Did you regret taking this?
If you could only do this remotely, would you still enroll?
Are there a lot of internships available?
How does DePaul accommodate career wise for people out of state?
Scholarships or financial aid?
Are you currently interning? If so what are you doing?
How are most of your peers doing? What's the average age/background?
What could DePaul do better?

I would prefer not to have this be Depaul-specific. So, I'll answer the questions more from a going back to school to get a Master's in Computer Science with no prior background point of view.

1. Did you regret taking this?

No, I don't regret going back to school. I've mentioned in a few posts how formal education was key for me to develop a strong foundation. I sucked at first (look at one of my first programming posts in this thread!), but now I can learn anything for the most part...except for Electrical Engineering which I really seem to struggle with.

2. Are there a lot of internships available?

Yes, there are a lot of internships available in Chicago (I assume also in most other cities). My internship ended up being a career-changing opportunity--I really took off from there. It's amazing how much you can learn when you're surrounded by veterans who specialize in different areas (Linux, Databases, Development, scripting, automation, etc). for ten hours per day. My main project was to build a search engine for their intranet which ended up being a super cool experience.

3. Scholarships or financial aid?

I didn't really do scholarships or financial aid. I had a good amount of savings and my internship paid surprisingly well. Also, now my current job pays for a chunk of my tuition. Currently I have a (relatively) small amount of debt.

4. Are you currently interning? If so what are you doing?

I've been working full-time for almost a year now as a Systems Engineer. It's been a pretty cool opportunity--I finally seem to have a natural talent which is automation and learning random scripting languages on the fly.

5. If you could only do this remotely, would you still enroll?

Probably. I mean I do tons of free education which is remote. I will say that without meeting this one random kid in my first year, I wouldn't have made it nearly as far. I likely mentioned him in previous posts, but I really upped my game from working with him on projects and seeing him in action. Actually throughout my life that seems to have been a catalyst for me getting better at things--whether it was sports, computer games (ie- Warcraft and Starcraft), chess (I still sort of suck though), etc., there's always been someone way better than me that I've learned from watching.

Currently I have five courses left to finish my degree but am going to take a hiatus starting next quarter. There's so much I want to learn and get better at, and it's too hard to do that with raising my daughter (now almost two years old!!), working full time, and going to school.

Wow, didn't realize there was a few of us in this program at DePaul. I've only completed Discrete Math and Intro to Programming.

I'm going to give 2 classes per semester a try in Winter. Hopefully I don't have to drop 1 of them. Data Structures I and Systems I

I did both while working and it kind of sucked and I wish I had more time to delve into Systems than I ended up with.

Working full time while taking DS and systems would be a nightmare IMO

How did you find your job?

The Career Fair. A bunch of companies contacted me after that, which led to the offers I previously mentioned. It was a surprising reversal in fortune considering three years ago I couldn't get an interview for anything other than mass cold calling jobs, and two years ago I had a hard time just getting an interview for an internship.

Depending on what they cover, you might want to hold off on Systems I and get some C experience on the side first.

Does anybody know what the average salary is for people coming out of the Depaul Masters CS program?

https://careercenter.depaul.edu/_doc...ort%202012.pdf

$82,167 seems to be the # for those graduating in 2012, after 6 months. I assume it's probably 10-15% higher given the market.

I decided to hold off and take 1 course instead of 2.

For those that have finished the degree, or taken many of the courses, can you tell me which classes you felt were the most difficult and why?

For instance, the Discrete Math course was pretty difficult for me since I had to re-learn a TON of basic math, but on the other hand, intro to programming I tested out of it.

Cool, I just went to one yesterday and today. Some of my classmates didn't have high opinions of the companies/jobs there but meh. I thought it was worth doing.

$82,000 seems insanely high to me, but I don't really know what I am talking about. Does anybody else have an opinion on this?

I think I have a very very small percent chance of making that much freshly done with the degree, that's my only opinion

haha ya that seems really high. it's more likely you'd make 60+. but, i feel like it's a bad move to be overly-focused on salary when you're starting out. obviously return on investment is important to consider, but you should look at that from a long-term perspective. all it takes is one cool job starting out to improve at a much faster rate and get exposure to new technologies--from there i expect you'd be worth a lot more.

Here is the CDM 2013 report

http://careercenter.depaul.edu/_docu...REES_FINAL.pdf

http://www.usnews.com/education/best...s-study-claims

No idea who they sampled, but they have $80,400 as average starting salary for those with masters in CS in general. But don't forget that not everyone is doing masters in CS with no relevant work experience.

I hope this is still a "Masters in Comp Sci With No Prior Experience" thread. Don't mind me moving this discussion away from DePaul.

I spent some time doing a cost analysis for all the possible schools. I do not have a great GPA nor do I have a hard science degree so the choices of schools are slim for me.



My pick right now is still UCI. DePaul, though in a nice area is out of my price range.

The cost of housing and food is zero simply because I am living at home in Orange County. My Misc estimates might be off however I still do not think it could be significant where it could sway one decision to another.

Cal Poly Pomona was a school I just recently discovered that offered a MS for non-CS major. However the admissions might be tough to get in. In addition to that I noted 3+ years since it seems they have a lot more prerequisite of classes for the non-CS folks. I need to research it a little bit more however.

CSULB is another local school, however it's probably one of these worst CS program. I looked over their CS program and it looks lackluster in comparison to UCI. UCI has its own CS department and is pretty well known for my area.

If anyone has any other good programs that I may be missing, let me know.

edit: Found that Carnegie Mellon had a program, but costs are over $125k lol. Would be nice to go there though.

Good point. I think the 2013 undergrad CS report is probably more accurate in terms of salary with no prior experience.

Well, first quarter is officially over for me. I'm eager to get into the real stuff next quarter. Did anyone else think discrete was a joke of a class? I'm a bit worried I didn't get a quality learning experience and that it might bite me in the ass later on.

question for this and other posts regarding the salary (i'm not a programmer so forgive my ignorance)

according to glassdoor.com it seems like entry-level software engineer positions at companies like microsoft, amazon etc. start around the 100k range (i'm even filtering out silicon valley positions since those are naturally higher). i'm confused why everyone seems to agree 84k seems like a high estimate for people who finished an advanced degree at a reputable CS program.

are those bigger company jobs that hard to land (not a rhetorical question, genuinely curious)?

A few things.

First, entry-level does not mean just out of school. You could be a few years out of school and still be at the entry-level. A sizable increase in compensation without getting a level promotion is quite possible, not to mention that at these companies, many people join at the entry level after accruing considerable experience elsewhere.

Second, non research track Masters in Computer Science is an advanced degree in name only. The program in question is an undergraduate-level program that comes with a Master's degree because people are willing to pay a lot of money to get advanced degrees and universities need money. Case in point:

http://www.brown.edu/web/pae/revenue/programs.html

This is quite a bit harsher than I'd put it, but she has a point:

http://blog.alinelerner.com/how-diff...to-recruiting/

Third, top technology firms like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon hire at the very top of the talent pool. Graduating from a program like this, or even a top undergraduate program, is generally not enough to get a top technology job.

What was the problem? Chu is an easy grader. If you feel you didnt learn enough you have a bunch of time to shore that up before winter starts. To me your next 2 classes data structures 1 and systems 1 had the biggest learning curve. There is always more to learn. Make sure you understand basic java. Start exploring C programming, pointers and assembly code. I personally dont think that discrete is important. I am sure others disagree.

Sent from my SM-N910V

Hi guys,

Great thread, I used to program back in high school when I took AP Comp Sci I and II and passed the tests. But got super frustrated by the advanced concepts and stopped. My question is, back when I first programmed, there was a huge worry that companies would outsource a lot of the programming stuff to India, is this a huge worry still?

I too am thinking about a career change and that's the reason I ask.

The problem was Chu was TOO easy of a grader, lol. Though others had a different sentiment so maybe it's just me. I guess I just didn't like the disorder of Chu's lecturing. I've taken it upon myself to self-learn some of the topics he breezed through. Thanks for the heads up. I'll definitely use my break to look into those.