The Truth About Online Computer Science Degrees

Six months ago, I started down the path to getting a computer science degree as a self-taught software engineer. And I was really looking forward to that, but I've since changed my plans and I have dropped out of the computer science program. In this video, I'm going to share with you several reasons why I decided to no longer pursue a computer science degree, as well as what my plans are going forward. Now, a little bit of context on me, I am a self-taught software engineer. I currently work at Adobe, and for the longest time, I have wanted to go back and get a computer science degree. I finally made the commitment to do that because it looked like there's a good opportunity and path forward getting an online computer science degree through Thomas Edison State University, as well as leveraging some courses through the American Council on Education, also known as ACE Courses. Now, I'm at a point in my career where it's debatable how much actually having the degree is going to help me. Obviously, there are some companies that it would help with getting through the door, you know, but I do already have a history degree. And so that kind of checkmarks at least having like a bachelor's degree. But I wanted to go back and get a computer science degree because I've always wanted to and I've thought that if I could ever go back in time, I would totally get that instead of the history degree. And I wanted to kind of fill in any of the gaps that might be missing. I had to make the decision that it was time to actually, you know, cut those losses and that the opportunity costs of continuing down that path were going to lead me to miss out on other opportunities. Plus, I also learned a lot more about the online computer science degree path. And it wasn't as great as I had hoped. As a full-time working professional and being a husband and a father of five kids, I am super busy. So the opportunity to go and get an online computer science degree was really appealing. Now, by choosing to go down that path, I would automatically miss out on some of the benefits of getting a degree at a brick-and-mortar school. For example, there's a lot of opportunity to network and make connections and friendships that will carry on into the industry. One of the reasons that getting an online computer science degree was going to be doable for someone like me, who has a really busy schedule, working full-time, I'm a husband and a father of five kids, is that there were opportunities to kind of accelerate the program by leveraging some courses that are kind of go-at-your-own-pace through the American Council on Education. These are known as ACE courses, and there are several providers out there. The two that I was using was Sophia.org and Study.com. And then combining those with actually taking courses through Thomas Edison State University, that way I was going to be able to hopefully move through this and get the computer science degree within 12 months. I have a whole other video on those types of courses and my reviews on Study.com and Sophia.org, so if you're interested, you should check that out. But the thing that I discovered in taking those courses was that there were a couple of courses that I thought were really well put together, and I learned some information from them. But frankly, a lot of the courses just really didn't live up to my expectations of what a college course should be. And so that left me with looking at what other courses does Thomas Edison State University offer so that I could actually feel like I'm getting a good education, a good return on investment for the time that I was putting into it. And they offer a lot of different courses in a lot of technology-related fields, but it's actually quite narrow, the number of courses that will actually satisfy the computer science degree. Way more restrictive than I originally thought. This limited number of courses really adds a little bit more pressure to rely on those other ACE courses to fill in the gaps. That was really just not something that was appealing to me, and as I looked further into some of the courses that were offered at Thomas Edison State University, like the Artificial Intelligence course that I thought would be interesting, I came to learn that that was actually more like the history of AI and not so much anything that was going to be practical. And I was really struggling because I just feel like I was putting in a lot of time, but I really wasn't seeing a lot of value. Only a couple of those courses that I had taken had really taught me some new things that were really interesting, and some of them were interesting but just not even applicable to what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis. So that's something that I feel like if you're going to a brick-and-mortar school, you're likely to have a lot bigger catalog and selection of course offerings. Now, that doesn't mean they're going to be totally up-to-date with the current trends. There's a lot of courses that are still going to be behind, but I definitely feel like you'd have a ton more options of areas that you want to focus on and things that you could learn. Now, as I was taking these courses, the reality started to set in that it would take me another eight months to finish up this degree if I really pushed hard. And I would end up with that degree on paper, but I'm just really doubtful at the amount of education and value that I was going to get. And sometimes it's really difficult to give up on something that you're working on, you know, because there's the sunk cost fallacy where I put so much time in, I just want to keep going and want to keep going, and so I really had to kind of grapple with some of these emotions. But here is the reality of the situation. The world that we are living in right now is changing at a super fast pace when it comes to technology. Every day there are new tools and use cases for AI that are coming out, and things are moving rapidly. Now I would not have been able to really get very far into AI going through like Thomas Edison State University, and the information I would have learned would have been very outdated. So I could spend that eight months working on that degree and end up with the degree, but that would be eight months that I could not spend on my own as a self-taught learner learning more about AI, developing skills to be competitive in this changing market. And I really think that with how fast things are moving, that is going to be super critical to anyone who wants to continue on in this industry. Things are changing whether we like it or not, and I need to spend my time doing things that are either going to develop those skills or to develop other skills that I could leverage in the event that the economy changes and there aren't as nearly as many opportunities for growth as there have been up to this point. And that also kind of raises an interesting question then, because I've said in other videos, several videos in the past, that if I could go back in time, that I would get a computer science degree instead of a history degree. And I for sure would, if I was pursuing a computer science degree, want to go back to a brick and mortar school at this point. But with where things are right now, if I was actually starting today, I might actually consider other degrees, like maybe look into some place in the medical practice or some other field that's a little bit more hands-on. I would definitely be considering my options, because I wouldn't want to come into this blind and just assume that everything is going to be completely rosy. Now, I don't think all jobs are going away due to AI in the software development, software engineering industry. How easy is it going to be for people who are starting out to actually get the experience to really know how to architect systems and to leverage AI to build these systems, when they don't have the time to really develop experience through making mistakes and kind of figuring out what kinds of systems work, what kinds of systems don't, to be able to really know what it is that they want to build, and then to be able to go and validate what it is that these AI agents are actually building and the code that they are generating. So I definitely think there could be this void that starts to form where it just gets harder and harder to kind of jump from like a new software engineer to a more experienced one or even getting your foot in the door. Now, I don't know how soon this is all going to take place, but it has definitely informed my decision to not get a computer science degree right now. It's just not going to be worth it. I don't have the time to go back to a brick and mortar school or to pursue one of the other degree options out there that are online that are just going to be super time intensive. I'm going to be spending my time learning more about AI on my own and developing the skills and looking for opportunities to utilize those skills and to generate that experience to keep myself marketable in this changing industry. Now, if you're on this path to getting an online degree and you're interested in those sophia.org courses or the study.com courses, well, I made a video here where I do a review of each of those courses, the ones I like, the ones I didn't, what I learned from them, which ones I thought are worthy of college credit, which ones definitely should not get college credit. So you should definitely check that out. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next one. Lates.