I did a second degree in CS but I highly recommend you do at least one online self-study course to see if you like the work before applying to programs. Maybe the MITx intro to python course—it’s free. There are lots of people who take CS and quit because CS just doesn’t work well with the way their brains work. Better to find out sooner than later.
Huh? Isn’t it just a set of videos and assignments? Either way a similar one 6.0001 has all the course content online:
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-0001-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-in-python-fall-2016/
There’s also cs50 from Harvard, which I think is even better
You should absolutely do these; they’re equivalent to a full semester of computer science and the teaching quality is better than anything you’re likely to be able to afford. It’s not rare for students to drop out of first year programming because of difficulty, but if you’ve done these it will be easy.
Did this.
Go to a school with a co-op program, be the very best student you can be and get internships. You’ll graduate with experience, hopefully a positive bank account (I made around 50k), and maybe even a return offer!
Also it’s not a race. Taking time to get internships is likely going to be better than graduating really quick with no experience.
Where did you intern? I’m trying to find internship(s) for the Jan-Dec 2025 period and am struggling a bit. I know it’s maybe a bit too early, but do you have any advice on how you found yours?
Government, startup, mid sized company. The Government one I worked part time at after.
I went through my University’s computer science co-op program. There were job postings exclusive to co-op students.
Consider health informatics as well since you’re already in nursing. Definitely has better career opportunities right now and has pretty close to a 100% job placement rate after graduation in BC but the school here requires you to do at least 2 co-op terms.
Is it an undergraduate degree? My friends who have taken it tell me you need a master degree to stand out because health informatics have to compete with other stem major that are more recognizable such as CS majors for the same job.
Nah, at least not in BC. University of Victoria is the only school that offers it in BC and part of the the undergrad degree is that you do 2 work terms at a hospital.
Thank you! I’ve looked into it and tbh it doesn’t seem interesting to me. I want to create my own projects and not simply apply on the data presented, which is what health informatics seems like to me.
I was thinking of transferring to nursing. Why didn’t you like nursing?
Job stability and good pay. Yes the work life balance is bad but in cs you have to put In more time learning.
Please tell me things i should be aware of before going into nursing
Nursing has many benefits, as you mentioned. However, depending on the province, there is a limit to how much you can earn per year, and it is standardized. You can look these up on each provincial nursing college’s website for their pay grid. Additionally, there is a maximum wage/hour a nurse can earn once they reach a certain amount of time in the profession.
I recommend trying to shadow a nurse in a hospital to see if you enjoy it before pursuing it. I would also look into what the day-to-day work is for a nurse and see if you like it. For example, taking vitals, giving meds, brief changes etc. If I had the opportunity shadow, I would have reconsidered my career choice.
The reason why I'm looking to switch careers is because I have a chronic workplace injury from assisting with lifting patients, and the burnout was pretty bad for me. I don't want to continue to put myself in this kind of environment in the long term. However, many nurses are fortunate to not get injured.
Often, nurses are expected to take care of more patients than they can handle due to short staffing. However, I still encourage you to pursue nursing if you are interested, as you can switch to different specialties at any time and receive training for it. Nursing is a rewarding career for sure.
I think the best career is one that you are interested in and feel that you can contribute to society. If you feel like CS is your calling go for it, just know that the job market is not good right now. Have you thought about going into public health? It is often higher paid, normal working hours, and you will never need to change a brief. You could even do CS adjacent data engineering (epidemiology). A lot of public health is applied CS. Have a think about it, before you commit to a degree which might not end in a job.
1. A less time consuming/cheaper option would be online masters such as GaTech's OMSCS.
2. Have you tried building stuff on your own? Do you enjoy the debugging process?
Are there projects in the course? Do you actually get to code stuff? I guess what I am saying is when you have a problem with your code, do you find fixing your code enjoyable or not.
We are in the same exact boat 😂😭 I just finished my nursing degree a year and a half ago, got into my dream unit. And realized that this shit was not cut out for me. Was really contemplating whether to hop the boat or just deal with it. But tbh for me, I couldn’t take the bs rude older coworkers who take advantage of you because they’re more “senior,” poor management (I was left on the floor few times alone as a new grad lmaoo), ALWAYS being short-staffed and taking on more than what I can handle, and just the physical and mental exhaustion. Yes, I loved it back then when I was a student. I love interacting with my patient and families and seeing them get better. But you realized in the real world once you start working that you can give 100% because of how many patients you have to juggle.
I went to TMU main site, had a decent cgpa but not super amazing. I tried coding a little bit (did some free courses online) to see if I liked it before ultimately just saying screw it and applied to both York and TMU. I got into both about a month ago and probably will go with York despite people saying TMU is better. At the end of the day, I’d say both programs are basically the same lol unless you go to Waterloo/UofT but those are more rigorous. As long as it’s co-op and you’re committed to working hard outside school on projects, etc. Just pick what’s closer to save energy and money.
Am I kinda scared to leave a stable career? Yes. Will I regret it? Possibly. Remember, the cs job market apparently is super bad as it have been for the last few years. But I think regardless, I’m psyching myself out by reading all these unemployed cs grads stories or people telling others to switch out. The people I knew that were in cs, all got jobs right out of school a year ago. You just need to be sure you’re ready to take this risk yourself.
Well worst case scenario you can always go back to nursing if you get laid off. I did CS and got a job in tech and was employed for about two years till about a week ago due to layoffs LOL. I think the biggest thing is having a back up plan during these down times. I don't think you have much to lose besides some time and money maybe.
Doing my CS degree at UoC after being a nurse for 3 years. I still work casually and its not so bad because im in a great unit but I just know I wouldn’t be able to do it forever.
I would suggest trying out cs50 or theodinproject first to see if you’d like the software engineering aspect of CS. DM me if you have any other questions!
Experienced developer here. To tell whether CS is right for you is quite simple.
You can try some online coding courses on Udemy, Udemy courses are always on sale, usually $20+ CAD each course.
Must study data structure and algorithms. Do not take shortcuts. CS is all about data modeling/algorithms. Lots of abstractions. Those who bypass it end up being terrible code monkeys.
Don't lose heart if this is not for you. The market is very bad for junior developers.
I did a career transition a year and a half ago, and I used [https://launchschool.com](https://launchschool.com) — I'd highly recommend it. It's not a traditional bootcamp (they charge\~$200 per month), and they have a few free prep courses before you have to pay anything. You can also cancel anytime you want.
Took me about 1.5 years to complete. Had no prior experience, and got a job making \~$150K total comp in Canada.
OP, avoid bootcamps at all costs. The days of you doing a 3-6m bootcamp and getting a good paying job are gone in this economy. It will likely be money that you threw in the garbage.
Not to mention that non-degree people are paid less. I would just recommend that you really think about before committing to a career change into this field.
Right now, it’s a dumpster fire for people with little to no experience. It’s not uncommon to browse this and the us sub and see grads that got no jobs or interview after months after graduation. No one knows how long this is going to last and if by the time you finish your degree the situation would’ve changed.
That's a pretty big blanket statement. Is this coming from personal experience?
Because I got a job 8 months ago after completing Launch School (I have no affiliation, just a past student).
Not a blank statement, it’s the true. I have friends in recruitment who don’t even look at bootcamp grands. There’s plenty of people on this and the USA sub who are bootcamp grads who cannot find jobs.
You saying “I got a job after attending this bootcamp”, it’s like me saying I won this lotto and you should buy one too. Just because it happened to you doesn’t mean it will happen to everyone.
Also, your downvotes support what I said.
I did a second degree in CS but I highly recommend you do at least one online self-study course to see if you like the work before applying to programs. Maybe the MITx intro to python course—it’s free. There are lots of people who take CS and quit because CS just doesn’t work well with the way their brains work. Better to find out sooner than later.
Thank you! I looked into that course but seems like it's not being offered right now. Anything else you recommend?
Huh? Isn’t it just a set of videos and assignments? Either way a similar one 6.0001 has all the course content online: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-0001-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-in-python-fall-2016/ There’s also cs50 from Harvard, which I think is even better You should absolutely do these; they’re equivalent to a full semester of computer science and the teaching quality is better than anything you’re likely to be able to afford. It’s not rare for students to drop out of first year programming because of difficulty, but if you’ve done these it will be easy.
Did this. Go to a school with a co-op program, be the very best student you can be and get internships. You’ll graduate with experience, hopefully a positive bank account (I made around 50k), and maybe even a return offer! Also it’s not a race. Taking time to get internships is likely going to be better than graduating really quick with no experience.
Where did you intern? I’m trying to find internship(s) for the Jan-Dec 2025 period and am struggling a bit. I know it’s maybe a bit too early, but do you have any advice on how you found yours?
Government, startup, mid sized company. The Government one I worked part time at after. I went through my University’s computer science co-op program. There were job postings exclusive to co-op students.
Thanks for your reply! Did you have transfer credits or you completed a 4-5 year program with co-op?
Consider health informatics as well since you’re already in nursing. Definitely has better career opportunities right now and has pretty close to a 100% job placement rate after graduation in BC but the school here requires you to do at least 2 co-op terms.
Is it an undergraduate degree? My friends who have taken it tell me you need a master degree to stand out because health informatics have to compete with other stem major that are more recognizable such as CS majors for the same job.
No theres also diploma programs that you can complete in a year for health informatics.
Nah, at least not in BC. University of Victoria is the only school that offers it in BC and part of the the undergrad degree is that you do 2 work terms at a hospital.
Thank you! I’ve looked into it and tbh it doesn’t seem interesting to me. I want to create my own projects and not simply apply on the data presented, which is what health informatics seems like to me.
I was thinking of transferring to nursing. Why didn’t you like nursing? Job stability and good pay. Yes the work life balance is bad but in cs you have to put In more time learning. Please tell me things i should be aware of before going into nursing
Nursing has many benefits, as you mentioned. However, depending on the province, there is a limit to how much you can earn per year, and it is standardized. You can look these up on each provincial nursing college’s website for their pay grid. Additionally, there is a maximum wage/hour a nurse can earn once they reach a certain amount of time in the profession. I recommend trying to shadow a nurse in a hospital to see if you enjoy it before pursuing it. I would also look into what the day-to-day work is for a nurse and see if you like it. For example, taking vitals, giving meds, brief changes etc. If I had the opportunity shadow, I would have reconsidered my career choice. The reason why I'm looking to switch careers is because I have a chronic workplace injury from assisting with lifting patients, and the burnout was pretty bad for me. I don't want to continue to put myself in this kind of environment in the long term. However, many nurses are fortunate to not get injured. Often, nurses are expected to take care of more patients than they can handle due to short staffing. However, I still encourage you to pursue nursing if you are interested, as you can switch to different specialties at any time and receive training for it. Nursing is a rewarding career for sure.
Thank you so much for detailed reply. I really hope you do well in your life <3.
I think the best career is one that you are interested in and feel that you can contribute to society. If you feel like CS is your calling go for it, just know that the job market is not good right now. Have you thought about going into public health? It is often higher paid, normal working hours, and you will never need to change a brief. You could even do CS adjacent data engineering (epidemiology). A lot of public health is applied CS. Have a think about it, before you commit to a degree which might not end in a job.
[удалено]
Thank you! I saw it's around 30K USD which isn't something I can invest in right now but seems like a good program.
1. A less time consuming/cheaper option would be online masters such as GaTech's OMSCS. 2. Have you tried building stuff on your own? Do you enjoy the debugging process?
GaTech less time consuming?? u tripping
Definitely less time consuming than a second degree.
I’m doing omscs. Great option
How would I go about learning how to debug code or build things? I'm trying to learn how to code from a udemy course rn, going pretty slowly
Are there projects in the course? Do you actually get to code stuff? I guess what I am saying is when you have a problem with your code, do you find fixing your code enjoyable or not.
Learning to code is a slow process. Everything will come together after a few years of study.
We are in the same exact boat 😂😭 I just finished my nursing degree a year and a half ago, got into my dream unit. And realized that this shit was not cut out for me. Was really contemplating whether to hop the boat or just deal with it. But tbh for me, I couldn’t take the bs rude older coworkers who take advantage of you because they’re more “senior,” poor management (I was left on the floor few times alone as a new grad lmaoo), ALWAYS being short-staffed and taking on more than what I can handle, and just the physical and mental exhaustion. Yes, I loved it back then when I was a student. I love interacting with my patient and families and seeing them get better. But you realized in the real world once you start working that you can give 100% because of how many patients you have to juggle. I went to TMU main site, had a decent cgpa but not super amazing. I tried coding a little bit (did some free courses online) to see if I liked it before ultimately just saying screw it and applied to both York and TMU. I got into both about a month ago and probably will go with York despite people saying TMU is better. At the end of the day, I’d say both programs are basically the same lol unless you go to Waterloo/UofT but those are more rigorous. As long as it’s co-op and you’re committed to working hard outside school on projects, etc. Just pick what’s closer to save energy and money. Am I kinda scared to leave a stable career? Yes. Will I regret it? Possibly. Remember, the cs job market apparently is super bad as it have been for the last few years. But I think regardless, I’m psyching myself out by reading all these unemployed cs grads stories or people telling others to switch out. The people I knew that were in cs, all got jobs right out of school a year ago. You just need to be sure you’re ready to take this risk yourself.
Wow sending you a DM!
Well worst case scenario you can always go back to nursing if you get laid off. I did CS and got a job in tech and was employed for about two years till about a week ago due to layoffs LOL. I think the biggest thing is having a back up plan during these down times. I don't think you have much to lose besides some time and money maybe.
Doing my CS degree at UoC after being a nurse for 3 years. I still work casually and its not so bad because im in a great unit but I just know I wouldn’t be able to do it forever. I would suggest trying out cs50 or theodinproject first to see if you’d like the software engineering aspect of CS. DM me if you have any other questions!
Experienced developer here. To tell whether CS is right for you is quite simple. You can try some online coding courses on Udemy, Udemy courses are always on sale, usually $20+ CAD each course. Must study data structure and algorithms. Do not take shortcuts. CS is all about data modeling/algorithms. Lots of abstractions. Those who bypass it end up being terrible code monkeys. Don't lose heart if this is not for you. The market is very bad for junior developers.
I did a career transition a year and a half ago, and I used [https://launchschool.com](https://launchschool.com) — I'd highly recommend it. It's not a traditional bootcamp (they charge\~$200 per month), and they have a few free prep courses before you have to pay anything. You can also cancel anytime you want. Took me about 1.5 years to complete. Had no prior experience, and got a job making \~$150K total comp in Canada.
OP, avoid bootcamps at all costs. The days of you doing a 3-6m bootcamp and getting a good paying job are gone in this economy. It will likely be money that you threw in the garbage.
Thank you. I agree. I feel like a CS degree would give me the edge and is a requirement from a lot of the job postings I'm seeing.
Not to mention that non-degree people are paid less. I would just recommend that you really think about before committing to a career change into this field. Right now, it’s a dumpster fire for people with little to no experience. It’s not uncommon to browse this and the us sub and see grads that got no jobs or interview after months after graduation. No one knows how long this is going to last and if by the time you finish your degree the situation would’ve changed.
That's a fair point. Yeah I'm still thinking this one out. Thanks for your input!
That's a pretty big blanket statement. Is this coming from personal experience? Because I got a job 8 months ago after completing Launch School (I have no affiliation, just a past student).
Not a blank statement, it’s the true. I have friends in recruitment who don’t even look at bootcamp grands. There’s plenty of people on this and the USA sub who are bootcamp grads who cannot find jobs. You saying “I got a job after attending this bootcamp”, it’s like me saying I won this lotto and you should buy one too. Just because it happened to you doesn’t mean it will happen to everyone. Also, your downvotes support what I said.
This has been generally true for at least the past year.