Thanks for the reply!

3 hour block classes at night would be brutal. I think I may need to look elsewhere

Congrats, man. Keep up the good work. If you're looking for inspiration to keep up the work ethic, you should check out Cal Newport's blog.

I ended up accepting the 10 Week Systems Engineering internship. I am a little intimidated since I saw that the majority of the other interns went to Harvard, MIT, and Carnegie Mellon (haha I've actually never met someone who went to Harvard); but also really looking forward to it. I'm going to do everything possible to prepare for it over the next 6 weeks.

It seems to me that no matter what happens, I should learn an insane amount and hopefully improve x 10 as a programmer.

In September I'll write a follow up post on how it went. I won't be able to get into any programming details since I signed a NDA; but, I would think I can describe my experience from a "How have I improved" perspective.

GL

Can anyone post about their experiences with UChicago's MS in Computer Science program? Can a non-tech person finish that degree and get a job as a software developer? Will employers respect it, since it's only a 9 month degree?

Do graduates from Uchicago's program have good job placement (the non tech ones more importantly)

The program is quite expensive, 5000 per class almost

I am in DePaul's software engineering masters program partially because of this thread

Would love to hear an OP update

Same waiting for update

Last I heard from him he was working 12 hour days and raising a newborn. Hopefully he is doing well and hasnt gone totally insane yet!

wow this was very inspirational. Would love to hear from Go Blue. Very glad to hear these kinds of stories. Makes you believe that it's never too late.

I am considering applying for CDM for next fall. Could anyone recommend whether or not I should submit any of the non-necessary material (i.e., letters of recommendation, GRE scores)?

I could definitely find good LORs and take the GRE, but I just don't want to take any superfluous steps. Any advice is appreciated, and I have really enjoyed following this thread.

I personally submitted only what was listed as required, ie no letters or test scores, and had a not so great GPA from undergrad (non comp sci) and got accepted. Make sure you submit everything at once though, including transcripts from all schools. I hadnt submitted a transcript for a school I spent one semester at and it extended my reply for admissions by about 2 months.

I was thinking of applying to that program, and came across a doc some time ago with the list of companies where students went on to work. It had the big tech names along with a bunch of Chicago finance and trading companies. Looked pretty good. I also saw something where if you don't have enough background but they accept you, you take two remedial courses prior to entering.

Thanks for this. Hopefully it all works out, and I'll be in Chicago next year.

You should always look at trying to get a teaching assistantship (sp) to help pay for graduate school. I got my MS in math, and basically got paid to do it.

I spent the last 2 hours researching and I'm contemplating on doing this. Been teaching myself programming the past 2 months and it has been beneficial at work (help desk). I am going to start taking C++ programming classes at a local junior college starting January 2014 as well.

As for what is in the future? I am considering CDM.DePaul just like OP but I am also considering Cal State Long Beach since it is 30 minutes away from my home . However looking at Cal State Long Beach website it lists one of the requirements:

I also have a non-tech degree from University of Cal-Irvine so I wonder what is considered an appropriate discipline??

I will also need to do some cost analysis between the two programs. I have the pricing structure of DePaul CDM here It's $770/credit hour but I am unable to find how many credit hours is each class.

Most classes are 4 hours. A few rare ones are 2.

Also will add, I started the same way. Non programming degree, took C++ class at community college, then started with the pre-req phase classes at CDM. I felt ahead of the curve actually thanks to the C++ class.

I live about 5 mins from CSULB... I got a bachelor's in Mech Eng from CSULB and was going to get a Master's in CS from there. I took 13 pre rec CS courses at CSULB preparing for their MS program and then decided to do my Masters at UCI. Let me know if you have any questions (pm or ITT)

What made you decide to go for a masters instead of a second bachelors especiality after taking 13 prerequisite classes. I figured you be close to getting a second bachelors since you already majored in mechanical engineering.

UCI would be a better option for me since it's in the same area I work. However the price tag is 9k Per quarter and I need to take the GRE.

It was about the same amount of classes to do second bachelors and master's. Plus an academic advisor told me to always move forward so I listened ha. Actually i wish i would have started at UCI because they don't require any pre-recs. So I sort of wasted my time with those 13 courses but at least they prepared me somewhat.... I finished UCI's program in 3 quarters, Sept 2012 to June 2013. It's 4 core classes and 7 electives so I did 3-4-4. Most people do it in 4-6 quarters. It was 5k per quarter. Did it really go up to 9k!??

Yea the price is kind of insane. But if I did do it in 3 quarters then it would amount to 27k which is not so bad at all.

Did you do this full time? I imagine it would be a lot easier coming from an engineering background. What are you doing now for work?

I thought you said you wanted to do CS? My bad... It's still about 5k per quarter for CS: http://www.reg.uci.edu/fees/2013-2014/graduate.html

You gave a link to engineering management tuition... Ya I did full time. I'm not gonna lie, finishing in 3 quarters was pretty damn tough. I pretty much told my friends "I'll see you in 9 months". For half of it I worked 8hrs per week at an internship programming in C++. Then I had to quit cuz i had too much school work.

I took a job as a software engineer for healthcare type software. The software runs on a web server so it's mostly Java EE and JPA type stuff that I'm working with now. I really liked machine learning though and MATLAB, as I did a lot of that during my Master's. However there were a lot less jobs to choose from in that field and I didn't find one right away after graduating so I took this job. This job is cool though, I like it.

I'm not trying to hate on anyone for doing the CS master's, but I still think that some of you guys should consider doing a bootcamp instead. I've been teaching myself some of the basics of programming and web development, and have considered both CS degrees and bootcamps. I think bootcamps have several advantages: they're cheaper, teach the cutting edge languages (that are actually in demand), and allow you to finish quicker (and therefore hit the job market; and what you learn on the job will teach you more than a degree probably ever could).

If you're skeptical about what I'm saying, check out this tech crunch article: http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/10/dev...-ruby-success/

People are spending a few grand and a couple months of their time, and coming out with solid, high paying programming jobs (at an average of a $79K salary). Many of them don't even know programming before entering the program. The ROI on these programs (in terms of time and money) is way higher than most bachelor's and master's programs out there. Anyway, just my 2 cents.

Yea not sure why I was looking at the wrong link. The tuition is not that bad then! 5k per quarter.