Fortunately I was able to land a job in tech, an industry which cares a little bit less about credentials, and I've now held a number of jobs in software. I'm paid well and I think I'm pretty good at what I do. But then I look around and see the cool jobs in 3D graphics, in distributed systems, in machine learning, or other "hard computer science" fields, and it feels like I will never be qualified without a graduate degree.
It really bums me out and constantly thinking about it is starting to wear me out mentally. Putting my career on hold for a few years to go back to school has a very high opportunity cost right now, and even if I were to do that I would still feel like a massive screw-up for going back to university in my 30s. At the same time, I feel like I'm throwing away my potential and my curiosity about deeper technical topics.
Has anyone here been in a similar situation? What should I do?
That's not an option for everyone (aging parents, needy kids, ...), but for software engineers with modern salaries, it's often approachable.
Ex: We'd bite if someone demoed us some impressive GLSL JS work, discussed how they'd get another 100X of scale, and their code style looks like it'd be practical for us to collaborate around. We require the same from someone with a degree. To your advantage, it shows (a) you can hit the ground running (b) you've got the "slope" / drive we're looking for when choosing to invest in someone new to the area.
A degree does unlock some things for us. Some US Gov grants needs it. But more important, degree or no degree, is the independent projects/papers/grants/etc. along the way that demonstrate they can do more of the same. But much of that is about going beyond research engineering (=> RFPs, ...), and you get much of that experience on-the-job... if you've already show you can do the core coding.
I totally flubbed college in my late teens, and didn't go back to get my bachelor's until I was 40. I went to Harvard Extension, and it took 7 (seven!) years of 2 classes per semester, late nights, and long weekends to graduate, bachelor with honors, in Computer Science. I gained exposure and appreciation for some other topics along the way, like philosophy, and was surprisingly good at those, too.
In that entire 7 years, I held down a full-time job, raised one kid, birthed another, sold and bought two houses, all the while writing papers, developing projects, taking exams, and the like. I sacrificed some time with family, but definitely TV, movies, sports, and video games (still don't miss those, actually). My family and everyone I worked with, including my managers, were incredibly accommodating with my time, respecting my early mornings and lunch times working on homework, and encouraged me along the way, helping to count down the credit hours. I learned I had a much larger support network and cheerleading squad than I realized.
Did I need to go through all of that? Kind of, but not really. I was gainfully employed, and was killing it at work, but I craved the personal satisfaction of having accomplished this thing. I consider my degree to be my mid-life crisis gift to myself, and I couldn't be happier with it. Way better than a car.
Go back to school. You won't regret it.
I have a good BS in CS, and did some interesting things in my career. At 40, the jobs that you list would also be hard for me to get.
IMO: Only get the degree if you want the experience of being a student again. There's no guarantee that a degree will get you a job in that field.
Edit: One of the risks in our field is that the more specialized you are, the market narrows for your job opportunities. You could find that you have a fancy degree, only a few places you can use it, and for some unfair reason they won't hire you.
I'd really think carefully about why you want that degree.
> But then I look around and see the cool jobs in 3D graphics, in distributed systems, in machine learning, or other "hard computer science" fields, and it feels like I will never be qualified without a graduate degree.
Why do you feel that? What signals are you reading? Does this feeling apply across the board, or only to one or two of the fields you listed?
> What should I do?
Your title suggests that you may equate "credential" with education. I would take a serious look at that because it's far from a universal view. In fact, it may be the thing that's really holding you back.
Edit: the reason I mention WGU is that it is accredited (lots, looks like), well-regarded AFAIK, you get credit for what you already know (test out), and take as many classes as you want in a semester for a flat fee (or some such), so you can do it for less $ if you are experienced or have learned material previously. And remote-friendly, I believe.
And in the never-give-up category, 89-year-old becomes a physicist:
https://www.newser.com/story/313396/he-retired-from-medicine...
As long as you going to invest all this time and money, do it with recognizable university, not some online only program.
Your company may agree to pay part of it. US companies have some tax writeoff for employee education so it is basically free to them (up to some limit). It is usually not enough to cover the full tuition but still helps.
I have an engineering degree and masters in CS. That stuff looks impossible to me as well. However, I know some people who work in similar fields with very little formal education.
I'm not saying it won't help, I'm just saying it is neither the only door to those "hard" fields, nor it is a guarantee that those subjects will suddenly start making more sense.
You're looking across widely different fields that are each impossible for anyone to master (despite the degree being called a Masters).
To use an analogy, even the GOAT Michael Jordan couldn't transfer his skills across sports.
You could pick anyone of those, spend an entire lifetime (or several) and barely make any impact.
If you want to develop expertise in any field, go right ahead. But the idea that a PhD (or anything) would allow you to master multiple tech disciplines is a pipe dream.
Edit: To add to this, I think working in tech industry now is very fast moving. I also put in a lot of effort to refresh & stay current. If you end up with the attitude of "it's too late to study", then you'll get left behind very quickly. Young people have a lot of free time and they catch up very very quickly.
Most people do college/university as a means to get where you are now. It seems like you do not need this. You just want to deeper learnings. No reason you can't pursue that.
If you find a way to do both, then great. However you can pursue to better yourself through education that don't require you the double-cost of university fees and loss-of earnings then go for it.
> What should I do?
In your situation I would continue working my current job. Putting work on hold and going back to college is a huge financial blunder to satisfy a problem that only exists in your mind.
I think you are being too hard on yourself. You can only become a specialist in one of these fields. Even if you were to dedicate your life on doing 3D graphics, you won't easily switch to a distributed systems or machine learning type of focus. Also, working on "hard" problems in these fields primarily happens in an industry/academic research type of job - these are really niche topics you have to throw your soul at to stay up to date/ahead in.
If you just want a degree to say that you have one, and to complete something that you started, that's OK. But the way you approach solving that (casual evening courses over the next 3-4yrs) is different from "need a degree to get more specialized job", in which case it may be worth a more focused study to get your degree ASAP so you can change jobs.
If you just want to learn more about other topics, or go deeper - there's lots of approaches that don't require formal education. MOOCs, self-study with text books, seminars/auditing classes, etc.
Send me an email and lets call. I'll tell you my more or less similar story.
The difference?
I have a bachelor in CS and master in CS.
Education credentials are worthless. Educate yourself and be able to showcase within 5 seconds that you're good at it, and you'll be fine.
I know you're on a throwaway, so I get it if you don't want to (and I might not reply, my email is being swamped by spammers :( ).
But as you can see from my comment history, I tend to be quite an open person and I have posted similar-ish questions under this account.
The industry has some luminaries who do AI/Graphics, etc., without having done much work in those areas in school.
See Jon Carmack, one of the greatest programmers alive. See Abrams. See Cooley. etc. etc.
It's a fallacy that grad school teaches you to do XYZ. You learn it on your own. It's just a forcing function to put you on a timeline.
Everything I know in computer science, outside the intro classes, I learned on my own.
I'm feeling this at my job now. Maybe it's better you felt it in school rather than at work. I dont want to "drop out"CB of my job since I need that for living expenses.
"But then I look around and see the cool jobs in 3D graphics, in distributed systems, in machine learning, or other "hard computer science" fields, and it feels like I will never be qualified without a graduate degree."
I have a masters. I feel this way too. I'm not qualified because I have no experience in these fields. If you're good and have side project experience in this, then you might get in.
The only thing degrees help with is not getting your resume trashed prior to an interview.
Also, there is NOTHING wrong with going to school at 30. Or 40. Or 50. Or at any age. You will never be a loser for doing that.
https://www.kron4.com/news/national/age-is-just-a-number-to-...
This dude was almost 90 and got a phd. He isn't a screw up.
-stay working but study at night; to avoid debit and continue to increase years of experience
-Once you have the certs, then eval if you really want the degree.
-Some companies offer tuition reimbursement; taking some night classes towards a degree shows employers motivation
-maybe change jobs every 3-5 years to stay fresh or at least interview periodically other companies
Beware of burnout, you may find that the certifications gives you enough mobility. Years of experience plus certification should get you in the door to most jobs. You may hit your 40s and realize you should have spent more time with loved ones.
I hated compiler construction with passion. But I love that language design is now at least comprehensible for me when looking at new languages.
Of course this is just one example, another being formal methods/ software validation awesome stuff; would have never learnt it otherwise.
I think if your problem is that you don't like your day-to-day but your pay is ok, the best way out isn't through university. I think its by dedicating yourself to passion projects through great effort in your free time.
You can also try to become an expert on your own. But you'll need to pick a field you are very passionate about since you'll need to grind thru some difficult patches as you learn the subject. It's very hard that's why you need a goal and a passion. Very few people can become competent this way but there are many people that have. All you need is the internet, textbooks, problems to solve and a high level of grit.
Also, pick an emerging field. Once you are competent in it employers will beg you to work for them. The one that comes to mind right away is crypto. People are hating on it but it reminds me of the start of the personal computer revolution. In the late 70's there were very few applications for personal computers but as you can see that's not the case now.
It takes a generation shift for useful technology to become common place. I give it another ten years before we see some killer applications.
There's no shame in this; I'm wondering where you got this feeling for, especially, because radical changes in 30s/40s are generally considered success stories (when successful, of course ;)).
> until I came to university, where I could never seem to care about the course material or putting effort into my classes [...] But then I look around and see the cool jobs in 3D graphics, in distributed systems, in machine learning, or other "hard computer science" fields, and it feels like I will never be qualified without a graduate degree.
There's a big risk here of liking the idea of something more than something itself. The yellow flag here is that if one likes "hard CS problems", they'd find the CS university subjects tendentially interesting, or anyway, worth completing. Of course there are exceptions, but it's worth thinking about it.
> Putting my career on hold for a few years to go back to school has a very high opportunity cost right now
If your current career is not the one you want, you're paying a "very high" opportunity cost by not changing it.
This assumes that it's not an economical problem, but I read "opportunity cost", so it seems it isn't. To be kept in mind that taking a 3 years break for work, for education, especially in the early 30s, does no harm to the career.
Unfortunately, I had a C+ GPA in my comp.sci bachelor's degree which welded grad school shut. This however gave me the perfect excuse to do a math degree which is an opportunity I regretted. I sold my house and enrolled, graduated winter 2021 right before my 40th birthday. I'm doing a couple of computer science classes this semester and am enrolled back in the computer science master's in Winter 2022.
Here's what I learned:
- If you don't have children, 30 is stupidly young.
- The oportunity cost is obviously 500k+ (gross), but that matters only if your concern is accumulating wealth. All the houses/hotels and money go back in the box at the end of the game regardless.
- The first semester is really difficult but you'll get most of your mental nimbleness back mid second-semester.
- Your memory and intuition will be worst than your peers but 20 year olds don't have a work ethics so your discipline and consistency will prevail in a major way.
- After your first semester, evaluation will be 0-stress.
If you already have experience in computer science then the path from Mathematics -> grad Computer Science is just as smooth and common. The mathematics program may be more challenging however.
If you feel like you need to check a box for your own piece of mind look into a public school night program.
* That you’d want. I’m not counting dinosaur institutions that are so hidebound they want a degree for the sake of a degree.
13 years later, I'm CTO and cofounder of a mid-sized startup on escape trajectory. Your mileage not just _may_ but _will_ vary, but here's a selection of things that personally helped me most on my journey:
Understanding what actually creates my value as a software developer and obsessively trying to focussing on that. Doing helpful things and be known for delivering results. Going far above what was expected, but also making sure it was noticed. Choosing stellar bosses who wanted to develop me, very selectively, and making them successful. Taking responsibility that nobody wanted whereever there was a vacuum. Being bold in daring solutions (but also learning how to seriously piss off superiors and avoiding that). Staying focused on solutions, not on problems. Regularly taking new opportunities that gave me the biggest stretch and largest learning opportunity.
Aiming at the phrasing of your "messed up", I'm only now learning to deal with the level of impostor syndrome this journey brought me and how to switch off from the pressure I put myself into: one of my biggest challenges so far was actually how to learn to love myself and deal with the emotional fallout from my perceived failure in my mid twenties. Looking back, I would have started especially that part of the journey earlier.
The only thing I never regretted was putting a single step back into school.
Good luck. You'll do it. I believe in you.
Are you c? Probably not. Do you have a b in you and given it's a 3-5 year project for most people, are you more likely to succeed at it right now than when you get out of school? Maybe, timebox 3-6mos and do your current dream startup, and when it fails you will know whether you're ready to do it again.
If you can afford to do a) it's a supreme privilege to spend years in school, and you get out the other side with one less giant constraint.
(Didn't finish undergrad either, 20+ years in tech, didn't go back to school because it was always to meet other peoples expectations, and didn't finish because ego insisted succeeding in spite of a self-imposed handicap showed how special I was. It's literally as dumb as it sounds.)
If you don't have a degree, it may have little bearing on your individual talent or ability, but you will always be assigned to work for only the dumbest people who do have one, and they will be your ceiling. This is the random sign from the universe you are looking for. Do it.
First, and perhaps most important: there is _zero_ shame in going back to school at any age.
That said, don't derail your career for this. Career success (IMO) is a function of career momentum and you'll have a hard time getting started again if you stop now.
You have several other options:
1. Go to an online school. University of London (via Coursera), University of the People, Colorado Tech, and Western Governors' University all have CS programs that you can do online and at your own pace. They're all reasonably priced and you can likely pay out of pocket for them (especially University of the People - total cost for the degree is ~$5k).
2. Just learn stuff on your own. You're lucky to work in a field where people are very eager to share what they've been working on. You want to learn 3D graphics? Write a raytracer. Distributed systems? Implement raft. Machine learning? Follow one of a bazillion tutorials out there to get started. Then keep going. Talk to people in the field, tell them what you've been working on, and ask what to do next (think of it as a load-balanced apprenticeship). Formal education or not, nothing changes the fact that learning something thoroughly requires time, focus, and patience. It's perhaps a bit more work to learn something this way, but if you have the discipline to do it, you'll learn much more than you would in a university course (IMO).
3. Learn the material and don't worry about the degree. https://teachyourselfcs.com/, for instance, is a good resource for self study.
4. Don't worry about it! You've got a good job. You make good money. Tinker with stuff on the side and invest more time where you want to invest more time. Or don't! Learn to play the piano or something. Consider why you're constantly thinking about your lack of a degree and why it's wearing you out. Are you actually bummed out about not having a degree? Or is it that you're not fully utilizing your creativity and curiosity? The solutions to those respective problems are different and if you're looking at spending thousands of dollars on a degree, it's worth being really _really_ clear on what problem you're trying to solve.
so I did manage to get into a PhD program at a good school. happy I did, I took all the graduate courses and filled in all kinds of gaps. but at the end of the day I looked at all the grad students putting together half-assed little projects on their own to try to get published and said 'this is all crap, I want to do something real'
I agree with everyone here who has said 'figure out why first'. you can do research on your own - and there are very few places left that would pay you to do it even if you did have the PhD.
edit: also don't underestimate how awkward it is to be older than your peers with a decade+ of industry experience. you really are coming in from a very different path and its not always appreciated. I found trying to talk about people about code to be particularly frustrating.
I did take a 3D graphics course, but that mostly instilled some basic concepts. I have no idea how to do something like contribute to a 3D game. At best I'm slightly better equipped to do Google searches to try to figure things out.
I’m really pleased that I went back to school and finished, but school didn’t impart me with some mystical information that I couldn’t learn elsewhere.
University education in the topics under computer science are going to be theory based, which is great if you want to pursue the science of it.
I’m a strong advocate of higher education, and I’m never going to tell someone to not go back. I will tell you that I doubt school is going to give you the things you’re looking for. It might clear your schedule a bit to allow you to go after those things, but university study is largely structured. Sometime in your senior year you might get to structure your own education.
- I used my tech background to get an IT job at local University. As a full-time employee, I was eligible for tuition remission.
- The majority of my classes were available in the evenings or online. For the evening in-person classes, I was already on campus for work, so getting to class was a non-factor.
- For the few required classes only offered during the day, I worked it out with my boss to take an extended lunch break to go to class. Turns out that IT managers in Higher Ed value continuing education for their employees.
It took about 6 years of going to classes part-time, but I graduated at age 35 with zero student loans.
Also, there are a lot more non-traditional students out there than you would think. Don't let your age be a deterrent.
I'd recommend online courses, not just because it will have less negative impact on your career, but also because you may find after a semester that your itch has been scratched and you feel comfortable without the degree, in which case it would be nice not to invest too much into the effort early on.
I had the same realization, at around age 28. Had a BS (both meanings) undergrad degree in applied science.
Path:
-Math fundamentals on Khan Academy. Videos, exercises etc. Algebra, trig, calc etc -A barrage of science classes for a few years on MitX, only after I was comfortable with the math. Physics, chem, bio, biochem, QM etc Lectures, excercises etc. - Got more aggressive with personal projects applying these. Ie transition from learning fundamentals, to applying them to practical problems.
It's not too late! It gets harder with age. EO Wilson (famous biologist and ant expert) described taking calculus for the first time in his mid 30s, and having a struggle.
I was in for 3 discontinuous years I didn't immediately fail out, once I started getting into quantum that math was a bit much for me and then tried to switch to comp sci but didn't cut it the grades. It was a discipline problem on my part/not doing my work.
I'm not deriding university, but education is everything. You are educating yourself for your entire life. What you learnt at university was that nobody was there holding your hand. To learn, you must do it yourself.
>But then I look around and see the cool jobs in 3D graphics, in distributed systems, in machine learning, or other "hard computer science" fields, and it feels like I will never be qualified without a graduate degree.
You're bored and you're hitting your 30s where you're concerned about 'could I have been more?' dont worry, everyone goes through this and it gets worse later in your 30s.
Be promiscuous with your study materials. The great freedom of being self taught is you don't have to stick with a book, or even a topic, that's not working.
When you feel unmotivated, meditate. Not in a woo woo feel the universe way, but in a practical one -- stepping back, considering your priorities and your history and the possibilities afforded by the world.
And if possible, find peers who care about the same thing(s). If you can't find them locally, you can always find them online.
Yes and no. Some employers are going to consider a lack of a CS degree as a negative, including some really large employers with interesting projects. If you want to work directly for those employers on those projects, you will most likely need not just a CS degree but one from a prestigious program.
If it means that much to you, definitely consider doing it, but in my experience that’s already a very narrow and competitive field to pursue, so make sure you’re not just settling for any CS degree but one that has a network of graduates working in those fields already.
Tuition had and has gone up an insane amount even since I've been out, I'm not sure I'd make the same choice today. As it is, for two years of school I spent 10 years paying it off (probably could have done it a bit faster).
But from an education and experience standpoint I don't regret it. And the feeling weird about being the oldest person there in most classes feeling went away after about two weeks.
The columnist's response was "And how old will you be in four years if you don't go back for a degree?"
Even if it takes you ten years doing it part time on the side, you'll be further ahead than if you never did it, and even if you never finish a degree you can still take some classes in the areas that are interesting to you.
I was a rebellious/idealist kid who read all the success stories here in HN and had an overblown confidence.
I am doing very good economically, but when it comes to visa and mobility internationally. Having a diploma helps a lot, I found. Beside having access to more intelectual communities of people through a master's programme for example.
In my experience, motivation comes from interesting work. If you need to learn to make progress on a project you care about, you will learn. So what you need is a project that requires you to learn the things you want to learn.
I'm asking, because with only one exception, none of the employers I've worked at ever took a look at your education when making hiring decisions. It was maybe interesting as a talking point, if I went to the same school as the candidate I was interviewing, but that's it.
I think you should work on readjusting your thinking rather than figuring out how to get the degree.
Sure it would take twice the time, but unlike an undergrad you could study through the summer while working. Companies could even half fund this to upskill their workforce while retaining staff.
With so much education happening online, this should pre-eminently possible!
My advice would be that, if it's something that you would actually enjoy, or it'd scratch an itch you can't quite shake then go for it.
If you have enough willpower to do that (and most people won't no matter how strong their regrets are), only then consider going back to college and even then a reputable online program would probably be your best bet.
I don't think a distributed system or machine learning tool will work better for a guy with a piece of paper from Stanford or Harvard than for a guy who is willing to do the work.
People identify excellence. A degree can only say so much about a person's experience and knowledge.
It’s as if you were a dropout of acting school and you would lament that you should not have dropped out, cause all those acting stars didn’t.
Usually it's very hard for them to find talent that has experience in the software field, and you can easily ramp up in the 3d graphics field while in the company.
No need to feel like a screw-up. While most students may be in their early 20s, there are plenty of people in similar situations to yours, including those who went into the military to pay for college.
They're very flexible, you can go as slow as you want, and get your degree while working.
If the university is worth anything, you'll of course have to attend exams in-person.
I know some options in Europe, which diplomas are approved by the EU, but do not have a clue about elsewhere.
I know because I am and I have the exact same background as you, and for the same reasons.
If you do end up needing it, you can probably transfer some of the credits you completed and do nightschool if you don't want to stop working.
Would suggest there are two distinct motivations that should be teased apart. One of them is self-worth, one of them is skill/expertise development.
Self-worth: just about all of the folks I know who don't have a BS and are working in tech feel like they are imposturing. The absence of a credential impacts their personal sense of self-worth and qualification. A number of these folks are very, very senior, extremely skilled, well respected, etc. From what I have seen, it does not and has not impacted their career development/potential in the areas where they have skills. The imposturing is purely in their minds. I relatedly see folks who have a PhD from a second or third tier school and have a self-perception of being failures. In reality are incredibly sharp, organized, competent- ideal colleagues. Your mental health and self-image is your own, but this is a vote not to spend time/money for a credential primarily for a sense of worth.
Expertise: this is a different dimension. The areas you mention- some kinds of ML, 3d graphics, distributed systems, many others- to work there day to day requires deep and specific expertise. It does NOT require a degree. Just skills.
To learn deep things, you need to do deep work. There is no other way. You need to carve out the time and brainspace to devote serious attention. An academic environment with guidance from faculty following a curriculum can be an excellent- tho expensive- way to do that.
As someone with a BS who in their 30s felt the same pull towards depth and went back to grad school- I definitely felt the psychic weight of being far and away the oldest student in my cohort. I got over it. It was great to be able to do the work.
In terms of opportunity cost- life is long. You have the rest of your 30s, your 40s, your 50s, your 60s- at least- to be doing productive interesting work, even if you don't need to be doing it for financial reasons.
Concur with others that the best option is to work for an employer who will fund some or all of an MS. Schools- even top 10 CS programs- in reality DNGAF whether you have a BS. For many, MS programs are critical money makers. They care that prospective students bring the $ and can demonstrate technical, organizational, and communication skills. There is an admissions process- their faculty operate a human-limited scale so your $ will be ranked against other candidate $. But some school will want your $. Start to make lists of schools/programs in areas of interest to you. You deserve to give yourself the chance!
Best wishes.
https://brenebrown.com/book/the-power-of-vulnerability/
Never feeling qualified, feeling like a screw-up for attending college in your 30's... these are stories you've made up in your head for how people gauge your worth.
close your eyes and think about where you want to be sitting in 5 years, work your way backwards, and start checking boxes...
I don't think a degree is going to help in say 3D graphics, but it will help your career. Definitely a disadvantage for those that don't.