The point was to learn about file descriptors, sockets, implementing multithreading, thread safety, semaphores, and some basic http protocol. I would say a fair amount of those hold a decent amount of value in learning about, especially in the C language.

One thing I can agree with is your wording about it being the wrong language. The program teaches you most things in java, then randomly throws in 2 computer systems classes totally in C. Having no experience whatsoever in C before the first class, it makes anything that should be "simple" pretty difficult. I had to, for example, pass a struct to each thread, and while that is probably a simple process, it took me a while to get working correctly with lots of fun pointer errors.

Yeah, I took a very entry level course in C without any C experience. Even doing fairly basic things was pretty verbose and gnarly at times but the value of learning why you had to do it was quite high.

I just remember a story about a guy who spent like 18 months writing and maintaining an http proxy in Python and then spent a weekend with Node and made one that was better in every way possible. It seems their http lib makes creating proxies very nice.

Wow, that's really affordable. Thanks for the info. Still though, I've often wondered if it's more cost effective and efficient to just sign up for some ruby on rails trainings, or something along those lines.

You seem to be approaching this in the wrong way; you seem to be asking yourself, "What's the least amount of time and money I need to put into this to get ANY job related to programming?" And if that's what you're asking, you shouldn't pursue this degree.

At the end of the day, you know what you want out of your life and you know how capable you are of learning programming on your own. Obviously taking a few ROR classes isn't going to give you a strong foundation that would allow you to develop a versatile skill set; but if you just want a Web Dev job, then it could be the right move for you.

Grad School is a big investment no matter what you choose to pursue, and to me, Comp Sci provides the biggest return on investment of all the possibilities and gives you an empowering skill set.

Ya part of my struggles with the Systems class involve writing programs in C without any actual formal C training. I just watch a ton of YouTube videos. For example below are the two simplest methods from my Unix Shell, and even they involve pointers to pointers and structs, and all of the other methods involve the arrow thing (->). The arrow thing is awesome though once I understood it.

The code below executes built in commands (ie- commands that the shell will just deal with on its own without creating a child process). But one problem is you will often have jobs running or stopped in the background. For example, one method is a SIGSTP handler which is what handles your signal to stop the process when you push CTL-Z. It's very easy to forget you have processes stopped in the background because you only see what's happening in the foreground. Thus, you need a method that notifies the user that he has stopped jobs when he tries to quit.

It'd be nice if the real world worked that way too. Sometimes one gets told use tool x because its the standard even if there are cheaper, quicker ways to do something.

So I got my first bad grade on a test...actually the worst grade I've ever gotten on a test. The class average on the data structures test was a 65 and I managed to do slightly worse than that which is a C+ with the curve. It was one of those tests where you had to write a bunch of programs on the spot by hand, and I ran out of time. Also, there was a true/false section where the first 7 were false...and excluding the mind games involved with putting false 7 times in a row, the problems were tricky.

Anyway that sort of knocked the wind out of me. Maybe I'll post some of the problems later in the week. The teacher is a young guy who I don't really think likes teaching, and I'm not sure what his incentive is from a career standpoint.

Onto the next one. I'll just have to dominate the final.

Rocky Balboa lost a few too . Don't worry about it. Btw that sounds like a pretty harsh curve.

haha but Rocky was a fictional character who you knew would win at the end. At the end of this class I'll probably end up yelling "Miiiiichelle, Miiichhhelle," instead of "Addddrriieenne....Adddddrrriiiiennne."

Data structures was the "student killer" class in my MSCS program. They actually changed how you could "advance to candidacy" because of that class. Originally you could take any 12 units and "advanced to candidacy." So many people "advanced to candidacy" but couldn't pass Data structures and flunked out of school that they changed the regulations to any 9 units plus Data structures.'

I just got back from my first Internship/Career fair. I am like dizzy from that...you just go booth to booth and introduce yourself, ask the same types of questions, say the same types of things, give your resume and get a card. It seemed like I made a few decent connections, but I'd have to assume that they talk to so many students that they won't remember who is who very well.

Actually, I ran into a recruiter for the FED who I had spoken with a while ago at a Meet and Greet and he was like "Hey I remember you! You used to work for x company right?" and I said, "No...I haven't worked there before," and he was like "But I definitely remember you!...your name is Bill...right?" and I told him no, my name is Mike, and then he said "Ohhhh ya!!" haha whatever, maybe I'll still get an interview? I should change my name to Bill from X company on my resume.

What made you decide on masters over bachelors? Sorry if I missed it.

So, this weekend my daughter was born, and I finished the pre-req phase, so it seems like a good place to summarize my thoughts. It’s interesting how due to a not-so-great childhood I always wondered if I’d ever have a family, but never doubted that I would be successful one day. Now, at the age of 28, I have a perfect family life (one I never dreamed I’d have), but am not successful at all. Anyway, hopefully the successful part will change one day!
My Grades in the pre-req phase:

Discrete Mathematics: A
Java I: A-
Java II: A
Computer Systems I: A
Computer Systems II: A
Data Structures: B+

After a year, it seems that I am in a good place to answer some of the questions I had when I first started.
1. Do you need to be great at Math to succeed as a programmer?
A: NO, that is a huge misconception. First of all, just because people take really advanced math classes, doesn’t mean they’re good at math or even pay attention in class. Often people will say with pride, “I took a lot of math classes,” but that means nothing unless they got a lot out of the classes. It’s a shame that some schools try to weed kids out of their comp sci program with overly advanced math classes. That’s not to say that someone who is really good at math doesn’t have an advantage over someone who is not; that is to say that you can still develop a strong understanding of comp sci concepts without being naturally talented at math.

Having said all of that, I think Discrete Mathematics is a great way to tell if comp sci concepts make sense to you/if you enjoy putting in the effort to understand them. You end up using all of the concepts in Data Structures: ie- Sets, Unions, Recursion, Algorithms, Graphs, etc.

2. Formal education vs Learning on your own?
A: In my opinion, the best choice is to do both. A few thoughts on this subject:
-It is much different to take these classes as an older person with his personal life well established + an understanding of what he wants out of life. As an undergrad, so much of what you’re focused on involves developing a social life and learning what you want out of your life that you likely get less out of your education. For example, going to class is all that is expected of you so if you are given the choice of watching a bunch of YouTube videos and free lectures, or going to a party with friends, you’ll choose the party. And I don’t think that’s the wrong choice as becoming socially adjusted is important; but, you will get less out of your classes.

-This leads to the next point that some professors are terrible. This is really frustrating, but you need to use all of the available free lectures in order to compensate. For example, my Data Structures lecturer sucked; he offered almost no feedback on assignments and just ran through a textbook’s slides, and then tried to make his tests as hard as possible. As a result, I got my first ever C+ on a midterm, but was able to turn my grade around by finding this really cool Berkeley lecturer on YouTube. This goes back to my first point where if I was an undergrad, I may have gotten a C in the class because I wouldn’t have had the time or desire to watch free lectures that suit me better; but as an older person I got my grade up to a B+.

-All of this talk about grades brings me to this point: I think grades are positive in the sense that they give you something to strive for; but detrimental in the sense that you can get overly-focused on them. At the end of the day, it’s all about how much you learn and what side projects you work on. In terms of effort, the difference between a B and an A is huge; but it may be better to be a B student with extra time to work on cool side projects than an A student with hardly any time to work on side projects.

-Lastly, you can’t use a few people you know as an example of how ALL comp sci students perform in the working world. Some of my classes had very lazy people who barely paid attention in class, but there were others who were extremely talented and hard working. So, if one of the lazy jackasses wasting his parents’ money ended up working with you, you’d think “Man, that guy got a comp sci degree? He’s useless,” and you’d be right. On the other hand, if you worked with one of the talented, hard-working people, you’d undoubtedly be impressed.

3. Does the school you go to matter?
A: No, it definitely doesn’t. In general, you will learn the same concepts no matter what school you go to (assuming it’s at least somewhat reputable); but at the top ranked schools you will be competing against smarter and more talented people. In other words, you will learn the same concepts, but have a much harder time doing well on the tests (ie- if half the class gets below a 50% and half gets above a 50%, you may be in the bottom half at a top school and the top half at an “average” school). Obviously at the absolute best schools, the math gets pretty tough; but again, as far as I can tell, most practical applications don’t require the use of convoluted, extremely advanced math.

Anyway, I had a bunch of questions and answers written out, but this is getting really long. My daughter just woke up, so I’m sorry that this post is written at a fourth grade level! I don’t have time to edit it.

To end with a summary of what I’m working on:

I met an undergrad who has been invaluable to my education. He’s a talented web developer who works full time, and he’s been really helpful in my development. Right now I am configuring my own Apache server, and working on my website in PHP, CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. The purpose of the website and server is really to get a strong understanding of the fundamentals behind any website/server before I learn to use languages that do more for me. Anyway, my first Master’s class starts tomorrow. I’ve had a few interesting interview experiences that maybe I’ll write about in another post in the future.

Thanks for the update. I am following this very closely as I am in nearly the exact position you were in when starting this thread. (I am from Chicago, have a non-tech bach degree that got me nowhere, want to crossover to CS/SE) Do you have any internship/job prospects? How would you grade your teachers and academic counselors?

Hey Blue, just out of curiosity, what type of job are you hoping to get after earning your masters in CS? Also, regarding point number 3, don't graduates from better schools usually get much better job offers in CS? Or is that just exaggerated?

By the way, congrats on the recent birth of your kid (and the great family life, which is more important than anything else).

Yea, at top schools you'll face tougher competition and perhaps get a worse grade, but you'll also likely get a higher quality professor/education. You complained about the quality of professors. I'm not saying all professors at top schools are fantastic, but you'll have a better chance of getting good ones. And as you mention, if grades aren't as important, only what you learn, then the quality of professor is worth the tradeoff in lower grade.

Also, recruiting at top schools will yield you better/more job offers after school. Huge advantage to getting into the right school.

That's good point, but it's hard to classify what makes a good professor. Is it the schools he went to, his willingness to help during office hours, knowledge of the material, a combination of all three? For example, my professors next quarter went to MIT and Oxford respectively, but I'm not sure if they'll be good teachers-- we'll see. I go to office hours every week, so for me, I like a professor who's willing to go over whatever material I happen to have questions about (even if it's outside material). Also, as a side note, the two worst teachers I've had went to Depaul for their graduate education, which is kinda ironic. The best went to UC Berkley Irvine, the second best went to MIT, and third best went to Yale.

A weakness in forum writing is it's easy to speak in hyperbole; I should have written, "For MOST jobs in YOUR AREA, the school you go to doesn't matter." Good schools give you the opportunity to get a job anywhere in the country; whereas, a school like Depaul gives you a very good opportunity to get a good job in Chicago. In other words, in terms of most jobs in Chicago, it wouldn't have mattered if I went to U of I, U of Chicago, or Depaul. I'm largely basing this on Depaul's career fair, and a pretty unique interview I had at a financial company where I got to meet a bunch of the employees; some of them went to schools I had never heard of and some of them went to U of Illinois; but all of them had top tier jobs. I'll write about that experience later in the week along with some of the interview questions on their test (the test took an entire day to complete).

To reiterate, I'm not arguing against going to a top school at all; I'm just saying, it's not as important as I thought it would be a year ago. This is a unique industry in that respect; it's mostly about what you can do (which is mainly demonstrated with cool side projects). It's also a hard notion for me to get used to as my whole life growing up I was expected to get the best grades and go to the best schools; so I'm still getting used to the idea that a 2.7 student with great side projects can be a more attractive candidate than a 3.8 student with no side projects.

Ha I had better quit these long winded posts or no one will read what I write. I should get that program that kid sold for millions to Yahoo to summarize my posts.

I'm not sure that this is true. Usually, professors at good schools are good researchers, and not necessarily good teachers. They were hired by the school because they have the ability to publish in top journals, usually in a very narrow field of research. The school still makes them teach courses, but that's not what they've hired them for. In my experience, there is usually a negative correlation between research ability and teaching ability (the correlation is weak, but I still think it's there).

I think this is the main advantage of going to a good school. The pedigree yields better job offers (at least initially).

So, I have three internship offers, all at really well known companies. I rejected one, but am debating between the other two. One of them was a huge shock to get as I was competing against U of Illinois kids and Ivy Leaguers; but, it pays incredibly well (I didn't know internships paid so high). Actually, as embarrassing as it is, the monthly salary for the internship is higher than any monthly salary I've ever had. The downside is it's a 10 week internship.

The interview process was intense. I first had to take a test that took about 8 hours to complete. They had me log in to an instance of a Linux virtual machine designed specifically for me, and I had to do a bunch of things ranging from configuring an Apache server and creating an alias, to systems admin stuff, to "doing whatever it takes" to compile a giant file. Also, I had to write a C program, and analyze a case study. You were supposed to do each part in as many ways as possible, so I tried to do each question in at least 2 different ways.

Luckily, I was able to figure out how to do most of that thanks to my Systems classes, the work I'm doing with my own sever, and my constant use of Linux these days. Then following that, I had a standard interview, and then another interview which lasted 4 hours! A one hour programming interview, an interview where I had to do a bunch of case studies and I had to give an impromptu presentation on a subject of my choice (I chose poker!...ha) and then there was a few other character based interviews.

In general, I'm really good at case studies; it's a very useless natural talent to have, but came in handy with these (a long time ago I made it to the final round of a big name consulting company by doing a bunch of their case studies). I totally dominated that section, but struggled with the programming part. That is hard when you have two really smart developers sitting across from you watching you code, asking you questions, sometimes even reacting to mistakes you may be making.

The other offer is a year-round internship at a company that seems to be a very enjoyable place to work. Also, I think I would have a solid shot at turning it into a full time job.

No matter what decision I make, I am in a position that I never thought I'd be in one year ago, so I feel pretty good right now. One year ago I could barely write a "HelloWorld" program. I've worked incredibly hard to get to this point; it seems all I do is study, read textbooks, watch YouTube videos, go to office hours, watch lectures, and most recently, figure out how the hell to raise a newborn baby.

I'm really enjoying everything I'm learning, and I think this time next year I will really have taken off from a programming standpoint if I can maintain my current work ethic. Anyway, I probably won't post again in this thread for a while, but I figured I'd provide an update since it seems that I'm on a good path now.

Thanks for the update. Congratulations are in order. I really enjoyed reading your account. I actually think you have a great shot at full time employment with both companies.

congrats GoBlue, keep us posted on what you decide!

I'm a young student. Still working on the "What do you want to get out of life?" question. Inspiring to read your story. You can't fail if you have honest intentions, a strong work ethic, and know where you're going. Thanks for posting, and best of luck to you as you move forward.

GoBlue, I really liked reading your story.

One question: I was looking over the depaul grad website - are all of the CS grad classes at night or do you they offer classes during the day as well?

Some of the "Pre-Req" phase offer earlier options but all of the grad level CS classes (That I have encountered/seen on the registration) are at 5:45pm during winter/spring/fall and 6:00pm for summer.

They do offer online versions of most courses as well, and its a pretty decent format.