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I have a somewhat unique situation that I'm striking out with Google, etc. on finding advice for.
I'm 29, and this semester I have started attending a local state university for my second undergraduate degree, a B.S. in Computer Science. Graduation should take me roughly two years (9-12 hours/semester in night courses). My first undergraduate degree was in the same state university system in Business Administration & Economics, so a decent amount of the 'core' math courses, I've already completed, as well as all undergrad general requirements.
I plan to work full-time until I graduate with this new degree, and then look for a job in the field of Computer Science after I graduate - I would like to focus on analytics, databases, web coding (although this could obviously change as I take two years worth of CS courses and find things that I am particularly interested in and do well at).
What I'm really struggling with - and granted, this may make itself more apparent to me as I get further into the program, connect with the instructors and faculty - is how to best prepare myself in this scenario to get a job out of the gate, given that I'll have 7 years on my resume in a marketing background, and will be 31 when I graduate.
I'm would like to figure out what my expectations should be for a post-graduation job, and if there is anything that I can do in the next two years, other than get as much programming/CS experience in classes and on my own time as possible.
With my non-CS work experience, will I still aim for the same sort of positions that a recent 24 year-old graduate without any work experience would, or would my non-CS experience help boost me up at all for a fist job?
Should I try to find some sort of hybrid role prior to graduating that may ease me into the CS sector more than a flat Marketing position would? And if so, is it going to be pretty tough to get a CS role without a CS degree completed?
Thanks to any help you can provide! Please let me know if I can clarify anything that I've said, although I feel like I've typed too much as it is.
I was in a similar boat. Graduated at 22 with a BA in Economics. Got a job doing QA, really enjoyed the programming bits. Took some classes to see if I like it. Found out I had an affinity to CS and enjoyed it. Long story short - ended up getting my masters in CS from NYU. What I found I lacked most was real life programming experience. There is just so much you don't learn in college that you are simply expected to know. Dealing with memory / time constraints. Large datasets. USER ERRORS AND BAD DATA WILL GIVE YOU NIGHTMARES.
Anyway, to remedy that I went to the VP of IT in the same company I did QA in and asked if he has anything going on that I can fit into as an intern. I think getting an internship is just so important in this field and was the way I learned some "Real world" programming.
So, my recommendation would be to spend a year in the program and then hit the (online) pavement HARD looking for an internship. I think any sort of analytical / problem solving background will help your intangibles when considered for a position but marketing might not help much - however, most programmers are not exactly known for their people skills - maybe you can push your marketing background as a way to sell yourself as a 360 degrees developer - someone who can write code, work with clients, answer client questions, etc. A programmer that can deal with clients is very helpful and you will find that most companies go to great lengths "shielding" their developers from clients or sales people and I think you can be the IT liaison so to speak or a developer that can directly interact with customers. I think employers will find that helpful and that is a nice way to use your experience to your advantage.
Experience will be your friend, and the ability to get some real world experience ASAP will be your rocket fuel. Use school for formal education, and take it seriously, but definitely try to get some real world experience as early on as possible.
A lot of people recommend open source projects, but IMO without being able to contribute quickly (which requires real world experience) you will only be doing docs / test cases / etc. Which is actually fine and good to do, just make sure you get yourself doing real development early.
Feel free to keep in touch and DM me if you have any questions that you think I can help with.
TL: DR;
Do everything you can to get some real world programming experience ideally on a customer facing product
Last edited by ayoitzrimz; 02-19-2014 at 05:04 PM..
I think you would be entry level. Those fields are connected somewat, but the tasks and skills don't transfer over.
You'll find most employers will only pay you for the hard skills that you bring. I think your background will be a plus to some employers and a minus to others. A wash basically.
I agree with the 2nd poster who said to try and get real world experience.
Also ... you are working FT and taking a FT courseload in CS? That sounds rough.
Working FT and taking 9-12 hours/semester in CS. Employer is pretty great about PTO, so I'm taking a course over my lunch hour, couple courses at night + bunch of vacation to burn if I need to study. Pretty ideal situation for it, if there is one.
Thanks ayoitzrimz, incredibly helpful post - I will PM you with a few questions I have, sounds like your situation was definitely similar to what I'm looking at.
I went to a school with a few students in the same situation as you. They worked full time, doing CS as a second degree P/T, older then the rest of the students. I liked working with them on group projects, much more professional to work with, and good (and different) perspective. Great learning experience, and I really respected them. I think the workload did get harder for them for the later years..some courses weren't offer as night courses, and many required group assignments, which can be hard for them to meet and work with the group. And classes were usually the easiest/most boring part of the course, it was the assignments that are time consuming. I remember working some pretty late nights, and definitely weekends. Some classmates took to sleeping in the computer labs.
Internships are really important for CS students and I have been saying this for years. A CS degree alone is really not enough (unless you went to one of the top school, like MIT, Stanford, etc). I graduated back before the first dot com crash...in early 2000. Even back in those crazy hiring days, those with internships got hired first (most of us had offers before we went back for our senior years).
Internships are not only to gain experience for future employers, but also to help you figure out what you are most interested in. Real world software development is VERY VERY different from school.
Internship positions for the big tech companies are often filled via on campus recruiting. So check your school's career center and also your comp sci dept for internship opportunities. Internship in the field are usually paid, and the bigger tech companies pay for housing & relocation for internships. Your work experience and background would help with getting the good internship positions.
I actually had crappier GPA then many of my classmates, but I was able to get a better internship because of my prior work history (most of them never had a job before the internship). And I still got more interviews then classmates with similar internships and better grades. I took the internship experience, and accepted a job offer at a competitor (also had offer from the company where I did the internship) by the time I went back to school for my final year.
If you are going to do open source projects, be aggressive, and aim for the smaller open source projects supported by well know tech companies. I did it as part of my final year group project. I reached out to Mozilla (yes..back in 1999, they just split from Netscape), was able to get their official support (they had one of their team come out to meet us) and help, to own a specific project within Mozilla. It was pretty cool, and it did impress potential employers.
I went to a school with a few students in the same situation as you. They worked full time, doing CS as a second degree P/T, older then the rest of the students. I liked working with them on group projects, much more professional to work with, and good (and different) perspective. Great learning experience, and I really respected them. I think the workload did get harder for them for the later years..some courses weren't offer as night courses, and many required group assignments, which can be hard for them to meet and work with the group. And classes were usually the easiest/most boring part of the course, it was the assignments that are time consuming. I remember working some pretty late nights, and definitely weekends. Some classmates took to sleeping in the computer labs.
Internships are really important for CS students and I have been saying this for years. A CS degree alone is really not enough (unless you went to one of the top school, like MIT, Stanford, etc). I graduated back before the first dot com crash...in early 2000. Even back in those crazy hiring days, those with internships got hired first (most of us had offers before we went back for our senior years).
Internships are not only to gain experience for future employers, but also to help you figure out what you are most interested in. Real world software development is VERY VERY different from school.
Internship positions for the big tech companies are often filled via on campus recruiting. So check your school's career center and also your comp sci dept for internship opportunities. Internship in the field are usually paid, and the bigger tech companies pay for housing & relocation for internships. Your work experience and background would help with getting the good internship positions.
I actually had crappier GPA then many of my classmates, but I was able to get a better internship because of my prior work history (most of them never had a job before the internship). And I still got more interviews then classmates with similar internships and better grades. I took the internship experience, and accepted a job offer at a competitor (also had offer from the company where I did the internship) by the time I went back to school for my final year.
If you are going to do open source projects, be aggressive, and aim for the smaller open source projects supported by well know tech companies. I did it as part of my final year group project. I reached out to Mozilla (yes..back in 1999, they just split from Netscape), was able to get their official support (they had one of their team come out to meet us) and help, to own a specific project within Mozilla. It was pretty cool, and it did impress potential employers.
Thanks - I'm taking lower level CS and mid-level math courses to start with this semester, so that has been in the back of my mind that this is about as easy as it's going to get and that I may be forced to either cut down to six hours a semester and lengthen the amount of time I'm in school, or perhaps scale back to only working part-time, etc. after I get through this first year of easy (or easier) courses.
At the risk of asking a dumb question, it sounds like you and your classmates did internships while you were still in school, and you had job offers prior to graduating college. For my first degree, I had finished my BSBA and then done a 9 month internship, so my experience may be a bit different than what the CS route is - were the internships typically part-time or full-time during the school year, during summers, etc.? I've researched a lot about my B.S. CS before going back, but that's one thing that I haven't looked much into yet... to my own fault.
One thing driving me to go the CS route, besides a love of computers, statistics, modeling, etc., is that I think I'm a bit outside the mold for the stereotypical CS graduate - I've had quite a few people tell me that I'd be great in sales, and I think my interpersonal and professional skills are top notch. I'm hoping that can be something that can make me stand out in a crowd if I can acquire the technical background to back it up.
Every school is different, mine used the first 2 years of comp sci to weed out the students. I found the first two years much more difficult. And it was much more lecture and labs hours. I found the last 2 years a breeze, it was much less hours in lectures & labs, most of the work was on your own time, for assignments and group projects. But I don't learn well in lectures, I learn mostly by doing stuff and getting my hands dirty. My school was also really annoying about scheduling courses that had pre-requisites, such that it was difficult for P/T students, or students who wanted to fast track with summer sessions.
My school had an optional industrial internship program. It's a 16 month internship, done between the 3rd and 4th year. It was essentially taking a year off to work full time. My school didn't have a top comp sci dept, but it was a respected university, and the dept had a good solid internship program.
On campus recruiting starts in the late fall runs through end of the school year. I actually had 2 offers from the 2 teams I worked with at my internship, and a competitor (they were aggressively recruiting other people on the team that I did my internship at). I accepted and had a signed and sealed offer by end of September. But I was always realistic and practical..no such thing as a "sure" thing. So I applied and interviewed with companies that came to my school to recruit. Some of my classmates were pretty pissed, because knew I already accepted an offer..felt I "stole" the interview opportunity from them.
I wouldn't be too fixated on the "stereotype CS graduate". I speak 4 languages, was in the art crowd in high school. I only got high B's in advance calculus/trig/algegra in highschool, didn't take the one computer programming class offered. People are usually really surprise when they find out what I do, and where I have worked. And oh, I am a girl. Use your other strengths to enhance the technical knowledge you will learn. I have had a much better and diverse career then those of my classmates that were more stereotypical CS grads.
The internships at the companies I worked for are always for students still in school. 4 months, full time, paid. There are usually more internships available in the summer months, but we have had interns for other semesters as well. It's much more "organized" for summer interns at the big companies, with intern specific training, orientation, social activities, etc.
I am at a small start up now, and we had interns last summer. We are super excited one of them accepted an offer to join us upon graduation in June. Another got a glowing recommendation for grad school (we would've been glad if he came back too!). Currently have an intern, she is going to school at night while working this semester, going back to school next semester.
I've also looked into pursuing an MS CS directly rather than a BS MS. I found out today from the graduate program director that if I could achieve excellent grades, I would be able to take what amounts to my regular first year schedule in the BS program of 19 hours of math courses, 21 hours of computer science, and then apply directly to the graduate program.
It isn't a decision I need to make now, because these 40 hours of courses are courses I would take over the next year regardless of BS or MS, but do you believe there's any sort of stigma attached to someone who does not have an undergraduate degree in Computer Science (or work experience) who has an MS in Computer Science?
To get the higher degree seems like a no brainer on the surface given that both would take me approximately 70 hours to complete... but I don't want to get to the end of a Master's program, and realize that I've shot myself in the foot.
I have a few friends who work in IT recruiting, and they have mentioned to me multiple times in the past that there aren't a ton of people in the industry with an M.S., and that a B.S. seems to do the job for the majority of jobs. I don't want to over think this.
I've also looked into pursuing an MS CS directly rather than a BS MS. I found out today from the graduate program director that if I could achieve excellent grades, I would be able to take what amounts to my regular first year schedule in the BS program of 19 hours of math courses, 21 hours of computer science, and then apply directly to the graduate program.
It isn't a decision I need to make now, because these 40 hours of courses are courses I would take over the next year regardless of BS or MS, but do you believe there's any sort of stigma attached to someone who does not have an undergraduate degree in Computer Science (or work experience) who has an MS in Computer Science?
To get the higher degree seems like a no brainer on the surface given that both would take me approximately 70 hours to complete... but I don't want to get to the end of a Master's program, and realize that I've shot myself in the foot.
I have a few friends who work in IT recruiting, and they have mentioned to me multiple times in the past that there aren't a ton of people in the industry with an M.S., and that a B.S. seems to do the job for the majority of jobs. I don't want to over think this.
Are those total hours in a semester? That seems really low...but it's been a really long time since I was in school. I think I averaged 30-35 hrs/week in lecture/labs the first 2 years. Last 2 yr was around 20/hr lecture/labs. That excludes time spend on assignments/projects.
You don't need the BS in Comp Sci in you have a MS. But work experience in the industry is still key. A person with a BS Comp Sci with good work experience > a person with a MS and no work experience. If you do a MS and don't have internship experience, you need to work on good research projects as part of your grad degree.
Which sector of "IT" does your recruiting friends work in? MS isn't common in IT roles..but it's pretty much the minimum degree for software engineers R&D at the very top tech companies for the last 5 years or so. When I worked at those companies, most of my colleagues had MS, and I worked with quite a few PhD's. Even at startups I worked with a fair number of people with grad degrees, though they tend to be on the data science , algorithm optimization, AI side. These are not the most common types of software engineer roles though, very specialize (but very much in demand). There are many many other roles for CS grads that don't requires a MS, that are in as much demand (many pay much better) in different industries (finance in particular).
I think you should get started and see what you like, and want to focus your career on first, and then decide rather to pursue a grad degree toward it.
Are those total hours in a semester? That seems really low...but it's been a really long time since I was in school. I think I averaged 30-35 hrs/week in lecture/labs the first 2 years. Last 2 yr was around 20/hr lecture/labs. That excludes time spend on assignments/projects.
You don't need the BS in Comp Sci in you have a MS. But work experience in the industry is still key. A person with a BS Comp Sci with good work experience > a person with a MS and no work experience. If you do a MS and don't have internship experience, you need to work on good research projects as part of your grad degree.
Which sector of "IT" does your recruiting friends work in? MS isn't common in IT roles..but it's pretty much the minimum degree for software engineers R&D at the very top tech companies for the last 5 years or so. When I worked at those companies, most of my colleagues had MS, and I worked with quite a few PhD's. Even at startups I worked with a fair number of people with grad degrees, though they tend to be on the data science , algorithm optimization, AI side. These are not the most common types of software engineer roles though, very specialize (but very much in demand). There are many many other roles for CS grads that don't requires a MS, that are in as much demand (many pay much better) in different industries (finance in particular).
I think you should get started and see what you like, and want to focus your career on first, and then decide rather to pursue a grad degree toward it.
Oh sorry - no, not hours of actual work per week - that's classes in terms of 'hours' (e.g. one semester worth of CS1250 counts as 3 'hours' at my school)... so 70 total hours to completion of a degree equates to roughly 23-24 classes, give or take, for either a BS or MS - with my previous courseload from the BSBA built in on top of those 70 hours.
Thanks for the advice - very much appreciated. I think your last point is probably the key and what I'm realizing; nothing I need to decide now, so might as well enjoy the next year to year and a half, then reassess and see what I want to go into, and whether a M.S. would be beneficial.
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Use your other strengths to enhance the technical knowledge you will learn. I have had a much better and diverse career then those of my classmates that were more stereotypical CS grads.
