Seeking CS Master's With Philosophy Undergrad

[arshisvang]

My situation is this: I have an undergraduate degree in philosophy and little technical coursework on my resume. I've been out of school for about eight years now, and it's not really an option (financially or timewise) for me to pursue another undergraduate degree or take a plethora of courses as a nondegree student.

Faced with that, it's still my goal to find a way to make a transition into the field of computers. As far as the qualifications I do have, I recently took the GRE and scored 800 verbal and 680 quantitative. (This shows my lack of technical background and distance from everyday use of math.) My GPA from years ago is 3.05, though I think that reflects youthful laziness more than actual ability.

So, to get to the point ... Do you guys know of any programs designed for someone like me? I've heard of UPenn's MCIT program (though I'm not sure if my GRE Q score is high enough to get in there), and John Jay in NYC has a forensic computing MS that seems interesting and has an optional bridge program for nontech undergrads. But I'm having a difficult time finding many other schools with opportunities such as those.

Besides that, are there other, more traditional programs in which someone can be accepted provisionally and take prereq courses as a graduate student (which would allow for financial aid) in preparation for the regular coursework of the program? For that matter, is financial aid even really available for most master's candidates, aside from tons of loans?

Thanks in advance for any input.

[barber5]

My situation is this: I have an undergraduate degree in philosophy and little technical coursework on my resume. I've been out of school for about eight years now, and it's not really an option (financially or timewise) for me to pursue another undergraduate degree or take a plethora of courses as a nondegree student.

Faced with that, it's still my goal to find a way to make a transition into the field of computers. As far as the qualifications I do have, I recently took the GRE and scored 800 verbal and 680 quantitative. (This shows my lack of technical background and distance from everyday use of math.) My GPA from years ago is 3.05, though I think that reflects youthful laziness more than actual ability.

So, to get to the point ... Do you guys know of any programs designed for someone like me? I've heard of UPenn's MCIT program (though I'm not sure if my GRE Q score is high enough to get in there), and John Jay in NYC has a forensic computing MS that seems interesting and has an optional bridge program for nontech undergrads. But I'm having a difficult time finding many other schools with opportunities such as those.

Besides that, are there other, more traditional programs in which someone can be accepted provisionally and take prereq courses as a graduate student (which would allow for financial aid) in preparation for the regular coursework of the program? For that matter, is financial aid even really available for most master's candidates, aside from tons of loans?

Thanks in advance for any input.

That's certainly an interesting scenario. I think if you had done as much work as you could in logic as an undergrad you would have an in to some parts of CS for sure (AI, theory of computation, programming languages?), but I don't know if this is a strong point for you. I think you're right though that it's going to be hard to find many programs that accommodate your background and I'd say the UPenn program probably isn't it. I know someone at John Jay who knew very little about CS before entering their program but his background from before was in math as an undergrad and a few years as a quant on wall street, so his jump wasn't very far at all.

I don't want to insult your intelligence or qualifications, but when you say "transition into the field of computers" it makes me think more of IT than computer science, and if this is something that interests you at all it can be accomplished much more easily than what you're proposing with night classes and the like.

[arshisvang]

Thanks for the response. I did well in symbolic logic, but my coursework was pretty limited, so I don't really think that will get my anywhere, unfortunately.

No insult taken. I've certainly thought about just going directly for a CCNA or those sorts of qualifications, and transitioning through certs. What has struck my interest the most thus far is cybersecurity and networking. Frankly, I'm more interested in the hardware side than the software side, and I've even thought about electrical engineering programs, because of that, but the same sort of barrier exists there, as well.

I'm not really looking to go into tech support, in the long run. I'd like to be working with broader elements than that, in terms of putting together systems or working with security matters. But maybe aiming for that would be the most efficient way to move toward larger things?

When you talk about night classes, what specifically would you recommend? (Also, I work a 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. shift currently, so finding classes for a person like me is pretty difficult, since most are designed for people with 9-5 jobs. Do you know of any places that offer morning classes for things like this?)