M.S in C.S at the age of 50
No trolls please. My gf's mom has applied for M.S in C.S & MIS and here's is her profile. Age: ~50 Toelfl: >100 Gre: ~305 Bachelor in Electrical engineering ~ 25 yoe in government agency, work is not related to CS decent knowledge of CS fundamentals, algorithms and web development. Here's our questions. How accepting other students at University will be? Will it be to difficult to get a job after graduation given her age? Will she face any discrimination at University and workplace? Is this a good id? P.S I and my gf just graduated and tc 160k-200k
one should not give a fuck about getting degrees at that age. Better to focus on learning. How about online courses and bootcamps? Unless this is a strategy to get a student visa.
respect β
Getting the first job is going to be the hard part. Once she gets that break I think an experienced person with discipline can do well. Good luck
Got my PhD at 40. I say go for it.
There is a reality. Some good, some not so favorable. As most would agree, the fact that she wants to further her education is wonderful. Regarding her age- in terms of consideration for grad school, there should be zero problem. There are, however, some things to consider. Depending on the program, is she willing to take pre requisites if the university requires them? This could extend the schooling an extra year or even two. Is she ok with the bill this could come with? (Explore in state options). Will she be working while attending school? Now for the less fortunate part. Age discrimination is a thing. No matter the field, it exists. In the best case scenario- where she insists she must pursue this education, I would recommend doing so in tandem to being employed. She will be better equipped to find a role in the field she desires if she has a job while looking for that role.
Definitely commendable that she's wanting to go to school again. I would encourage she stick with government agency for cs applicable position after. They are a lot less age sensitive.
Skip MS. Do leetcode to get in the door without investing so much time and $$. Learn on the job, take online MS classes at night if she still wants it
Probably won't face age descrimination in academia or gov, will in industry though. The sad reality is that SWE is a field dominated by bachelor's level talent with egos inflated beyond the scope of their abilities or potential. There is a correlation of SDE work to creativity, and of creativity to youth. I don't think SDE work requires creativity, in fact the opposite is true if you look at larger codebases.. And you don't have to be young to think outside the box. Some of the most creative and productive computer scientists today are 49+ (Stuart Russell, Michael Jordan, Geoff Hinton, Peter Norvig, Linus Torvalds, ect..).
I think ageism often comes from the fear that the developer hasn't adapted to the changes in languages and frameworks over the last 20-30 years. A degree wouldn't be as valuable as a boot camp and an updated GitHub account with modern languages, tools, and frameworks even if it's just projects from your classes.
I salute her. I think going for a degree may not be necessary unless she wants to do it.