http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/softeng/
all-in cost was something like £25,000 for me including accommodation, and they're open minded about accepting people without undergraduate degrees.
EDIT: happy to answer questions by email
https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate/courses/msc-compute...
> As a minimum, applicants should hold or be predicted to achieve the equivalent of the following UK qualifications:
> a first-class undergraduate degree with honours in a subject with a significant component of mathematics and/or computing.
So, is an undergraduate degree required or not?
> Applications are welcome from anyone with an appropriate combination of academic achievement and industrial experience; a first degree in a related discipline may be useful, but is by no means necessary.
> Each MSc within the Software Engineering Programme is available only to part-time students; there is a separate MSc in Computer Science for full-time students.
I believe the full time study noted here is what you linked to.
I've been working as a dev for 3 years and looking at senior positions; do you think this course would augment my practical experience.
I wonder what level they teach to.
Which I think is fantastic, Universities are generally terrible at teaching practical skills and fantastic at teaching theory.
The Lassonde School of Engineering opened 8 years ago with a fervour for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. I suggest folks give the school a Google search as it has rapidly developed to become a phenomenonal environment with its own startup incubator and entrepreneurshi' degree with courses from VCs. I digress, but feel free to ask me any more questions about the school.
The dev degree program started its first cohort last year actually and it now is in its second year.
It is structured so students work 20 hours a week at Shopify and take 3 courses per semester at school. Students are required to work and go to school through the summer which allows them to complete the degree in the standard four years.
My peers in the program have I said great things. One of the key parts of the program is how one switches between different teams to get a better understanding of the software engineering landscape. Moreover the mentorship is very helpful and not only developing your technical skills by yourself skills.
One question that students and parents asked me a lot is if there is a requirement to work at Shopify following the completion of the program. Luckily Shopify has made it clear that they will not be expecting students to stay once they complete their degree, but it is my intuition that many people from the program will stay on after their large time investment into the Shopify ecosystem.
Overall, I would have entered this program myself for it for engineering students as well. Sadly, the program is restricted to computer science students as the Canadian accreditation requirements for engineering are not fulfilled while in the dev degree program.
Although people may say "why do you need a degree?", it is difficult to find a job without the qualification of showing your ability to complete post-secondary in a field of candidates that did.
With initiatives such as Silicon Valley trip for students run by the Lassonde co-op Department, I am sure that lassonde will continue to innovate and engage students in meaningful ways beyond the traditional methods.
https://engineering.shopify.com/blogs/engineering/dev-degree...
Disclosure: recent hire at Shopify, not through this program. Just learned about it, actually today from HN. After mentioning it to my team, was pointed to this link and thought I'd share it here.
The site isn't very specific about location, are there location requirements?
You must apply and qualify for the university degree, in addition to being selected by shoppify themselves. If I remember correctly when I asked about it, the University also had some say in the selection process.
When I looked into it, the number of accepted was quite low (I believe less than 15 per year), which to me indicates they are quite selective.
The people I met were exceptionally friendly, and genuine. It seems like a really excellent place to work, at least from the outside.
York is in suburban Toronto.
Those schools are not quite in the same league as Toronto or Waterloo, but they're adequate.
I offhand mentioned a previous program they ran (letting people out of the field get an internship) to someone I knew, and it made a huge difference. Creating/sustaining jobs/incomes in this way is actually very cool in my books.
Source: Lassonde student (where the dev degree program exists)
I've seen companies strugle to make money with mid level devs.
My path has been less linear. Finished college with an accounting degree then worked at two fortune 500 consulting companies. I spent my nights and weekends doing web development work on the side (even did a failed startup with a buddy). A full-time opportunity opened up from one of these gigs and I've been there since. Now I run all their applications, websites, IT, and digital advertising.
Whenever I see programs like this pop up I'm always intrigued to supplement professional work with an academic mark in the hat as I know things could wind-down here and will be on a job search leaving me nervous as a 30 y/o developer whose has been working at small businesses (and not anything like FAANG). This is why I'll still pick up freelance work from time to time.
For sanity about 2 years back, I did apply and went through a series of interviews and tests for a remote software engineering position at a hot bay area company. It came down between me and one other guy. They conducted additional interviews because it was quite close. I ended up getting beat out, the other guy had a few years on me.
https://www.redcarpetup.com/rocks
we do active placement here (unless we hire them). We have an above 90% placement rate here.
Keen to hear other experiences and opinions
That said, you can learn just fine without a degree. Much of what I learned, especially the stuff that most developers use, was before college. The biggest barrier is that many employers consider college a test of "not being a fruit loop", but if you've got work experience, that should help overcome the barrier.
If people truly want equality, it shouldnt even be a factor. No prejudice. Just treat all as of us one thing, human being.
If you keep upping the entry bar, the ones that would "kill" to enter have higher odds of entry.
Being able to graduate is a much lower bar, so what's your point?
Why? Learn stuff thats out of date from some one who has never don it. Even without the debt academia is pointless, just learn to learn.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
('Higher' being 'degree equivalent', and 'degree' being with an actual degree conferred by an actual university.)
At Arm I had a colleague who was on that programme, and so was also studying at a university. I think it started off part-time, 2 and 3 days of a week or something, and then switched to term-here/term-there.
I agree, great scheme. (Icing on the cake: I believe the education is paid for (subsidised by government and paid for by company?) in addition to the work being paid.)
They hit the ground _sprinting_.
I know a lot of people don't even have CS on their radar when they enter college.
There are much more opportunities nowaday to use coding in almost every major, sadly, the schools haven't changed, ending up imo ruining a lot of career.
A decade later and I'm working in UX research and digital strategy and the finance stuff feels like a lifetime ago. Everyone's journey is going to be different.
I don't have the debt (just the opportunity cost of wasting a decade doing something I didn't really want to do), and this program wouldn't have saved me, but I understand your regret.
Is that hyperbole, or literally your debt is that much?
this Shopify program would have been a lifesaver. we need way more Shopifys in the world.
This could be a cheap way of boosting Shopify’s workforce and reputation. Tech companies have high revenue per employee. If Big Tech follows suit with other apprenticeships, Shopify could be known as the company that made white collar apprenticeships a thing in the U.S. and Canada. The apprentice program would become less expensive for Shopify over time as it captures apprentices from other companies.
From https://devdegree.ca/pages/student-experience. It appears that you dont get paid 40k. 40k per year is the total they will expend on you, with tuition being part of that.
I assume that, with sufficient screening, you can get someone contributing relatively quickly, and start getting value. I think the key is the screening- they’re not giving this offer to every CS student. At the places I’ve worked, we’ve definitely got value out of interns comparable to a junior developer.
This is also a great value for the applicants, as you get actual experience, with no tuition. Very interested to see how this works out. Kudos to Shopify for forward thinking.
1) Usually they pay apprentices less but apprentices can still provide huge value to the team they're working on (after a while).
2) I have no solid data on this, but I assume apprentices have a lower churn rate/stay at their company longer.
3) The biggie: Some countries basically force companies to have an apprenticeship programme. In the UK, there's a levy which effectively makes a company put aside 0.4% of their payroll for funding apprenticeships - which nicely incentivises companies to do something that would otherwise be unprofitable.
In my personal opinion, the education received in many areas. Lassonde stronger than both the traditional education of University of Toronto and University of Waterloo. I think there are benefits to each school, but they are different benefits. I strongly feel as your statement about the school's not being in the same league are without an understanding of educational institutions in Canada for engineering and computer science.
Source: President of the Engineering Student Union @ Lassonde where I am involved in all parts fo faculty operations.
How is it stronger? It is a bit misleading to label UofT and Waterloo as "traditional" when both provide extensive coop programs and highly relevant courses.
I had offers from both Carleton and Waterloo. I don't regret choosing Carleton.
I watched many friends go to Waterloo and burn out from the intense academic workload. My degree has gotten me into all the same doors, but I was able to take more electives, go on an exchange, just generally enjoy my time more.
That is entirely without subsidy. It leaves out other living expenses that can come with various club activities and other activities of that nature. But 300k would leave about 5k per year for other incidentals. Again this is entirely unsubsidized.
The only other factor here is summer breaks, but those are usually filled in by paid internships/research positions at Ivy schools.
Are your loans from the government? If so, you can likely qualify for the Pay-as-you-earn program where your payments are capped at 10% of your disposable income, and debts are forgiven after 20 years (though you have to pay taxes on the amount forgiven I believe). Of course it still stings to see $1.3k/month get sucked out of your bank account to pay the interest on this student debt scam, just know that the pain is mostly psychological. I just choose not to think about it, because it's too depressing otherwise.
I honestly believe that student debt will be forgiven within 10-20 years. Candidates like Elizabeth Warren are already pledging to eliminate student loan debt. Once the younger generation is in power, they will likely kill this giant pyramid scheme and forgive all student loans. And no matter what happens in Congress, if all of us collectively strike on our student loan debt, then the government will have no choice but to fix this problem they created.
I could've gotten a M.S. for free at my state university, but I wanted the prestige. Dumbest decision ever.
Also one big reason some Waterloo grads hit the ground sprinting is because Waterloo attracts talent with high cognitive ability and interest in tech. Be careful not to confuse that with the coop program (which may have its own benefits, but would not work nearly as well without talented students).
Here is an example for you of explicitly requesting non-intern experience:
> BASIC QUALIFICATIONS · 2+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/918696/software-development-...
That being said, discharging debt in bankruptcy will haunt your credit for 7 years, or so I've heard. Being forced to not finance anything for 7 years is a decent way to save money if you've got a good paying job, I suppose, as you don't fall into the trap of only looking at the monthly payment without thinking of the total cost.
The debt is the obligation to pay back. As far as I know, education loans don't include the clauses you mentioned.
> It was the lender's decision to invest their money into such an obviously money losing strategy and yet they did so despite the high risk.
That's true, but that doesn't absolve the person who took the loan from the responsibility to pay it, and doesn't make not paying it any less unethical.
Ethics and causality are not the same. If you don't lock the door of your apartment, that can dramatically increase the probability of being robbed, and your actions would be the cause of this robbery. But it wouldn't by any yota affect the ethical side of it. (I'm not saying that not paying back the loans is the same as robbery, I'm just explaining the logic using a more obvious example).
I have 100k+ of unsecured credit available to me at any given time. If I go and spend that on hookers and blow is that the lenders fault or mine?
I believe the lack of personal responsibility is problem that will not be fixed by absolving even more responsibility.
It was unethical for the system to push an 18 year old down the route of taking on huge loans. I'm not sure that finding a way out of that is.
So we are going to absolve all 18 year olds of decision making because of 'the system'?
As an 18 year old I was keenly aware of debt. My college experience was going to a local school while working 20-30 hours/week and living at home. All because we didn't have much money, and I wanted to take as few loans as possible.
So maybe this persons parents and primary school failed them, but I don't buy it was the system.
When I hear someone say 'the system,' I wish they would be more specific.
I think a small group of corporations being in direct control of the mass dissemination of corporation serving behavioral role models and information is a problem that needs to be addressed in order ensure the quality of freedom in the marketplace.
Taking the oceanic volumes of weapons grade, artificial psychological pressure off the kids seems like a great place to start.
Blaming the parents or primary school is useless because this person had no control over who their parents were or what school they went to.
I'm glad you had some self awareness at 18 but that isn't the norm as we can see from the rising student debt.
I knew full well what I was doing when I took out my student loans. I knew how much I was borrowing. I knew it would have to be paid back. I knew loans would have to cover both tuition and living expenses because I had no savings and I knew my parents weren't going to help very much. I also knew I could reduce my loan burden by starting at community college and/or going to state school. I still went to private school for my entire degree.
While it was scary to jump into my adult life with debt, and it was a bit of a leap of faith, the risk was obviously worth it, both at the time and definitely in hindsight. Once I graduated I put my head down and aggressively paid off my student loans, kept living like a college kid until they were paid off.
Be responsible. At 18 you're not a kid anymore
One possible way for it to happen is if a student's parents have a high income, are unwilling to pay for the student's education and force the student to shoulder the financial burden, and the student does not argue his/her case to the financial aid office. Another possible way is if the family has a relatively high pre-existing net worth, but low income, and is unwilling to spend the income, and again the student shoulders the debt.
I'm in my 30s-40s - was entering college before need-blind was a thing. It absolutely happens.
It's just usually not the case that you'll graduate with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, at least these days. It's quite rare IIRC among students receiving financial aid to graduate with more than several thousand dollars of debt from an Ivy over four years, and if you go back several decades I'm fairly certain those numbers go up, but I'd be rather shocked if they went up by more than an order of magnitude.
The OP got really screwed by the Singaporean situation, where if you don't fulfill the post-graduation government work posting obligations, the Singaporean government will claw back all the money it gave you for college plus interest.
Tuition alone is $50k/yr, which would equate to $250k for a 4-year degree not accounting for living costs. Even at 50% off the sticker price, you're looking at over $125k in debt upon graduation.
You may want to reassess your understanding of middle class.
i may be book smart but ive made some colossal screwups in my life.
Call it whatever you want, but there's a huge difference between $135k/yr household income split among 3 kids in an expensive metro area where a house in the suburbs costs $600k+, and $300k/yr with 1 kid in a low cost of living area.