<p>Hello, I have recently completed my 4 year undergraduate degree in Economics and have begun working in the financial industry as a entry level financial analyst for a corporation that I've interned for the past few years. Recently I have begun to ponder the question of which direction I should take for graduate school and (logically) my top choices initially were to pursue an MBA or to enroll into law school. I love working within the financial industry but also have become very interested in pursuing a graduate degree in computer science. So my question is do you all think that this would be a strange combination given my actual bachelors degree and my current field (as far as work experience is concerned)? Would any of you predict that I would struggle with it due to the lack of the basic knowledge that would have been taught on an undergrad level? Any info/feedback on this would of course be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>Thank You</p>
<p>I’m in a similar situation, although I’m pursuing an undergrad degree in CS and plan on a grad degree in economics. As far as the Ph.D. program goes for economics, mathematics courses are probably more than half of the entire program. Having my undergrad degree and mathematics courses, I am very well off, as I’d only need to take a few econ courses, if not only intermediate micro/macro.</p>
<p>In your case, I think it is much harder to just drop into a grad program in CS. First, as far as the requirements go to actually be qualified for admission, per se, a Ph.D. program, you still need to take courses in CS for the same reason I need to take courses in econ. [One</a> example](<a href=“http://www1.cs.ucr.edu/education/graduate/admissions/]One”>http://www1.cs.ucr.edu/education/graduate/admissions/) with the given [url=<a href=“http://student.engr.ucr.edu/majors/course_plans2011/ENCS.pdf]courses[/url”>http://student.engr.ucr.edu/majors/course_plans2011/ENCS.pdf]courses[/url</a>].</p>
<p>As you can see, and that is most likely a path to an undergrad degree, there are a ton of mathematics and CS courses involved. I don’t think skipping those would be possible, unless you can show equivalent candidacy with something extraordinary that portrays your skills, such as projects, work experience, interships, etc. </p>
<p>Some notes on the grad program itself: If you want the degree for the money, then this is not the right path. A bachelor’s is way more than enough for the job market, as the market mainly consists of software engineering jobs. If you want to teach or research, then yes. Other than that, not needed.</p>
<p>Ask yourself why you want to a get a masters in a Computer Science. If you are interested in real computer science and not just software engineering, go right ahead. </p>
<p>Degrees get interviews, but programming experience gets jobs so if you are interested in working as a software engineer I’d be looking into self-teaching yourself programming instead, maybe taking a class on data structures & algorithms at your community college once you have the basics down and getting a couple of internships.</p>
<p>Note that there are many people with degrees. If you don’t have one, then good luck.</p>