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I am a 34yo married guy with a full-time job and busy life, who decided to go back to school to study computer science. I wanted to start this thread for several reasons:
1: get any advice on my plans to go back to school, and the topic that I will be studying
2: share my progress and own story and experience once in school so others can learn from it
3: hopefully find other adults who have made, or are thinking about making, similar decision to mine so we can talk and exchange tips and experiences.
In a nutshell, I am about to start my Fall semester studies at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (UWM) on my way to apply for their master's in computer science degree in a year or so. I have an undergrad degree, but it is in medical field; therefore, I have to take a number of prereqs prior to being able to apply for the master's program.
I decided to study CS for several reasons. Last year I realized that I use a computer daily and that I spend more time sitting in front of this box than I see my wife, but then I realized that after all these years, I didn't know anything really about this machine. How it thinks, operates, how it gets ill, and how it becomes better and stronger. And on top of that, I didn't know its language. I am also tech savvy, love to analyze and break things apart to see how they work, and enjoy everything that has to do with science since I was a little kid.
I have read much of the debate out there about whether to go for a second bachelor or master's degree in CS, and it seems that in general the consensus is that a bachelor degree in CS provides the individual with much of the basic knowledge and principles he/she will need in his work, along with solid coding skills; while a master's degree is sought more by individuals interested in research, academia, or to simply improve their resume and status at work.
I am familiar with some of the specialties or sub-topics in CS, but there are just so many different fields that someone with a CS degree might chose that I guess I will have to go to school, talk to people, and let the process takes it natural course before I decide what exactly I want to do for the next 20-30 years. In general though, I find computer security, namely cryptography very interesting. I am also fascinated with robotics.
I have several concerns, and for those of you who are older, have jobs, families, kids, and other things to do in life, going back to school, even if part time only, is terrifying albeit very satisfying and fun.
My concern is with gaining experience, especially since I am going for a master's degree in a completely new field from that of my undergrad.
My biggest concern is how to gain experience in the field to complement my future degree? I am fully aware that showing off my degree or putting it on my resume without a solid backup of experience will severely limit my chances of getting a job in the future.
Even though I haven't started school yet, I am about to start looking for ways to gain hands on experience. From contacting friends or people I know who work in the business to see if I can intern with them, watch them, learn from them, and participate in any capacity in projects…anything really. You know, with 10 years of work experience under my belt, family, kids, and life experience…talking about the fact that I will need to intern somewhere like a 20yo is rather absurd, funny, and sad at the same time, but this is life.
As I said, I haven't decided what type of work I will be looking for once in the program or after graduating. Getting involved in research is certainly an option, but not a must. I like to think, analyze and solve problems, but the job must be challenging, dynamic and interesting.
So in a few weeks I will start my first semester at UWM. I will be taking only two classes per semester in order to be able to keep my full-time job, and spend time with wife and kids, and have time to myself to remain sane.
I will be taking classes in the evening: Math 231 (calculus I) and CS 201 (intro to programming using Java).
I hope to hear from anyone out there who is in a similar situation, or anyone who is in the business and wants to give his advice, or from anyone who would simple like to say hello and good luck
I'm thinking of career change to computer science too, and I have a bachelor of science in Electrical Engineering. How to gain experience is a major issue to me too, I have some ideas but I haven't really tried yet.
First of all, practice coding as much as possible, there are many problem sets online that you can practice on. To get some more real experience, I'm considering developing an Android app on my own, which will probably be no more than a toy but I believe it shows that you can do something real with your coding skill.
Besides, try really hard to get some internship or part-time coding job. But in case you have a hard time finding an intern, you can still practice some coding on your own, this is the best thing about computer science. At least, you have access to computers!
Most research in computer science requires a lot of math. Since you haven't even started calculus yet, it will be pretty hard for you to be a computer science researcher. Are you aware that you need a PhD in computer science to do some real research?
If you want to do cryptography or network security research, you need to know some number theory, which is probably material covered in 400-level math class.
Thanks for the reply. I am well aware of the math part in any future research paths, and for now, I am excited to learn those, and see where my journey will take me. But as you said, I need to get those two calculus I and II under my belt before I look further.
Last year out of curiosity I took cryptography I on coursera with Pro Dan Boneh. It was very interesting, but I had really hard time understanding things, again, because I had no CS or math background. But the materail got me interested in knowing more
Let me know how it goes with finding more venues to gain experience
I'm thinking of career change to computer science too, and I have a bachelor of science in Electrical Engineering. How to gain experience is a major issue to me too, I have some ideas but I haven't really tried yet.
First of all, practice coding as much as possible, there are many problem sets online that you can practice on. To get some more real experience, I'm considering developing an Android app on my own, which will probably be no more than a toy but I believe it shows that you can do something real with your coding skill.
Besides, try really hard to get some internship or part-time coding job. But in case you have a hard time finding an intern, you can still practice some coding on your own, this is the best thing about computer science. At least, you have access to computers!
Wow, so sad that you want to switch from EE to CS. Those Software Engineers really have things good.
A "numerati" at a financial company ?
Applications coder at Google ?
Mobile app development ?
Systems programmer at a chip company ?
Run internal servers for a private company ?
Plan and put together systems for a company which includes hardware/software setup/execution/maintenance ?
Security development ?
Network development ?
The list can go on.
I got a CS degree and went the engineering route vs business route.
Classes ranged from dabbling with the hardware to applications to writing a 2 pass assembler/compiler.
My favorite class was the compiler class and OS development theory.
Ended up a systems programmer for 20+ years working on OS internals, device drivers, embedded OS, libraries, etc.
The hot areas today are mobile, security and networking.
Get yourself a cheap laptop and install Linux. Download the source packages and start coding away.
With Linux everything is free.
You can play with apps, libraries, device drivers, web apps, etc.
Most are written in C and/or shell script so there's languages you can learn.
Well, I am hoping to use my previous experience to my advantage. I am currently involved in security and research fields, dealing with gathering open source Intel and writing analyses and reports for a variety of clients. I am also exposed daily to extremist propaganda online, and in fact, this is one of the reasons I got interested in cryptography, which led me to CS...there is much use of encryption technologies by people out there, and I want to know much more about it. I also speak several critical languages, including Arabic and Farsi.
FORTRAN was my first computer language, but Basic is a great way to start. It won't take long and it will teach you some fundamentals.
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..........34 is not quite midlife, yet..
As an old guy
