I am sooooo confused...

[Dave NoCal]

Danny,
sdbg is correct. To graduate from the CSU system, and presumabley the UC system, you have to have your general education requirements completed. In some instances, you have to have them completed to go into a bachelor's degree sequence. It's much less expensive to take GE in community college and, I'm pretty sure, since the CSU general ed requirements are the same statewide, your community college credits should be fully transferable.
It can be frustrating to have to do the general ed stuff when you want to get moving on your plans but it can convey real benefits to you in terms of adding to your general fund of knowledge, understanding a variety of perspectives, building your academic skills, and exposing you to possibilites you didn't know existed.
My recommendation is to use the time needed to meet the residency requirements to prepare for being able to carry it through. As a young guy without family or career responsibilities, it is more feasible to make a plan to attend full time. Otherwise, it take FOREVER.
In my case, when I decided to go to graduate school, I figured out that the best way I knew of to make money working part-time was to wait tables at a medium-fancy resaurant. I went to school Monday through Thursday and then did Friday lunch and dinner, Saturday lunch and dinner, Sunday lunch and dinner, then drove back about ninety miles to the smaller city where I was taking classes. Between shifts, I did homework sitting in the back bar. I lived in a $90.00 per month trailer at school and couch surfed the weekends. I ate about half of my meals at the restaurant. Doing this I was able to get reasonably good grades, graduate on time, and not borrow a dime.
Good luck in this. Plan carefully.
Dave

 

[Osiris]

My best piece of advice is get in with a good company that will give you tuition reimbursement or a company that will pay for your education. I know Microsoft will pay 100% especially if it benefits their business. My current company (Wyndham Vacation Ownership) will do tuition reimbursement.

Another good thing about going this route is that often the "counselor advised" courses are NOT what the company would rather. A lot of larger firms now would prefer you get your liberal arts as a major and minor in the job specific degree as they will choose to train you to their way of doing business rather than the textbook way of doing things.

It's all about culture in the corporate world today friend.

Let me know if I can be of soe help on company advice if you go this route.

 

[D_Martin van Burden]

Dude, thst sucks... getting throw curve balls, life making shit unnecessarily hard for absolutely no good reason. You remind me of my brother.

If I end up in California for graduate school, I'm supposed to touch down right away and start applying for residency. I have to sign a few declarations, get a California driver's license, and establish a California residence among other things. I think I get butt raped on tuition the first year, but after a year, I'm eligible for the cheaper rate. In my situation, it's probably best just to take out a loan for that first year and not worry about it. As long as you're in school so many credit hours, you don't have to pay it back; and if you're really scared of accumulating interest, then you could just make comfortable payments on your own. Honestly, don't let some bullshit stardards interrupt what you really want to do in life. It'll be worth it in the long run.

 

[DC_DEEP]

"Did you drive a car in Hawaii" is very different then "Did you drive one on a regular basis, and if so, did you have a Hawaii DL" or, "Did you establish residency". My LTR worked in CA for over 2 years, but his residency is in Oregon, based on the company he was working for. The question itself is misleading and not well put.

That could be a trick question, too, because it's assumed that he was not driving illegally, right? All 50 states require that you are licensed in the state in which you live (not in terms of, say, on a temp work assignment, but actually living there.) The grace period varies, with some a short as one month.

Life change is always hard. At least your only 30. I had a successful career in management in corporate BS America for 20 years, now I'm 44, just wanted to get out of that crap. Now I'm overqualified for the kind of jobs I'd prefer (I don't need the big bucks I was making, no one believes that).

At least you make it sound like it's your choice to get out. So many people who look down on homeless people don't realize it's always one of those "it could happen to you" situations. The guys in the middle in a "large corporation" are the ones who lose their jobs in a corporate "downsizing." They keep the upper-echelon cronies, and the bottom of the heap younger lower-paid folks, and get rid of the 30- and 40-somethings. There's a whole chapter that goes along with that. I was fortunate when that happened to me.

DJG, I can definitely empathize with you. I also wanted to go to medical school, but I just did not have the resources to keep jumping through the hoops they wanted me to jump through. The schools I applied to, at the time, didn't have specific undergrad "pre-med" requirements, but were changing their entrance criteria; so I went ahead and applied. Everything went quite well; I scored very highly on the MCAT, I had excellent recommendations, my interviews went beautifully. I didn't get accepted (which is not uncommon for a first attempt.)

During my exit interview with the registrar at one school, she had this perplexed look on her face, and she kept shuffing through my application packet. Then she looked at me, and said "I don't see this class, that class, and the other class on your college transcripts?" I replied, "No, I didn't take those."

"How in the world did you get that score on the MCAT?"

"Well, I guess with my background classes, and good reasoning skills, I was just able to answer the biochem questions..."

"Well, the problem is your transcripts. A couple of your English scores were obviously a problem"

"If you look at my transcript, and my work history, you'll notice I was carrying 18 hour classloads, and working 32 hours a week. I just simply did not have time to read all the assigned novels in those literature classes. All things considered, I think it's a pretty neat accomplishment to have graduted with a 3.8"

"You definitely should apply again. We need students of your caliber and ability."

"No, this was my one shot. From here on out, it's a rich kid's game, and I'm not rich."

"Oh, it's not a rich kid's game. Just go back and take Class X, Class Y, and Class Z, one at a time, and make A's in them. You'll have no problem getting accepted the next time."

"I have to support myself. I cannot get a student loan, because I make 'too much money' supporting myself. That whopping $20,000 I made last year, teaching, made sure I can get no financial aid. And I can't afford those classes on what I make now. Besides, I'll have to get another undergraduate degree before I apply again, since the school is changing its entrance requirements. Please think of me when you have a 15% dropout rate in this freshman class."

Sometimes, they just put you in no-win situations. I hope yours goes better than mine.

 

[snoozan]

The counselors have nothing to do with determining residency for tuition purposes. To show residency, you have to formally submit proof that you've been living in California continuously for a year. (Driver license, rent receipts, other receipts with your address, etc.)

This is what I meant, Jovial. I don't think the counselor was somehow trying to get information out of DJG for the purpose of charging him more but stumbled upon information while asking normal questions. My point was that there was nothing nefarious going on-- this is a normal part of going back to college.

If I end up in California for graduate school, I'm supposed to touch down right away and start applying for residency. I have to sign a few declarations, get a California driver's license, and establish a California residence among other things. I think I get butt raped on tuition the first year, but after a year, I'm eligible for the cheaper rate.

It may be different for grad school, but from that link I posted (which is based on state-wide criteria), it may not be quite that simple because of this clause:

"Physical presence within the state solely for educational purposes does not constitute establishing California residence regardless of the length of that presence."

The specifics of how that will affect you and DJG and how a school determines that are something worth discussing with someone in the appropriate department in the school. I know in my state it's very difficult to establish residency if you've been enrolled in school during the waiting period, however, being non-matriculated and enrolled part time at a community college as well as being employed may not affect it. Grad school, by virtue of being a full-time program, may be more difficult. I don't know. It's worth discussing with someone before you enroll in school.

The important question is whether DJG went to high school in California, in which case, the point is moot and he gets state rates anyway.

As far as picking a program, I agree that taking core courses first are a good idea-- most every school has a good amount of classes everyone has to take. If it were me, I'd do it at a community college in the state system so that it's both cheaper and your credits will transfer. The only thing I know about DeVry is that it started as more of a trade school, and if it's not accredited by the appropiate regional accrediting agencies, your degree may mean very little, and it would be hard to transfer. I imagine a degree in either field you're interested in would be better at one of the long-established state schools.

 

[Love-it]

If you still meet Hawaii's residency requirements you could go there for schooling, I believe that they provide a free college tuition.

Make an appointment with EDD to discuss your options, there might be some possibilities that the college counselor is unaware of, they usually have a connection with the local community colleges.

 

[B_Think_Kink]

Whatever you decide to do DJG, education is a great idea. It is not wasted at all.

 

[JustAsking]

DJG,
As you probably know, career changes are very common. Ask any 10 people over 30 if they are working in the field of their original college degree and I bet over half of them would say no.

I think you are getting good advice here on the residency issue. The college is a business and they should be compelled to be consistent and definite about their residency requirements. I agree with those who say that the counselor is probably not the one who would make that determination anyway. Actually, if you went to the counselor for advice, she would be in her rights to make sure you looked into the residency criteria closely. Perhaps she was asking the driving quesion so she could give you advice, and not to actually make the official determination.

I can't answer for a career in medicine, but I do know it is a lot of work. Besides the traditional half a lifetime of medical school, there are plenty of para-professional ways to make a living in medicine either permanently or while going for more training.

I can answer authoritatively on the computer science route, though, because that has been my field for the last 30 years (even though my training was in electronics and physics). I have managed software development groups for 20 years and currently I am in the middle of scaling up a startup I formed with another guy a few years ago.

At the moment, computer science skills are in such high demand that it is like recruiting rock stars. So if you had a few years experience at this moment in time, you would be looking at a possible dozen job offers and trying to figure out which one to take. I know this firsthand because I have been hiring steadily over the last 6 months.

There are a number of market and technical forces behind this insatiable demand for CS talent, and those forces are not apt to disapper in the next five years or so for sure. So a job in this field in the future is guaranteed.

The other good news about CS employment is that college credentials are not the be all and end all of getting a job. I am very typical of the others I know in the area who are hiring, so I think this might be good advice. When hiring, I look for someone with a Assoc. or BS degree in CS or any other technical field who has some job experience in similar technologies or applications to the ones I work with.

In a typical job interview I am much more interested in what responsibilities the person had in his previous job as to his contributions to the projects than I am with where he obtained his degree. We do at least two interviews with the other developers participating in one of them. The main goal of the interview, all other things being equal, is to ascertain the problem solving skills of the applicant. Experience in the exact technology is very helpful, but we all recognize that technology changes fast, so technology acquisition skills are as important as specific experience.

So, if you are interested in pursung a career in CS, plan on pursuing at least an Assoc degree, and try as hard as you can to get any kind of employment in the field as soon as possible, even as a co-op student or an intern. This is because for hiring managers in this field, work experience counts way more than what courses you took while in college. This is good news because you don't need advanced degrees, but it is bad news because you have to figure out where to get some experience early on in the process.

I would be very happy to answer any other questions you have about a CS career, either here in the thread or via PM.

 

[2322]

I do think Danny, that you're making a good decision here. Education is not a waste and you need to it to get a good job. While I know nothing about residency or what might help you, I support your decision.

And the next time someone gives you the business like that, show them your tikis.