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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

Reads like "travel and find meaning to my life" version 2.0.

You're currently doing something you dislike. You want to stop, go take a bunch of years out studying (something you previously hated), only to return almost exactly to where you started. The implied expectation being that you'll be happier when you get there...

See I don't get it. You're already employerable, a degree won't move the needle too much, just give you a debt boat-anchor meaning you'll less flexible going forward and less able to find the thing that makes you happy.

In general I think CS degrees are great. But in your case it seems needless and like you're repeating recent mistakes, like you want to check out for another few years while you discover yourself.

I'd strongly recommend you think extremely carefully before you indebted yourself to student loans. If this plain fails, you're stuck in those jobs you hate for tens of years while you pay it off.

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> Reads like "travel and find meaning to my life" version 2.0.

I don't expect to learn anything from that CS degree, or find meaning to my life. I would do it exclusively for the piece of paper. I would likely do it online, do the bare minimum work, and not network with other students/teachers at all.

> See I don't get it. You're already employerable, a degree won't move the needle too much, just give you a debt boat-anchor meaning you'll less flexible going forward and less able to find the thing that makes you happy.

I'm employable, but I don't get to be picky in what I work on. A lot of doors are (I think, I could be wrong) closed to me because of my lack of degree. There are not jobs I ever thought I would want (banking, government, management), but I can already feel that I might seek these things when I get older with a family and kids and a need for security.

> I'd strongly recommend you think extremely carefully before you indebted yourself to student loans. If this plain fails, you're stuck in those jobs you hate for tens of years while you pay it off.

What if I could get a degree in 3 years for $10,000? Would your advice still stand? This might actually be a possibility.

> What if I could get a degree in 3 years for $10,000? Would your advice still stand? This might actually be a possibility.

I suppose it makes the boat anchor smaller. I'm not really sure how you'd get a degree for $10K though.

I haven't paid any attention to BS degrees in a lot of years, but GA Tech offers their MSCS online for about 7k.

That’s $7k for 30 credit hours. A bachelors is on the order of 120-140 for CS. Even at the same $/hr rate, you’d be paying 4x the cost ($28k+).

That's a fair point. Generally grad credits are 2-4 times more than undergrad, though GA Tech is not adhering to that model.

Go abroad. Universities in some countries are free and education is on the same level. Maybe even better, because going abroad usually influences you in a positive way.

Look into University of London's degree[0] in CS. They allow you to take it from anywhere in the world.

[0] https://london.ac.uk/courses/computer-science

Completely agree.

My very real experience is a lack of a degree won't hold you back, a lack of passion will.

It definitely sounds like there's a deeper issue in play here...

I think I understand the sentiment here, but I don’t think it applies well to OP’s specific case. He mentions that he is considering the idea moving to the states. The bureaucratic machine doesn’t care about your passion. I’m from EU country and the wizard form on Canada’s immigration site ends abruptly after the step concerning my formal education.

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