[sf-perl] McS worth it?

Daniel Lo woof at danlo.com
Wed Jul 23 18:03:48 PDT 2008


>>> My goals?  Hard to say, the top goal right now is finding the right
>>> "woman" before I'm over the hill, kids and the rest of that.
>>
>> Um... then forget about a CS degree.

> Good point.  Being in grad school is pretty antithetical to having a  
> life.  At least, this is true of Ph.D. programs; I'm not sure about McS.

The McS courses at Colorado State Univ. are meant for people who work, which is
why there isn't a research component to an McS.  The adviser who answered my
initial inquiry said that a lot of people like me fall into the McS category.  I
can do one course a semester until I finish all the classes.  I think the
duration would be 3 years or longer.  I'll be sure to check this out when I talk
to "sample" students the advisor sends me.

> And of course doing anything that's fun but not lucrative can make it
> harder to raise kids... depending.  Do you want to own a house in the  
> Bay Area?  Do you need to send them to private college and/or  
> secondary schools?  How many kids are we talking about?  These are big  
> lifestyle decisions, with lots of financial ramifications.  You might  
> actually want to sit down and talk to a financial advisor, or at least  
> run some rough numbers yourself.

I've talked with a financial advisor and I'm doing good.  As for kids that would
be somewhat chance + negotiation.  A home? no.  The bay area has a couple of
earthquake faults, so I don't believe buying a home is a good idea.

> PS:  I was going to write a long post dissuading you from going back  
> to school, but I see that your goal is not just to be a great  
> programmer and make money.  Your goal is to do cutting-edge research.   
> In that case, my advice doesn't really apply.

Well, it is not always cutting edge research.  Twitter, memcached, mysql, isn't
cutting edge research, but those projects made a significant impacted on the
community.  Growth is good :).

> Just some thoughts; I definitely don't have all the answers.  Good  
> luck on your quest!

:)

-daniel




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