<p>Just to give you a quick overview of myself, I'm in my late twenties, and already have a B.A. in Psychology from a CA state school. After working in the field, I ended up hating it and just worked regular office jobs for 4-5 years.</p>
<p>Here I am now, and I have been really into Programming for over a year, and feel this will be my career no matter what (I love doing it). I finished my first semester at a community college, and got all A's in my classes. First of all, I obviously knew about most UC's policy of students who already have a previous undergrad degree (most really good ones don't even want to consider accepting you, no matter what) before I started, but I still want to know if there would be any way around it. Would it be best to just transfer to a Ca State School, and then get a Masters in Computer Science at one of those elite schools (if I am so lucky to deserve it).</p>
<p>Don't get why they would want to penalize you for deciding you want to go a different direction, and work hard at it, but that's my situation, and I'm trying to see what the best move for me would be.</p>
<p>A more appropriate route for yourself would either to take a specific post-bac course for new entrants to computer. </p>
<p>Alternatively, there are majors that are in CS but specifically for career changers. The work is fast paced and challenging but the route is faster and cheaper than taking a second undergrad. Have a look into these.</p>
<p>Presuming that you take as many of the transferable lower division CS courses you can at local CCs (see [Welcome</a> to ASSIST](<a href=“http://www.assist.org%5DWelcome”>http://www.assist.org) to see which CCs have the best coverage of lower division CS courses at UCs and CSUs), your options are:</p>
<ol>
<li> Check to see which schools admit second bachelor’s degree students.</li>
<li> See if you can enroll in upper division CS courses at a UC or CSU as a non-degree students (this may mean being last on the registration priority list, so getting into normally full classes may be impossible).</li>
<li> Self-educate CS topics not available as courses at CCs. (Note that a CS career does require continuing self-education, although additional formal course work can build up more of a base to self-educate from.) If you are motivated, you can look here for courses to self-educate: [EECS</a> Course WEB Sites](<a href=“http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/classes-eecs.html]EECS”>CAS - Central Authentication Service)</li>
</ol>
<p>It is not necessary to attend a “top” school (or even complete a CS degree) to become employable in CS jobs, although entry level job recruiting can be affected by which school are at, and getting hired for the first job may be harder without a CS degree.</p>
<p>" I have been really into Programming for over a year, and feel this will be my career no matter what (I love doing it)." - What kind of programming have you been doing/liking?</p>
<p>@Colorado_mom - Mainly C/C++. I also know HTML/JavaScript/PHP, but I’m best at C/C++.</p>
<p>@ UCBAlmumnus - Thanks for the link. I’ve been previously just watching Berkeley’s video’s on YouTube. They are by far my favorite - I’m really loving Jonathan Shewchuk’s 61B class, which I’m watching to get familiarized with Java.</p>
<p>I was thinking about maybe just getting an associates degree in CS, and then maybe with C++/Java certifications, I could get a shot, but the goal is still to get a BS from the best university I can.</p>
<p>If you took any courses as an undergrad in cognitive or experimental psychology, you would do well to consider a grad degree in HCI (Human Computer Interaction) or CS with focus on interaction design, etc.</p>
<p>Why don’t you consider trying to get into a Masters program in CS. I know that my university accepts strong students from a variety of Bachelors degrees and basically requires them to take a CS boot-camp before the professional masters courses start. You could also prepare yourself by taking the post-bac courses as suggested above. The advantage over trying for a second Bachelors (which is usually not a great idea) is that you would be taking only CS courses that prepare you for the Masters.</p>
<p>@turbo93 Yes, I did take courses in Cognitive and Experimental Psychology. I suppose I could try and see how I could merge the two fields. I also worked with autistic children for a period of time, and volunteered at a school with students who had special needs. I was thinking about what I did, and how I could incorporate some of that into a phone/tablet app, once I learned Android/Objective-C.</p>
<p>@xraymancs Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll have to look into the requirements of the various masters programs, especially since by previous degree is not from a hard science, or math.</p>