My plan to go from Civil Engineering BS to Comp Sci MS

College Majors Math/Computer Science Majors
1

<p>Where I am:
26 years old; Southern California,
2011 B.S. Civil Engineering
2.5 Years work experience in Civil Engineering,
Eligible for my Professional Engineering license exam in Spring 2014.</p>

<p>Problem is that I am BORED.</p>

<p>I enjoy being on the computer and solving complex equations for hours, but instead half of my work hours are spent driving and talking to plan-checkers and city officials.
So at first I decided to look around for another job, and I noticed a lot of engineering jobs required knowledge of Matlab, Python.
I started coding for fun just to see what it was about, and loved it! I am still very new to it and have very little experience, though.
I am now considering a career change to computer science. At first I looked at B.S. CS; but then was told by a few people I might as well just go straight for an M.S. since I meet most of the prerequisites.</p>

<p>Plan:
1) Take the GRE asap and apply to Universities before the November/December 2013 deadline.
2) Take computer science courses at the local community college in Winter 2013/Spring 2014
3) Learn Java (just to get a hang out CS); then transition into Python and Matlab.
4) Join a University CS MS Program.</p>

<p>Thoughts?</p>

<p>Questions:
1) Does it really matter what school I go to? My local University is not the best, but it is accredited. I am also considering UCSB, UCSD, Cal Poly Pomona & San Louis Obispo. Perhaps UCLA, though my GPA might not be good enough. I graduated with a GPA of 3.25, (3.09 Community college, 3.58 at my university)</p>

<p>2) How can I best prepare myself learning CS on my own, and jumping into a Masters CS Environment? (I want to be the best student I can be once I am in)</p>

<p>I am hoping that in the end, I either find a job fully concentrated in CS and programming; or that I may even work as a programmer/engineer for an engineering firm.</p>

2

<p>If you’re not interested in learning about computer science, per se, you could probably apply to plenty of programming jobs with a BS in engineering and be taken seriously. For competitive jobs in software development, learning the bare minimum to get into and scrape by in a MS program won’t be enough. Basically, I’d question the wisdom of doing MS CS: it’ll be too much for many jobs, and likely not enough for the rest.</p>

<p>(1) I wouldn’t worry too much about ABET at the graduate level.</p>

<p>(2) If you’re legitimately interested in reorienting your career towards professional software development, and getting a BS CS from an accredited or stellar program is off the table, you can consult ABET, ACM and IEEE curriculum recommendations and guidelines. Study the topics mentioned until you achieve the desired level of proficiency.</p>

<p>Just to get a job programming, you should be good to go.</p>

3

<p>Check this out:</p>

<p>[Introduction</a> to Computer Science and Programming | Electrical Engineering and Computer Science | MIT OpenCourseWare](<a href=“http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-00sc-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-spring-2011/index.htm]Introduction”>Introduction to Computer Science and Programming | Electrical Engineering and Computer Science | MIT OpenCourseWare)</p>

<p>There are a ton of great full courses put out for free by MIT, Stanford, Berkley, etc. </p>

<p>This one is a beginner course for people who have never programmed before and it uses python as the programming language. Perfect for you.</p>