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Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the cheapest path to a degree in the United States is to: 1. make sure your local state university offers cheap

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the cheapest path to a degree in the United States is to: 1. make sure your local state university offers cheap tuition to residents 2. make sure they accept credit transfers from community colleges, get it in writing 3. do 1-2 years in community college 4. transfer those to the state university and do the final years there at the cheaper tuition rate You'd then exit with a solid computer science degree on the cheap. Speaking as someone from outside the USA most of the state universities are highly regarded. Another option might be a BSc in Computing and Information Systems (does this count as CS to purists? does that matter if you aren't going on to higher studies?) from the University of London, Goldsmiths in this case, for just under 5000 pounds.[1] However if your experience in the local small college was miserable you have to be brutally honest with yourself about what the real reasons were for not completing there as they will likely apply to anything you do elsewhere. The lowest risk option in that case is to perhaps take some uncredited core CS curriculum from OpenCourseWare, Coursera, Udacity and edX over 2014 and just see how you go. Then, if it works out, you will then be in a position to blitz a credited distance, community/state or online option that might arise in 2015+. The risk, at least in terms of "money on the line", of the community college moving to state university option is fairly low as well. Finally, as someone with graduate degrees and who is working on a PhD in a different discipline to CompSci, I'd say you shouldn't get too caught up in worrying about degrees if it doesn't match up with you personally. There are reasonable, although often smaller than claimed or imagined, financial and personal benefits from doing a degree though and you should take another shot, or two, at it to make sure it's not for you (so long as the risk is low regarding debt, there is virtually no risk in watching lectures and reading textbooks as the time spent won't be wasted). [1]http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/goldsmiths/bsc-computing-information-systems-bsc-diploma-work-entry-route http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/g... The courses seem perhaps a tad dry but it seems to cover the core mathematics, statistics, databases, algorithms and has some nice looking electives.

rfnslyr 13y ago
However if your experience in the local small college was miserable you have to be brutally honest with yourself about what the real reasons were for not completing there as they will likely apply to anything you do elsewhere. It was low level introductory programming like basic C, PHP, navigating the UNIX filesystem, writing bash scripts, some simple database work. It's stuff I've already done before and didn't find challenging, wasn't worth it. I'm not in the States and England is out of the question as well.
- jkldotio 13y ago
  Well the UoL one is done by distance and is theoretically open to anyone who can make it to their exam centers (~30 across Canada), not just those resident in the UK. Or you could take the foundations of comp sci from edX[1] and/or the credited Coursera courses[2](you won't be getting a CS degree without at least a reasonable amount of maths and stats) with a view to 1) completing a degree mostly that way over the next few years as more like them become available with a finishing year or two somewhere that accepts the credits, or 2) using just a few of those courses and a reference/letter to gain mature entry to UoT (bypassing highschool requirements) or something like that with the understanding being that if you can motivate yourself to complete them, then you will be able to complete UoT and it will therefore be worth the money in increased earning capacity. [1]https://www.edx.org/xseries https://www.edx.org/xseries [2]http://blog.coursera.org/post/42486198362/five-courses-receive-college-credit-recommendations http://blog.coursera.org/post/42486198362/five-courses-recei...
  - rfnslyr 13y ago
    Oh awesome, UoL sounds like a potential option then. Thanks.
akulbe 13y ago
There is an even cheaper way to do it, that I'm AMAZED doesn't get more attention. Credit by exam. The two options I used, that covered one year of school for me, in about 4 months... CLEP and DANTES. CLEP - http://clep.collegeboard.org http://clep.collegeboard.org DANTES - http://getcollegecredit.com http://getcollegecredit.com the tl;dr version: take exam on $SUBJECT, pass exam, get credit. The fine print: a. the exams cost money, typically $100 - 150 b. there is typically a limit on how many credit-by-exam credits a receiving institution will accept (for me, it was 30 semester hours, or 1 year's worth) - for how many and which credits you can get - you need to research with the receiving institution!!! c. Usually, these are NOT easy exams, but the margin for passing exams varies, but typically it's a ridiculously low margin, like 50-60%. I guess the rationale is that the average college student retains only 50-60% of the material they were taught, at best. (my conjecture, not fact!) TOTALLY doable!!!
- hmsimha 13y ago
  This is great, and something I looked into when I was pursuing my bachelors, but it's important to note this is something ONLY worth considering after finishing a relevant udacity/mit course, and then making sure the syllabus matches up with that of the local university's teacher's that will be administering the exam. Also, at my school, which was a mediocre local university, I believe you still needed 70% to pass an examination for accreditation.

rfnslyr 13y ago

However if your experience in the local small college was miserable you have to be brutally honest with yourself about what the real reasons were for not completing there as they will likely apply to anything you do elsewhere. It was low level introductory programming like basic C, PHP, navigating the UNIX filesystem, writing bash scripts, some simple database work. It's stuff I've already done before and didn't find challenging, wasn't worth it. I'm not in the States and England is out of the question as well.

jkldotio 13y ago
Well the UoL one is done by distance and is theoretically open to anyone who can make it to their exam centers (~30 across Canada), not just those resident in the UK. Or you could take the foundations of comp sci from edX[1] and/or the credited Coursera courses[2](you won't be getting a CS degree without at least a reasonable amount of maths and stats) with a view to 1) completing a degree mostly that way over the next few years as more like them become available with a finishing year or two somewhere that accepts the credits, or 2) using just a few of those courses and a reference/letter to gain mature entry to UoT (bypassing highschool requirements) or something like that with the understanding being that if you can motivate yourself to complete them, then you will be able to complete UoT and it will therefore be worth the money in increased earning capacity. [1]https://www.edx.org/xseries https://www.edx.org/xseries [2]http://blog.coursera.org/post/42486198362/five-courses-receive-college-credit-recommendations http://blog.coursera.org/post/42486198362/five-courses-recei...
- rfnslyr 13y ago
  Oh awesome, UoL sounds like a potential option then. Thanks.

akulbe 13y ago

There is an even cheaper way to do it, that I'm AMAZED doesn't get more attention. Credit by exam. The two options I used, that covered one year of school for me, in about 4 months... CLEP and DANTES. CLEP - http://clep.collegeboard.org http://clep.collegeboard.org DANTES - http://getcollegecredit.com http://getcollegecredit.com the tl;dr version: take exam on $SUBJECT, pass exam, get credit. The fine print: a. the exams cost money, typically $100 - 150 b. there is typically a limit on how many credit-by-exam credits a receiving institution will accept (for me, it was 30 semester hours, or 1 year's worth) - for how many and which credits you can get - you need to research with the receiving institution!!! c. Usually, these are NOT easy exams, but the margin for passing exams varies, but typically it's a ridiculously low margin, like 50-60%. I guess the rationale is that the average college student retains only 50-60% of the material they were taught, at best. (my conjecture, not fact!) TOTALLY doable!!!

hmsimha 13y ago
This is great, and something I looked into when I was pursuing my bachelors, but it's important to note this is something ONLY worth considering after finishing a relevant udacity/mit course, and then making sure the syllabus matches up with that of the local university's teacher's that will be administering the exam. Also, at my school, which was a mediocre local university, I believe you still needed 70% to pass an examination for accreditation.