

When is it too late to go back to school - un1xl0ser

I want to go back to school (I am a two semester drop-out of a state school). I just got back from spending some time at the MIT campus and while I don't think that it is absolutely necessary, I lust for the formal teaching with good, enlightened CS teaching.<p>Part of what opened me up to this was postings on HN of EWD's "The Humble Programmer" and "On the Cruelty of Actually Teaching Computer Science" that were posted here.<p>I'm happy with my career, but now I am struggling moving into C and systems programming which is what I like. My carrer progression was 6 years of SA work, then more like security administration SA work (Kerberos, firewalls, fighting off snake oild vendors), and finally Kerberos engineering which I have done for a few years (C code, high level understandings of the protocol, evangelism).<p>Is there any path of going back? Work experience credit? I feel like the 10 years of IT that I have done counts for something. I'm 30 now, is it worth it?
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JHLewisJr
There are numerous paths for going back to school. A big question is cash -
Will you have enough to pay for school and take care of other obligations in
your life (do you have a family? Mortgage, etc)?

Learning is always good - you just have to pick the method/path that works for
you. You also must keep your expectations inline with your abilities and
method of schooling you pick.

Unless you go to a very good school or you want the full-time campus
experience, you might be better off going part time. At 30, you will not be
part of the regular social scene - so you can gain most of the experience in a
part time program. If you live near a large city (New York, Boston, Washington
DC, etc) there are very good schools that have programs aimed at you. The
hours are arranged for people with full-time jobs.

In your 10 years of work you have learned how to manage your time. You are
also much more motivated than you were when you were 18. Studying and homework
are easy compared to work.

If your company will reimburse tuition, you can afford the better quality,
higher cost university. Unless you have high hopes (move into research) just
about any reputable school will be fine as you stated your goal is to learn
and change the direction of your career. Not having a BS is a handicap.

I highly recommend going back to school. Look at the programs close to your
location and weigh the benefits/costs of part time vs fill time. Will the cash
cost of going full-time be recouped by a much higher salary? If you are
serious, you can finish in 4 years if you take classes in the summer, test out
of everything you can and take distance learning classes. Maybe less than 4
years if your classes transfer.

It will be a lifestyle change - can you handle going to class 2-3 nights a
week? Read and study on the weekends?

Get some information and get started. Even if you think there needs to be some
changes in scheduling at work, I bet you could do one course a semester.

BTW - I went back and got my BS in CS after 5 years - then an MS part time and
finally a PhD. If you enjoy the material - it can be done.

Good luck!

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willpower101
Also don't try to go to a CC to save money first unless you know for a fact
that you want to want to transfer to schools they articulate with. Many of the
schools with the best CS programs take a ridiculously small percent of
transfers.

Are you on the East coast? How were your sat/act scores? I would try CMU,
Urbana-Champaign, Georgia Tech, NC Chapel Hill, & maybe Berkeley if you're
willing to move that far.

Remember as a nontraditional student you will get increased financial aid
availability for housing and other expenses that someone under 23 doesn't get.

Also note that if you can get into a private school, they usually have
incredibly high grant offerings. The hard part isn't paying for private, it's
getting in.

Lastly, your financial aid works of the previous tax year. While in school I
was able to keep my income below 15k / year and got full aid the entire time.
If yours is higher, then your expected contribution may match or outweigh the
yearly cost of a public school, but you'll still have a shot at very high aid
packages at private schools because of the cost difference.

Check financial aid info at <http://www.collegeboard.com> Your next step, no
matter what, is to fill out the fafsa at <http://www.fafsa.ed.gov> You have to
wait for a pin so start right now. Then when you get your pin, it shouldn't
take you more than an hour with a W2 to estimate your EFC.

Armed with that information, you can start asking the right questions about
cost. And if you decide to wait another year, then all you have to do is
update your account instead of redoing the whole thing.

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nostromo
Jeff Bezos's Regret Minimization Framework:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwG_qR6XmDQ>

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un1xl0ser
While I don't like to regret anything (just course correct), I enjoyed his
technique and it made me think. Imagining what you would regret helps, thanks
for sharing it.

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mzbridget
I went back to school at 27 and finally finished with a BA and MA at 32. I
would totally do it again. However, I would do some things differently but at
least I did it because that was one regret I had - not having that formal
education. You could fulfill some of your longing formal edu by taking some
courses online (and free) through the top unis. I'm taking an intro cs course
through Stanford with 25 other women and we're connecting through a google
group. You get the lectures, the books,the assignments just like a regular
class. Doing this with others keeps you focused and you get study groups. The
biggest benefit is that you don't incur a bunch of debt. Also, yes, there can
be work experience credit but it is difficult to get. Talk to an admissions
counselor and they can help you with that.

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Lmclean
30 here and 1/2 way through my bachelors, I had no coding or tech experience
and I've not looked back. I had a hunch I'd like it; I've always been good at
maths and logic.

Jump on in, it's lovely in here!

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md1515
I don't know about the CS industry, but I know many other industries have
employers sending employees to school fully paid-for. Usually I hear about
MBAs being paid for, but I imagine you could at least ask your current
employer?

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un1xl0ser
It is paid for, but there is realistically no time to do it without some major
changes to staffing.

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willpower101
Whatever you do go to a school where everybody is smarter than you. I turned
down Georgia Tech for my local state school based on insane OOS tuition and
wasn't challenged in the slightest. It was mind numbing.

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Mz
Go to the college and talk to them about testing out of some classes. CLEP is
one of the big names (for such tests). There is (at least) one other, but I
don't recall the name. Colleges these days increasingly offer classes which
are work-friendly in terms of scheduling. I'm 46. I've dropped in and out of
college and off a lot over the years. Divorce and health issues have so far
prevented me from completing my bachelor's. However, I have completed my
Associate's, a Certificate in GIS (the equivalent of master's level work) and
some other certificate from a technical college that my employer put me
through. I never did get a GIS job like I had hoped (due to my lengthy health
crisis, basically) but still totally worth it.

Do you want it? If so, then go.

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logjam
Never too late. It's absolutely worth it, and at 30 you're hardly too old to
do absolutely anything you want as far as career changes.

But I think that way beyond the technical training you will get in CS, the
true value of a university education is taking classes in a wide variety of
fields: literature, sociology, biology, math, physics, foreign language,
history, etc....and having a chance to talk to other smart people about what
you're learning. As someone else recently said, the intersection of the
humanities and engineering/sciences is a wild and rewarding place to live.

~~~
un1xl0ser
I agree that the holistic benefits of going back to school are certainly more
valuable to me than the CS classes, but I also think that I would appreciate
CS in a different way than I would have being 18-23.

I expect that the fact that I am used to working borderline psychotic hours
means that I could be able to maybe even perform some interesting work at the
same time as studying, but this is not something I think that I should count
on. That said, I really want to avoid accumulating debt and the 20-30k that I
would expect from a "good" school is something that I am carefully weighing
with the more affordable state school.

EWD worked at University of Texas Austin.

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stray
It is too late the moment you die.

