What would be a good alternative to a Computer Science Degree?

Hello, I graduated from a 4-year university back in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration; Information Systems. And after going through 4 years of a job rut, I’ve been thinking of going back to school to follow my childhood dreams of developing video games. When I was still an undergraduate in college, I was originally working toward a Computer Science degree but due to personal issues, I switched over to Business. Now that I’m older and am in a much better state of mind, I want to return to school and get a second bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. The problem though is that a lot of the colleges near me aren’t offering Computer Science as a second bachelor’s program because the major is so impacted. And another issue is the lack of financial aid that I’ll receive because I already have a bachelor’s degree. My plan is to enroll in my local community college this year and get my associates in Math and Computer Science (consisting of classes in Physics, Linear Algebra, Multivariable Calculus, C++ Programming), then next year I would like to transfer to a 4-year university to get my bachelor’s in Computer Science, but due to the lack of financial aid and second bachelor’s programs, I may not be able to do this.

I have considered going to coding bootcamps after community college instead of transferring to a 4-year university, but is it realistic to find a job in the video game industry after graduating from a coding bootcamp? I’d assume that a Computer Science degree would look more competitive and more well rounded since there’s more to Computer Science than just coding right? Would it also be realistic to get a job in the video games industry with a bachelor’s in Business and two associates in Computer Science and Mathematics alone? Thank you for your time.

Job prospects depend a lot on location and willingness to move. Where are you?

I’m currently in Southern California - Riverside.

Well at least it’s a good area for CS jobs. What about a Master’s degree in analytics or data science? Those are also full at the BS level but it’s not hard to get into the professional master’s programs.

Wouldn’t I need a bachelor’s in those fields before I could get a masters though?

I would recommend pursuing a masters degree instead of going for a second bachelors degree.

And no, you do not need a bachelors in computer science in order to pursue a masters degree in it.

Take for example the M.S. in Computer Science offered by Johns Hopkins University’s online (https://ep.jhu.edu/programs-and-courses/programs/computer-science)

Their prior education requirements are: 1 year of calculus, a math course beyond calculus, a programming course using Java or C++, a course on data structures, and a course in computer organization. If the bachelors you completed is lacking some of these requirements, you could just take those classes you need, then apply to the masters program. That would be a lot less time-consuming then pursuing a second bachelors, I would imagine. And it would provide you with a graduate degree.

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I have to ask…if your business degree has an IT specialty, why not find a job in IT and start that way? Surely you had to learn some programming for the IT specialty.

@ordinarylives Yeah, I was thinking about looking for an IT job too after I get an associates in Math and CS at community college next year. I think I used a bit of SQL in one of my university classes back in 2015, but I don’t remember anything from it now.