University of Phoenix for undergrad?

[Torinak]

1.  Prices at UoPhoenix and Ohio State are nigh-similar.  I'll need $35,000 to finish from either in 2-ish years.  The difference being at Phoenix I'd leave with a BS in Programming, and at OSU I would leave with a liberal arts degree. 

A "BS in Programming" has no value. A "BS in Computer Science" (or Computer Engineering, or EECS) may have value, depending on where it's from. For software-oriented companies, a UoP "Programming" degree is probably irrelevant at best. What's the full curriculum for the "BS in Programming" at UoP?

As much as I'd love to go the traditional route, I'm beyond that at this point.  I've even questioned some programmers about forgoing the degree and self-teaching, but that was not recommended, as most places want to check that "has degree" box off in an interview. 

Pretty much everyone you'd be competing with for software development jobs (at software-oriented companies) will either have a degree, considerable industry experience, or both. "Entry level" positions at non-software companies are among the easiest to outsource, so you'd be competing with people with at least undergrad degrees from one of the many many many Indian or Chinese (etc) schools, some of which are quite strong by US standards.

If you're going to be moving to Seattle, what about one of the University of Washington campuses? They have quite a few programs for "non-traditional" students. They have a fair number of online-only offerings, mostly for professional/ongoing education (but not undergrad degrees AFAIK).

Another option might be to get any undergrad degree you can from OSU, and then take CS-focused coursework elsewhere. For some employers, any degree plus relevant certs or ongoing education credits may be enough to get past resume screening.

[Hawkbit]

I've considered much of the ideas presented in the last few posts, though some aren't feasible.  Lots of reasons, though a big one is that I don't have a lot of financial aid left, so we're paying out of pocket for a lot of this.  I'd also considered holding off and going to University of Washington to finish, but our move is a year off and I'd need a year to establish residency so I wouldn't have to pay astronomical tuition.  In that two years of waiting, I could have an online degree finished at UoP.  I'm waiting to hear from Franklin's online program about transfer credit.  If Franklin can get me close to being done in 2-3 years, I'm going that route.  It's ultimately cheaper and they're non-profit, private.  I just get the impression locally that they're more respected.  That could work against me out in Seattle, as Franklin is not going to be known out there, but it hasn't stopped a few people I know from being successful.   

Here's the Software Engineering degree at UoP:  http://www.phoenix.edu/programs/degree-programs/technology/bachelors/bsit-se/v006.html
Here's the Computer Science degree from Franklin, most of the humanities and general classes I should have as transfer:  http://www.franklin.edu/degree-programs/undergraduate-majors/computer-science/computer-science-bachelor-s-degree-requirements.html

I completely appreciate the advice here, thanks all.  I'm fairly certain that the traditional route is really not for me, as much as many of you are recommending.  We're an established family and I can't really justify going back to university and leaving the family behind.  I know what that is like; I've done it before and I know how hard it can be on a relationship.  Not to mention that I simply didn't feel my time at Ohio State was well used, it just never felt right there.  It really feels out of place to be in my mid-30s, surrounded by 18-22 year olds.  I can't say how many group projects I just simply did all by myself because I was working when the groups would meet, yet when I was free it was student party time (evenings, weekends).  That happened a LOT. 

That said, reviewing the College, Inc show and some of the general info here has me raising some pretty big red flags towards UoPhoenix.  It seems to be significantly more expensive than Franklin, for example, but I suspect Franklin will accept less transfer credit, so it will be a wash when all is done.  Again, lots of good info here and a truckload of food for thought.  I'm not writing anything in stone or putting anything out of the picture... yet. 

[Salamok]

Get an AS in something somewhat related to programming, then go find an entry level web developer job and spend a few years digging around production source code.  I never bothered with a degree but did complete 50 or so units of programming and systems analysis classes, then again it was pretty easy to land gainful tech employment in the early 90's, companies were all but begging people to drop out and come work for them.

[dusematic]

Franklin is not going to be known out there

That's the point.  There are a lot of people that went to colleges I've never heard of.  But everyone's heard of UoP, and it ain't because they're the online Harvard.  You want to avoid going to schools that have a national reputation for being shit, or that are obvious degree mills.  If I were you I'd do community college and then transfer to a university and do the minimum amount of credits necessary to graduate with their degree.  And as others have suggested, get a legit computer science degree, not some watered-down bullshit.

[Selby]

You want to avoid going to schools that have a national reputation for being shit, or that are obvious degree mills.

This can't be stressed enough.  No one cares about what college you went to unless they know it via reputation.  In Texas if you went to Texas Tech, University of Texas, or A&M you will be known and people will judge you based on which of the 3 you went to and care less about any of the others unless they went there.  Leave Texas and no one has heard or gives a shit about any of them.  UoP has a reputation as a "buy a degree" place practically nationwide and while some of their programs might be worthwhile, the general reputation you get from people who aren't looking to justify having gone there is "you bought your degree!"  This is not something you want potential employers to be thinking of when they see your resume.

[Engels]

Hawkbit,

You may find most Computer Science classes at the UW in the non-degree program that are not affected by state residency

http://www.outreach.washington.edu/nondegree/ for the program page

Courses in computer science themselves for summer:

http://www.washington.edu/students/timeschd/SUM2011/cse.html

Also, there is a certificate program:

http://www.pce.uw.edu/finder.aspx

as mentioned before.

[Gwion]

I didn't want to finish, or even start college myself, because a BA/BS didn't seem like enough. I tried to get into various trade programs in my late teens/early 20s but at that point (early 80s) they still weren't letting women in. I held out until age 31 and finally I said oh the hell with it and got a degree in English at a traditional school (University of Washington). Though I got a liberal arts degree, I ended up, somehow, in databases; now I'm a database analyst.

All that to say it doesn't matter so much what BA/BS you get. It's more about work experience and whether you can actually do whatever it is the job requires. I get teased about poetry, but I don't get paid less than the guys with BSes. I think your best choices are going to be either (1) finish your philosophy degree and get a trade certificate in your IT field, or (2) get a trade certificate in your IT field. Seriously, I think there's enough negativity about UoP that I wouldn't risk spending the money. Its reputation is unlikely to change for the better.

As Engels mentioned, the UW has some very good online certificate programs that aren't much more expensive than out-of-state tuition--or actually I think they might be cheaper than out-of-state tuition. I'm currently taking the Oracle Database Management certificate class, which costs $2460 including all fees or whatever, and it's online with no difference in tuition for out-of-staters. Plus, bonus, I didn't have to go back and take more math--they let me in based on how much I already know about computers.

[Krakrok]

The guy I hired to do entry level programming stuff is using Western Governor's University. He claims it's non profit and the courses also count as certifications. I watched the College, Inc. doc on Netflix too. Those medical students who used UoP got pretty screwed as far as I can tell.

On the other hand I don't have a degree and don't really care if the people I hire do either. So far I prefer them not to so I can train them on exactly what I want and they don't have to unlearn what they thought they knew. Trippy's suggestion on training yourself through real world projects is a good one.

I use Lynda.com (online video training) to train the people I hire on what I think they need to know.

My friend was just up in Seattle and claimed there were A LOT of tech jobs. Whether those require degrees or not I have no idea though.

[Goumindong]

I'd need a year to establish residency so I wouldn't have to pay astronomical tuition

The two year costs you're quoting that its going to cost you are the same two year costs you will pay at the U.W. for 1 year of out of state and 1 year of in state.

The U.W. is also a a pretty decent school*[top 50 national undergrad, not quite as good for what I want] and is better than Ohio State and much much better than UoP

Its well respected in the area. If you can get in , its a great place to be. I stress the second part because the U.W. has a 57% acceptance rate for undergrads. You probably have a bit of an advantage being a continuing student but it would still be tough.

*Better be, i am going back there in the fall.

[Engels]

Not to mention that the in-state acceptance hurdle is much higher than the out-of-state requirements. Its become a bit of a scandal here. 4.0s in-state don't get in, while 3.0s out of state do get in. For obvious monetary reasons, which creates outrage, but then again, Washingtonians constantly vote down taxation that would keep our educational institutions solvent. We're a closet red state, fiscally speaking.

[UnsGub]

My friend was just up in Seattle and claimed there were A LOT of tech jobs. Whether those require degrees or not I have no idea though.

There are.

If you can program well without a degree you are already working and your company is working to keep you and other are trying to get you to leave.

If you can program well and have a degree the same applies.

If you are average programmer with experience there is work but might be contract or start up.

The bar to get into Google, Microsoft and their spinoffs is pretty high.

We filter on education but interview on ability, which is easy to measure with a standard set of questions.

It is also very easy to get references on people as everyone has work at so many companies.

[ajax34i]

My UoP experiences (some have been said already):

- They're more expensive than other online courses.

- In every class, you get graded on several things:  forum participation (you have to answer and think of questions to ask the other students, which may be a pain), homework assignments which are due, and tests.  The workload for each class will keep you busy for at least 1-2 hrs every day.

- You have to deal with the way they use software for interacting with you - you can lose (grading) points for expressing something as 1/2 rather than 0.5, you have to use their browser addons (MathLab f.ex.) for the specific fonts and symbols in your answers (and they're not always intuitive or easy to use), and integration of addons into their class forums isn't all that great (their forums are standard plain forums - it's a pain, for example, to properly write a mathematical formula with fractions and radicals, and thus the "discussions with classmates" can be a pita).

- You have to deal with the teachers - for non-science stuff (a philosophy class for example) you could get good grades or bad grades based on the teacher's bias towards your (forum posting) tone or what they perceive as "how much effort you put in".  But I suppose this is true everywhere, not just online.  However, the "teachers" are actually more like forum moderators; you're expected to read the PDF of the current textbook chapter(s), figure stuff out mostly on your own, do the exercises mostly on your own, and submit the assignments and take the tests (assignments get graded by the teacher, tests get auto-graded by the computer). 

- You can find answers to tests or assignments via google, esp. for science classes.

[Goumindong]

So I did some more digging. If we can say that the general quality of education in the undergrad department will at least kind of mirror the graduate you really want to go to the U.W over UoP or Ohio State

The U.W. has a general raking of 7 for best grad schools for Computer Science (as well as high rankings in information systems). That means not as good as MIT or Standford. But better than Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, UCLA, CIT, etc.

[Morat20]

A number of schools are moving many classes to an online format. You might want to check your local state and city schools -- you might be able to get away with taking the bulk of your classes online. Depending on where you live, you might also have a college with at least one campus geared heavily towards adults (hence a focus on late afternoon and evening classes, after work hours).

I got my BS by taking a bunch of CC classes to get the basics (cheap!), and then going to a school mostly focused for adults -- 90% of my classes were from 7:00 to 10:00 once a week or from 5:30 to 7:00 twice a week. My Master's was the same way, although I did have perhaps two classes in the 11:30 to 1:00 block, but I just took long lunchs twice a week. Most were in the late afternoons and evenings. I had two or three classes that were purely online. There WAS a class you could show up for, but it was basically just a study session with the prof in there to answer questions. Sorta like really extended office hours.

As long as the school is properly accredited, no one really cares. As far as most employees are concerned you're either "big-name" (MIT, Harvard, whatever) or "accredited".

Honestly, I think UoP probably falls in a new category below accreditted. From everything I've read, the Kaplan stuff isn't a good education to begin with, and definitely aimed at parting you from your cash.

[Hawkbit]

I'm waiting to hear back on unofficial transfer credits from Franklin.edu.  They're a non-profit, private local college that has a full online program here in Columbus.  They're over 100 years old and are regionally accredited, so I feel a lot better about them overall.  As long as they'll take my first year of all the english/humanities credits, I'll likely go with them.  They've been pretty upfront about the fact that I can move anywhere and still work on my degree, without worrying about residency tuition changes.  And they're about 1/3 cheaper than UoP.  So we'll see this week, hopefully.  Just keeping my fingers crossed, hoping they take a bunch of credits.

[Jimbo]

I just luv all the bullshit that colleges can do to you.

Since I switched majors from nursing to public health for my bachelors of science, I got placed as a freshman, instead of a freshman 2nd degree, not a big deal until i went to register for classes, now I'm back at the bottom and the damn paper pushers are taking forever to remedy the problem!

[Paelos]

My masters program made you register two semesters in advance to graduate. I raised my hand at orientation and said, "So if I'm full time and plan to finish this in a year, I should have registered to graduate before I got accepted?" They kind of stared at each other for a while, shuffled feet, and said that's not really the normal mode.

I didn't end up "graduating" until the year after I finished all my classes. Fucking paper pushers at colleges are idiots.

[Nebu]

Fucking paper pushers at colleges are idiots.

Being someone that works at a university, I agree 100%.  For example, my school lacks the ability to pay me my 9 month salary over a 12 month period.   

[Chimpy]

Hey, I am sort of a paper pusher at a university now!

[Merusk]

Congo rats!

[Sky]

Hey, I am sort of a paper pusher at a university now!

So you're only sort of an idiot!

 

[Longstrider]

A number of schools are moving many classes to an online format. You might want to check your local state and city schools -- you might be able to get away with taking the bulk of your classes online. Depending on where you live, you might also have a college with at least one campus geared heavily towards adults (hence a focus on late afternoon and evening classes, after work hours)

I was going to point out something similar.  There are a lot of schools doing all online degrees now, you don't have to limit yourself to schools in your area.  My brother in law is getting a masters in electrical engineering online from NYU and he has never in set foot in New York.

[Morat20]

I was going to point out something similar.  There are a lot of schools doing all online degrees now, you don't have to limit yourself to schools in your area.  My brother in law is getting a masters in electrical engineering online from NYU and he has never in set foot in New York.

My wife got two Master's fron Fontbonne, purely online -- even got an "in state" rate. I think the program she went through was the only purely on-line setup they had, though. And their Master's program via that path JUST got their accreditation (my wife's cohort was the last needed to finish the process).

[Count Nerfedalot]

First and foremost, you should be pursuing an education, not a degree.  If you're going to invest several years worth of after-tax income plus a couple more years without significant income on it then for god's sake get a GOOD education, not a joke degree.   Odds are, what you think you want to do now is not what you will actually end up doing in 5 or 10 years, so that good educational foundation will be critical to your continuing success. 

Too many of the lower quality degree programs in the IT field mostly just teach you how to use specific tools (usually whatever Microsoft or Oracle or IBM or whoever has donated to them), and next to nothing about the principles behind those tools and WHY they do what they do.  The most important thing an IT degree should teach you is not how to do some checklist of technical things but how to LEARN how to do just about any remotely relevant technical thing.  Because odds are the tools you use in class while learning will be obsolete by the time you enter the job market (if they aren't already), but if you know how to do the real stuff that the tools are just making easier for you, then it doesn't matter when the tools change, you just figure out how to do what you know needs to be done in the new environment and keep going. 

Look for courses that teach you theory, not just practical application.  For any software degree that should include courses on Data Structures, Software Testing, Design Patterns, Software Architecture and the like.  The more general and basic or foundational the topic, the more likely it will be useful to you your entire career.  And the more specific and "practical" the topic, the less likely it will actually end up being something you use in the real world.  Learn at least two different real-world programming languages, more if possible.  Learn formal object oriented programming, and learn how to hack stuff in VB Script or whatever.

Seriously.  Embarking on a career in IT, especially software development, is asking for a lifetime of constant learning.  You will never be able to coast on what you already know for very long.  So make sure you enjoy learning, get a good solid educational foundation, learn how to think to apply what you've learned to problems that bear little or no resemblance to anything you've seen before, and above all learn HOW to learn.

[Miguel]

If you are interested in going into programming, read these:

http://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/five-essential-phone-screen-questions

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html

The degree might get you in the door, but you *have* to know your shit cold to get a good job.

[Morat20]

Fucking regular expressions. (First link). I use them once in a blue moon. But hand to God, you give me a problem like "Find every phone number in 50,000 web pages we have in a file directory" and my answer would probably be "I'd write a script, probably PERL, and just use regular expressions."

If you wanted the actual regular expression, I'd flat out admit "I don't know. I don't use them often enough to have them memorized. I'd need 20 minutes and a web page on regular expressions to figure it out".

One reason I'm dreading my job hunt. I mean, shit, "write a function that determines of a character is an uppercase A to Z" -- I'd just look up the ASCII values as a double check and do a is A<=x <=Z.

I'm pretty sure that's not what that guy is after.

[Sky]

Remember, smart does not mean “knows the answer to trivia questions.”

Struggle with this on my Security+ exams. Answer: I'd google it or crack a reference book. Knowing what to look up and how to use it is the important thing imo.

[MahrinSkel]

Fucking regular expressions. (First link). I use them once in a blue moon. But hand to God, you give me a problem like "Find every phone number in 50,000 web pages we have in a file directory" and my answer would probably be "I'd write a script, probably PERL, and just use regular expressions."

If you wanted the actual regular expression, I'd flat out admit "I don't know. I don't use them often enough to have them memorized. I'd need 20 minutes and a web page on regular expressions to figure it out".

One reason I'm dreading my job hunt. I mean, shit, "write a function that determines of a character is an uppercase A to Z" -- I'd just look up the ASCII values as a double check and do a is A<=x <=Z.

I'm pretty sure that's not what that guy is after.

My answer would be "look through my old CD-ROM's for the string library I cribbed from some "Learn C++ in 21 days" book 15 years ago and call "IsUpperCase" (returns true if it is, false if it isn't)."  Probably also not the answer he wants.

--Dave

[Morat20]

I admit, I've done like four of these damn phone screenings and while I'm feeling I'm doing better with each (I hadn't interviewed in a decade!) I am pretty happy that the one that I got promoted to a in-person interview off of was with the actual manager/project lead I'd be working with.

They just keep touching on a lot of basics I don't really deal with. Like O-notation and stuff. I'd much prefer questions that test knowledge on that -- when would you use a linked list versus an array, or what are the pluses and minuses of a binary tree for a data structure, or better yet -- if I wanted to store this sort of data in memory, what data structure would you choose?

I can tell you that searching a linked list or unsorted array is pretty much linear, that it pretty much always takes the same time to locate something in a hash table no matter how big it is (there's a bit of fudge depending on collisions, but it's negligible) that a binary tree is fast to search (something like 1/2 N at most..maybe log O? Fuck if I can remember. Can you have an unordered binary tree? Don't think so), like binary searching a sorted array.

But ask me "if I did this, what's the O notation for it?" and you'd be lucky to get "Um, that'd be polynomial. Probably. Like N squared or something."

[KallDrexx]

Our company was hiring new software engineers, and they decided to bring me in for the interview process (which is funny since i'm technically in the QA department, not engineering).  I was *amazed* at how bad people were at programming.  I didn't even have to do Big O notation (which I don't even know myself) or anything complicated.

All I had to ask candidates was to write pseudo-code to reverse a string, and after watching various flow charts (that took 15 minutes for them to come up with, literally) and other mind-boggling failures we ended up interviewing about 10 people, of which only 3 could actually write up the pseudo-code (one of which we figured out that the recruiter was telling them that we ask that and that's the only reason he could perform it).

Shit, I had a more intensive (programming related) interview to get in as a QA engineer than what these clowns went through for product engineering.  Before I went through those interviews I always thought I wouldn't be able cut it as a programmer since I graduated with an MIS degree and hadn't had a pure programming job (only programming as a part of the job).   My opinion has changed, since every one of those programmers graduated with a CS degree and (supposedly) had 3-5 years work experience as a programmer.

[Morat20]

All I had to ask candidates was to write pseudo-code to reverse a string, and after watching various flow charts (that took 15 minutes for them to come up with, literally) and other mind-boggling failures we ended up interviewing about 10 people, of which only 3 could actually write up the pseudo-code (one of which we figured out that the recruiter was telling them that we ask that and that's the only reason he could perform it).

You mean like oldstring = "abcdefg" and reversing that?

Wouldn't
int y=0;
for(x=length of string; x>=0; x--) {
newstring[y] = oldstring [x ];
y++;
}

do the job? It's not terribly elegant, but it should work forward through newstring and back through oldstring. I mean, you have to be able to reduce a string to a character array, but the only thing even remotely tricky is to fill one string going forward as the other decrements. Or am I missing the actual hard part?

[KallDrexx]

No you got it, there is no hard part to it.  That's exactly my point.  It doesn't require flow charts and should be easy to figure out by even non-programmers since all we were asking for was pseudo-code, not even real code.  It's really just a logic problem to make sure people can think problems through logically and can translate that to something resembling code.  People couldn't get past the first part though.

[Morat20]

I always worry my basic math is off when I try stuff like that. Unless I've done it recently, I'm just not comfortable unless I have a sheet of scratch paper to fake-iterate it once and check the boundaries. Not that doing 20-x-1 is hard math. :) I just like seeing it written out.

I had an interviewer ask a pseudo-code question like that. I'm pretty sure I flubbed it, although I don't think that's terribly fair. He had an object that he was adding other objects to (a.append(b), a.append(b1) where a and b are objects) and asking how I'd structure a print method for A to print out whatever of B (included as a library) you had in there.

I told him string print() {
foreach B in List/Whatever
  output+= b.print() + "\n";

return output;
}

I'm not sure he wanted me to assume that B came with a string output method, whereas I'd personally get up and go smack whomever wrote B if they didn't include it.

[KallDrexx]

Some interviewers can be vague about what they really want (either because they are stupid or because they are trying to stroke their ego and are being dicks).  Theoretically, most programming interviewers shouldn't have too much of an emphasis on actual code or math, as you don't have any of the tools at your disposal that you traditionally do while actually programming.  Most interviews should be about concepts and creating algorithms, but a lot of time that's not the case. 

And I don't blame you about wanting scratch paper, I don't even like explaining algorithms without paper.  Writing algorithms and math down makes it much easier to conceptualize what you are trying to accomplish.

[Miguel]

The point is not necessarily the specific answer, it is the manner in which it is presented.  For example, Morat's answers above were perfectly good answers.  What an interviewer doesn't want to see is a candidate fall apart into a gooey mess of bumbling and straw-clutching, or worse yet outright bullshitting.  Candidates like this aren't going to be there to deliver quality results on schedule.  They just aren't.

90% of working in engineering is getting your ideas out, challenged, and persevering through reasoned argument (or at least that's what it *should* be at a good company).  You don't have to memorize standard O notation for every conceivable algorithm, but you should be able to figure out asymptotic complexity of new code mostly by inspection (non-binary recursion is one of the few exceptions, however that's why we have the Master Method!).  If a senior engineer inspects your code and says, "Did you check if your semaphores hold after your code is rescheduled on a different work loop?" and you stare blankly back because you don't know what a semaphore is and that different work loops exist in a modern OS, you are as good as out the door. 

And yes, you really need to know or at least be able to speak intelligently about these CS related subjects with confidence if you want to land a top position where you are doing real work for real money.  There's too many hack programmers out there and they really end up falling down on their faces right when you need to ship product or when the really nasty problems come up that nobody else can solve.

I've interviewed hundreds of people, and if you don't know your shit, you aren't going any further.  If you know your shit well, but can't communicate it effectively, then you aren't getting a call back.  I can't spend all day telling everyone else what I think you are doing.

If I asked the 'how would you reverse a string question', and they responded:

"I would step through it in reverse and copy it to a new string, because I know that works and I could get it working quickly.  If I were given the opportunity to optimize it without impacting the schedule, then I might think about doing it in-place to save the overhead.  I might also think about threading it if I didn't need the results immediately."

That person would go high on my list.

Someone who wrote up on the white board:

"void reverse_string(char *s){(*char)*p((*((*(***(*(++-0x4353334)--&0x24222343 >> 0x3F)))))"

Wouldn't be high on my list even if it magically worked, because that isn't maintainable by the next guy to come along.  However that answer wouldn't be low on my list either, because having a few people like that on the team *always* comes in handy.