Fast Track to a CS Degree?

kyrex asks: "it's been 5 years since I've been working in the tech industry and I've make great progress. My salary has grown by an annual rate of about 50% and I'm currently working as a consultant in a leading consulting firm. But not having received any formal education in Computer Science, and therefore having no degree will be a problem for further progress. I've considered many options but they all take time: at least 3 years. I've been programming since I was 12 (I'm currently 24) and have read hundreds of CS books. I think that I can easily complete a CS degree in 1 year. I want to know if there are universities/institutions out there that offers computer professionals like me a fast track to a CS degree that will be recognised as such by other universities (so that I can continue with a MSc afterwards)"

Comments

Re:Paper

[ZaneMcAuley]

Another point. This industry also moves faster than any academic course can keep up with.

Several things

[karb]

1. If you've read 100's of CS books, you should be ok, but note to others ... Programming != CS. You will take three or four courses out of maybe 12-18 (probably more for BS, I was BA) that will deal directly with programming. Even those can be somewhat theory-heavy. A few CS courses involve no programming. It's like knowing how to use a brush if you're an art student. It's important, and it'll help you if you're good. But it's just a piece of the puzzle.
2. Get your job to pay for it. I assume you have fathomable reasons for wanting it to get done in one year, but I would take my time and do it on the company dime ;). You seem to be doing well, so you could probably convince your employer to pay for school or find another employer that will.
3. I feel it's worth it. I am perhaps a little biased, but I've worked with many, many, many unqualified people that never got their CS degree. (and a few that have, but the ratio is far better) If I had to hire, I would very very rarely consider somebody without one. Why? For many reasons. You learn many obscure but useful things in school. Also, I've found that most late-trained or self-trained computer people are missing a sort of geekiness that they need. They are good workers, they're smart, but they lack passion for the craft.

Hurrying to post before I become redundant ... :)

Re:Paper

[JordoCrouse]

Another point. This industry also moves faster than any academic course can keep up with.

Last time I looked, we're still using 0s and 1s.

Re:no dice!

[NewbieSpaz]

Mod the above up (#,Funny)

If you're a Redhatter (Mandraker, SuSe'er):
rpm -ivh cs-degree..rpm

Re:no dice!

[(H)elix1]

I wish I had mod points... thanks for the laugh! Now to clean the coffee from my screen.

Re:no dice!

[chris_mahan]

Same here: Told my teacher I didn't want to take introduction to C++ in order to get into Introduction to Java (it was a requirement--she turned down 3 students before because they didn't meet the prerequisite).

I told her I worked at a bank as a DBA, and did custom programming in ASP, VB, XML, XMLRPC, XHTML, ADO, SQLDMO, SQL, OO, COM, and a few other fancy acronyms that went way over her head, with all documentation and all that, and she said, you'll do fine. I took the java class and aced it (which isn't to say I love java now, I don't, it's horrible--although, compared to ASP it's almost elegant).
But the result is that I saved a semester.
Now, all the other stupid classes is what sucks (like who cares about the phases of the moon or the composition of rocks).
I think also that the foreign language requirement should be waved, since programming languages are foreign languages, and that, like pilots, english IS the language of computer science (ask the french or Japanese--if they can't read english, they can't read the comments in code... Forget translations...)

Anyway... I digress.