Is computer science worth it?

[Kittykat93]

So I'm thinking of retraining in a completely different career (which I have no experience in whatsoever!) I don't have the time (or childcare) to go to university, so am considering doing a degree with the open university. I'm just so worried about doing it and it not leading anywhere apart from a shit load of debt

Has anyone done a computer science degree - If so, how did you find it? Was it difficult to find employment after?

Also anyone with experience of doing a degree with the open uni would be useful.

TIA

Depends very much on the course. You can look at the Unistats website for data. There are many different branches to Comp Sci, do you know what you are interested it.

Are you good at maths?

It depends very much on what you wish to do after you finish. If you just want to become a programmer/developer then I would say absolutely no point in doing the degree, but rather a course in programming. Usually by the time you finish a CS degree, the stuff you learnt is already outdated. I work in CS and currently the hot topics are machine learning, artificial intelligence and data science.

If you’re anywhere near London it might be worth looking into going to the ‘cyber recoded’ conference next week, which is all about careers in the cyber security industry. This is a rapidly expanding sector with a huge shortage of people. Lot of big companies will be there trying their encourage people to consider careers in cyber security, and it would be a great place to talk to employers about routes in.

I have a Computer Science degree. This was at the tail end of the dot com crash in the late 90s though, so wasn’t easy to find a job back then but now, it’s totally different. Yes, I would say it was worth it.

Usually by the time you finish a CS degree, the stuff you learnt is already outdated

Not true. IT degree where you learn how to use certain packages maybe but the maths and logic of CS hasn’t changed since the 40s. Computational thinking is taught to apply to any problem: past, present or future.

Rollyrocks -there is an element of computational thinking in every science degree at the moment. I said what I said, as I feel that if OP would just want to learn how to code, there is no need for a three year degree. It very much depends on what they want to do after graduation.