foundation of an entire CS curriculum.

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apryldelancey
Why not both? Start your portfolio and freelance.

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watmough
Start applying for jobs. If you've demonstrated some talent you should be able
to get in somewhere.

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abfan1127
I'd start applying for jobs. You can always continue your schooling while
employed. Your new employer may even have a tuition reimbursement benefit you
could take advantage of.

