I am in my mid 40’s and looking for suggestions.
I was going to go for a Information Assurance/Cyber Defense AAS degree in January.
I was hoping to keep my option open IF I wanted to continue for a Bachelor’s but I guess it is not as easy as it should be. (Get AAS degree and upgrade later if I continued). I can go for the AAS or AS if I wanted to transfer to a different school to continue. I will be seeking work ASAP so I believe the AAS might be better for my situation as it seems like salary wise AAS is usually more than an AS degree.
I wanted to see if this makes sense to most of you, or?!?
I was also thinking after the 2 year Information Assurance/Cyber Defense if I take 4 more courses I would complete all the courses for Networking BUT what good will that do? If I did that will I get the networking degree or?
The best idea would be to research job openings in the field you’re trying to get into and see what kind of stuff they’re looking for (degree, job experience, skills, pay rate, hours…). Some degrees can get you very high paying jobs, but how readily available are they? You need to be realistic and find a degree with high job openings and a good prospect for the future.
I know from looking for a while myself that most comp sci jobs are looking for someone with 1-2 years experience and knowledge of a specific coding environment and tools, for an entry level job, and are mostly full time, some in NYC usually require a bachelors. So no matter how much schooling you have you need to be able to find or make work for yourself before getting a job. They pretty much all require experience unless it’s a paid internship
Getting the associates before bachelors would be the best decision because then you can test the waters after the associates without racking up massive debt. Some community colleges actually offer direct transfer into some 4 year schools so you’ll save two years off of 4 year school prices. Some even offer extra credits towards 4 year degrees so you’ll save a ton doing community college first.
If you end up getting a bachelors then it’ll get rid of your CC GPA pretty much and just apply the credits so don’t worry so much about your GPA if you know you’ll wanna go for the BS in CS.