From MRes in Cancer Sciences to another MSc... in Computer Science? Help!!

Hi everyone,

I am a graduate with a science background (BSc and MRes in life sciences) but I have a new found passion for programming and I think in combination with my science background it would really help me establish a fulfilling career within science and tech.

My question is ... should I pursue an MSc in Computer Science or should I just stick to the online courses on Udemy, Codecademy etc.? I really have no interest in doing a PhD in cancer genomics/bioinformatics though it did appeal to me once upon a time.

Thanks for your help!

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 1

winterscoming

19

There's loads of good material online which you can use to learn a lot of the concepts - if you're motivated, you can turn yourself into a competent programmer without studying it at university using those kinds of online courses. There's a vast amount of information and help available online - particularly StackOverflow if you get stuck with specific programming/code problems.

There are advantages of doing it at university
- You're on a structured course with direct face-to-face contact with lecturers.
- You can join a course which involves a "sandwich" year placement where you'll get real-world commercial experience.

The downsides are that you won't get to choose the pace of the course, and you will rack up a lot of extra student debt. Given the vast sums of money involved, you might think about taking out an "adult learning" loan and join a course run by a private company instead - it still won't be cheap, but it will take less time. For example - http://www.makersacademy.com/

Since you already have a degree in a science background, you're already more likely to be treated more seriously by employers - i.e. you have proven you can study and teach yourself new things. Having a second degree in computer science will of course be more relevant, but if you can demonstrate programming compentency (e.g. with a personal project and be able to answer technical programming questions in an interview), then employers are going to care more about your technical ability than whether or not you happen to have a computing degree.

Also, In case you haven't seen these:
https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-computer-science-mitx-6-00-1x-11
https://developers.google.com/edu/python/

Reply 2

Hazel92

OP

10

Original post by winterscoming

There's loads of good material online which you can use to learn a lot of the concepts - if you're motivated, you can turn yourself into a competent programmer without studying it at university using those kinds of online courses. There's a vast amount of information and help available online - particularly StackOverflow if you get stuck with specific programming/code problems.

There are advantages of doing it at university
- You're on a structured course with direct face-to-face contact with lecturers.
- You can join a course which involves a "sandwich" year placement where you'll get real-world commercial experience.

The downsides are that you won't get to choose the pace of the course, and you will rack up a lot of extra student debt. Given the vast sums of money involved, you might think about taking out an "adult learning" loan and join a course run by a private company instead - it still won't be cheap, but it will take less time. For example - http://www.makersacademy.com/

Since you already have a degree in a science background, you're already more likely to be treated more seriously by employers - i.e. you have proven you can study and teach yourself new things. Having a second degree in computer science will of course be more relevant, but if you can demonstrate programming compentency (e.g. with a personal project and be able to answer technical programming questions in an interview), then employers are going to care more about your technical ability than whether or not you happen to have a computing degree.

Also, In case you haven't seen these:
https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-computer-science-mitx-6-00-1x-11
https://developers.google.com/edu/python/

This is awesome! Thank you so much! Any other tips will be hugely welcomed :smile:

Reply 3

Hazel92

OP

10

Original post by winterscoming

There's loads of good material online which you can use to learn a lot of the concepts - if you're motivated, you can turn yourself into a competent programmer without studying it at university using those kinds of online courses. There's a vast amount of information and help available online - particularly StackOverflow if you get stuck with specific programming/code problems.

There are advantages of doing it at university
- You're on a structured course with direct face-to-face contact with lecturers.
- You can join a course which involves a "sandwich" year placement where you'll get real-world commercial experience.

The downsides are that you won't get to choose the pace of the course, and you will rack up a lot of extra student debt. Given the vast sums of money involved, you might think about taking out an "adult learning" loan and join a course run by a private company instead - it still won't be cheap, but it will take less time. For example - http://www.makersacademy.com/

Since you already have a degree in a science background, you're already more likely to be treated more seriously by employers - i.e. you have proven you can study and teach yourself new things. Having a second degree in computer science will of course be more relevant, but if you can demonstrate programming compentency (e.g. with a personal project and be able to answer technical programming questions in an interview), then employers are going to care more about your technical ability than whether or not you happen to have a computing degree.

Also, In case you haven't seen these:
https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-computer-science-mitx-6-00-1x-11
https://developers.google.com/edu/python/

Just one question... do these courses qualify me to apply to software engineering or data analyst jobs for example?

Reply 4

winterscoming

19

Original post by Hazel92

Just one question... do these courses qualify me to apply to software engineering or data analyst jobs for example?

To be honest - plenty of people get programming jobs having no qualifications whatsoever - they did it by being the kinds of people who enjoy the subject, who are curious about computers and technology, and who spent a lot of time teaching themselves just by picking interesting projects and/or problems to solve - spending a lot of time trying to understand how other programmers "think", asking the right questions, reading tutorials, etc.

Companies looking for "Junior" or "graduate" programmers vary a lot - the one thing most of them have in common is that they're looking for people who will be able to do the job, are able to cope with understanding code, debugging code, writing good solutions, and learning new programming tools/languages - this is effectively the level that most Computing graduates are at as far as programming is concerned.

If you're sitting in a programming interview for a junior programming job, you should expect to answer questions on these kinds of topics:
- Talking through a reasonably-sized project you have worked on (i.e. something complex enough which you might spend 20-30 hours working on or longer, and shows off as many of your programming skills as possible)
- Being able to describe what different features of a programming language are used for and how they work
- Explaining Object Oriented programming concepts
- Showing your ability to analyse the 'flow' of some code written down on a bit of paper and tracing the steps to explain how it works
- Explaining how to write some kind of basic algorithm or data structure (e.g. sort/search through a list of data)
- Understanding of general logic and problem solving - particularly being able to take a large problem and break it down into smaller ones
- Demonstrating the ability to create well-structured, well-formatted code, sensible names, well-formatted, using the 'right' tools for the right problems.
- Knowing how to use basic programming tools like a debugger.
- Showing that you know how to solve common programming problems, such as reading/writing files, handling user input errors

All of these things are the kinds of things you can teach yourself, and many of them eventually get to you naturally as part of learning a programming language, writing code in that language, writing your own project, etc. The kinds of courses you're doing will eventually lead you to understand all of these things - they'll take time to all sink in - it IS a lot to learn about, and not everything will make sense the first time you try to understand it, but it is all doable, and perhaps not as difficult or overwhelming as you might think.

The google course is pretty good. The edX MIT course is a nice computer science intro too. There's really a lot of material for you to sink your teeth into, but most of the content of those is useful for learning how to think as a programmer, understand the basics, and pick up some essential problem solving skills.

(edited 6 years ago)

From MRes in Cancer Sciences to another MSc... in Computer Science? Help!!

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