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Are there any good online CS degrees? Is it advisable to enroll into an online CS degree?
I have come across mentions of WGU and Georgia Tech University, hence the question. CU Boulder on Coursera also comes up pretty often. I'm not from the US so can't attend in person.
It depends what you’re trying to get out from it. The Georgia Tech masters, for instance. Georgia Tech is honest to god to an excellent school in the US for computer science - top 20 in the nation no question, and companies take having a degree from it seriously.
That being said, the online masters is essentially the rigor of an in person GT masters curriculum with like 1/10th of the teaching.
So it’s a good approach if you’re already skilled at CS, and want an excellent credential. If you’re trying to learn, you may drown.
I have a Math degree so I can't speak from experience, but I have coworkers currently enrolled in the Georgia Tech program (and one who has completed it) and they all speak highly of it
I read most of the books from this guide and it felt like a pretty great education. Unless you need a piece of paper, self-studying that curriculum would be my advice.
(edit: to be clear, it's like a 4 or 5-year-long goal to get through everything there. I did most of my reading between 2018 and 2022 (good timing with the pandemic to get through CLRS lol))
Definitely agree with this @kleptocracy2020. If you don’t need that pricey piece of paper, then self-teaching is very powerful.
Additionally, be careful if you want to use this for a job change. The tech sector is still somewhat depressed right now, with a glut of employees, and there’s a lot of junior-level developers looking for work right now.
OP isn’t in the US so their market might be different, but I’ve got a CS degree and 8+ years experience and haven’t gotten so much as a HR callback from a few months of applications. (Though I am still employed so not applying as aggressively as I could, we’re still talking close to 50 applications at this point)
The tech job market is ice cold and AI usage on both sides has made it all even worse.
I've got 20 years of experience and the same thing is happening to me. People usually leave this part out, so it's initially assumed that the folks having trouble were all junior.
I did get a handful last year at companies where I knew people, but no offers. That was the most depressing of all, I didn't know if I was held to a higher standard to avoid nepotism or if they didn't like working with me as much as I thought.
It doesn't help that my tech interview skills are out of date. Even running my resume through an LLM didn't seem to make a difference in callbacks.
What field? I'm asking for selfish reasons. I'm scared that I'll be job hunting soon.
I'm a developer who started before "front end" and "back end" were separate jobs.
One challenge I've run into is including enough experience to be relevant to the job, but not so much that I seem old or out of touch.
I'm also starting to second guess using my full name instead of an initial. We know AI filters can be biased in unexpected ways and with D&I out of vogue right now in tech an obviously female name may be hurting me.
You're in luck (kinda). Front end and back end are no longer separate jobs again. The "full stack" developer is back
Not as any real benefit to the employee though - companies just think it saves money by not hiring two different employees. It doesn't, because it's hard to be maximally proficient in two different languages, and I'm not capable of doing the same amount of work as two employees.
The only benefit is that as a developer I get to think about the entire integration from top to bottom. But this can be solved with a product architect.
Someone it’s easier to do both, especially if the backed is designed as an api. Need a new endpoint? Let me just take care of that quick.
Most ol job reqs now don't require a degree, it's a degree or equivalent experience. It's kind of a chicken/egg problem if you aren't already in the field. Surmountable with something like open source work, but that would be work without pay.
Folks leaving the military with computer experience were struggling to find work even before all this happened.
I’m currently enrolled in WGU’s Software Engineering program which while different from CS is adjacent. I’m about halfway through.
Seems ok, though I don’t have anything to judge it against since this my first degree. I’m getting it mainly because despite having about a decade in the industry under my belt I’ve often felt lacking relative to my peers with CS/SE degrees, plus there’s a few situations where having a bachelor’s is advantageous.
One thing I would recommend if you take this route is to buy a cheap but reasonably capable used laptop and dedicate it to exam taking. If possible, prepare a dedicated exam taking space, too. The software they use for exams is the notoriously invasive Guardian Browser by ProctorU, which requires admin privileges and probes your machine and network, and has a seriously bad track record on security. I’ve personally quarantined it by putting it on its own otherwise empty system partition on a MacBook which is connected to the internet via a WiFi network which is walled off from everything else in its own VLAN. I also have an old desk which is empty aside from a laptop stand, keyboard, mouse, and required external webcam that I use for exams.
I ended up going to my local community college for a proctored cert to avoid this. Is that an option? They were incredibly strict (no hoodies, drinks must be in a clear bottle, etc) but really kind in their accommodations. They said everyone who took that open book cert needed lots of room so they gave me their only big L shaped desk to use.
I think something similar is an option, but I’ve not investigated it because I like the added flexibility of doing it from home plus I don’t really enjoy driving so the less of it I need to do the better.
That's reasonable.
I bring it up because I didn't even know it was an option until I got the test info from the cert company.
As someone who has the industry experience backing you up and is just shoring up any missing knowledge that is standard in a CS/SE curriculum (and of course, the piece of paper)... do you have any thoughts on how well WGU does in the "teaching someone who doesn't have existing industry experience" part of things?
I've seen a lot of similar sentiment regarding WGU online when I was choosing between CSU Monterey Bay's CS Online program and WGU. I'm not exactly learning this fresh but am missing a lot more than anyone who's actually been working in software development for a while (dropped out from a CS program over a decade ago, have been doing analyst-y work since with the occasional scripting/programming). A lot of the appeal of WGU seemed to be the cost and pacing if you happen to already know enough of this that you're just refreshing yourself on the content before passing the exams to earn your credits. CSUMB's program flairs itself as more or less the "online version" of their in-person CS degree, with the difference of only taking one class at a time and with no general education courses on the schedule (as you need to have completed all non-degree courses to apply for the program). I think cost-wise they were pretty similar, though with CSUMB you are slated to finish in two years exactly whereas WGU is completely self-paced and costs would vary.
Mostly asking because I think the environment of CSUMB's program makes more sense for me, but my last application was denied for the strangest reasons (missing requirements even though I have an email trail correspondence with their counselor verifying that my old high school AP scores should count for them) and I'm getting antsy waiting the six weeks for them to review my admissions appeal.
Can’t really say unfortunately, since I’m just now getting into the meat of the program now that I’m about halfway through. Most of the courses up until now have been either general or more IT, less CS/SE. The relevant courses I’ve been through were things I was already well acquainted with (like HTML and CSS).
The most recently course I complete was intro to Python, which seemed fine enough. I hadn’t actually had any reason to write Python until now so I actually did learn a thing or two (mainly, Python syntax is different from that of most other languages).
I went to WGU for a year. Currently paused due to finances, but the experience itself was better than I expected. The professors were more responsive in general than the ones I've had at more traditional colleges, and I got out of it exactly what I put in to it. If you can't self-start, that will be an issue, but if you have the time and the dedication, I felt I got an excellent education for the dollar. If and when my income stabilizes, I'll head back to finish with no regrets about the process.
Assuming you want a piece of paper, WGU would be pretty good and recommended if you’re starting from zero since you can load up with a bunch of ACE credits from Study.com or elsewhere and knock out everything else in the six month term you pay a flat fee for. University of the People was accredited recently and is cheaper and designed for more international students, but may be more hoops to jump through, idk. If you already have some college credits, the best play may be to apply to somewhere like Thomas Edison State University where you can transfer your school credits AND a bunch of equivalency credits with no transfer cap, and pay the acceleration fee to get a degree as quickly as possible, for relatively cheap as well.
Somewhere between self taught and a full CS degree is certifications in the tech space, which may be more valuable to the person doing the hiring. CompTIA A+ is the standard, along with Network+ and Security+ depending on where you want to specialize. Cisco or Microsoft certs can be valuable, and any certification is going to be cheaper to confirm and test for than a degree, and if it doesn’t click for you, you’re not out that much compared to a half finished degree.
Edit: I'm linking a similar answer from a previous thread. https://tildes.net/~life/1mbv/university_of_the_people_is_now_wscuc_accredited#comment-ezzq
Edit 2: WGU may give you trouble as an international student.
Tbh these are orthogonal to a CS degree. Those certs are for IT work. Most people get CS degrees to do SWE. A CS major would not prepare you very well for IT as well.
I did an undergrad at WGU that helped me pivot from a $19 USD/hr job (HCoL area, so that was a dollar or two over minimum wage at the time) with zero upward mobility to a job that started at $35 USD/hr and has promoted me 4 times in three years.
To me, that degree (and the certs that I earned along the way, which are built into the degree plan as the ‘exam’ for many classes) was the single thing that got me a callback for that job. I had the knowledge and capacity to do that job all along, but I couldn’t prove it without that piece of paper.
One of my benefits in this job is tuition assistance, so I decided to go back to WGU for a masters degree too. That is truly just a meaningless piece of paper to me, so I can also agree to a certain extent with those above saying that self study might be more worth it. Really depends why you want the degree — is it just a challenge, or are you hoping to change careers and really need a diploma to get a foot in the door?
Also, it can be harder than you’d think to self-regulate studying. I love the challenge of it so that spurred me on most of the time, but there were some classes that were a total slog to get through.
Oregon State University (my employer) has an extremely well-designed online CS degree. It's been a real point of pride that our ecampus has excellent placement and rigorous education online.
I have friends who recently finished a CS degree from Oregon State University online and had nothing but praise for the program.
Thank you for the callout; I've been looking for other well regarded online CS degree programs while waiting for a decision on another application. Not even worried about placement; I've just needed my piece of paper and some gaps in my self-taught education filled.
Yeah, always happy to put good words out. The founder of NVIDIA, Jen-Hsun Huang and his wife Lori, are alumni of Oregon State, and recently made a big donation to strengthen our research in this area.
how does the process of placement work?
I'm in a different department, sadly... But I can find out who to talk to!
Edit: I can DM the contact info if anyone needs it.
As others have stated, unless you're looking for a piece of paper saying you know programming, your best bet is free courses. I can recommend MIT's opencourseware or Khan academy
Here's yet another free online course I know of on top of other recs in the thread: Open Source Society University (OSSU) Computer Science
And also The Missing Semester of Your CS Education