7 ms·

I Satisfied My Passion for Software Dev and Open-Source by Doing a Part-Time PhD

140 points by izzym 10y ago

trentmb 10y ago
Barely related- I've been kind of curious about part time graduate studies- maybe at the masters level. I clowned around, partied in college. As a consequence I never made any lasting relationships with my professors, and had a fairly mediocre academic record. I did have a lot of fun in the 'intro to math research' course I got to take. So I've toyed with the idea of taking a class a semester, maybe as a non-degree student in an effort to shore up my now rusty mathematical skills and build rapport with professors whose work I find interesting. Even if it doesn't pan out, I get to study stuff I like and still have a solid job. EDIT- I guess I'm fishing for other people's experiences in part-time post-bacc studies.
- b_emery 10y ago
  Do it. My university has a path for this sort of thing. You usually have to pay the same tuition rate, but it's per unit, so it's less than a full time enrollment. I'm at UCSB, and it's called Extension here. I did this to help my grad application prior to enrolling. It really helped to a) show that I could do the work and b) get me excited about it and confirm my desire to enroll.
- slavik81 10y ago
  Sounds like me, though I went for full-time. Took a 4 month leave of absence. Signed up as an open studies student for the minimum number of courses required to count as full-time. Got all prereqs waived based on work experience. Rocked all my courses. Asked one of the professors to supervise my master's degree. Quit my job. Am now nearing the end of a full-time master's. (I will note that full-time study is expensive in terms of opportunity cost. In the end, I'll have spent a few years making a quarter of the income I otherwise would have.)
- Balgair 10y ago
  Go for it! However, make SURE that the class is worth taking. Get the contacts of students that went through the class to verify. Especially at the grad level, a lot of profs are only there for the research and the grad classes are even more of an afterthought than the undergrad ones.
- JoeDaDude 10y ago
  Do it. Your post sounds like me when I started. I have completed two MS degrees while working full time, and it is well known that I am neither brilliant nor a workaholic. I started as a non-degree student but promptly switched over after a class or two. By then the professors knew me and there was no issue getting admitted. Some classes will be better than others but all provide great mental stimulation that I find lacking in the corporate world. Even now, after taking several MOOC classes, I am contemplating a 3rd MS. PS: I wish I could do the PhD but part time programs are hard to come by. Also, it is much easier to get your employer to contribute towards your MS than a PhD.
- emmelaich 10y ago
  If you're happy learning with an certification of uncertain or zero(1) value then I can strongly recommend many Coursera(2) courses. 1. zero value to others 2. Udacity and others may be good too, I only have experience with Coursera
pnathan 10y ago
Looks like a UK PhD. Can't speak to that. But.... I did a part-time MS in the US at a relatively low-pressure school (I switched to part-time from full-time after looking at my loan level). I can confidently say that I don't wish anyone to have the experience of working all day, then coming home and working into the night on research, day after day, rabbit trail after rabbit trail. My work quality suffered dramatically between full and part time grad school. I would love to have a PhD sometime, but I simply don't have the ability to do what I would consider adequate research when I work part-time. edit: Oh yes. There's a collaborative environment when working in the halls of the academy. That is, IMO, an intangible and extremely valuable experience. It is not like undergrad in the US.
- boxy310 10y ago
  Tried to do a full-time PhD, dropped out due to crippling poverty and depression. Tried to do an evening MBA, dropped out for the exact reasons you stated. Only Master's program that actually gelled with me was a professional MA in a stats-based profession. My general stance is to not recommend a graduate program unless you're deeply passionate about the subject and you're willing to bear a significant amount of opportunity cost.
  - mathattack 10y ago
    I went full time to grad school because of the pain that I saw others go through when they went part-time at night. If you're just in it for the learning, you might as well leverage Coursera. Whether it's a Phd or professional masters, full time is only justified if you want the networking or mentoring.
    - tostitos1979 10y ago
      Industrial research in CS is in a very bad state. This makes faculty jobs even that more competitive. Honestly, as a professional researcher, I do not recommend a PhD for anyone at this point.
      - 10y ago
searine 10y ago
Part time PhD is interesting but probably very challenging. He seems to have completed it in 5-6 years, which is average for full-time PhD students, so my question is what got left out? His google scholar lists a conference abstract, and his thesis. No citations. His github projects have a total of 1 pull request. Now this isn't a personal attack on the author, just trying to tally what kind of productivity a "part-time" PhD produces. If I someone looking to hire a recent PhD. I'd look at what kind of work they authored (software/publications), and what kind of impact it's had. A PhD isn't just a line on resume, it's your statement of how useful you can be to the software/scientific community. If someone claiming a PhD title showed me 6 years of work with no meaningful impact. I'd be skeptical to say the least.
- chrisseaton 10y ago
  > He seems to have completed it in 5-6 years, which is average for full-time PhD students, so my question is what got left out? He did his PhD in the UK, where 3 years is the norm for full-time. UK PhDs are shorter for a number of reasons. First we specialise earlier - normally just three related subjects from age 16 - I specialised on computation, discrete maths and physics - and from your first day at university you will only study your major and no other subjects such as liberal arts requirements. Secondly, US students are still doing classes and exams while they're a PhD student. In the UK you are expected to be researching from the first day of your PhD and you don't do any classes or exams which take away time from your research. Thirdly, US students spend I believe a lot of time doing things like being a teaching assistant, which have nothing to do with their research. I only did a couple of hours of teaching during my whole PhD. It seems crazy to me to spend time doing work like grading undergraduates when you are supposed to be making perhaps the major research contribution of your life! Finally, I think there's a culture in the UK that you are released from your PhD as soon as you can show you can do it. So if you publish three top tier papers in two years then what else is there to prove?
  - argonaut 10y ago
    US CS PhD students only spend on average 2 semesters teaching (at Stanford/Berkeley/CMU, the requirement is roughly 2 terms of teaching, at MIT it's 1 term).
purerandomness 10y ago
I'm highly interested in how the author managed his time, distractions, studying, family, and keeping his motivation to continue to do this for this long amount of time. Are there any self-management techniques to be learned from this experience? Is it something you could teach someone else to develop as a trait?
- shioyama 10y ago
  "a family with two children (my 3rd child arrived after I started)" I'd wager a bet that he has a stay-at-home partner or maybe family filling in for the time he's spending on his PhD to help take care of the kids. Three kids + full-time work + all the chores of child-rearing do not leave time for a PhD.
gautamdivgi 10y ago
I did this too - a part-time PhD with a full-time s/w engg job. So its good to know there are more crazy folks like me. Essentially I took up my PhD in a topic that was statistical as opposed to what I was working on distributed systems/applications. It greatly helped broaden my horizons professionally. The writing experience you get doing journal & conference papers is excellent. Your analytical & critical thinking skills will get an immense boost and you will know how to critique, publish & communicate well. And when it is all done you will understand why some call a "worthless academic adventure" is one of the best things you should have undertaken years ago. To anyone on the sidelines - do it. Don't think, do it - there will be times when you think you can't and just have to quit. But have someone around who can support and kick u back in. I have an awesome wife who pitched for me every step of the way... Also have someone to provide you with the motivation to finish. I had an impatient 3 yr old :)
- izzym 10y ago
  It can be done, there are many people out there who did part-time PhDs in similar situations. Shame to see some claiming it can't be done or impossible!
stickydink 10y ago
I left my PhD position only a couple of months in, to take up a job offer at a startup half way across the planet. It was one of the toughest decisision I'd ever made, but I have no regrets. My rewards and experiences that came from that, have been without a doubt, incredible. But I do still yearn for academia. A part-time PhD is something that I've thought about often, but I've found it a little tough to find anything substantial on how one goes about getting started. It was such a smooth transition the first time around, I had a fully-funded position lined up before I finished my Masters. My educational background was in Physics. My Master's was in computational physics, but all my software knowledge was self-taught, from a young age. I would love to research getting into a Computer Science PhD, but I don't know where to start. Especially given the time since I was in my Masters, 6 years ago now, and being a different field, is it viable? Realistically, should I be looking at a part time CS MSc beforehand?
m4dc4pXXX 10y ago
I did a part-time master's in CS while working full time. I was able to take one course a term and it was really rewarding. I could dig into the material for each course without worrying about 2 or 3 other classes - really nice. I also wrote a thesis rather than just taking credits. It took me a lot longer (1.5 years start to finish on thesis), but it was immensely rewarding. I learned so much beyond my thesis + class topics - a lot more than I expected when I started out. Also helped that my employer paid for the whole thing! Never thought a part-time PhD was possible (US), but maybe its worth thinking about.
gravypod 10y ago
I know this might be a silly question but what exactly do you do in an academic research position? How do you choose a topic to look at? What do you study on this topic and what is the output supposed to look like? For someone who might eventually want to do a PhD in the space of software, I don't exactly know what you'd do. I normally just take a problem, and write software to fix it. How is the process changed when I want a degree from it? I'm assuming I can't just bring in a flash drive and say "Yea I did some reading and did some stuff, here is the implementation of my new X for the Linux kernel. It speeds things up by a factor of BIG_NUMBER."
- light_hue_1 10y ago
  > How is the process changed when I want a degree from it? When you understand the answer to this question you're well on your way to a PhD. The PhD is not about implementing something. Although an implementation is sometimes/often a part of it. The real problem is to read a lot, get a grasp on what people understand about a topic, think about it, and say something new and interesting. That might mean coming up with some new algorithm, or a cool observation that solves a problem, or a theorem, or an experiment on humans that shows something interesting, etc. Finding good questions, learning how to ask them in the right way, and how to squeeze out what's actually doable and important from them, that's the point of the PhD. When you can do that from beginning to end, you're ready to graduate. Historically, this was what a PhD thesis was. Your first end-to-end piece of research. As for the first few questions. That's why you have a PhD adviser. Someone who can help you pick your first few questions. Guide you on the path to getting answers, finding new questions, getting a handle on what's known, etc. My biggest advice is find a topic you're interested in, read a few papers about it (google scholar is your friend), find a few people that work on that topic, read 1 paper from each, and when you apply for grad school in their department say something meaningful about what they've done (don't suck up, we know and it doesn't impress anyone) and what you would do instead/in addition. When people pick grad students they like to know that the student they're picking is smart, motivated, and knows enough to say something interesting about their work. It sounds daunting but it's doable. Particularly if you do summer research while in undergrad or do a good masters thesis. Good luck!
superobserver 10y ago
It would be more preferable to get (e.g.) 12 degrees in a year and be done with it. Online schooling that has you take tests and gives you the degrees would be far and away more rewarding than getting hammered by years of invested time and a large debt. Unless you're the kind of personality that enjoys academia, don't bother.
- m4x 10y ago
  Online tests are a good way to maintain or solidify knowledge, but university degrees are definitely more rewarding for most people The most rewarding aspect of university study is the exposure to intelligent, educated people who are working on awesome projects. While I personally disliked many aspects of academia, the value of this community is hard to over state and it doesn't exist when you are taking online courses from your own home. I definitely don't believe people should leave work and go back to university in any but the most exceptional cases, however. If I were to take three years off for further study it would cost over $300,000 in lost income and course fees alone, and I don't even make that much compared to many HN readers.
- argonaut 10y ago
  A PhD should not put you in debt (if you don't have university/fellowship/RA funding you shouldn't be doing a PhD). The only cost is opportunity cost.
dvcrn 10y ago
Not a PhD but is a part-time undergrad possible as well? I'm a self learned software engineer and very happy with where I am but would really like to get a degree in math. On top of that I keep running into immigration / visa issues without a degree and got classified as "not educated enough" multiple times. I was able to offset the degree with certifications here in Asia but that doesn't seem to convince everyone. I come from Germany's 3-class school system and have a total of 10 years of school experience ("Realschule") + 3 years vocational school on top. Work experience is at 6 years now. Most universities don't even allow me enroll because my 3 years vocational school doesn't count as "normal school", that knocks me down to 10 years of education. My path to a math degree would be right now: 1. Go back to school for 2-3 years 2. Enroll 4 years in university 3. Think about further studies I don't mind the 4 years thing or longer part time, but having to put 2-3 years on top just so I am allowed to pay money / enroll seems ridiculous to me. Anyone by chance experience with this?
- L_Rahman 10y ago
  I don't have first hand experience - but in the US you'd be able to enroll into part-time undergrad via community colleges immediately.
- vram22 10y ago
  Checked out the UK's Open Univ and other distance learning options?
- barry-cotter 10y ago
  No one in the anglophone world will care that you don't have an Abitur. The UK's Open University has open admission. If you have the £5,000 for a full time course load for a year they'll let you in. Assuming three years of vocational school refers to Fachhochschule you would at the least be admitted straight into most computing degree's second or third year. Given your work experience you could probably get into some Master's degrees. Peterep down thread says he got into Oxford's Software Engineering Master's without a Bachelor's degree. His email is in his profile.
  - ldjb 10y ago
apatters 10y ago
Does anybody have any information on completing a computer science undergraduate degree in this manner? I'd like to do it but I don't know of any resources that rank the online programs of various schools. Is your physical presence required at some point?
- ldjb 10y ago
  Universities that offer part-time undergraduate courses have different ways of delivering them. Some have regular evening or weekend lectures, whereas others are mostly online. I'm studying Computing and IT with the UK's Open University. Module texts are sent through the post or are available online, and there are a mixture of online and face-to-face tutorials (which are optional but recommended). Depending on the student's module choice, however, they may be required to attend exams at an exam centre, or residential school. I'm not aware of any ranking, but if you are interested in taking a course that is mostly online, you might want to search for distance learning courses in your country of residence. Of course, it may also be possible to study a course offered by a university from another country. The Open University has students studying online from around the world, for instance.
lordnacho 10y ago
I'd love to do this. I think I might be in a position to do so soon, as I'm setting up some businesses to (cross fingers) generate me some income without the daily stress of staring at the markets. I'm interested in doing this in the UK, the south if I have to show up somewhere. It would be something that requires a lot of coding and contains a heavy statistical element. A friend of mine got a full time phd where he could basically sit on his computer all day and crunch numbers. His was in biology, so I doubt I have the qualifications, but my background is in Engineering (and economics). I also have considerably more coding experience than he had. Is there some resource where I can find some likely places to do this?
- ldjb 10y ago
  A lot of universities in the UK offer part-time PhDs. You might like to try visiting the websites of universities close to you to find out more information. There are postgraduate fairs around the country from time to time, which may be a good opportunity to speak to different university faculties. The Prospects website allows you to search for PhD courses. Here is a link to the search results for part-time PhDs in the "computer sciences and IT" category, but you can adjust the filters to narrow down the selection: https://www.prospects.ac.uk/postgraduate-courses-results?keyword=computer%20sciences%20and%20IT&course_hours=16511&qualifications=21368 https://www.prospects.ac.uk/postgraduate-courses-results?key...
reuven 10y ago
You can do a part-time PhD; I'm living proof of it. But that doesn't mean it's easy or recommended. I did it while married with two kids, and a third born in the middle. I effectively worked on it part time, because I was consulting at night and on weekends to make ends meet. After my four years of coursework, we returned to Israel; I flew to Chicago 3-4 times each year (at my own expense) to meet with my advisor and make some progress. These were extremely difficult years for me, and for my family. I was working extremely hard, sleeping very little, and making very slow progress in my research. Oh, and my advisor didn't know that I was working during my years on campus; if he had found out, he would have revoked my funding and/or have me thrown out of the program. My wife and children were very supportive in every way, and I appreciate that. They even agreed for me to go away for the entire summer to write my dissertation. (Which my advisor didn't even look at until six months later, but that's another issue.) I'm glad that the author feels good about doing a part-time PhD, but what I did to myself and my family isn't something that I wish upon anyone unless they really want a PhD. That said, I should note that I'm happy (and extremely proud) to have finished. By the skin of my teeth, perhaps, but I managed to do it.
- amelius 10y ago
  > You can do a part-time PhD That completely depends on the subject and on your expectations. A PhD is not very well-defined in terms of energy you have to invest, nor is it a good indication of intellectual capacity needed to complete it in a reasonable amount of time. PhD programs are just too different to say anything meaningful about these things. Also your supervisor plays an important role, which is usually another unknown variable.
  - mattkrause 10y ago
    It works really well if there's some synergy between your job and PhD. For example, a friend of mine is working at an R&Dish job while doing a PhD. His thesis is essentially an excuse to dive more deeply into the problems he's currently trying to solve during working hours. Everybody wins! Barring that, I think it's going to be difficult or impossible. My current (wet) lab would not consider a part-time PhD student. Most of the experiments we do are time-consuming and can't really be done piecemeal like that. Theoretical stuff works a bit better, but I think there is a lot to be said for being "around."
peteretep 10y ago
For anyone who wants to do a part-time MSc and can get to Oxford for 10x1 week periods over 4 years, I can recommend: http://softeng.ox.ac.uk/ http://softeng.ox.ac.uk/ I got admitted without an undergrad, although YMMV.
- sdiq 10y ago
  I saw this recently but wasn't sure whether they will admit me not being a resident of the UK. Is that possible? Also, like you, I do not have an undergrad degree but, still, got admitted to another UK based uni.
  - peteretep 10y ago
    There were several Americans flew in
    - sdiq 10y ago
      Thanks, good to know that.
- ahel 10y ago
  > The projected total cost of an MSc at 0% inflation is £26,540 (home/EU) or £31,140 (overseas). well...
izzym 10y ago
Very surprising that a few are passing judgement, although there is no thesis in the article!, how would someone judge without actually reading a thesis?

140 points by izzym 10y ago

Barely related- I've been kind of curious about part time graduate studies- maybe at the masters level. I clowned around, partied in college. As a consequence I never made any lasting relationships with my professors, and had a fairly mediocre academic record. I did have a lot of fun in the 'intro to math research' course I got to take. So I've toyed with the idea of taking a class a semester, maybe as a non-degree student in an effort to shore up my now rusty mathematical skills and build rapport with professors whose work I find interesting. Even if it doesn't pan out, I get to study stuff I like and still have a solid job. EDIT- I guess I'm fishing for other people's experiences in part-time post-bacc studies.

b_emery 10y ago
Do it. My university has a path for this sort of thing. You usually have to pay the same tuition rate, but it's per unit, so it's less than a full time enrollment. I'm at UCSB, and it's called Extension here. I did this to help my grad application prior to enrolling. It really helped to a) show that I could do the work and b) get me excited about it and confirm my desire to enroll.
slavik81 10y ago
Sounds like me, though I went for full-time. Took a 4 month leave of absence. Signed up as an open studies student for the minimum number of courses required to count as full-time. Got all prereqs waived based on work experience. Rocked all my courses. Asked one of the professors to supervise my master's degree. Quit my job. Am now nearing the end of a full-time master's. (I will note that full-time study is expensive in terms of opportunity cost. In the end, I'll have spent a few years making a quarter of the income I otherwise would have.)
Balgair 10y ago
Go for it! However, make SURE that the class is worth taking. Get the contacts of students that went through the class to verify. Especially at the grad level, a lot of profs are only there for the research and the grad classes are even more of an afterthought than the undergrad ones.
JoeDaDude 10y ago
Do it. Your post sounds like me when I started. I have completed two MS degrees while working full time, and it is well known that I am neither brilliant nor a workaholic. I started as a non-degree student but promptly switched over after a class or two. By then the professors knew me and there was no issue getting admitted. Some classes will be better than others but all provide great mental stimulation that I find lacking in the corporate world. Even now, after taking several MOOC classes, I am contemplating a 3rd MS. PS: I wish I could do the PhD but part time programs are hard to come by. Also, it is much easier to get your employer to contribute towards your MS than a PhD.
emmelaich 10y ago
If you're happy learning with an certification of uncertain or zero(1) value then I can strongly recommend many Coursera(2) courses. 1. zero value to others 2. Udacity and others may be good too, I only have experience with Coursera

pnathan 10y ago

Looks like a UK PhD. Can't speak to that. But.... I did a part-time MS in the US at a relatively low-pressure school (I switched to part-time from full-time after looking at my loan level). I can confidently say that I don't wish anyone to have the experience of working all day, then coming home and working into the night on research, day after day, rabbit trail after rabbit trail. My work quality suffered dramatically between full and part time grad school. I would love to have a PhD sometime, but I simply don't have the ability to do what I would consider adequate research when I work part-time. edit: Oh yes. There's a collaborative environment when working in the halls of the academy. That is, IMO, an intangible and extremely valuable experience. It is not like undergrad in the US.

boxy310 10y ago
Tried to do a full-time PhD, dropped out due to crippling poverty and depression. Tried to do an evening MBA, dropped out for the exact reasons you stated. Only Master's program that actually gelled with me was a professional MA in a stats-based profession. My general stance is to not recommend a graduate program unless you're deeply passionate about the subject and you're willing to bear a significant amount of opportunity cost.
- mathattack 10y ago
  I went full time to grad school because of the pain that I saw others go through when they went part-time at night. If you're just in it for the learning, you might as well leverage Coursera. Whether it's a Phd or professional masters, full time is only justified if you want the networking or mentoring.
  - tostitos1979 10y ago
    Industrial research in CS is in a very bad state. This makes faculty jobs even that more competitive. Honestly, as a professional researcher, I do not recommend a PhD for anyone at this point.
    - 10y ago

searine 10y ago

Part time PhD is interesting but probably very challenging. He seems to have completed it in 5-6 years, which is average for full-time PhD students, so my question is what got left out? His google scholar lists a conference abstract, and his thesis. No citations. His github projects have a total of 1 pull request. Now this isn't a personal attack on the author, just trying to tally what kind of productivity a "part-time" PhD produces. If I someone looking to hire a recent PhD. I'd look at what kind of work they authored (software/publications), and what kind of impact it's had. A PhD isn't just a line on resume, it's your statement of how useful you can be to the software/scientific community. If someone claiming a PhD title showed me 6 years of work with no meaningful impact. I'd be skeptical to say the least.

chrisseaton 10y ago
> He seems to have completed it in 5-6 years, which is average for full-time PhD students, so my question is what got left out? He did his PhD in the UK, where 3 years is the norm for full-time. UK PhDs are shorter for a number of reasons. First we specialise earlier - normally just three related subjects from age 16 - I specialised on computation, discrete maths and physics - and from your first day at university you will only study your major and no other subjects such as liberal arts requirements. Secondly, US students are still doing classes and exams while they're a PhD student. In the UK you are expected to be researching from the first day of your PhD and you don't do any classes or exams which take away time from your research. Thirdly, US students spend I believe a lot of time doing things like being a teaching assistant, which have nothing to do with their research. I only did a couple of hours of teaching during my whole PhD. It seems crazy to me to spend time doing work like grading undergraduates when you are supposed to be making perhaps the major research contribution of your life! Finally, I think there's a culture in the UK that you are released from your PhD as soon as you can show you can do it. So if you publish three top tier papers in two years then what else is there to prove?
- argonaut 10y ago
  US CS PhD students only spend on average 2 semesters teaching (at Stanford/Berkeley/CMU, the requirement is roughly 2 terms of teaching, at MIT it's 1 term).

purerandomness 10y ago

I'm highly interested in how the author managed his time, distractions, studying, family, and keeping his motivation to continue to do this for this long amount of time. Are there any self-management techniques to be learned from this experience? Is it something you could teach someone else to develop as a trait?

shioyama 10y ago
"a family with two children (my 3rd child arrived after I started)" I'd wager a bet that he has a stay-at-home partner or maybe family filling in for the time he's spending on his PhD to help take care of the kids. Three kids + full-time work + all the chores of child-rearing do not leave time for a PhD.

gautamdivgi 10y ago

I did this too - a part-time PhD with a full-time s/w engg job. So its good to know there are more crazy folks like me. Essentially I took up my PhD in a topic that was statistical as opposed to what I was working on distributed systems/applications. It greatly helped broaden my horizons professionally. The writing experience you get doing journal & conference papers is excellent. Your analytical & critical thinking skills will get an immense boost and you will know how to critique, publish & communicate well. And when it is all done you will understand why some call a "worthless academic adventure" is one of the best things you should have undertaken years ago. To anyone on the sidelines - do it. Don't think, do it - there will be times when you think you can't and just have to quit. But have someone around who can support and kick u back in. I have an awesome wife who pitched for me every step of the way... Also have someone to provide you with the motivation to finish. I had an impatient 3 yr old :)

izzym 10y ago
It can be done, there are many people out there who did part-time PhDs in similar situations. Shame to see some claiming it can't be done or impossible!

stickydink 10y ago

I left my PhD position only a couple of months in, to take up a job offer at a startup half way across the planet. It was one of the toughest decisision I'd ever made, but I have no regrets. My rewards and experiences that came from that, have been without a doubt, incredible. But I do still yearn for academia. A part-time PhD is something that I've thought about often, but I've found it a little tough to find anything substantial on how one goes about getting started. It was such a smooth transition the first time around, I had a fully-funded position lined up before I finished my Masters. My educational background was in Physics. My Master's was in computational physics, but all my software knowledge was self-taught, from a young age. I would love to research getting into a Computer Science PhD, but I don't know where to start. Especially given the time since I was in my Masters, 6 years ago now, and being a different field, is it viable? Realistically, should I be looking at a part time CS MSc beforehand?

m4dc4pXXX 10y ago

I did a part-time master's in CS while working full time. I was able to take one course a term and it was really rewarding. I could dig into the material for each course without worrying about 2 or 3 other classes - really nice. I also wrote a thesis rather than just taking credits. It took me a lot longer (1.5 years start to finish on thesis), but it was immensely rewarding. I learned so much beyond my thesis + class topics - a lot more than I expected when I started out. Also helped that my employer paid for the whole thing! Never thought a part-time PhD was possible (US), but maybe its worth thinking about.

gravypod 10y ago

I know this might be a silly question but what exactly do you do in an academic research position? How do you choose a topic to look at? What do you study on this topic and what is the output supposed to look like? For someone who might eventually want to do a PhD in the space of software, I don't exactly know what you'd do. I normally just take a problem, and write software to fix it. How is the process changed when I want a degree from it? I'm assuming I can't just bring in a flash drive and say "Yea I did some reading and did some stuff, here is the implementation of my new X for the Linux kernel. It speeds things up by a factor of BIG_NUMBER."

light_hue_1 10y ago
> How is the process changed when I want a degree from it? When you understand the answer to this question you're well on your way to a PhD. The PhD is not about implementing something. Although an implementation is sometimes/often a part of it. The real problem is to read a lot, get a grasp on what people understand about a topic, think about it, and say something new and interesting. That might mean coming up with some new algorithm, or a cool observation that solves a problem, or a theorem, or an experiment on humans that shows something interesting, etc. Finding good questions, learning how to ask them in the right way, and how to squeeze out what's actually doable and important from them, that's the point of the PhD. When you can do that from beginning to end, you're ready to graduate. Historically, this was what a PhD thesis was. Your first end-to-end piece of research. As for the first few questions. That's why you have a PhD adviser. Someone who can help you pick your first few questions. Guide you on the path to getting answers, finding new questions, getting a handle on what's known, etc. My biggest advice is find a topic you're interested in, read a few papers about it (google scholar is your friend), find a few people that work on that topic, read 1 paper from each, and when you apply for grad school in their department say something meaningful about what they've done (don't suck up, we know and it doesn't impress anyone) and what you would do instead/in addition. When people pick grad students they like to know that the student they're picking is smart, motivated, and knows enough to say something interesting about their work. It sounds daunting but it's doable. Particularly if you do summer research while in undergrad or do a good masters thesis. Good luck!

superobserver 10y ago

It would be more preferable to get (e.g.) 12 degrees in a year and be done with it. Online schooling that has you take tests and gives you the degrees would be far and away more rewarding than getting hammered by years of invested time and a large debt. Unless you're the kind of personality that enjoys academia, don't bother.

m4x 10y ago
Online tests are a good way to maintain or solidify knowledge, but university degrees are definitely more rewarding for most people The most rewarding aspect of university study is the exposure to intelligent, educated people who are working on awesome projects. While I personally disliked many aspects of academia, the value of this community is hard to over state and it doesn't exist when you are taking online courses from your own home. I definitely don't believe people should leave work and go back to university in any but the most exceptional cases, however. If I were to take three years off for further study it would cost over $300,000 in lost income and course fees alone, and I don't even make that much compared to many HN readers.
argonaut 10y ago
A PhD should not put you in debt (if you don't have university/fellowship/RA funding you shouldn't be doing a PhD). The only cost is opportunity cost.

dvcrn 10y ago

Not a PhD but is a part-time undergrad possible as well? I'm a self learned software engineer and very happy with where I am but would really like to get a degree in math. On top of that I keep running into immigration / visa issues without a degree and got classified as "not educated enough" multiple times. I was able to offset the degree with certifications here in Asia but that doesn't seem to convince everyone. I come from Germany's 3-class school system and have a total of 10 years of school experience ("Realschule") + 3 years vocational school on top. Work experience is at 6 years now. Most universities don't even allow me enroll because my 3 years vocational school doesn't count as "normal school", that knocks me down to 10 years of education. My path to a math degree would be right now: 1. Go back to school for 2-3 years 2. Enroll 4 years in university 3. Think about further studies I don't mind the 4 years thing or longer part time, but having to put 2-3 years on top just so I am allowed to pay money / enroll seems ridiculous to me. Anyone by chance experience with this?

L_Rahman 10y ago
I don't have first hand experience - but in the US you'd be able to enroll into part-time undergrad via community colleges immediately.
vram22 10y ago
Checked out the UK's Open Univ and other distance learning options?
barry-cotter 10y ago
No one in the anglophone world will care that you don't have an Abitur. The UK's Open University has open admission. If you have the £5,000 for a full time course load for a year they'll let you in. Assuming three years of vocational school refers to Fachhochschule you would at the least be admitted straight into most computing degree's second or third year. Given your work experience you could probably get into some Master's degrees. Peterep down thread says he got into Oxford's Software Engineering Master's without a Bachelor's degree. His email is in his profile.
- ldjb 10y ago

apatters 10y ago

Does anybody have any information on completing a computer science undergraduate degree in this manner? I'd like to do it but I don't know of any resources that rank the online programs of various schools. Is your physical presence required at some point?

ldjb 10y ago
Universities that offer part-time undergraduate courses have different ways of delivering them. Some have regular evening or weekend lectures, whereas others are mostly online. I'm studying Computing and IT with the UK's Open University. Module texts are sent through the post or are available online, and there are a mixture of online and face-to-face tutorials (which are optional but recommended). Depending on the student's module choice, however, they may be required to attend exams at an exam centre, or residential school. I'm not aware of any ranking, but if you are interested in taking a course that is mostly online, you might want to search for distance learning courses in your country of residence. Of course, it may also be possible to study a course offered by a university from another country. The Open University has students studying online from around the world, for instance.

lordnacho 10y ago

I'd love to do this. I think I might be in a position to do so soon, as I'm setting up some businesses to (cross fingers) generate me some income without the daily stress of staring at the markets. I'm interested in doing this in the UK, the south if I have to show up somewhere. It would be something that requires a lot of coding and contains a heavy statistical element. A friend of mine got a full time phd where he could basically sit on his computer all day and crunch numbers. His was in biology, so I doubt I have the qualifications, but my background is in Engineering (and economics). I also have considerably more coding experience than he had. Is there some resource where I can find some likely places to do this?

ldjb 10y ago
A lot of universities in the UK offer part-time PhDs. You might like to try visiting the websites of universities close to you to find out more information. There are postgraduate fairs around the country from time to time, which may be a good opportunity to speak to different university faculties. The Prospects website allows you to search for PhD courses. Here is a link to the search results for part-time PhDs in the "computer sciences and IT" category, but you can adjust the filters to narrow down the selection: https://www.prospects.ac.uk/postgraduate-courses-results?keyword=computer%20sciences%20and%20IT&course_hours=16511&qualifications=21368 https://www.prospects.ac.uk/postgraduate-courses-results?key...

reuven 10y ago

You can do a part-time PhD; I'm living proof of it. But that doesn't mean it's easy or recommended. I did it while married with two kids, and a third born in the middle. I effectively worked on it part time, because I was consulting at night and on weekends to make ends meet. After my four years of coursework, we returned to Israel; I flew to Chicago 3-4 times each year (at my own expense) to meet with my advisor and make some progress. These were extremely difficult years for me, and for my family. I was working extremely hard, sleeping very little, and making very slow progress in my research. Oh, and my advisor didn't know that I was working during my years on campus; if he had found out, he would have revoked my funding and/or have me thrown out of the program. My wife and children were very supportive in every way, and I appreciate that. They even agreed for me to go away for the entire summer to write my dissertation. (Which my advisor didn't even look at until six months later, but that's another issue.) I'm glad that the author feels good about doing a part-time PhD, but what I did to myself and my family isn't something that I wish upon anyone unless they really want a PhD. That said, I should note that I'm happy (and extremely proud) to have finished. By the skin of my teeth, perhaps, but I managed to do it.

amelius 10y ago
> You can do a part-time PhD That completely depends on the subject and on your expectations. A PhD is not very well-defined in terms of energy you have to invest, nor is it a good indication of intellectual capacity needed to complete it in a reasonable amount of time. PhD programs are just too different to say anything meaningful about these things. Also your supervisor plays an important role, which is usually another unknown variable.
- mattkrause 10y ago
  It works really well if there's some synergy between your job and PhD. For example, a friend of mine is working at an R&Dish job while doing a PhD. His thesis is essentially an excuse to dive more deeply into the problems he's currently trying to solve during working hours. Everybody wins! Barring that, I think it's going to be difficult or impossible. My current (wet) lab would not consider a part-time PhD student. Most of the experiments we do are time-consuming and can't really be done piecemeal like that. Theoretical stuff works a bit better, but I think there is a lot to be said for being "around."

peteretep 10y ago

For anyone who wants to do a part-time MSc and can get to Oxford for 10x1 week periods over 4 years, I can recommend: http://softeng.ox.ac.uk/ http://softeng.ox.ac.uk/ I got admitted without an undergrad, although YMMV.

sdiq 10y ago
I saw this recently but wasn't sure whether they will admit me not being a resident of the UK. Is that possible? Also, like you, I do not have an undergrad degree but, still, got admitted to another UK based uni.
- peteretep 10y ago
  There were several Americans flew in
  - sdiq 10y ago
    Thanks, good to know that.
ahel 10y ago
> The projected total cost of an MSc at 0% inflation is £26,540 (home/EU) or £31,140 (overseas). well...

izzym 10y ago

Very surprising that a few are passing judgement, although there is no thesis in the article!, how would someone judge without actually reading a thesis?