2 replies to this topic

[Viper Chief]

Over the last few years, I've taken several courses. In 2009, I started working on an online CS degree with Regis. However, I failed the first C++ course (failed it at the beginning of 2010). It discouraged me a lot and I dropped CS for a while as I tried to reevaluate things and tried out other roads. However, I haven't enjoyed anything else. The last college class I took was a few months back and I've taken a break as I considered things. I finally realized that I shouldn't have let that failure get to me and I should've dusted myself off and tried again.

So, I'm currently getting ready to start up school again and am trying to settle on a program. I'm military and am stationed overseas and will be for another two years and am hoping to get my BS completed before I come back. Right now, I'm looking at going back to Regis or going with UMUC's program. I'm providing links to both and hoping maybe I can get a little insight. UMUC has different programming tracks and I'm considering going with the C#/WPF track. I'm just having a hard time deciding which way to go.

When I get out of the military, I am hoping to work either as 1) self-employed computer repair & building type of situation or 2) system/network administration. I enjoy programming but am not entirely sold on doing it as a job, though I would be good with it if that was what was available. I am hoping to do some freelance programming work once I get better at it (especially if self-employed). I've played with C# a little and have really enjoyed it (much more so than C or C++). UMUC does have a C++ class I could take as an elective later. This is hard because both schools seem to have good classes. One big plus about UMUC is that they will have some classes on base here, which I would take whenever I could since I enjoy those more and I like that they have proctored exams. Regis has some really cool-looking classes, though. I appreciate any advice y'all are willing to give me.

http://www.regis.edu...=ap&p2=cs&p3=mm
http://www.asia.umuc...lor.cfm?dCode=9

[WingedPanther]

I'm a little confused. Why are you pursuing a CS degree if you don't want to be a programmer? A degree like CIS might be more aligned to what you're thinking of, while still giving you some programming experience.

http://www.regis.edu...ap&p2=cis&p3=mm

[Viper Chief]

I like programming and I want to write programs, I just don't want to do it as a full-time job. I wouldn't mind doing it on my own as I said either for my own little projects or doing small contract work/side-job, if that makes any sense. I enjoy it but I don't think I enjoy it enough to keep liking it when I *have* to do it, if that makes any sense. However, since my last class in C++ was the last class I took and I failed it, that feeling could be from that. As I stated, I do enjoy programming...I just need to get back into it more to see how much (though playing with C# on my own has helped me, so far). I've always enjoyed trying to fix computers, either software-related or hardware as well as networking (I plan on using several networking classes as electives) and, for whatever reason, I really liked the minimal work I've done with databases and could see myself expanding more on that, as well.

The CIS seems to be a sort of CS/management class and I'm not sure how that would work for me, but perhaps I'm missing something. I've looked at other IT related degrees that were geared more towards techs but I felt there was something missing and there's only a few online degrees I actually liked (if I go UMUC, though, I'm really hoping they have a couple regular classes while I'm here).