Considering a career change (long post)

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>I'm a CE with 2 years of work experience. Mostly pure Civil Work (Survey, Grading, Drainage, Hydrology). I'm getting my PE in Spring 2014 and am already signed off on it.</p>

<p>For a lot of different reasons, I am stuck in SoCal.</p>

<p>I loved CE in college, but I realize now that I really enjoyed the theory and concepts involved with it - the actually work in office, construction, bureaucracy, plan permitting etc... is just very boring to me.</p>

<p>I have been looking for a new job, thinking perhaps my job is just not challenging enough, but it's been very difficult. Full time work does not allow me to take too much time off, and I spend hours applying and rarely get calls back.</p>

<p>Though things look bright on paper, I am not very happy with Civil Engineering; and I feel like it's just not recovering despite people saying it should. It's depressing that in 5-10 years I will get paid 70-80k; while other applied science majors seem to make that much right off the bat.</p>

<p>Anyways, I noticed a lot job requirements required coding. So I started coding for fun, and I really enjoy it. Now I am considering Comp Sci. Some people also suggested I go back to school and get a Structural M.S.; and a minor in Comp Sci.</p>

<p>Here are my choices:</p>

<p>1) If I go for a M.S. Structural; in two years I will have a MS Structural, PE, 4-5 years of work experience as a CE, and a B.S. Civil.; I have heard that an M.S. in Structural opens doors to other engineering fields outside construction - which I would LOVE to do.
Perhaps a minor in Comp Sci as well?</p>

<p>2) Get a M.S. MechE. It will be considerably more difficult considering I do not have my BS in MechE.</p>

<p>3) Go back to school and get a B.S. in Comp Sci. Full time. This decision will definitely cost me my job. I already have half the courses completed though, so it should take about 2 years. This will be a complete career change, but perhaps I could even use my engineering background to find work with it afterwards.</p>

<p>Thoughts?</p>

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<p>Why isn’t an M.S. in Comp Sci an option?</p>

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<p>M.S. in Structural might be worth it. Yes it does open doors to areas outside the civil field (because load and stress analysis is everywhere, at least theoretically), although it’s probably most useful in civil. You’ll need to be good with computers though, because of the calculations being done with software, although a lot of can be automated already or there’s software that does load/stress analysis automatically (just need a structural engineer to make sure the numbers are safe and correctly produced, and for setting up the problem).</p>

<p>Now if you find coding interesting, then structural engineering might open doors or at least a hobby even into algorithm development in stress analysis (if you have the time and an interest to study it, it gets quite deep into CS and applied math).</p>

<p>I wouldn’t go back for another BSc unless you’re serious about a field change, e.g. into computer software, and can afford the change.</p>

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<p>The M.S. in CS will require some extra coursework but only foundation CS courses because as a CE, the math is there. The OP may need to find special M.S. programs that are tailored to those without a CS background… although there are fewer of those programs around. Most of those “bridge” programs are masters in I.S./I.T., not CS.</p>

<p>Try to find a Masters in CS program that will offer the foundation courses within the graduate program and go from there. You may end up taking 39 or 42 credits than the usual 30 credits, but it can be done.</p>

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<p>Considering I have 0 classroom experience doing CS, I thought an MS CS was too far off the realm of possibilities. I will go to my college and speak to their department today!</p>

<p>Thank you.</p>

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<p>Can you take a few CS classes online and see how you like it? If they are basic classes that count for a degree then if you do go back in CS you would have a few classes already done</p>