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Are online CS degrees taken seriously?

2 points by zubr1768 ↗ HN
I'm a web developer who has been at it for over a decade. I have worked for startups and agencies as programmer and designer of both front and backend solutions, and have been maintaining a freelance business for about 7 years now. I have three BA degrees in humanities, including one in Music and another in Fine Art. I've never had a problem finding web-related work. Web development has given me the flexibility in life to pursue a variety of things, eventually to realize, happily, that doing this is actually my primary passion. However, I continuously see more job adverts - oftentimes the more interesting ones - requesting a BS in CS.

I respect this and can understand why a company would prefer a credentialed candidate for a job. At this point I would enjoy the process of working through a CS degree - there are some holes in my learning, especially in mathematics, that I would like to shore up, and I think that approaching a CS degree with my experience in tow would yield good results on many levels, as there is so much that I could learn and apply what I already know to. But at this point I don't want to spend the money, and living in a college atmosphere doesn't appeal to me either. All of what I currently know about programming I've gleaned from the web and on-the-job research. But now I'm wanting to push myself to a higher level; not necessarily only into a management position, but more as a person capable of executing great ideas.

I've seen a growing proliferation of online CS and IT degrees available from places like Western Governors. They can be completed from home and at a fraction of the cost of a regular 4-year university. Now I know that the education quality couldn't possibly be as good as what one might get at a place like Stanford (or?). But if I were to do this, it would be primarily as a means to an end.

What do you guys think - is it worthwhile wrt getting a great job (or better yet, to becoming a great programmer) to pursue a software development-related BS degree from an online university, or just a waste of time for someone who has been working in the field for a while already? I already have a hunch that it might be better to simply cherry-pick a few math courses at a local university or community college, and "follow my muse" along with my budget.

Would like to hear from anyone who has done it, or who differentiates between programmers at an HR level. Thanks.

5 comments

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phaus
As an online student, I've read many topics on various websites asking this same question. Most of the time the consensus is that most employers won't care where you graduated from as long as you can show them proof of your programming ability. Whether this is in the form of a portfolio or the result of acing a programming interview depends on the employer/interviewer.

An exception to this rule that I happen to know a little about is the government sector. If you want to work for the government, sometimes the particular position will require a degree, sometimes it won't. The good news is that for almost all government jobs, they don't care where you get your degree from as long as it is accredited by an institution recognized by the department of education.

While the government doesn't care about the particular type of accreditation, you should. There are two types of accreditation that matter in the United States, regional and national. While it might be counter intuitive, national accreditation is not the most prestigious. If you want to ensure that your degree will be accepted by pretty much any employer on the planet, you should get a regionally accredited degree. National accreditation is becoming more accepted, but unfortunately some employers look at national accreditation as "inferior." This attitude is even more prevalent in the education system itself, as most universities will not accept transfer credit from a school that is not regionally accredited.

My advice to you would be to find a regionally accredited, school with a good curriculum. There are many online schools so you should be able to find one that meets your requirements. Because you have obtained multiple degrees, and because you have a good amount of experience, you could probably even find an online school that will accept you directly into a master's program.

Disclaimer: I personally don't have a problem with nationally accredited schools. There are "diploma mills" that are regionally accredited so its ridiculous to claim that regional accreditation is better. There are also some nationally accredited schools that get a bad reputation even thought they can be just as good if not better than a regionally accredited school.

I went to an online school that was nationally accredited for about a semester, the classes were challenging and I felt that I worked hard for my grades. When I wanted to change my major, I couldn't find a regionally accredited school that would accept the credit.

zubr1768
I'm curious to know which online school you went to, why you chose it from other viable options (if there were/are any)?

Thanks for the input. I was not aware of the regional/national accreditation differences.

phaus
I'm currently going to the Florida Institute of Technology. Unfortunately, they don't have an online degree in Computer Science, so I am majoring in Computer Information Systems. One of the reason's I chose to go here is because it is regularly listed in the top 200 schools on the U.S. News website, so there wasn't really any question about it's legitimacy. That being said, there were lots of other schools that I could have just as easily ended up going to, and if I can't afford to finish once I get out of the military(we get a huge discount), I'll probably switch to a cheaper school with a Computer Science program.
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zubr1768
Hm yeah. As one who functions better as an entrepreneur than a subordinate/employee in a corporation, I'm thinking increasingly that it doesn't matter much what the ratings etc. of a school are any more. Thinking it's better to cherry pick knowledge from various sources without going further into debt and let my work speak for itself.

The only caveat is that with this path, while there is no ceiling to the amount of success, impact or satisfaction in life that one can have, some highly specialized fields requiring advanced academic knowledge would generally remain out of reach.