Slashdot Mirror
Online vs. Traditional Degrees?
Justin Rainbow asks: "As a computer science student, avid internet user and full-time programmer I find it very appealing to finish my CS degree online. Finishing at least a year early and studying whenever I want are just a couple of the draws to the online campus. However, are these internet degrees even worth the paper their printed on? Is an online degree just a waste of money? Can an online degree give you just as many opportunities as a traditional university? Has anyone in the Slashdot community graduated from one of these online schools? Did it help or hurt your career? What about graduate school admissions? Does an online degree hurt your chances to get into a great graduate school?"
There are other options too. Some major universities offer courses exclusively online in addition to the traditional classroom so you may want to consider that.
A traditional degree is better for grad school because in a traditional school you are more likely to have opportunites for interaction with professors who can recommend you.
Most traditional universities now offer online degrees. Thus you don't have to go to a "Internet College". Even Dartmouth, Harvard and Berkeley offer them.
is that traditional degrees are actually worth the paper they're printed on.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
Youve gotten me interested;
I've done several online certification programs and I have to agree, but I have no idea if a Computer Science course online is a good route. I would love to hear some opinions on this matter as well.
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
However, are these internet degrees even worth the paper their printed on?
If you can't find the error in that sentence, you shouldn't be allowed to get an online degree!
As a medium sized business owner (150+ employees) I can say with certainty that brick and mortar schools matter. Nothing can replace face to face experience and interaction over the course of 3 to 5 years. On the other hand, if you are over 25, just work on your resume. If you've made it this far without the degree, it's not going to help you climb the wage ladder.
If so, it should not matter for your undergrad degree. As for getting into a good grad school, I have no idea, but again, if it's accredited, it should be looked at in the same light.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
It depends. Right now I'm enrolled in University of Illinois - Springfield's (UIS) online computer science degree and they don't make any mention that it was online when you graduate. So, it is the same degree that the students on campus get, but UIS isn't exactly in the top of the computer science programs. I feel satisfied with the degree though. Also, University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign offers a professional masters degree in computer science (also no mention when you get your degree that it was online) and I believe that would help you quite a bit because UIUC is a very highly ranked computer science program. So, I would say as long as you take it from a school that has a traditional campus and degree in computer science. It'll be pretty much equivilent to their on campus degree. But I wouldn't touch University of Pheonix or similar "Universities" with a ten foot pole. That's as close to buying your degree as you can get and your school still being accredited.
"Curiouser and Curiouser" - Alice
get your 0nline uni\/ersity D3grees now! Only ONE CLlCK away
Are we talking about the Click 'buy now' to complete your degree kind?
eom
Can an online degree give you just as many opportunities as a traditional university?
Sadly, no. Cybering just doesn't cut it sometimes.
It completely depends on where you get your online degree. Many universities offer online degree programs that are fully recognized at accredited universities. This is something that you have to look for and be aware of. I suggest contacting other universities and inquiring whether they recognize degrees from the online university you are considering, and also make sure that credits from the online university are transferable to other universities.
Also, you have to make sure that you're able to stay motivated working in an environment of your choice. Like many telework situations, some people find that they're not productive at home due to too many distractions. I know a few people who are incredibly smart that have received online degrees and it really depends a lot on how motivated you are and how much you want to get out of it. They also recommending asking as many questions as possible to make sure you get the most out of your education experience.
"A Lisp programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing." - Alan Perlis
A good reason to attend school in meatspace is that you can interact with others, form groups, work on tasks.
Just because you have a degree doesn't mean you'll be successful in what you are doing. You have to actually do something people can use [e.g. want, has a value, etc] to make money and/or fame. If you're lucky enough to be self-motivated to do your own work/projects then online could be ok. However, most are not and required a good kick in the ass to get going.
Another good reason for attending real school is you get to meet new peeps, socialize, do something other than being alone at home.
I can see the value of an online degree but only in the most limited of situations, e.g. you're already working and you want formalization or you live in the sticks and can't afford to move out, etc.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Look, if you don't find your academics very appealing now, why will you like it in grad school ?
I noticed "learning lots of new stuff" was not among the appeals of an online degree to you. Look, you are obviously not big on school at the moment. The answer is called a "leave of absence", which is a way of dropping out but keeping the door open to go back. Tell them it is for financial reasons. If you like your new job and are happy, don't go back.
If you only have a year left, you know by now that you *could* learn anything offered in classes by getting the right books and exercising a little self discipline. If you don't like it, leave. You did the college thing, you have the t-shirts, maybe now it's time to get rich ?
However, are these internet degrees even worth the paper their printed on?
Looks like the brick-and-mortar ones aren't worth much either.
I would not hire a person with an online degree in most scenario's. While you may be able to get a quality education online, there is still a strong stigma associated with online degrees in my mind. If you're only after an associate's degree it may be comparable to a community college but it would be very suspect for a bachelor's degree in my mind. I can not say much about academia, but I assume having an online degree would make you all but ineligible for grad school.
If you're looking at any field outside of IT, online courses are really lacking because you have zero interaction with other students, and that's a good part of where your experience with work politics, and where your future contacts will come from.
I've personally taken online courses which were offered by a brick and mortar institution and those were quite well structured and the degree I ended up with was no different than what I would have gotten had I physically attended. Now I've done some research into getting a 2nd degree wholely online and I've found out that theres alot of places that do a really good job of passing themselves off as a real institution but are nothing more than a diploma mill. Avoid any places that shorten degrees to 18mo to two years, ask for your resume to try to give you "life experience credit", and/or try really hard to get you to pay the application fee by CC ASAP (such as Kennedy-Western).
If you have a place you'd like to work for in mind, call them up and talk to their HR dept. Just ask them what online degrees they recommend and past hirees have had in the past, after all they'll be the ones ultimately deciding how good that degree was.
Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
I went four years for my degree at a private school at a cost of 21 grand a year. Thats 84 grand in total. You're telling me that paper they printed the degree on it work 84k, I'm heading to ebay right now!
As long as it is backed by a real school, I see no problem at all.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
It probably depends on where you live. I did three years of high school completely online in Sweden, only visited the actual school building once. My grades I got from that school are no different than my brothers grades he got in a "regular school" (only mine are higher, but that's because I didn't drink so much beer, anyhow). I know there are several, real, universities here where you can read different courses and get lesser degrees. So it's certainly possible. If you are talking about the kind of "university" you get spam from ("get a prestigious degree from uni. of liverpool" or something) then you should of course stay away.
Or hey, while you're at it just head for the local community college. I hear AA degrees are the next Ph.D.
I graduated with a CS degree in August 2004. Like most of my peers, I used the internet heavily for research, problem solving, and certification training. Perhaps the biggest problem with online degrees is the level of understanding you will receive. Computer Science is not an easy subject. The math alone is the reason many people drop out of the school. You will never get the same education from an online degree as you would from a traditional university. Yes, you can email or live chat with a 'professor', but that is no substitute for real, in-person communication during class time. Also, the in-class discussions are an integral part of understanding the more complex subjects. If you are genuinely concerned about what you will get out of the degree and not just the piece of paper, I would strongly consider not getting the online degree. Whatever your decision is, good luck in your future.
Does an online degree hurt your chances to get into a great graduate school?"
Grad school admission staffs are also wondering whether people who graduated with an online degree is worth what is printed on the paper. Many professors are already skeptical about how an applicant's transcript reflects his/her true academic performance, with a traditional degree. An online degree has very little precedence, so they would only be even more skeptical. You not only have to have good grades, you also need to stand out on other things, like meeting a professor in a conference and show an active interest in his/her work.
I once had a signature.
Depending on what kind of degree you want to pursue, an online degree definitely can be equivalent to a "traditional" degree. I have a B.S. from Rochester Institute of Technology, and completed my entirely at night through their Distance Learning program while I was working for a software company full-time. Because it's an accredited school and my degree was "work related," I was even able to use tuition reimbursement from work to pay for it.
When I decided to go to law school (2nd tier), the fact that I had earned my distance learning degree wasn't even mentioned (yes, I was accepted). In my case, there is no difference between my degree and the same degree earned on campus.
I'm certain there will be a lot of naysayers who are convinced that all online degrees are worthless, but it's not true. It depends on the school (accredited, etc.) and the type of degree you're looking for. Even if you're just looking for a way to get some extra credits, most schools will let you take DL courses from an accredited school and transfer them into your program.
Do your research and you'll find there are a lot of legitimate options out there. John Bear has written some good books about where to get quality distance learning education.
From someone who graduated college a decade ago with no computer training, I can tell you that online degrees are still okay if they are paired with communications skills. A good college degree from an acredited institution really only means you are trainable. Aside from the ability to write and communicate well, I'm using none of the information I was degreed in now that I'm in the business world. I am taking continuing professional education courses (single day cert classes) on various topics centering on multimedia work, web design, and flash. There is a certain point where companies look on this as good additional training and they will actually pay for it. Bottom line: I'm not the least bit afraid of how unconventional education looks on my resume - it's better to have it than not. However, none of it is worth squat if you cannot communicate with all levels of an organization effectively and efficiently with the spoken and written word. Become a good speaker, thinker, and writer and that becomes your skillset...the rest is just something handy that you bring to the table.
thats when online courses will matter. Unless you have a degree from an elite ivy league school, you arent going to have a good job in technology unless you have a masters degree or Phd, and your online degree will be garbage when compared to a Phd from India or China.
Get your ass in school and get your Phd or be jobless.
give it a try and let us know how your career turns out!
I don't know of any online schools with a strong reputation. Even online schools operated by the top universities are met with some skepticism. They're usually view as a venue for the occasional seminars or side hobbies/interests. Most people simply doesn't take online schools seriously. My personal experience with online schooling has been mediocre at best. We're simply not there yet. Everything felt clunky and forced. It was as though they traded quality for the ability to do it online.
As a side note, I personally enjoyed BEING in college and the whole atmosphere. I miss it sometimes now that I'm in the professional world. There was always this dreamy, hopeful feeling to it. It's where ideas are traded and inspirations are found. I miss academia and the pure pursue of knowledge/ideas.
I'm one year into my first job out of college and I think that I was hired partially on the reputation of the name on my degree. I have friends who are brighter than me who went to a less reputable school and friends who weren't all that bright who went to the same school as me. It's not fair, I know, but reputation matters.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
A completely online degree will not work for physics. However for computer science you don't need to go to class.
I think it depends on the degree, but in general, when you want to get your REAL degree from graduate school you definately wont want to do it online.
Three years of study on the web or three years of study with parties, drugs, sex and women?
Karmady is the best medicine.
I finished a masters degree doing it partly online and the rest in person. In my opinion, you learn the same amount either way. You do the same homework and you listen to the same lectures. The only disadvantage is you miss out on the college experience. After taking a class online, you will realize how much you miss having classmates to complain and talk with.
But if you don't interact with professors not only will you not have to worry about grad school, how are you going to network for a job once you go to business school or law school?
Imagine getting a business or law degree online and trying to become a judge or work for a fortune 500 company.
The Open University in the UK could be considered to do "online degrees" although they call it "distance learning". According to TQI, an organistation that gives access to official information about the quality of Higher Education, the OU is rated very highly for all subjects.
There is no god but Google and GTalk is the messenger of Google.
EOM.
Basically you won't meet the kinds of people who start million dollar corporations and who can give you a job paying $100,000 a year at a community college. You certainly cannot work your way up to $100,000 a year because people who join the right fraturnities get first pick of all the jobs. If you want to have a good job, meaning a job which pays at least $100,000 a year, then you have to go to an ivy league school or at least a very elite good school and know the right people.
It is impossible to get a job which pays $100,000 a year if you arent ivy league or born into it. Perhaps with a Phd you can, but you'll have a shit job at Walmart with your bachelors degree.
If the school is accredited, then there should be no issues. The college I work for (in the online education area no less) is accredited by SACS. And SACS states (and enforces and checks for) equivalency between classes - same outcome, same expectations of students, etc. Not only that, but section numbers aren't on transcripts or degrees - so the only way for someone to know if classes were taken online would be for them to look at your registration/schedule record (drops/adds at the beginning of the term, etc).
So find out of the school is accredited, by who, and if they've done a substantative change review or normal review since they've been offering online classes.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Some classes just do not do well online.
* Classes meant for you to present something in front of an audience. (Speech)
* Classes meant for the students to learn to work on a group project like they would in the workplace.
* Classes designed for face to face interaction of the students.
Otherwise it is mostly up to the student. Some people do fine taking classes online. Some people do not.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
If you already have a well rounded resume in terms of relevant work experience and are just looking for a "piece of paper" to compliment it, then an online degree could well be just as valuable as a traditional degree. If you are using a degree as a starting block for your career then I think that an online degree would not hold the same value. If there's plenty of other meat in your resume for a potential employer to look at the source of your degree becomes less of an issue.
faggot. Pimp you're lame ass domains somewhere else.
Dude, if I may call you dude. Online schools like the University of Phoenix are great if you already have a great career and are just going after a piece of paper to look good to get that next promotion. However, life is more than have a framed piece of paper hanging on the wall. Life is about socializing, making friends, and sharing ideas. Consider that you may meet someone in a traditional college with whom you will start the next Google. Yes, that's right. The founders of Google attended Stanford together, however I am not sure if they ever posted a story on Slashdot.
:)
You might make friends in different fields that open doors which you never considered. You never know who you will meet and what opportunities will arise from these chance meetings. Additionally, social networking is one of the best ways to find employment. You might do an internship and get hired or find other talented people like yourself and start a company (read the history of Hotmail).
Online learning tends to be very isolated and there is very little chance of meeting interesting people and connecting with them. Online courses are likely filled with people chasing a piece of paper and missing out on a far richer experience. Online learning also decreases the number of females you will meet that aren't from India or China. Please note, I am not biased against Indian or Chineese women, they just statistcally tend to comprise the majority of female computer science graduates. Going to a brick-n-mortar college will land you in a liberal arts class where you might find a date or even future wife. Remember, sometimes the journey is it's own reward
Maybe Slashdot could do a longitudal study of your education and career path choices to find out the answer to online vs. traditional schools and lifetime opportunities at the 4-year and 8-year mark. I've been to both type of universities and definately prefer the face-to-face interaction at a traditional school and have found it to be a much richer experience.
I used to teach university CS, served as department chair for a year, and have taught 1 (One) online class (graduate, computer security).
The experience left me wanting the interaction that comes in a classroom setting. Discussion posts were stilted, with some simply filling the requirement using regurgitation of the text to get the minimum grade. I am a strong advocate of web-based technology, but teaching a class using it exclusively is a hollow experience to me. I had much better experiences using the web tools to augment "on-ground" classes.
Now, the utility of online programs cannot be ignored. A lot of us spend great amounts of time commuting to and from work, and driving yet another long leg to school a couple of nights can be exhausting. When we lived overseas, online was the only way my wife could continue her degree work. In situations like these, online programs can make going to school possible.
Some schools do a better job of it, too. Actually, I'd give University of Phoenix some consideration WRT online, because they've been doing it for a while and have refined the process more than most. Our school waited a long time to do on-line in order to carefully evaluate tools and techniques.
After all this, I think attending a resident program where a portion of the classes were available online would be the best situation. You'd have the benefit of cohort interaction along with the opportunity to capitalize on the flexibilty of online classes when needed.
There are many compelling reasons to get a degree that have nothing to do with learning. I think the reason I put college off for years was that older people kept telling me to find something I was "passionate" about, and I did - but none of those things offered a realistic chance to earn a living. Most of the jobs that pay well, it turns out, are decidedly NOT fun. That's why you have to pay people so much to do them.
So I say, don't tell this guy that he needs to love what he does. He needs to make money and feed himself. He can be passionate about watching football on sunday like everyone else.
Jobs, and school, are not really about enjoyment.
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html Not like they count toward anything, but they're there.
"Obstacles are not made to be surrendered to, only to be broken." -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
about six months ago started an online program for a cs degree (i already had a few years of college a few years ago, so i didn't need any general studies). i wasn't interested in using the degree to get a better job, instead i was just interested in the knowledge. i hate dayjobs, can eek out a living with some websites i run and contract work, and am busy with my own nonprofit projects and just wanted to have more skills for doing them. no interest in getting a degree just to get a better job. i just wanted to be better at what i do and be able to do some new things.
i ended up deciding on http://www.accis.edu/. they aren't accredited, which didn't bother me, and they were the cheapest i could find where i could also find people who had done their program who were happy with it, and who attested to the fact that it wasn't a degree mill like some of the online places you'll find.
anyways, the program seems fine. it's basically what i expected: it's no different than me making up my own program of books to read and doing the assignments in the books other than with a personality like mine i probably wouldn't get as much done without someone laying out the program of study for me --- but i think that's true of any online program. i have since decided that i'm dropping the program after this one semester and am going to attend a normal university next fall. i realized that the advantage of low cost was totally offset by the fact that, as a non-accredited school, there is no way to get any federal financial aid or federally supported loans (which i wouldn't pay back anyways, so it's like a grant to me). and scholarships are basically out of the question.
i also realized that i did want to attend grad school in-person, not online though a similar program, and that it would be hard or impossible to do that with an online degree from a non-accredited school.
anyways, in the end, i think it's an okay option to do an online program as long as someone knows what they want and it fits the bill. if you do want the degree, the piece of paper that supposedly gets you respect, not just the knowledge, make very sure the online school is accredited. if grad school is something you might want, make sure your online program is accredited and seriously consider not getting your degree online, even if it's accredited, because of the lost experience of the in-person courses that will benefit you when you get to grad school.
. However, are these internet degrees even worth the paper their printed on?
Yeah, probably about that much.
Cheers,
IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
The names of my classmates who are
VP at a popular (former) web browser outfit,
C?O at a popular not evil web search place,
VP at a possibly evil trading firm
are not printed on my degree; however,
they may be written on some duplicate
bridge score sheets somewhere.
My present position owes to a good word
put in my undergraduate thesis advisor,
years after I finished my bachelor's degree.
I wasn't even particularly searching for a
job at that moment.
These are some of social and economic
benefits of Meatspace U., yes, a
selective one.
A cousin of mine went to a less famous
college and is now running a business
with some of his college classmates.
He also benefits from his network,
and probably makes a bundle more
presidents than I.
Ooh, let me try! "Are these Internet degrees even worth the paper on which they're printed?" is the corrected sentence. At least, I hope it is. :-)
There's no place I can be, since I found Serenity.
I just finished my CIS degree with Regis University in May 2005 (Magna Cum Laude). I had previously taken courses on campus with them at their Lowell campus. But when I moved out of Colorado to Nebraska I used their online services to finish my degree. Another guy I work with did his Masters with Regis completely online. I was highly satisfied with their online curriculum. And a Regis degree is HIGHLY regarded from what I have found.
I would highly reccomend you stay away from University of Phoneix. I was with them for a year and was SEVERLY dissapointed. Their instructors were bafoons! (I attended their Colorado school) In one instance an instructor took up a whole class session talking about his theory about what happend to the dinasaurs - this was in a CS class! Another instructor that did my Project Managment class came into class the day the Columbine shootings had happened the instructor came in dressed in black pants, black cowboy boots, black shirt and a black trenchcoat! We all looked at each other like "doesn't this dope know what happened today?!". This school completely screwed up my student aid even. I do not look highly on a degree from this school!
I had a previous boss that got his masters from Websters University. I can't say I have personal knowledge of this online school, but my boss was a class "A" @$$hole! He even admitted cheating by using other peoples papers for his degree and offered to let me use some of his for my degree. I told him thanks but no thanks, I'll get my degree by my OWN work! Needless to say I quit that company!
HTH, this is my 3 drachma's worth of input.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
I originally got my 1st bs degree @ the University of Texas in Austin in molecular biology, but really hated my job as a lab monkey. I got into programming @ a young age and decided, heck, I'll goto work as a programmer. All was going fine and dandy until the upper ranks thought that a degree in CS was the end all, be all. So I started my bs in cs @ Texas Tech (eh, I was living in Lubbock for work after all). I didn't mind the work, but I did mind the way it wrecked my work week since they didn't offer any classes at night. I researched quite a few online schools. Most of what I found at the time were CIS degrees, which really didn't appeal to me. I found Regis University (www.regis.edu) had a full and complete CS program online. True, I only had to take about 30 hours of core CS classes (I had all the math and science classes from my other bs degree), but I found the classes to be really informative and even helped my real-life skills. The classes were 8 weeks long, 1/2 the typical semester. Class sizes are pretty decent 15-30 online students. It wasn't an easy degree by any means, and was actually about the same price in tutition as Texas Tech. My employer didn't care since it was accredited, and it's an actual school so I got to take out student loans / use grants to pay my way. As far as grad school goes, I had to take a few levelling courses, but heck you have to do that for just about any grad degree.
Whoever modded this flamebait hasn't got no understanding of grammar. I just wonder where they got they're degree.
I think that calling yourself "mensa babe" constitutes flamebait.
The school I go to has been really pushing online classes lately. I was having a discussion with one of my professors about this and I found his views on it really interesting. He said that even though a skilled and dedicated instructor can use the tools available to make a really good online class, and that in general he thought that online classes got through "more" course material, that online classes were largely useless when it came to finding a Job. His explanation was that there are a lot of people technically skilled enough to do the job- and that the ones that weren't- regardless of their grades and degrees were filtered out pretty quickly. In the end, he said, our classes weren't really there to teach us calculus or C++. Your Grades, and your Degree, he said, are really measurements of how well you can put up with all of the dredgery, bullshit, buracracy and idocy that you run into in the average workplace. After all, the average workplace has much more of those things than it does difficult work that really needs a clever and highly educated person to solve. The thing about online classes is that they may do an adequate job of teaching you the information relevant to the class, but they do much less of socializing you to deal with corporate higherarchies and corporate bullshit. I would tend to say that this is a good thing in general, however as soon as the HR people realize this (maybe they realize this already), it's going to make a degree with online classes much less appealing to the people highering you.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
I'd say do your major classes in the classroom, but pursue your gen eds elsewhere. I decided to take some online classes over the summer to speed things up, and man, am I thankful. First off, the online model of classes is usually MUCH better, especially for summer courses. Second, it is great to be able to do it in your own time. As for taking your CS courses online.. I'd suggest you drop that idea. You should be learning more than the concepts in a classroom - you should also be spending time working with others in the class, especially on programming projects. You can't always be a loner, and the classroom experience shows that you might actually be able to work with a team.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign online degree program
... or, to appease the jackbooted grammar thugs, you only get that for which you pay.
Universities are in the business of selling degrees. They do whatever they can to make the value of a degree in general and their degree in particular seem as high as possible.
One of the greatest benefits of a university degree is the network of contacts one can develop. Graduate students especially have an expectation of a relationship with one or more professors, but also with other graduate students. Those relationships tend to last past graduation.
If you are going for an online graduate degree, make sure you get one that allows close contact with the others in the program.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
If you're in the position where you need to learn something, and it's not all about the piece of paper, then online learning can be a great help at fast tracking this in an inexpensive way.
However if you need a piece of paper that says MIT on it so you can negotiate a 20K payrise, then your online-only university isn't going to be much of a help.
It's not the nature of being taught by correspondence, but rather the esteem of the university which issues the certification. Online courses available from certain ivy-league universities are still considered legitimate, because the issuer is considered with high regard.
The reason why people have negative feelings to online courses is because there is an over abundance of fake degrees available online, which use catch phrases such as "Earn a degree, based on your existing life experience", and "Qualifications in XX hours".
I'm in my early thirties. I do most of my work online or with computers, but to read long stuff I still need to print it out. But hey, give me a break, I didn't even grow up with a remote control. Yet the generations after me WILL learn online MORE easily than in a traditional classroom setting. There's so many tech bonuses to an online classroom that blow away 1-on-1 instruction. So I see online education gaining ground over traditional brick-and-mortar universities, not merely because of the current retail mindset in higher education (let's face it, the current "get your degree online!" ads are little different from the 70s "get your degree by mail!" days), but because learning will become more efficient and productive online. But expect this to happen at least as slowly as e-books and the mythical "paperless office" -- not any time soon.
Back to the submitter's question, the problem now is that the people doing the hiring DON'T learn well online, so they discredit online degrees. Until that changes, be aware that an online degree can be a stigma to certain managers, but perhaps you (a) wouldn't want to work for such people anyway, and (b) would actually get the reverse effect with a hiring manager that appreciated your future-minded learning style.
dude dont be stupid. there are no babes on the internet, just ugly fat women. go to a real campus!
First a disclaimer I am a professor who teaches at a bricks and mortar university. The value of an online degree depends hugely on what you want out of the degree and on your own background. If you are highly motivated and have a very particular aim in mind then go for it (well modulo making sure it is not a rip-off program). But dont forget if you were that highly motivated you could just go get some books and read up on it yourself. If you have poor communication skills and anything less than an iron will dont think about it. A big part of a good CS degree is things like doing group projects, learning communication skills, and getting a sense from your profs of what is impotant and what is not. I have taught quite a few PhDs in my career and I absolutely refuse to do that in any situation where I cannot have regular (at least weekly) contact with the student. Some things cannot be easily communicated anyway other than face to face and this carries over to undergrad degrees as well. Part of this discussion has been about the value of CS degrees in general. I am also an employeer of CS graduates (small company 13 programmers, 6 with PhDs in CS or similar). We have some very good programmers without a Bachelors in CS but they are limited in what they can do when it comes to following the pure technical track. Every now and again I can see them struggling with a problem which they cant solve by brute force intelligence. CS is getting to be a deep subject now and some really smart people have thought up some really smart solutions to hard problems. These can be very hard to pick up outside of a formal teaching situation. On the other hand some of the PhDs in CS cant be trusted in front of a customer. Know what you want to do and pick your options accordingly - there are a lot of them out there.
Okay. I'm biased. Not only am I currently enrolled in an online Masters program (In Education), I work for a university that has a considerable online presence.
No, I'm not telling you which one.
That being said, yes, an online degree is worth it. You have the opportunity to have constant contact with your classmates and your teacher throughout the program, instead of waiting days to see them (especially if you commute to campus). The online curriculum has to be just as good, if not better, then what you would find at a brick and mortar university, because of the "stigma" that is attached to the online format. There is also the fact that online universities tend to have more up-to-date information, because they are working in real-time. You can be immediately discussing what you read on Slashdot with your classmates, and point them to the links so that they can read it, too!
There's a lot of networking that goes on in an online classroom, because most of them are "accelerated programs" (ours are 5 week undergraduate classes, and 6 week graduate classes). In that scenarios, you have a dedicated team that you work with. Within the team, there are relationships made, both professional and personal. This past year, we had a marriage proposal at graduation. They met in class, and were on the same team. We've also had jobs come out of inter-team relationships.
And then there's the important part. Accreditation. ALWAYS ask about the accreditation! What you are looking for is regional accreditation, which is the highest type there is. Regional accreditation answers directly to the US Dept of Education. (National accreditation is actually a step below regional - no, I don't know why it's backwards like that). If an online school holds regional accreditation, it's educational value and weight is the same is if it were Harvard or Yale. It just doesn't have the weight of years behind it.
Hope this helps!
"Choosy browsers choose
Surely an online degree isn't printed at all?
Tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
There is a great class online by MIT for linear algebra. The amazing part is that it is free. Just do a google search on mit linear algebra lecture video.
Why aren't more lectures online for free? The basic core of lectures for math and computer science could be made for very little money. Once on the web, the best lectures would rise to the top. For example, for computer science, you could listen to a stanford professor explain binary trees and a MIT professor explain operating systems.
If any of you have good presentation skills, and a deep knowledge of a particular subject, I would encourage you to make a lecture and put it on the web. You could even host it for free on services like google video.
I'm currently enrolled in an online MBA program, a couple of my observations:
I received my undergrad physically present at a liberal arts college. After freshman year, I think you get a lot more valuable stuff out of college than just the knowledge you gain in class (things like social skills, teamwork, and communication).
However if you've been working as a knowledge worker out in the world I think you get enough experience/practice with these in your work, and will not gain the additional benefits of getting this experience in school as well. In this instance, there are a lot of benefits to the online degree: Fits into your schedule, you don't have to sit through a class that goes at the pace of the slowest learner, etc.
Another aspect of the online degree - at least in the classes I'm taking - you are forced to participate and provide original insights throughout the class. Most of this is in the form of threaded discussions, which are monitored by the professor, and which you must post to to receive credit. In a lot of physical classes, as long as you do the homework you can sleep through class and never participate.
In fact, I think for some of my online courses I put in more time than I would if I had to show up and listen to the professor for four hours a week.
I'm attending Keller graduate school. For any of the courses I'm taking, I can choose to take it online, or I can choose to take a physical class at one of the local campuses. I'm pretty sure the "degree" (piece of paper I'll file away and never look at again) doesn't differentiate itself whether its online or physical.
That's just not true, or it's certainly not true for everyone. And I'm not talking about being GM of the Dallas Cowboys either... there are a LOT of jobs that are highly satisfying and pay well. There are some catches: 1) you gotta work damn hard to qualify to get them; 2) once you get them, you gotta work damn hard to keep them and advance; and 3) the ones you go after have to be aligned with your natural skillset and passions (not everyone is cut out to be a surgeon, for instance, even if they're willing to work hard).
I can't seem to get an employer even interested in a computer degree from Carnegie Mellon. Everyone tells me that all they do is line up the tech things you did. So you could be a 20 year vet of programming, but if you don't got .com, .net, visual basic, and Excell on your resume, then they don't want to hire.
God spoke to me.
Here is the most critical part: the US is divided into certain regions. Within each of these regions there is a main certification body, mostly some kind of association of schools. What you want is to make sure that whatever school you pick has passed the proper certification process by this main body. Cheesy schools will make these up to try to sound legit.
Read Dr. Bear's guide to distance learning (ISBN 1-58008-202-5). This man is the expert in figuring out diploma mills v. legitimate schools.
Consider a program like Regents College (now called Excelsior College, https://www.excelsior.edu/). The Regents program was run by the State University of NY out of their Albany campus. Their program was very simple: for a very modest fee they became custodians of your transcripts and they became your educational advisors. You submitted whatever credits you had completed so far, plus your military service records if available. They checked the validity of your transcripts and made sure you completed the courses in accredited institutions. You were free to take your courses anywhere as long as it fit your degree program (BA, BS, etc.) and the transcripts were sent sealed from the school.
Once you finished your course load, they issued you a diploma from the State U. of NY. This program is very popular with military personnel because they can work on their degrees regardless of where they are stationed, since all services make an effort to provide college-level education services. When I was stationed in Germany our education centers were run by the University of Maryland.
Also, there are online universities that have been around since forever. University of Phoenix (http://achieve.phoenix.edu/) started with satellite offices thru the country, then moved online. Keller (http://www.keller.edu/) did the same.
Whatever you do, research a bit to make sure the school is certified properly, then take it from there. Regents/Excelsior has a very active network of graduates that welcome inquiries from people interested in the program.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
However, are these internet degrees even worth the paper their (sic) printed on?
Are these internet degrees even printed on paper?
It is possible via this approach to graduate from Stanford without having step foot on campus. However, the ambition levels of students who never attended class tended to be lower, and hence I joined on-campus project teams and I took time out from work to always attend meetings. Also, TAs and Profs remember faces far better than email/usenet/chat names and tend not to repeat themselves when they remember you (i.e. when they see you), so if you want high signal:noise, show up at their offices. Asking a question on chat or email tends to get an unnecessarily lengthy (and often belated) reply that wreaks of copy & paste.
Another nice thing about SITN is that it's not a "night course" or some secluded class of people who would be distracted by family, work, or other social commitments. Peers are full-time students and the classes are taught in the morning or afternoon (made available as a recording for those for whom only evenings are free). This is very important and I believe the quality is far superior to a program devoted to catering to part-time students or students who have been out of touch with academics. I was a full-time student at the main RPI Troy campus but occasionally I saw middle aged students in Troy who came from the Hartford campus which caters to professionals studying part-time. These students would take some particular courses which are offered solely at the main campus and the one consistent observation I made was that they all complained about how much harder the courses in the main campus were.
For someone who wants to be pushed into excellence and get a degree which marks a level of accomplishment, I'd strongly recommend enrolling only in programs where your peers are dedicated, on-campus, full-time students who are bright and steeped in academic rigor.
In general, the quality of the education suffers considerably.
Furthermore, as others have pointed out, lack of contact with professors essentially kills your chance of getting into graduate school.
If you're just interested in it as a certificate, I again second the advice of others, you should get it from a real university's online program.
My mother got a Master of Science Education from the Univ. of Montana, which had a big online component (about half of the courses). BUT, it was not *entirely* online, there were significant summer courses. Nonetheless, she liked the program greatly overall.
Read this before you enroll, though. David noble's anti-technology stance is a little extreme for my taste, but he makes excellent points regarding the weakness (and distasteful history) of correspondence-based education. It's out-dated
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
As I was saying, it's out-dated, but in most cases the situation has not changed that much from when he was writing (8 years or so ago.)
And now slashdot is making me wait before I finish the thing. Razifrazin'.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
... and defend the traditional definition of a degree??
Very good question, sometime I wish Slashdot wasn't full of flamers trying to be funny and would give you good insightful advice. No not all of the post above are flames either there is some good advice above. This is just my two sense.
You learn the best way that you can. Everyone is different, some people learn best when on their own. Some people learn best in classrooms. Only you can make that decision for yourself. I have personally done both.
The classroom thing and attending a school was interesting, but what I found that the college on campus was way behind the time. There are still colleges teaching Cobol as a primary language, When I went they were teaching other dead languages. This is both good and bad. You learn where we came from and you will or should anyway learn an appreciation of where we came from. My Nephew is a programmer but still in high school. He is stunned many times when he asks me a question about something and I just seem to know the answer. Even if it is in a language I do not program in nor have ever programmed in. He asked me once what language I thought he should learn next. He about crapped himself when I told him assembly. In the long run it is where we all come from. At campus you will find similar people and socialize learn other peoples ideas and thought process. This is good, you must learn to understand people as a programmer. Because what good are you as a programmer is no user will use your programs. Learning users is very important and when you write code always keep them in mind. Without users what is your software going to do.
Ok so I ended up dropping out of formal college, Why? they were so far behind. I could make money programming now working with new things fun things, etc. Well I became stale I couldn't advance because I didn't really have a degree. I was programming though since I was 8 years old on an apple 2, I had made Vax system scream. So I constantly was learning new things on my own reading books and was comfortable and happy doing that. So I went for an online school to finish my degree. I enjoyed this much more. And excelled at it. It was my type of learning environment. I was left alone. I did my thing on my time. I really enjoyed this. I was still working with older technology but not as old as what was available at the local college. Online schools seem to have a much newer technology aspect. Either way I ended up getting my degree and advanced from there.
With my experience though, I learned absolutely nothing from school either time. To me it was the biggest waste of my time. I learned more by doing and on my own. Than any school could ever teach me. There is nothing that compares with programming than experience. Some people commented you are either a programmer or your not. I really believe this. I always wanted to be an artist but, I can't draw a straight line. No amount of schooling either way could teach me to be an artist. But your choice of which one is best. No one here can answer. It is what is best for you and how you learn.
"Don't Discredit My Online Degree"t ml
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6269436.h
Degrees are for employees - go start your own business! Seriously!
But, if you must work for someone else,
pick a good school and get the training if it pays out for you.
You can have a 30-way conversation on-line, try that in a classroom.
Form Groups, chit-chat - meet people in class from around the world.
Find out what the weather is in Italy. Etc. - the classes can be very interesting.
If it is cheaper and gives you real Skillz, then go for it.
If you like to get drunk and hang out and party, well that's what most University students are doing with their time on campus! Mommy & Daddy's money well spent.
You will learn more from your fellow good students than from any book or teacher. Especially in graduate level work.
Make friends.
You can help them later or they can help you later.
Most business deals and good jobs go to the people in the know,
not to the average joe stuck in a pile of 5,000 other resumes...
So, if it's computer stuff - on-line seems ok, as long as you are
not missing out on the human element.
But if having a good time, extra activities like sports, and growing your social life is more important to you, you might want the
'real world university experience.'
Brick and mortar are better if you need experience working on team projects or working with professors who can give you a recommendation. They are also better if you need auxillary services like a placement office.
If you have 2-3 years of real-world experience that includes working on teams, and have at least 3 people who are above you in the corporate hierarchy or who are clients you've spent a lot of time with, and they are willing to write letters of reference, then you don't need the brick and mortar school nearly as much if at all.
Now, if you are 20 years old with zero CS work experience outside of part time on-campus jobs, then I'd stick around and finish your degree the old fashioned way, taking at least 1 or 2 "brick and mortar" classes each semester. You can fill in the rest with online classes either at your school or transferred in if your school will allow it.
Oh, if you do go the online-degree route, be sure the online school has at least as good a reputation as the one you are attending now.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I've never, in my career, seen a developer who understands fundamentals because of college, and I've never seen one who lacks skills because he or she didn't go to college.
I side with the other responses strongly disagreeing with this. I too have seen many gifted programmers who had gaping holes in their knowledge because they did not study various uninteresting or seemingly unimportant topics. They were great at what they did study but they were not well rounded, more like a technician in some ways rather than engineers. In my own personal work I have occasionally had answers to technical programs come from completely unexpected sources, from topics I would never had the forsight to have studied on my own initiative.
Your statement is only true for the extremely minute portion of the population that will read *all* the textbooks on their own initiative. It does a great disservice to otherwise intelligent programmers who would benefit from formal training. For example most aspiring game programmers out there might be under the illusion that they just need to read some OpenGL books, maybe some graphics and AI gems, and they are ready. They would never image that the answer to some problem they will run into comes from some boring databases book written in the 80s, or from a microeconomics text, or a psychology class, etc. I emphasized non-computer science but I want to be clear that the "gaping holes" I referred to above was in computer science. The material you cover in a formal degree program is valuable and almost no one has the self discipline to study *all* that material on their own and need the prodding of professors. I did. A friend did not, and he is the rare exception who did not, the rest delude themselves.
"Surely an online degree isn't printed at all?"
They usually mail you a nicely printed one.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Judging by the quality of my classroom experience at USC, I'd say brick and mortal isn't worth the intuitive prestige it still garners. After watching the Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs video lectures, some schools seem enlightening, but mine wasn't. Only now as I read more and gain more practical experience am I realizing how truly weak my education in both theory and practice were. If you want a quality education, you have the resources to give yourself that... they're inside your own head. But, on the other hand, if you want a piece of paper worth more on the perception-scale, I still say that a real experience at a real school probably wins. And now I work for my old university's satellite research institution, where I really am learning more than I ever could on my own. In short, my conclusion is this: Undergraduate curriculum is BS... the true advantages of a university aren't in its classrooms. If you don't find your way to where the real learning is occuring, I don't think it's worth that much. If you're not learning from someone who wrote the textbook from which you are learning, why not cut out the middleman?
Having gone through 4 years of undergrad and 7 of graduate work at a brick and mortar university, I can say with confidence that there's a lot more to school than the content of the classes.
There are a lot of things you can learn from being physically present at a school.
I'd strongly recommend going away to college and staying in a dorm for a few years, at least. I'm not a terribly gregarious or socially adept person but being in a dorm environment forced me to make social ties.
You'll meet and interact with a variety of people who you'd not otherwise and everyone's in the same boat. The friendships you make in college can last a lifetime. You may also be surprised by how often those connections will pay off in your professional career.
It's important to remember that you'll only get out of it what you put into it. It's easy to just keep your head down and stay out of the social loop. I've done far too much of that and I'm that much poorer for it.
It may not be easy but forcing yourself to interact and to participate socially while you're in school will pay off enormously.
Participate in study groups - even if you don't need to. Even if you know everything, you'll benefit from the social interaction. You may even be surprised to find that you didn't know quite as much as you thought (and it's far better to learn that from a study group than from an exam). Finally, you'll never understand something as well as you do when you can explain it to someone else.
I'd even recommend getting a taste of school spirit. I know it may seem stupid but it bonds you into a community and gives you a bit to talk about. Once you get past the idea that it's silly, you might even find it interesting and fun.
Considering all of that, I do urge you to avoid the online degree. On the other hand, if you're already socially adept and have more friends and connections than you can possibly want, or you're just going to waste the opportunity, you might as well go the online route.
As a high-school dropout who's gone on to make more than most of my friends that stuck it out through high school and their four-year degrees, I can tell you that unless you want to be a doctor or a lawyer, you don't need a degree to succeed at all. Can you code? That's good enough for most companies, and better than half the people they hire that _do_ have degrees.
You have almost 0% chance of a fair competition with a better educated cheaper Indian or Chinese worker. Look if I were your employer, and I could hire 5 better workers for the price of one of you, and these workers would be more loyal than you and work harder, why the hell would I ever hire you?
I'm not trying to insult you, you could be a great worker, but no matter how hard you work, all that matters is where your degree comes from. Just because you are friends with the boss right now does not mean your boss will always be this friendly, and trust me not all of us can work for Google. The majority of us work for small businesses with tight budgets.
Although there are tons of people willing to take your money in exchange to teach you technical skills... remember, you're not simply learning a trade.
There is a LOT more to development then a pile of technical skills. You need to be able to communicate and interact with people, understand project management, work with people who aren't engineers and architects, etc. Moreover, employers know this all too well.
If you ask me, technical schools / online schools screw more people then they help. By getting a degree or credentials from one of these institutions, that doesn't mean your career is going to suck. However, it's probably going to make life a lot more difficult.
There's no easy way out of school If you want a good job. You need to put in the classroom hours like the rest of us.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
99% of people who graduate from the university of utah do not start fortune 500 companies. In fact most businesses fail. You won the business lottery, and thats about it. If you went to an ivy league school you'd have a better chance at winning because the lottery would be rigged in your favor.
It's not difficult to figure out why its a good idea to go to ivy league schools.
I became a thoracic surgeon in only 6 weeks, with a specialties in emergency trauma and pediatric oncology - all without stepping foot inside of a classroom or medical center of any kind....
I suggest you read Slashdot
Over the years there have been many studies trying to find a correlation between academic achievement and career success/job effectiveness. There is no such correlation. Once you are in a position, how well you do has no (zero, nada, zilch) correlation with the degree you have or with how well you did in school. The thing that determines your success on the job is, as the parent points out, people skills. That's it.
The degree gets your foot in the door. Currently, where I work, you won't be hired without a Master's. However, we have a mix of qualifications hired before that policy came into effect. It is clear that we have people with a two year technician diploma who do the job better than some of their co-irkers with their PhDs.
Your time may be much better spent at the local pub or standing around the water cooler than working on a degree. The old adage; "it's not what you know, it's who you know" is accurate.
How do you compete with a more qualified cheaper worker?
I'd like to hear from someone that actually did one of the programs with University of Phoenix or something similar.
They've been calling me a lot lately and I have been considering it. I'm not worried about money as much as getting my foot in the door. I can't even get employers to call me back lately.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Corporations see your degree as a piece of paper that proves that you are willing to work long and hard about something that doesn't really matter to you. If it's easy to get the degree, it's probably not worth it.
"I'm not religious, but at the same time I don't get why science always has to have something to prove."
I strongly considered going myself to UoP but honestly, it's a joke. At least, the CS major was. After one full year of the courses (half way through) a friend of mine was writing programs in C that were easier than the ones I wrote in VB 6 for my very first programming assignment. Honestly I was disheartened. I want to think that online universities can be as good as real ones but it was pathetic. Assignments included sending e-mails discussing things (okay, not horrible) but you were graded on the quantity, not the quality (I asked, saw the grades, saw it worked through).
I suppose a "real" college with online courses may be a bit more stringent but I have to agree with a previous poster. I will never attend UoP (online or offline) because of what I have seen.
In my profession (GIS) online degrees have been cropping up in places as reputable as Penn State. While the university itself is reputable, the degree is more or less made up. Master of GIS? WTF? Is that even anything? Traditionally the GIS field has lived with geography departments on college campuses and to get a degree in GIS, one basically gets a degree in geography with an emphasis in GIS. So, relative to the topic and IMHO, a degree is a degree regardless of whether you sat in class for 3-5 years, or did the distance learning thing. I see the issue as whether or not the degree itself means anything to the larger community of employers and academics. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to my underwater basket weaving class.
Whatever. Mods are all on crack tonight.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Most nerds have enough talent to pick up technical skills on their own. However, people skills are another matter. If you ever wish to move into management or need ways to compete when times and globalism get tough, then people skills give you an edge, and you generally don't get that online. I used to scoff at group projects, but now realize that the interaction skills are often more important to career protection than making the best mousetrap.
Table-ized A.I.
As a manager I must say that given your talents as a coder and someone elses talent as a coder... with the only difference being one of you has a CS degree and the other dropped out of high-school, guess which one I will hire?
TT
Could you ask him how competent his professor was?
If you were a good self-leaner I could see it working out if the professor could give you decent email feedback on your questions.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I've just finished my first year of a computer science and commerce degrees and to me the most important thing about uni is not the work or learning it's the social experiance. I think if you go to a physical campus you will get more social interaction and networking (the social kind, not the blue cable kind.)I exepect that employers would look for those who have more to show for their time at uni than just a degree.
I finished my BS degree online with AIU, back when online learning was just plain scary-new. (2003). I had an AS in CS, so it was degree completion. Took me 13 months, and I actually took a few kernels of knowledge away from the courses. I have never had an opportunity to have to defend the degree, or my choice to get it online. I don't feel like it is any less useful than any degree from a brick and mortar institution. I do wish that I was 15 years younger, and went to college on a campus when I should have, and got the college experience. But I didn't, and AIU worked very well for me and my circumstances. I can say that it was pretty pricey. (22K) I now work as the manager of a moderately sized internal software development group, and make an outstanding salary. (>100K)
My wife got her BS from U. of Phoenix in a real classroom, then followed my lead to AIU where she got her MBA. Same price, 10 months of work, and she is the new proud holder of an MBA. She hasn't yet had the opportunity to shop it around, she's still working at the same job she had when she started the advanced degree. Her online education was thorough, in my opinion.
The real key to online degrees is accreditation. The breakdown is as follows (in order of goodness):
& forumid=13) as well as on specifically on IT and tech degrees. (http://forums.degreeinfo.com/forumdisplay.php?s=& forumid=22)
1. Non-accredited
Stay away from these schools. These schools can vary from solid coursework to send me $50 and I'll send you a degree. You can't be sure. All accredited graduate schools require an accredited degree for admission so this will not help you.
2. State accredited
These are a bit better but still aren't good enough to get into accredited graduate schools. Most employers won't pay for tuition and you the US govt. won't consider you as having a degree with this or an unaccredited degree.
3. DETC accredited degree (Distance Education Training Council)
This is an agency appproved by the US Dept. of Education. These degrees are much better than the above two but still aren't widely recognized especially in academic environments. This is the silver standard of accreditation. These degrees will be harder and require coursework that is expected of someone earning a college degree. Most schools won't accept these for admission to an accredited graduate program (unless it's also DETC approved) but there are many that do. It's the exception to find one that does. Given costs and other opportunities available to get a degree, think hard before going this route and make sure it fits your needs. (Disclaimer: I am enrolled in a DETC school for my Masters in History because they have what I want to study and it meets my needs. My school is also a candidate for regional acccreditation. See #4) These degrees are accepeted by many places for tution reimbursement as well as for getting govt. jobs. They also have been approved for the minimum accreditation for qualifying for officer school for the armed forces.
4. Regional Accreditation
This is the gold standard of accreditation. All the top schools you hear of are appproved by these 6 seperate acreditation bodies. They are:
* Middle States, Association of Colleges and Schools
* New England Association of Schools and Colleges
* North Central Association of Colleges and Schools
* Northwest Association of School and Colleges
* Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
* Western Association of Schools and Colleges
If the degree you choose is accredited by one of these, you are good to go. You can get into any graduate program and won't have any problem with tuition assistance or even getting govt. jobs. You can teach at a university level and can be approved to teach K-12 as well.
Online degrees are being more and more accepted in business today. Many of the top schools in the country are starting to realize that they can make money by offering these programs. Penn State, Univ. of Maryland and even Harvard offer certain degrees in an online format.
There are several schools where you can test out of an entire degree. That's right, TEST OUT OF AN ENTIRE DEGREE. And it's regional accredited. One of these schools is Excelsior College (www.excelsior.edu) They will give credits for MCSE and Cisco exams as well as CLEP, DANTES and other exams you can take for credit.
For more info on these exams and to see how this is possible, take a look at BA in 4 weeks (http://bain4weeks.com/). 4 weeks is a bit aggressive but take a look at the details.
I know, I did it. It took me about 4 months once I enrolled with about 30 credits to finish by BS degree in General Business.
There is a great forum over at www.degreeinfo.com dedicated to distance eduation (http://forums.degreeinfo.com/forumdisplay.php?s=
--
BS General Business, Excelsior College 2003
MA Military Studies, American Military University (in progress)
As a manager I must say that given your talents as a coder and someone elses talent as a coder... with the only difference being one of you has a CS degree and the other dropped out of high-school, guess which one I will hire?
Are you saying that you'll make your decision on nothing but "degree vs. non-degree?" That's the way your statement came off.
If so, you're taking a very short-sighted view of things, and you're going to miss out on some damn good employees. If you're happy with generally average employees, then fine... on balance if you hire based on a simple criteria like that, your employees will likely be an average lot. OTOH, if you want the best, really top-flight talent, you are going to have to dig, investigate each candidate thoroughly, and not make simplistic decisions like ruling out non degree holders.
Neither approach is "right" or "wrong," but you should understand the implications of choosing one or the other.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
A Degree will "often" get you past the HR drone sorter .
...
Nepotism will "often" at least get you a interview, and
a statistically better shot at getting the job as long as
you interview somewhat well .
Results, and I mean portfolio of real work here .
This alone can get you hired anywhere with no degree and as a high school drop out .
Ask Einstein
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
I think the trick is that you have to be motivated to network, socialize, and work on projects outside the degree structure, for instance, with internships, perhaps OpenSource project work, and lots of extra reading. If you cannot do that, then the online degree will not do much good. This is largely true even of brick-and-mortar CS degrees now as well though: you may learn next to nothing in the classes and the projects are a joke. At least on a campus, you increase accidental interactions which might be useful and you might be able to get connected with ongoing projects outside of class.
My wife is finishing her degree at the moment with mostly online courses, but we live well outside of town and have a newborn, so taking day-classes is not really workable. The classes consist of a lot of canned material, a lot of videos and recordings, etc., so it is nothing more than you could get by spending the day at a library or B&N or online going through the Safari bookshelf, but you can get financial aid for it (funding for self-learning is not readily available) and you get that all-important piece of paper. All-in-all, they are not any worse than the typical TA-taught course in most 'real' schools.
This statement; "given your talents as a coder and someone elses talent as a coder" means they are equal in this area and the only difference is the degree. Does this mean I should hire the high school dropout because he might be the next Bill Gates? I'm not impressed with "coders" who are able to assimilate programming languages but couldn't tell me the difference between a shell sort and a selection sort. It takes much more than "coding" to be hiring material and I despise cleaning up after them.
TT
(original poster here)
I wasn't thinking of telling him to pursue his passions with disregard to reality, although it may have come off that way.
Rather, I believe that unless going to college holds out some substantial immediate attraction to you, such as girls or you love the classes etc, you will probably earn more money in the long term by simply working and being a life long self-taught learner.
I would possibly draw an exception to this if you are a darker minority, like darker than just olive-skinned, or have an immigrant's accent. The degree might be worth while just to "prove you are white enough" if you want to get by in the more corporate parts of industry.
But if you are going to become a small business owner or consultant anyway, just go ahead and do it the very first semester you finish thinking "those classes really weren't worth the debt I took and the time and bull shit to handle them".
It's not necessarily a good idea to try this as a college freshman, you may be too immature to make the judgement. Perhaps a leave of absence and a year working and then give another semester a try.
I went to four and a half years of MIT in course 6 (computer science version) and was also only a few classes short of a math degree. In retrospect, I wish I had attended a cheaper decent college -- I was accepted to the University of Texas at Austin. Because it was MIT and all my friends and family were in awe of it, I felt obligated to finish it. In fact, I know now after 15 more years of real world experience, that it is merely a collection of bright and extremely hardworking students, and that because the students are willing to work so hard the classes are very inefficiently taught -- professors will make 100 students spend 8 extra hours figuring something out to save themselves 10 minutes composing an email or proof reading their assignments. At UT and any other college you can easily find many people just as bright and hardworking, and the presence of lazy stupid party animals doesn't really detract much.
What I got out of the experience steadily grew with each year, as I learned how to study, be efficient, and classes got more advanced. Still, looking back with what I know now, I should have been able to see at the end of my freshman year that that place was a net loss; I just didn't have any other close friends at other schools to compare notes to.
What I should have done is stuck with the summer job that was offered to me after my freshman year, and just worked full time, saving money and occasionaly taking classes that interested me but weren't part of any degree plan. 6 years after I left school, when moving, I found a journal from when I first started, and on the first page I had made a list of things I wanted to do in my college career. It was so depressing I almost cried as a grown man, and it took me weeks to get over it. Out of that whole list I accomplished one thing, and only half-ass at that.
If you are wondering about completeing your degree, here is my advice:
Make a list of the classes you want to take; whether it is because you are passionate about them or because you think you will get paid more for them doesn't matter.
Go into your advisor and show him the list. Give him a quota -- tell him you need to take 2 or 3 of the classes on your list each semester, and that you plan to do the homework and study for your classes before you even touch any of his.
If he doesn't lay out a plan that gets you what you want in 4 or 5 years, and a degree, walk. Take a job that pays you money, save up your money, and try to take one of the classes on your list at a time as a non-degreed student where ever you can.
You won't necessarily end up happier for following your passions; but you will end up richer. These professors and deans like to tell you what to study, and often your precious time and attention is just being used as an accounting token -- students are required to take classes from a department that needs
Here's my experiences with "online" schools, and insights on why I left them to pursue a "standard" education along the JC/transfer route:
1) Course quality was _highly_ variable. Two of the courses, a generic "study skills" course and another a College Algebra course, were well thought out and prepared. The third, however, a wierd hybrid of environmentalism and political science, was terrible. I found blatant errors in the assignments and tests, emailed the "professor" who responded "oh yea, I know about those, Ill fix them one day. Just go ahead and pick B for those questions and Ill mark you right." In contrast, although coursework quality also varies at a "traditional" school like a JC, UC, or private, it is not allowed to devate THAT much IMHO. I should also point out that these were GE courses (not having had any college credits up to that point I had to take them), but as I will mention later, GE's can be the most important reason to go to school.
2) Teacher interaction - being raised on BBS's I naturally prefer email at times. However, nothing, as someone else mentioned, beats human interaction. There are simply opportunities at a regular university that you cant get at an "online" or "diploma mill" university. Example: undergraduate research. Sometimes this isnt just slave work. I responded to one solicitation from a professor where Im at now and ended up working on a graduate level project. There is also something to be said about maintaining eye contact on a daily basis with your professors: they remember you in a different way and keep you in mind, which means that you will have better opportunities of getting choice undergrad research positions that will look pretty on a graduate application.
3) Related to the above - "working" the system: in person it is easier to cut through red tape BS than online or over the phone. Its much easier to blow someone off if you dont have to look them in the eye. In my case, I was able to bypass a completely ricoculous placement test system and sign up for upper division coursework, just because people in places that matter saw me running around doing the footwork and decided to cut me a break, either that or I was an annoying/persistent punk. Compared to the "virtual" school, where I found teacher accessibility very inconsistent.
4) Graduate Schools - Graduate schools like to see school names and projects and so forth on applications. Although Im not at all ruling out the possibility that someone with a BS in CS from an online university will not be able to get into a graduate program at a tier 3, it would be much harder to get into one at a tier 1. Why? Because these schools have "reputations" which you yourself appear to be cognizant of, otherwise you wouldnt be asking this question. For reasons like I mentioned above, you almost _need_ undergraduate research to get into a competitive graduate program.
5) Accredidation - lots of people overlook this one, but it is the most important. Ask what agency the school is accredited with. Then, call your graduate school of interest and ask them if they recognize that agency. Just because the US Department of Education recognizes the school doesnt mean that all other schools must or do. Oftentimes, correspondance style schools are accredidted by the Distance Education/Training Council, which is recognized by nobody outside of other schools that are also a part of that. This is even more important if you plan on graduate school: it is very likely that a school will not acknowledge your diploma simply because they dont recognize the accrediation agency.
6) While I was interviewing applicants to fill my position in the IT dept where I worked before I went back to school full time, I found, as most of you have who hire people, that most of these guys didnt know a mouse from a keyboard, yet held AA's and BS's from schools like Westwood or Phoenix or some other place. Perfect example: one guy who had an AA from a school I wont mention could not answer a SINGLE QUESTION on my screening test! And i
You have almost 0% chance of a fair competition with a better educated cheaper Indian or Chinese worker.
BULLSHIT. You are right, the indian and chinese labor has made it tougher, but saying you have 0% chance of fair competition is like throwing up your hands and quitting.
What you have to do is identify what your advantage is. You have several, being a US citizen and living in this country. The biggest one is simply that you are bound by US IP law and going after you is easy if you attempt to steal secrets. I'm not going to go into areas where this matters, but if you use your head, you'll find those areas where you are more desireable than a 1000 Indian or Chinese workers. And YES, these areas are hiring. They aren't the k-rad kewl jobs, nor are they cakewalk jobs, but they pay big bucks and employers have a hard time filling those positions. You have other advantages too, but IMO, if you're not smart enough(or too fricking lazy) to figure out what they are, you should head to Walmart and get your application.
Individuals who learn to program sans a college education may very well become excellent programmers, but being able to write a search algorithm doesn't mean you know floating point numbers cannot be exactly represented in binary. There are many little things a self-taught individual would be much less likely to pick up on their own -- that is, unless they read their books cover-to-cover.
The example I gave would be considerably difficult for someone not in the know to pick up on, especially when things such as cout round the number before printing it. You see the value of the float as you (think) it was initialized to, and you believe all is well. Uh-uh...
Show a little motivation and go to school.
It's the greatest time of your life. Never again will you have leisure time to pursue whatever you want, whenever you want.
Not only that, but you're on your own, you're surrounded by other people on their own.
Seriously, for any of a thousand reasons, don't shortcut college.
Life's a journey, not a destination. Stop running. (Obligatory Demotivator
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
The best way to learn about office politics is to develope the healthy paranoia that can only come from being stabbed in the back. No school can prepare you for this.
Bitter? Yes. Very bitter.
Non-Traditional Education is booming. It can save you both time AND money. First get acquainted with the subject. The most usable book on the subject is "Bears Guide to Earning Degrees by Distance learning", Ten Speed Press. Your library should have it. SEE also Degreeinfo.com. Good Luck
Does there generally appear to be any sort of bias, either for employers or in general, between holders of a Bachelor of Sciences and a Bachelor of Arts degree? I'm curious, as I'm currently at a small liberal arts school where the only type of Computer Science degree I'll be getting is a BA (along with a minor in music, as I'm also a band geek like that).
My only 2 cents is before you take any classes, make sure that they will transfer to your local state or community colleges.
My little brother went to a tech school in St. Louis, got his AAS and the CCNA training but when he went to try to get into the local state school they made him redo his entire core except for one english class. He did get his piece of paper out of the deal but what if you change your mind after a semester or more that a local school is preferable, you want to make sure that your credit will transfer in.
Of course I should say this is my same advice for anyone going to school. Make sure the school is accreditted in the same vein as your local community college / state school. If they aren't, it might be nice but it might be a waste of money if you decide to switch schools or persue a higher degree based of the one you earned.
I'm pursuing a degree online in CMIS at University of Maryland, University College. They have a well respected Distance Education curriculum, and handle a contract for Continuing Ed with the Department of Defense.
Most of my classmates are in the military. I'm taking classes online with an Army Sargent who's working in Counter Intelligence, several soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, a patent lawyer in Maryland as well as a Senior Network Engineer at Fannie Mae. Most of us finishing our degrees at UMUC are doing so online, because we can't go to school any other way.
My Data Structures and Abstractions professor has published over 30 papers in the past 8 years.
Last fall I received an email from the NSA, asking me to apply for their Information Assurance Scholarship Program, because of my GPA and the fact that the school that I attended was a Center of Excellence for Computer Science. The scholarship was a full ride plus $10,000 a year as a stipend—as an undergrad. I declined to apply, because I don't want to sell my soul to Uncle Sam for the 4 years after school.
I'm putting in at least 30 hours a week on my schoolwork while I'm holding down a full time job as a Emergency Room nurse.
When I graduate, my diploma will say that I've graduated from the University of Maryland.
Online Education = Diploma mill, my ass
I attended UoP online for 3 classes. My first 3 classes, in fact. They require you attend 3 or 4 of their own "intro to learning" type classes. 9 hours of credit and $3,600 later I dropped them in favor of a brick and mortar school which US News and World Report rates in its fourth tier -- ranking 165-215 in their class. (USNWR 2006 Edition, America's Best Colleges)
UoP isn't even listed. I have an opinion as to why -- their education is hollow. I didn't learn a damn thing there, and the "team projects" consisted of one person doing all the work while the other 5 slacked off or did a halfass job - most of the time causing the whole team's grade to suffer. Sure it was convenient to go online once a week instead of driving 2 hours to class, but think about this... if each person is only online one hour a week, do you really think they're putting in 15-20 hours a week on the actual classwork?
And then there was my job interview. I had 14 years programming experience and showed "9 hours completed at UoP online campus" on my resume. The VP I interviewed with saw said, "Well, a piece of paper is a piece of paper, right?" I got the job, but only because I'm one of two people within 200 miles with 10+ years of Foxpro experience. I'm still not sure if showing UoP on my resume helped or hurt my salary negotiations.
Now, on getting employers to call you back... note that the resume gets 8 seconds attention. I know from watching my bosses, who get the resume from HR and read it in between emails, phone calls and visits. You have 8 seconds to make them say, "Damn, this guy's good. I think I'll ignore that phone call." Content matters most - concise, informative. Pink paper, perfume, frilly fonts - straight to the trash. Times New Roman 10-point, that won't give them a headache. Give it to someone who doesn't know your experience (email to me if you'd like). In 8 seconds, would they say "gimme" or "g'bye"? If the latter, work on the words and layout. Don't sound desperate.
In 9 months during 1997 I went through 150 resumes, no interviews, no callbacks. I read "What Color is Your Parachute" by Richard N Bolles. It taught me a lot of the process. I landed my next job within weeks, and most of what I applied for after that.
Yes, they even set the quallity to high.
?
Actually, the closest degree to CS at UoP is a BSIT (Information Technology). While the programming assignments may not be too difficult (writing a VB.Net app that interfaced with a SQL Server database has been the most involved so far), I doubt a traditional brick-and-morter (TB&M) school really teaches you everything you need to know in order to start a job programming in that language. (Maybe in a Software Engineering degree.)
(P.S. The UoP also has TB&M classes, so it isn't all online. A lot of other colleges around the country also have online courses, they just don't promote them nationally as much as UoP.)
The courses are 5 weeks long and you're only supposed to take them 1 at a time. Some will give you the same amount of knowledge as a TB&M degree course, and some won't.
The parent is partially correct when he/she said that quantity is more important than quality at UoP. You have to show attendence by posting a certain number of messages a certain number of times every week, and this alone can be overwhelming for some people. On the other hand, you can't just post anything--it has to contribute to the discussion.
Some facilitators (the facilitator is your instructor for the course) don't seem to know the subject very well, have trouble communicating with the students, or just don't care. Others are excellent and really know their stuff. I had the same problem at the local community college.
Even with a bad facilitator, you'll always have at least a couple of students in each course who have a lot of practical experience, sometimes even more than the facilitator! The focus on group work also encourages learning from each other. This I think makes the UoP better than at least the community college I attended.
I find myself doing less busy work with UoP than with a TB&M school. On the other hand, sometimes I wonder how many useless facts I'm not learning at the UoP. It seems like the UoP tries to whittle down the the amount of learning you have to do by focusing on the more practical knowledge.
I worry about how prospective employers might view my degree, but at least it's accredited (or will be, when I'm done), and I could always switch to a TB&M school later for a master's or another bachelor's and not list my UoP degree at all. The course at UoP are expensive, but I'm saving a lot of time not having to drive to the school, find a parking space, walk 1/2 mile to my class, or wait up to an hour or so between classes. If your time is worth a lot (and especially if your employer pays for your education), there are definitely worse choices than UoP.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
For some of the online programs I have investigated, for example Boston University, Finals are proctored at Prometric/ACT Sites.
Yes, you probably could google answers for an exam at many online institutions but this is probably factored in. Have you ever attempted to bluff a brainbench exam with Google? The time limit would kill most except the brilliant.
I have taken tests at bricks and mortar school that allowed googling, but the tests were difficult enough that if you didn't know your shit it wouldn't help you much. Our prof rationalized that in the real world Google is available so have at it.
The thing is most HR people who interview wouldn't know how to ask the right questions or analyze the OSS code. While this seems harsh, sometimes tech interviewers are just too cranky to adequetly weed out candidates. I have been just toasted in interviews where I was highly qualified but was being asked esoteric questions that I answered correctly and was told I was wrong (maybe they wanted to see how I fought, or maybe they wanted to maintain their spot in the pecking order) Other times I have gotten jobs where I have totally fucked up on the tech's grill nervously rambling incoherent and incorrect responses. I have no Idea how I was hired. I did a great job so they must of had some intuition.
There is usually little correlation between knowlege and getting a job, but if you have the credentials it makes an HR person's job easier to cover their ass and say, "He had the credentials" when the applicant chosen turns out to be a chair moistener. Your method is definitely preferable and is a huge asset to your company. It's a shame that most companies are unable to take such a critical approach.
I just wonder though,despite your rigor, are there candidates that you choose or relegate simply in the first few seconds of the interview? I guess that's number three. Yeah, I bet you have a pretty kick ass team.
It may seem trivial, but one of the problems of going it without a degree is knowing what to read and having the math skill to read it. You need to know what's in a CS program, what books they use, and which math courses are taken before you read those books as well as in what order the CS classes are taken. People don't usually find those things out until they're trying to map out their degree. So if you are doing it by yourself you will end up putting a lot of books down or not ever picking them up because they are too hard to read or the title just doesn't catch your eye at barnes and noble.
I mean, how sexy is that dover book on discrete math over in the math section compared to "power tips for C++ programmers". If you're self taught and don't have the math background how much do you REALLY get out of the knuth deskset?
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
I did a Google search and started looking into various programs. I was able to immediately reject anything in "Information Technology". But it appears that a lot of the online degrees called CS aren't really what I'd consider CS. Many of them seem to be misnamed degrees in programming. You take a few semesters of C, a few of C++, and a few of Java, and they give you a CS degree. As far as I'm concerned, that's complete bullshit. Sure, CS requires knowledge of programming, but it goes far beyond that. IMNSHO, a CS degree should also require course work in discrete structures, compiler construction, complexity theory, computer organization, and perhaps some specialties like graphics, robotics, error control coding, etc.
If I were hiring a recent CS grad (whether online or bricks and mortar), and saw that their coursework was mostly just classes in programming in various languages, I wouldn't necessarily reject the candidate, but I'd certainly be very wary.
This leads to the big question: What accredited universities offer a "Real" BSc in CS online?
called 'DegreeInfo.com.
They have information on about 300 acredited degrees, ranging from Associates to Doctorates in lots of disciplines.
There is also a fairly active set of discussion forums, where you can post specific queries.
I'm not assoicated with them, but used the site pretty actively last spring when I was looking for an MBA program. In the end I started an Executive MBA from a traditional bricks and mortar University, but that was just my personal choise.
Some of the on-line MBAs were pretty solid; I took my research to the point of evaluating several schools and even talking with past students - no problems there at all.
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Having talked with the employment staff on my job I can tell you they could not care less about degrees from online universities and 'home studying' institutions. People with those degrees won't even be invited for job interviews. Sounds rough maybe but that's the way they think about it. And to be honest I don't expect much better from other employers here in Holland when you're aiming for a higher positioned job. Can't really blame em, people tend to think getting a degree is just about reading books. But going to university is a social happening too, which will also shape you in important ways. Like acquiring people skills and social code common in the world of science and also higher positioned jobs. Showing that you made this your own is probably worth the better half of your degree. Even with studies like CS.
Second, you'll be unlikely to find five people who are better than me AT WHAT I DO (there are more than five, it would just be hard to round up five - but if you hire me, I may be able to bring a couple over long as you're willing to pay them). You can find a million people better than me at a lot of stuff (applications for example). No, I don't crank out GUIs (indeed, the first time I modified a GUI was almost 25 years into my career and then just because someone had to do it and it was needed at 2AM). It is not about education (which I have an adequate, but not impressive amount of) - it is about determining what YOU are natively good at and finding a way to exploit that.
I'm about as loyal (but to the CUSTOMER and the SHAREHOLDER of my company - not my boss) as they come. I've NEVER worked with someone who worked harder than I do when the chips are down (but, I've really enjoyed working on those teams where most people worked AS hard).
Needless to say, I'm very confident in my ability to compete with anyone - foreign or domestic IN THE AREA THAT I'M GOOD AT.
If you were my boss (unlikely I suspect by the way), you would call me at 4AM to figure out how to fix (asking me to build and coordinate an ad-hoc team if needed) a problem one of the top 10 Fortune 500 companies (would that be Fortune 10?) was having that was shutting down their business. I would grab some doughnuts and coffee and stay up with the team for the next 48 hours until we SOLVED the problem. If you failed to call me because you thought you were so smart you didn't need me, in the postmortem, the CEO would probably have you fired.
I have NEVER been at risk of being outsourced. BUT, you would NEVER hire me to be an application programmer (first, you should not offer me such a position - second, I would politely decline any such position at ANY salary and probably cease all discussions with your company because I really don't want to work where I know there are idiots managing important organizations).
In fact, I started at a startup company over 20 years ago and have never accepted an offer since except at startup companies (albeit, I have mistakenly hung around a couple of times for a year or two after the startup was acquired). However, NONE of these companies went out of business and one in particular is very well respected now (as a subsidiary of another company who is not as respected).
My friends keep saying I should apply at Google - but I know better. Google is a great company with some fabulous people. BUT, they have fairly low data integrity standards and in that market it's okay (as has happened twice to me in the last 24 hours) for my gmail to be unavailable a few hours a year. That's not my business, so I politely listen to my friends and ignore them. Google really has no need for me.
I get called in when others have failed. My management can count on me to tell them (and their boss, their boss's boss, and the customer) the TRUTH.
In your career, it's important to figure out what YOU enjoy doing and are good at (if "nothing" is the answer, get a job at WalMart - it will be a lot more pleasant than being miscast for 45 years). Then, pursue that with a relentless energy. Much of this has to do with what you ENJOY, not what pays well. If you have the (arguable) misfortune of being really interested in (and good at) being a pianist - DO IT (even if it means you make most of your money working in a smokey lounge) because you wi
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
> Carnegie Mellon University, thank you very much.
Then I call bullshit. Very few people get in here---yes, I'm a grad student in CS at CMU---who are too dense to tell the difference between "dozens" and "three". Since you're the latter, I doubt you're the former.
I'm one of about 7000 students doing most of their coursework online at UNO this semester. Maybe they'll finally figure out it's how it can be done this way. Check back next semester.
--"Why isn't the Open University (the UK's largest in number of students) included? Its independent teaching quality assessment is 5th in the country, above Oxford." Louis De La Foret, Milton Keynes
-Because it caters entirely for distance learners, several of the measures in The Times table - notably those which measure spending on libraries and other facilities - do not apply to the Open University. Its size would also put the OU at a considerable disadvantage in comparisons of staffing levels.
And you sir, are an hypocrite. At last measure, the correct method of writing is using no apostrophes. I would actually rewrite your post to read, 'If you cannot (one word) find the grammatical error in your sentence, you should not be allowed an online degree.' Notice also the eradication of the bang. That is an exclamation mark if you are American. Now, as a penal exercise, I suggest you correct every spelling and grammatical error made on Slashdot in the past year. Too much? Perhaps then just today's news? I wouldn't bother even starting this trend on Slashdot, it is not worth your sanity.
It's good advice, but not just for the reasons you suggest.
Any sufficient smart and motiviating person can learn nearly all the CS he will learn at U. If you actually land a juinior porgramming job, you can learn most of what you'd learn in a CS program if you are motviated to do so. If you make a point reading up on a fundamentals like the theory of compilers and data commnication thoery, you'll know as much. By the time I took my CS courses, I already knew as much or more about them than all but maybe two of my profs, and I never scored less than 95% on any of my exams or projects.
I've been in this business for over twenty years; when I started almost nobody had a degree. I'm not sure how it'd be done, but I suspect might be able to sweet talk your way into an entry level engineering job, by getting into a support position and working your way up. It seems uncertain, but it shouldn't be too hard, if you really have the stuff it takes to become and engineer with no formal engineering education.
The problem comes when you are older. The lack of degree will hurt you much more, because you'll be expected to apply for more senior, more responsible and more technically challenging positions. Of course by then people should look at your resume and record of accomplishment. But.... just when a CS degree becomes much less useful to show your true suitability for a job you'll find it becomes absolutely critical even when it wasn't before.
Imagine you are a manager and you need to hire and employee. The only requirement of the job is that the employee has to weight 200lb. You'd simply line candidates up and make them get on a scale.
The problem is that what makes a senior person successful or not as his job is a lot harder to define and measure. It's hard to tell what you need, and to complicate matters mid and late career people are accomplished at polishing resumes. If you are a recruiter, have a pile of wonderful looking resumes, and few useful skills at matching candidates to jobs. Keep in mind that nobody has actually trained you in how to hire people. 99% of the time don't even give you a friggen pamphlet on "How Not to Be A Total Suck-Ass Recruiter", which would have been a pretty good idea because that's most likely where you're headed.
So, if you can land an entry level job, go ahead. Then go for the on-line degree. Nobody ever asks you about what you did in U except for your very first job; in fact most interviews, if viewed dispassionately, are conducted in a very un-probing, unsystematic manner. You know that you're interested in CS, so look at their other on-line offerings to see if the distribution credits you'll need to get will be fun and motivating. It's easy to drop out when you aren't living at school and attending classes and parties and all that.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
As I said, this is a yellow flag, not a red one. We recognize that it's possible to be a great software engineer without even having a CS degree, much less a degree from a good school (we have such people on our staff right now). But if we had to choose who to interview between two otherwise equally-qualified candidates, we'll give the interview to the candidate with the "traditional" degree.
One final caveat -- your degree matters much less than your experience. If you have five years of experience in a field we're interested in, we won't even ask about your college projects or your grades.
-- Bandannarama
Bandannarama
I did my Master's in Computer Information Systems with UoP. I finished it up about 3 years ago. I have to say that the education I received there was more rigorous and valuable than my undergrad. I'm currently in a tech managerial position in a small private university in Canada and I wouldn't have this job without my degree.
The classes I took in accounting, HR, and the more traditional Information Systems areas have been a tremendous help in my everyday work. I've now taken it upon myself to pass some of this knowledge to my staff who have no undergrad or graduate education. This has really opened their eyes up to what you can learn in a formal situation. They have typically believed that experience is the best teacher, but now they are seeing another side.
Yes, the groups can be a pain, but I figured that I am paying a lot of money to learn and get something out of it, so I worked hard in all of them. Fortunately, most of my classmates felt the same way and the experiences were mostly good. However, that my be a bit of a result of being in a graduate versus an undergraduate program.
I think most of the criticism of UoP come from those who haven't experienced it. UoP has to go through the same accreditation process as the traditional schools. Its already been mentioned that you can lose your accreditation if you don't maintain your academic standards.
I'd recommend UoP at the graduate level and tell those who discount the degree to talk to the grads before immediately tossing their resume. Some may have just floated through, but others may have worked hard, learned a lot, and will add value to your organization.
I can only assume that the original submitter was trolling, and yet by the replies I see in this thread apparently a lot of people are so completely out of touch as to validate his questions.
An online degree is absolutely, completely, totally, irrevocably, and utterly worthless to anyone who might wish to use your educational history to evaluate your competence. Online degree programs are (largely) diploma mills, and a certification from one of them doesn't carry any of the assurances about your relative skills and experience that a Bachelor's degree from a brick-and-mortar institution does.
As far as graduate school goes...well, if you even have to ask these questions you might as well give up on that right now. The "great" graduate schools are not even going to read your application if you don't come from a reasonably well-respected undergraduate institution. Of course, if your "degree" is from an online school, it doesn't really mater whether they read your application or not because you won't have the faintest idea what research is, and graduate school in computer science is training in research.
Bright, self-motivated people tend to excel regardless of where they are, so if you're one of those people you might be able to learn stuff in an online program. Since you already have a job as a programmer, it's entirely possible that, as a result of an online degree, you'd become a better programmer: when your boss puts problems in front of you, your online degree experience might make you more adept at solving them. What your online degree will not have taught you is how to find the really interesting problems yourself . People can stick all the "I didn't need college!" crap that I see whenever this topic comes up: a college education doesn't teach you what to think, it teaches you how.
My experience with the UOP MBA program was good. The work was tough and I spent an average of 5 hours every weeknight and 7 hours on weekends working on the assignments and tasks. Some of the team projects went well, with team members contributing and working hard. Other teams were simply horrid, and that's not much different from the real world. Some instructors were extremely knowledgeable and others were not. Once again, that's not much different from bosses in the real world. Most of my work is related to data encryption, transport, and low-level, web application systems. Not exactly stuff that business people exactly care about. So why did I get the MBA? I need to understand the business owner's language, their perspective and their motivations. Why did I choose UOP? "Location, location, location!" I could sign on from anywhere, even the server room. I've been told by some B&M professors, that the only people who will truly care that your degree is from an "on-line" school are the B&M schools, and particularly if you are looking to teach. Personally, I've not had any negative reactions from business people.
I could write something witty for my sig, but instead wrote this...
I am doing the MIS/M program right now with them. The instructors have been weak through the M part of the course, which is mostly MBAish stuff. I haven't done the thue IS bit yet. It is feast and famine with the course. Some weeks you are absolutely swamped with assignments and some weeks you are done in day for the entire week. You have to log on at least four of seven days of the week and actually participate in the discussions. Teaming can suck if your team is too big or lazy. I got lucky with my current one. We all work well together and contribute equally. Best part is I can log on from anywhere that I can get online. I have logged on from Korea, Hawaii, Australia, Germany and the U.S.
If it were generally possible to learn from books or online resources without the assistance of other learned people, universities wouldn't exist - you'd just have libraries full of the right books supplemented with the odd web-presentation or two.
Unfortunately some very clever university graduates learn a lot from books without realising how much they couldn't have learned from the books - how much was due to people around them, providing guidance, motivation and the intellectual challenges that steer them in the right direction.
Research (or learning) of any kind really only becomes valuable when it is peer-reviewed and used by others. Peer review requires careful thought and discussion; it sometimes needs critical opinions offerred that can only be delivered effectively with the right body language. The internet is not up to the task of peer-review. Just try rewarding, enthusing or consoling someone without using body-language.
And sometimes the most important things you learn are learned when you're not focussed on a particular goal - like getting a degree. The real benefit of a university is not earning a degree, but rather learning to learn - and particularly learning to learn with peers. Learning with peers is ultimately the skill that is valuable in the workplace.
A university is an experience that is more than books, more than web-pages, more than blogs and more than chat-rooms. It's learning with peers.
An online course might deliver a degree, but in isolating you from your peers, it will be quite inferior to one gained in a learning environment.
plurality should not be posited without necessity. - William of Occam
I achieved a MS in Software Development and Management through the Rochester Institute of Technology entirely online. There are positives and negatives, but (for me) the positives outweighed the negatives. When I started working towards the degree I lived in an area without many graduate degree options and I was travelling a lot, so it was pretty much the only option I had short of quiting my job and moving somewhere else.
The amount you learn is dependent on the amount of time you put into it, just like with ANY coursework. The thing that surprised me, and might surprise others, is that the interaction between students was actually greater with the online courses (your mileage may vary, of course). The reason is that in most courses you had to publish short essays that expressed your thoughts. The other students actually had to read and comment on them ("participation" grades generally depended on this). So you had a lot of discussion about various topics. The medium also allowed you to truely think through and research things before engaging in a discussion (just like everyone does here on Slashdot). Granted, the interaction is on a different (non-personal) level.
The major downside is that complex topics are sometimes difficult to communicate. The professors do carry office hours, just like traditional courses, so you can call or IM him/her.
Another thing to consider is that online options are growing significantly. A lot of the skepticism will disappear over time (this is already happening, I think). Most universities have or will get into this due to the economics. The market is quite large for people who want to further their education, but couldn't otherwise do it without a flexible program.
Now your mileage will vary depending on your personality. Are you the type of person who NEEDS a structured environment? If so, then this might not be for you.
I'd have to agree with those who suggest against the online option for undergrad work, but it really depends on your situation (i.e. what are your alternatives?)
Anyway, good luck.
A common misperception is that the value of college is the information from the classes. This is untrue; the environment and experiences are what differentiate those who attend from those who have not. If I am choosing between 2 job candidates who are equal in all other things, I will pick the one with the 4 year degree. They have:
1) spent at least 4 years pursuing something
2) dealt with the bureacracy and busy work of a large, slow moving organization
3) proven they can work with others well enough to get the degree
4) proven they can deal with difficult people (odd professors, ambitious fellow students, rude lab aides, etc.)
5) taken classes in areas they have no interest in, but have at least passed (liberal arts and social science requirements)
6) Have written at least a 10 page paper well enough to get the degree
All of these things make them more appealing. I am presently a professor and was previously someone who hired people for computer animation jobs. I do not think an online degree assures a potential employer of any of the above things.
This is bad juju. You don't just climb the ladder, you jump from one ladder to another when you can't climb where you are now. Not only that, but in larger companies they use the process to eliminate the non-candidates. A degree is one of those key factors.
I'm someone without a degree. I run a large program in a large corporation. Would a degree help me climb the wage ladder? Yes. Is there a trade-off in time and money vs. that climb? Yes. Or, relevant to the poster, probably not in his 150 person company.
Is is probably worth it? Yes.
~Gildas
I receive ads all of the time offering degrees in Video Game Design. Has anyone earned a degree in Video Game Design from an online university and, if so, have these paid off?
Hi! I'm actually TA'ing for one of Walden University's NTU classes -- NEEP6221, the graduate digital design class. I've had 4 years of experience doing digital design professionally and I'm in my 4th year of grad school at the University of Texas, where I'm TA'ing a brick-and-mortar class too.
Online classes can be good if they're taken seriously by the students and the faculty and support staff. I spend a bit more time on my BnM class than my online class, mostly because it has 3x the number of students. I hold office hours -- there's an online discussion board, and on several occasions my students and I will send things back and forth (I bought a copy/fax/scan printer just for this class, so things go from engineering paper to pdf and over email or online doc sharing.) I'm not in any position to say whether the online degrees count for graduate school or for getting a job. In the quality of education department, it's like everything else, but moreso: you get out what you put in. I certainly won't assign passing grades to shoddy work. I take pride in my teaching, whether online or face-to-face, so if you can find an online institution with an entire degree full of that, you'll definitely get an education.
I turned a friend of mine onto the American College of Computer and Information Sciences. They have a respectable curriculum for Computer Science, offer an IS degree and an MBA. They also have a Master's program. They run it well, and the professors keep office hours available via email or toll-free numbers. Check them out.
There are a *ton* of degree mills out there, and their "degrees" are utterly worthless (unless you happen, for example, to be a friend of George Bush, like "Brownie").
On the other hand, there are a number of legitimate, accredited institutions out there. I, personally, got my BS from Excelsior College, which is/was part of the state university of NY. Full, real accreditation.
There's a lot you miss. On the other hand, having gotten an associate's degree, then credits from another college, what I found when I tried to go to another college (pass over moving from Philly to Austin) was that the other college, in spite of both my community college and the other four-year university being fully accredited, wanted to not accept a *lot* of credits, and then there was the compiler design course that "oh, they don't have the same *emphasis* that we do, so we'll only accept it as an anonymous upper-level elective, and you'll have to take our compiler design class"... and this is not uncommon.
Excelsior (formerly Regents'), accepted *all* credits from legitimate, accredited colleges; wherever there was any question, they looked at the syllabus I provided them from the courses, and then there was no problem.
And I did take a software engineering course through an accredited professional organization, then had those results sent to Excelsior, and again, no problem.
If "accreditation" meant that college credits were as portable as high school ones, I'd say go for traditional colleges; since they're not (talk about a scam...), if it works for you, go for it.
mark
http://www.ossc.state.or.us/oda/unaccredited.html
This is a website maintained by the University of Oregon that details all the SCAM online Universities for you. So, this is important to check out first, before you spend any money online.
Also, having checked them out, I consider University of Phoenix a lousy University, as their teaching methods are suspect for technical degrees. I found that out when I interviewed as a teacher with them.
Other people's experiences may be different, but I once talked to someone who had worked for the University of Phoenix as a Professor. He said that he was essentially ordered to be sure that students all got good grades - after all, the students would not return if they didn't get the grades they wanted. Enything less than a B in a class was considered a Very Bad Thing and the professors were clearly informed that giving out poor grades was a guarantee of not being rehired.
You can become one of the richest people in the world if you drop out of Harvard. But in 1990 you say that the new feature of version 6 of your C compiler had been supporting huge pointers since 4.0.
Fight Spammers!
They are piece of paper and nothing. Till now, nobody has ever looked at my GPA nor my degree. It was such a waste of time to be in school.
I have a PhD and I was full-time at a traditional top-tier college but I now teach exclusively for many online colleges because you can make twice the money with half the work. Many online colleges are junk where it is basically "you pay your fee and take your B" and other are quite good. I remember one university in particular (based in California) where they advertise that their entire faculty have PhDs. I started teaching a course there and quit after 2 weeks. There were almost 50 students in the class and 14 assignments per term. I told them that if I spent just 5 minutes reading each assignment and giving feedback (which would be impossible since it would really take at least 15 minutes each), my remuneration would work out at less than $10 per hour and with my qualifications I would not work for that. Therefore any faculty member at that institution could not really be reading the work submitted by the students unless they are willing to work for less than minimum wage.
Something else you have to watch out for, because many PhDs use this as a money venture (I know some making over $250,000 per year doing this from their bedrooms) many of them are outsourcing the teaching. Some have over 20 classes per term (which obviously they can't physically teach) so they pay unqualified people to handle the class for them so you might be taking a Masters degree and you really have a high school student pretending to be the PhD on the other end (and you wondered why I made this post as an anonymous coward).
From my experience, I have found that if you look for an online college with small classes (10 - 15 students) then the experience will be as good as or better than traditional colleges. Beware of flashy web sites that are full of fluff and promises but no substance. I have found that Colorado Technical University Online (http://www.ctuonline.edu/) is not bad but the classes are much too big and you can't devote the time to each student that you really should. Baker College Online (https://www.baker.edu/online/main.cfm) has small class sizes and is exceptionally good and I think you will get an even better education than you would get in the traditional classroom setting. However the best one of all that I have found is a new online college in Florida called Erudio College (http://www.erudio.us/ which again has small class size and is a real teaching college where the emphasis is on the education of the student and not just the degree.
I have to say that while I have seen plenty of adverts for the University of Liverpool, I've never receieved spam from them. And, while you may not have heard of them, they are a real English university (with real buildings and everything as well as some age - they were founded in 1881). The Times Good University Guide ranks them 41st best university in the UK (click on "Top 100 Universities").
I have taken roughly half of my courses online in a masters program at bloomsburg university. Attendance was a required part of the grade, but even more so was journals, weekly homework, tests, group work and case studies.
What i am trying to say is, that attendance in these classes were almost 90% or higher for most students in the online chats. What was really significant was rather making the student work so hard, and give them extra work, so that incase some part was missed during the charts, summaries or power point slides, it was found and dealt with. Thereby, it almost forces a student to ask questions if they did not understand things.
I actually learned more in my online classes than i ever learned in my regular ones, as its pace, requirements and utter demand on oneself to perservere were so high. If offered for undergraduate students, i do not think that the program would have been as successful, as i remember my work ethic only a few years before taking these corses online.
http://www.bloomu.edu/ was the school, bloomsburg unversity of the stat univeristy schools in pa.
You can easily download the shareware version of Camfrog Server and Client and set up your own video chat room. It's small and it works awesomely if you've got a 512 kbit upstream (should hold about 5 people reliably with smooth video and practically flawless voice chat) It's good enough for deaf people to communicate using sign language face to face via webcam, so I'm quite sure it'll be useful for this purpose.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The big companies want people with degrees who have done hard time on an actual campus lugging books around in a backpack, talking face to face with profs and grad students, and drinking crappy coffee in a student union while sweating multiple deadlines. Online degrees don't mean squat, as it's not a transformation process, but rather a thin smokescreen.
I am currently attending the University of Phoenix in the MBA/TM program (Technical Management). Nothing technical seems to happen until the end, so I can't comment on that part, but I can say that my experience has been as varied as the instructors I had. Some are good, some are downright awful. I'm currently in a class that is awful. Not one instructor that I have had has fully updated their syllabus to reflect the change in schedule which happened several months ago when they changed the "week" from Thursday-Wednesday to Tuesday-Monday. My current instructor is disorganized and slow to answer questions about the confusing syllabus.
I've seen plagiarism and shoddy work from students, but then see the same students in the following class(es). All my teams but the one in my last class have had me doing the majority of the work since I seem to be the only one who cares. I've talked with others who have experienced this team problem as well and typically there are two answers I always get. Either that the University of Phoenix is hard and challenging or that it is way too easy.
From these reports and my own experience, here is what I infer about the University of Phoenix: You get out of it what you put in. If you work hard and try hard you will actually learn something and get decent grades. If you don't put much into it, you'll still probably get decent grades, but you won't get any educational benefit out of it. The disadvantage of this inconsistency is that management will see one student who is a product of UoP who is lazy and worthless as an employee and then make a judgment call against the rest. I wouldn't rely on a degree from UoP to get you a job, but rather to supplement your job. I do technical work with a more technical bachelor's degree and eventually will probably want to move up into management. I think the degree I have, the work I do, and the history I have with my company will give them a good impression of my UoP degree when I get it. However, if I were a hiring manager evaluating a potential new employee, I would not put much weight behind a UoP degree in my decision process.
So why am I attending? I live out in the middle of nowhere, and really have no other education options that fit into my schedule. The biggest reason though is that my job is paying for the majority of it so that my out of pocket expense is relatively small.
I recently graduated with an online degree and am working on an online Master's. My bachelor's is in Information Technology and my Master's program is in Artificial Intelligence. I went to University of Phoenix for my bachelor's. Both programs are tough. You must apply yourself with little or no outside supervision. But I am 40 years old and have 25 years of computer experience.
I feel that the education I received online was as good as I would have gotten in a brick and mortar school. You don't miss anything as the lectures are always available to read. Other students don't distract the instructor from his topic with unrelated questions. There are upsides and downsides to each method of education.
While I think that online would be a tough environment to learn programming, there are many degrees that are well adapted to online learning.
If you already have a job and want to go to school around your work, online is great.
Online education also works well for people with social anxiety disorder and other personality disorders that affect social interaction. I have chronic migraine headaches. Sometimes I have them 5 days a week. I can't hold a regular job right now, but I can complete some education online and when my migraines get better, I will be better equipped to get back to work. Online provides a way for people with disabilities to get a good education.
I would recommend online education if your major is a good fit to online learning and you have another good reason to not go to the school physically. If you are young and don't have to work while you are going to school, I say go to the brick and mortar school. You might be able to take some classes online and some in class.
I think if you want to be a good programmer, you need to interact with more experienced programmers. Brick and mortar school is better for this.
âoeIn theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not." â Albert Einstein
Most of what you learn in college isn't in the classroom, or in a book. If you aren't making connections with students, faculty, and guests, and finding extracurriculars that form you and direct you to where you want to go and what you want to do, you will find that a degree is just a piece of paper.
Recently, in a meeting at my university with senior executive officers at major companies, someone asked how internet education would change how they hired people. They laughed, and stated that those students wouldn't be in meetings like these, so they wouldn't be hired.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
As a Doctor of Metaphysics from the United Life Church I will hvae to respectfully disagree.
Hell, just making everyone call me Doctor (I of course have a well rehearsed spiel on metaphysics ready) was worth the $30 I spent on a diploma. My doctorate is of course next to my real degree [marketing] from a respected east coast university on my wall.
To my friends I liken it to a hat that I enjoy wearing out. So apart from the original discussion point (no my Doctorate will never get me anything and isnt on my resume) these online degrees do have their proper uses.
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
no no...this is flamebait....
Isn't mensa babe an oximoron?
Call me cynical, but technical knowledge is a secondary aspect of a university education. If you want to work as a geek for a PHB for the rest of your life, doing stupid things for stupid people who get paid a great deal more than you do, then by all means go for an on-line degree. Nothing says, "canon fodder" quite so clearly.
But to have a career that will leave you in control of your own destiny a meat-space degree is a requirement. You will meet people, work in teams, and generally have a broader, more human experience. These things are far more important than technical skills or knowledge.
I am saying this based on a career that has so far been pretty successful based on a combination of technical and interpersonal skills, but has recently hit some serious rocks due to my focussing too much on the technical for a couple of years and neglecting the interpersonal. Doing a fabulous technical job, delivering quality software on time and to the client's satisfaction, won't do your career any good if no one notices because you've neglected to handle the monkey-politics of your organization properly.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
The unfortunate thing about most online offerings is that they are created in direct response to student wants. As other comments have stated, some non-college programmers may not know the subjects that they really need to be effective programmers. That said, why should students be dictating the way that courses are delivered? Why not let the curriculum developers that genuinely know what they're teaching/talking about develop the courses? If the students know what's effective in the classroom, why don't we give them a complimentary degree in education?
As a technical college instructor, I hear a lot of students complaining about their online classes, primarily because they don't have the self-motivation to do the work on their own. The flip side is that before the school had online classes, the students were clamoring for them.
I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.
You'll be working for Indian wages as a software tester in either case.
I18N == Intergalacticization
They ought to know.
I18N == Intergalacticization
Number one: I agree with that, it is all about the money and it applies to both sides.
Number two: I agree with that, it is all about the money and it applies to both sides.
Number three: There is a problem with this one. The point being, "a good professor". This is inherent in both environments, brick and mortor and online associations. Online provides a book and the lectures do have a blackboard ( err. whiteboard actually) So both environments provide the same means to distribute the information. Gotta disagree with you on that one. It all comes down to how effective the professor and not the medium which it is presented.
Number four: I totally disagree with that one. I have directly worked with people who have attended both online and brick and mortor Universities and each provide intelligent people. Conversely, I have also had the unfortunate luck to work with the other side of the spectrum from both sides. If a Technical Manager is soley basing their decision on whether they would hire someone that did not attend a brick and mortar University, then they should not be a Technical Manager. You are assuming too much with respect to a brick and mortor is better than an online. The quality of the education is no different than a brick and mortor. Since both present that same information, just in a different medium, the courses offered online are just as effective as not. It all comes down to what the indivudual does with that information.
Number five: The key is talented professor. Having attended both brick and mortor and online, I have met both sides from both medium. A really talented professor should be able to interact with the students regardless of location.
I would not consider an online education the easy way out, there are definite benefits to this type of information medium. Some people do not have the ability to attend a brick and mortor due to distance. Heck, I recall a fellow student attending class from Iraq after he was deployed halfway into the course. He was VERY inteligent and I would hire him in a nano-second! "An easy way out????" I believe that information is beneficial to everyone regardless of the medium. Remember we are in the 21st century, and the information age.
I did my Comp Sci assoc entirely on campus. Too much lab time to try to do it at home. But my Bacholers is in IT Management. I still take some classes on campus, but things like Accounting, Economics, Business Decision Making, etc... are classes where there is little class room discussion, and no lab. Just read the book, do the homework and take a test. For those classes, its just fine. I have 3 requirements for online classes:
1) Its not a subject I care deeply about
2) Its not a class that is lab dependant (CompSci/Networking)
3) Its not a class with a large amount of class room discussion (Speech, Social issues in technology, Team Development)
That being said, my opinion of online classes is that you will only learn what you teach yourself in them.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
The above, informative, post covered general accreditation. In addition, there is accreditation in specific disciplines. The Accreditation Board for Engineering Technology, http://www.abet.org/ , does CS and EE. Their site has a list.
Accreditation is not required, and some excellent schools haven't bothered to get it. However, below the top 20 in the country, not having accreditation is a bad sign.
Disclaimer: I am an accredited accreditor.
I've been interested in Applied Math for some time, and have completed some courses at the local JC as a refresher to my BSCS. Attending Graduate School is very appealing, but I'm interested in math, Computational Science. Although I have an understanding employer, and family, there's no way I could attend traditional classes. I don't see why a math degree couldn't be done online, and there is one through Texas A&M University , but it's not exactly what I'm interested in. MIT has very nice OpenCourseware MIT OpenCourseWare | OCW Home, but it's not a degree granting program. Maybe some /.ers might know of others.
This statement; "given your talents as a coder and someone elses talent as a coder" means they are equal in this area and the only difference is the degree.
Assuming you really have some objective metric by which you can evaluate coding talent, then that seems (more or less) reasonable. I thought you meant you would dismiss the non degree holding candidate without any consideration at all, which is what I was saying would be pretty short-sighted.
I'm not impressed with "coders" who are able to assimilate programming languages but couldn't tell me the difference between a shell sort and a selection sort.
But that begs the question of whether the candidate with the degree is necessarily more informed in regards to things like algorithms, etc. I don't think that's an assumption that is valid. Just because one candidate has a degree doesn't mean they know more than the guy who doesn't. There are other avenues to gain that sort of knowledge, other than sitting in a classroom taking credit classes towards a degree.
I'll allow that, on average, a candidate with a degree is *likely* to be better educated than one who is not, which leads back to what I was saying before... if you want average, then plays the odds, avoid the extra time and expense of really probing the candidates deeply, and accept that. But if you want the cream of the crop, you have to consider that the guy with just a high-school diploma *might* be a guy who sits around and reads Knuth for giggles and could teach algorithms at a higher level than the average B.S. degree holder.
I would suggest that you should also consider motivation and interest... a guy who skated through his B.S. in computer science, barely passing, because he heard that "computers are where the money is" might be quickly surpassed by the high-school guy who loves computing like it's nobody's business and spends his every spare hour taking classes, reading, learning new stuff, etc. So that leads to asking if you're interested in hiring and developing great employees, or do you want somebody you can just drop in and treat like a human widget?
Does this mean I should hire the high school dropout because he might be the next Bill Gates?
Not at all... I'm just saying that if you want "the best" you have to "leave no stone unturned," so to speak. So that means bringing the high-school guy in, interviewing him thoroughly, maybe testing him, and actually making an effort to determine if he's for real, instead of just dismissing him out of hand. Maybe 9 times out of 10 you will decide not to hire the guy... but that 1 guy in 10 (or 1 in 50 or 1 in 100, whatever) might just be a damn fine addition to your company.
It takes much more than "coding" to be hiring material and I despise cleaning up after them.
I agree, but I get the impression that that statement still reflects your assumption that somebody without a degree is "just a coder" and is necessarily inferior to someone with a degree. And again, I don't that that is always true.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Getting a degree online versus going to a campus for the immersed program, is kind of like getting married without then moving in with your partner.
There is something about being on campus, with other students, seeing the professors eye to eye, fitting everything into your schedule somehow, and deciding what you going to not do when the platter is too full.
That is part of the education, which an online degree cannot touch.
I think that is why people don't take such degrees very seriously, and if anything consider it corny and unprofessional.
Just as you would consider it odd that someone would get married and not then live together. It kind of comes with the package.
Tomorrow's news yesterday -- the bleeding, visionary edge.
"I spent an average of 5 hours every weeknight and 7 hours on weekends working on the assignments and tasks."
Really? I spent MAYBE 5 hours per week on the 3 classes I talk. And that included group time. A, B+ A-.
Guess what happened when I tried to transfer those 3 MBA classes to a state college. I was informed that no UoP classes transfer into a real MBA program because UoP is not accreditated by a respectable body (AACSB). Check into it yourself if you don't believe me.
Now, can you guess what kind of respect I show to UoP resumes that hit my desk?
"talk" = took
I have a friend who has this plan just to pay someone else to take online courses for a degree. He also said his uncle used to pay people to write papers for him. Kinda annoys me as I worked really hard to get my education. I think even an online class should have some sort of test at the end where you have to show up with a photo id.
Online degrees are an excellent 'fall back' position if there are limits on time and money, but the difference is that online provides training. A degree from a reasonable institution provides an education - a more rounded individual that is more literate and aware of the world. Working as a software manager in the US (but not an American) it is always surprising how many degreed people are actually uneducated. By that I mean have a very one track view of their profession. Having said that such people by and large provide excellent workers. Again one is generalizing - there are plenty of exceptions, but by and large people who can mange well and can think outside the box have usually come from a reputable school. In the final analysis though it is up to you.
Maybe before you think about college you should go back to the 3rd grade, Skippy, and get a refresher on some basic grammar usage...
Once upon a time, in a previous life, I worked as a head hunter. At that time we would get people who had a degree from a correspondence course college, this was before on-line classes. We could NEVER place them. They knew their stuff, but the wrong university on the paper was killing them in the marketplace.
I'm betting what your parent was talking about was a class about government - what might be called "social studies" or "civics", but incorporating many of the specifics of a specific government, in this case Florida. Which is all but useless to someone who doesn't live in Florida, and it's a pity it can't be exchanged for a "government class" in their home state (country?)