I graduated!!!

[Jacob Roman]

Long time no see guys. But you are not gonna believe this. I finally graduated college with a Computer Science degree!!!




Just one problem....

....

....

....

....

... its an Associates degree

[Shaggy Hiker]

Is that bad? The degree plus your experience should serve you pretty well. What's your goal? Seems like you're well on your way to it, whatever it is.

[Jacob Roman]

Is that bad? The degree plus your experience should serve you pretty well. What's your goal? Seems like you're well on your way to it, whatever it is.

It'll be a long road but I'm hoping a doctorate. I'm gonna be 40 this year, so I see myself being a professor rather than a coder in 10 years. Well see what happens.

Also I changed my avatar :P

[Shaggy Hiker]

Professor!!!

That's an awesome goal.

[Steve R Jones]

Congrats

[techgnome]

... its an Associates degree

You say that like it's a bad thing... that's all I've got as well...

At any rate, well done and congratulations!

-tg

[Jacob Roman]

My transcripts have been updated



Just made it with a 3.78 GPA. Not bad.

[Niya]

Nice! Congratz!!

[Jacob Roman]

Dday9. Everytime I see your posts, I see a flea on my phone.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Was this all online? Did you have a ceremony (not just with friends and family)?

I remember my college graduation well.....or perhaps I should say that I remember a couple parts. One part was a mother walked past with some fancy camera that had an auto-winder. That was back in the days of film cameras, of course, and I could hear that shutter firing as she walked. Hope she had a roll of 36 exposures in there, that way, perhaps she had a few left she could take after blasting off a couple dozen, out of focus, shots of the pavement, which is where the camera was pointed.

The other thing I remember was that I almost got caught trying to break into the bell tower to replace the recorded bells with AC/DC's Hells Bells. I was in my gown and everything, and had to lie in the dust of a balcony, while a buddy of mine did an admirable job of playing dumb as to why he was up there when some admin people caught him. Never did get a chance to swap out the tape, but it would have been epic, had it been possible. The AC/DC version starts off with the tolling of that bell. Everybody would know right away that something wasn't right, but not all of them would have recognized what was coming until the guitar started.

[Niya]

I was in my gown

Errrr......what? lol

[Jacob Roman]

No it was not all online. Personally I hate online classes. Was forced to in some occasions due to the pandemic though. And what is really messed up is that my ceremony won't be until May 1st, 2022.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Errrr......what? lol

In the US, we wear some robes for graduation that look a whole lot like the dressing gowns of old, just with a different color. They're kind of pointless.

[dee-u]

Congratulations! Though, I wish to ask, what is so important in graduating college there in the US? Will it provide more opportunities?

[Shaggy Hiker]

If his goal is to become a professor, then the answer is definitely yes. That career path would not be open to him without degrees.

[dilettante]

I'm retired, but when I was still a working hiring manager a degree in anything was almost a requirement.

I used to think that was insane, but soon discovered that a 4 year degree is meant to replace the high school diploma of old. High schools have been dumbed down that much, mainly for political reasons. The hope is that getting through college makes up for a general lack of education.

[Jacob Roman]

Well guys I just walked the stage today and graduated again with a real Computer Science Bachelors of Science degree. Now what?

[sapator]

Jacob is graduating since I known him, lol.

What do you mean now what? Get a job you lazy fk!

[Arnoutdv]

Congratulations!

[FunkyDexter]

Now what?

Get a job ya' lazy good for nothing student.

And more importantly, congratulations.

[TysonLPrice]

Well guys I just walked the stage today and graduated again with a real Computer Science Bachelors of Science degree. Now what?

When I first started, mid-eighties, the toughest part was getting your foot in the door. Employers only wanted people with experience, but you had to get experience first. The technical program I attended ended with an internship. You almost always got hired at the company you interned with.

I just have an AA in business but have been programming for well over thirty years. But in those days an AA kept you out of management which was the next logical step for advancement. Now most places allow for technical advancement and managerial advancement.

Best of luck to you, I was thirty something when I started. It is never too late

[Shaggy Hiker]

I think you should start protesting something. It doesn't matter much what you protest, just protest. It's all the rage.

[Shaggy Hiker]

By the way, if you walked the stage in Florida, in late April, was the ceremony indoors?

[Peter Porter]

Congrats, Jacob!

Good luck at McDonald's!

[NTShpikho]

COBOL seems to be where the money's at if you're looking to be a corporate wageslave.

[Jacob Roman]

By the way, if you walked the stage in Florida, in late April, was the ceremony indoors?

Yes it was. How did you know? Also thanks everyone

Congrats, Jacob!

Good luck at McDonald's!

Very funny....

[FunkyDexter]

Employers only wanted people with experience, but you had to get experience first.

Yeah, that's an itinerant problem. My advice is, be willing to accept absolutely crap for the first year and then walk away into a decent role. It's all up from there.

I actually got my first couple of jobs by just phoning up every entry under "Software House" in the Yellow Pages (our equivalent of your business directory) and asking if they needed anyone. Both were 6 month stints and were pretty rubbish but after I had a year under my belt I was able to find work through the usual agency route and it was a brilliant job. I've never looked back.

[Peter Porter]

COBOL seems to be where the money's at if you're looking to be a corporate wageslave.

Corporate wage slave? Young COBOL programmers would be treated like Kings compared to programmers of other languages.

They'll have benefits up the ying-yang!

[Jacob Roman]

Just signed up for CodePath.org to help me out with Technical Interviews and Resume design and what not. Its a 10 week course that is free and can help me as a passionate developer get into the field for a change. I been coding as a hobby for far too long and probably have a good advantage as I been coding longer than most of these nerds have been alive

[Shaggy Hiker]

Are you still planning to go for the PhD?

It's not quite as lucrative (at least initially) as getting a paycheck, but it still seems right for you. Perhaps you can do both in that field.

[Jacob Roman]

Gonna land into a career first before jumping back into school. Plus I need a break. Was a living hell.

[KGComputers]

Congratulations Jacob!

[Shaggy Hiker]

Gonna land into a career first before jumping back into school. Plus I need a break. Was a living hell.

Well, yeah, it was undergrad. Actually, undergrad was a blast, but I was the same age as everybody else. Still, grad school is a totally different experience. I'm not sure that it would be the same for computer related fields, though it likely is, but grad school in many of the sciences is sufficiently cool that lots of people just don't leave. The guy on his 10th year of his PhD program is kind of a thing.

[wes4dbt]

Unless you got wealthy and generous parents, how do you pull off a 10yr PhD.

[Shaggy Hiker]

In the sciences, at least, you generally get paid by some means to go to grad school. This is either done as a teaching assistant or a graduate assistant. The former is paid for teaching some undergrad labs, which isn't really a great deal for anybody, while the latter means that somebody has a research grant and you are doing the work on that grant.

[wes4dbt]

In the sciences, at least, you generally get paid by some means to go to grad school. This is either done as a teaching assistant or a graduate assistant. The former is paid for teaching some undergrad labs, which isn't really a great deal for anybody, while the latter means that somebody has a research grant and you are doing the work on that grant.

Doesn't seem like either one of those would be enough to live on. But then again, college student have ways to live on the cheap.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Yeah, exactly that. Some grants can be pretty reasonable, in that they assume that the grant will require a certain amount of labor at fair market rates. Sure, grad students might work cheaper than the average person of similar skills, but it all comes down to how the grant is written. I worked for a guy who did the 10 year PhD plan (actually, it might have been 12). For much of that, I think he might have been paying himself twice thanks to a variety of grants. I'm not sure about that, and I'm not sure it was wrong anyways. I was getting roughly 25% raises annually, so I wasn't complaining. I left because I assumed that he would eventually finish his degree, at which point the job would end, and I never intended to stay in that area long term. I hear he has either just retired, or will in the next year, so...it never did end.

[Jacob Roman]

My wife says I should get a masters before I even think of getting a PhD as it seems to be more valuable for the work force. The PhD is just an option for when I get too old for code I can at least teach it at colleges.

[wes4dbt]

Getting a Masters usually comes before getting a PhD. Though I don't know if it's always mandatory.

Have you ever had a full time programming job? If not, you might want to see what that's like before making other long term decisions. Nowadays there are many online options for continuing your education.

Then again, if your in a financial situation which allows you to just go to school, that's a nice gig. But most of us eventually have to join the workforce.

[Shaggy Hiker]

My wife says I should get a masters before I even think of getting a PhD as it seems to be more valuable for the work force. The PhD is just an option for when I get too old for code I can at least teach it at colleges.

That's good advice. I don't know how well it applies to computer science, but when I was in school in Biology, it was pretty clear that a masters opens a lot of doors, while a PhD then closes many of them since you become overqualified for the fun stuff. In computer science, though, I feel that there are lots of fun jobs in AI that a PhD would be well suited for.