Biology/psych undergrad ... to CS grad?

[Snowbun]

Hello. New poster here.

I am having a sort of life crisis at the moment. I am currently a senior and have spent my undergraduate years majoring in biology and psychology, and my research area is neuroscience. But I do not want to go to graduate school for biology nor psychology nor neuroscience.

 

Relatively recently (in the past couple months) I have become super interested in programming and computer science, specifically applications such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. (Although my knowledge is limited because I have never taken any sort of CS class at my university.)

** I now wish to go to graduate school to pursue a masters in CS, and maybe eventually a PhD.
But is this even possible?? ... (Given my majors are biology and psychology and I have absolutely no research experience in CS) **

But I want to take steps anyway! So I am currently taking online intro courses in programming, and I am taking pre-reqs to apply for a CS minor while still in undergrad.

Here are my options as I see them:

- Apply to grad school in CS straight out of undergrad

- Do a post-bac in CS, then apply to graduate school in CS
- Others??

What do you guys think? Do I even have a chance of getting into a CS masters program right out of undergrad? (I would like to get into a relatively good one if at all possible.) Or should I spend another year getting a CS post-bac?

I feel sooooo lost.

*edit: Elaborated a bit to hopefully make my post more comprehensible. 
 

Edited March 11, 2015 by Snowbun

[velua]

What is a CS post-bac? Just take some CS classes this year/after you graduate. If you like it enough, take all the pre-reqs for admission and apply to programs.

[Snowbun]

What is a CS post-bac? Just take some CS classes this year/after you graduate. If you like it enough, take all the pre-reqs for admission and apply to programs.

Hey, thanks for replying.

A post-bac is like going back and getting a sort of "mini" degree at an undergraduate college after having received a bachelors degree. It's like for people that got a bachelors in something, but decide they want to do something else instead.

The only reason I don't want to do a post-bac is because it takes more time and more money (aka loans ughhhh) ... and I'm already behind in terms of where I should be with my education. 

Also, I'm kind of done with the atmosphere of my undergrad college. I want to get out of here. But I guess if getting a post-bac turns out to be the best option, I'd have to go for it.

Yes, I'm planning on taking some CS classes hopefully!! I really would like to apply to grad school right out of undergrad.

[velua]

I know what post-bac means... but what do you earn, a 2nd B.S., a certificate, what? You can always find schools that will let you just take classes as a non-degree student (but you won't get financial aid). You can do this until you have the pre-reqs. I'm sure you already have first year calculus under your belt, so here's what you probably need.

 

Essentials:

Discrete Math, Programming, Data Structures, Algorithms, Automata Theory, Computer Systems

 

Probably should have:

Operating Systems, Programming Language Design/Comparison/Implementation

 

Could help:

Probability, Statistics, Networks, Software Engineering, Cryptography, AI, any other CS electives you can find

 

I mean you could always apply... there are some terminal professional master's programs for people with no CS background that bring them up to speed, at places like Penn, Cornell, maybe Illinois. But these programs are a rip-off IMO. Just a waste of money. For example, Penn has a job placement page for its program and of those who went on to study for a CS Ph.D., half of them seemed to go to places like Drexel and Delaware, major downgrades from Penn. The industrial jobs were at local companies that didn't sound too impressive. I'd rather just spend money on classes at your local uni until you feel you have enough to go get a Master's or Ph.D.

 

How are you going to get a CS Minor if you're already a senior and it's the spring semester and you've never taken a CS class?

Edited March 11, 2015 by velua

[velua]

I know how you feel about sitting around in undergrad classes though. Being 5-7 years older than everyone else in my classes has gotten old. If I get into an M.S. program and start next spring, I'll still probably be 5 years older than most of the grad students in my classes.

[Snowbun]

For a post-bac, you earn a post-bac certificate!
(Here is an example bulletin: http://www.pubapps.vcu.edu/bulletins/undergraduate/?did=20508

As far as the CS minor ... I am staying in undergrad an extra year to take more classes and get more research experience. (But it's just neuroscience research ... I'm going to use neuroscience as a back-up because I'm pretty sure I could get into a good neuroscience program pretty easily. Not trying to boast though!) 

... Also I am currently taking discrete math. (It's awesome.) And I'm signed up to take an intro CS class this coming summer '15.

In addition, I'm currently doing an online MITx intro CS class using python. I'm trying to do as much as I can!

Do you have any idea why people who do a terminal professional master's program tend to end up at not-so-good schools? Does it look bad or something to have gone through such a program? Because that sounds like a pretty appealing option otherwise.

*Edit: spelling

Edited March 11, 2015 by Snowbun

[Snowbun]

Also, thanks for the list of pre-reqs!! Very informative. I will save them for later.

[pascal_barbots_wager]

It might also be good to ask the undergrad advisor for the CS department at your current university. Even if you don't necessarily want to hang around there, they might be familiar with other students who have tried something similar. Having a faculty mentor - although this might have to wait a bit until you've demonstrated that you're committed to this - would really help navigate a non-traditional path.

 

Once you have a bit of experience programming it might also be helpful to try to use that for some sort of personal project. Doing "research" is probably out of the question for a while, but taking a bit of initiative to use what you've learned on your own is something that looks good to future advisors/mentors/employers etc. And it'll be good practice anyway (and fun/frustrating!). It doesn't have to be anything super sophisticated, just something you can code up that is cool to you. If you're genuinely psyched about it that's a great thing to be able to show someone.

Edited March 11, 2015 by pascal_barbots_wager

[Snowbun]

Pascal, thanks for the advice!!

I would love to talk to a CS advisor about this!! But unfortunately I can't make an appointment with a CS advisor at my university because I am not in the CS program. :/ So I'm basically desperate to find anyone to talk to about this.

About doing my own project ... that is a great idea and something that I would love to do once I have enough experience with python!!

I just wish that I had friends or colleagues or professors or something that knew anything about programming. All of the people I know are either biology or psychology people, so I feel very alone in my endeavors. 

[pascal_barbots_wager]

Really? It doesn't have to be a formal appointment or anything, have you tried framing it as a brief 15-minute chat about options or people you might talk to? Does the advisor have "office hours" where you could just drop in? As long as you're polite and can explain your situation concisely (being wishy-washy or vague might make you look flakey) any reasonable person should at least see what they can do. Then follow up as needed. This might sound too forward, but if they have office hours I'd just show up and introduce myself. It's much harder to say "you're not in the program so I can't help you" to a friendly, polite person than an email.

 

If you want to get a taste of a programming community...you could do worse than hanging around StackExchange, but definitely don't be intimidated if it seems confusing. By and large people in computer science are like people everywhere and basically kind and friendly, but there's also definitely a dogmatic and condescending strain to it, e.g. "what, you don't know how to work a command line? pfff!". Don't get put off by this. Here's a good, short post about this sort of thing.

 

I also imagine that there are at least a few biology people who do quite a bit of programming. If you can find some people in bioinformatics or another biological field with a lot of programming, that might make good use of your existing background.

 

Anyway, good luck!

Edited March 11, 2015 by pascal_barbots_wager

[Snowbun]

The CS advising make-an-appointment thing is set up in such a way that you need to have an assigned advisor in order to make an appointment online. (I of course do not have an assigned advisors) And they have no drop-in hours listed on the webpage. So I think I will just go in person and ask if they have drop-in hours.

 

At my university everyone and their mother is pre-health, including the bioinformatics majors, so it's just really hard to find people with an actual interest in programming. Our bioinformatics program is okay, it just focuses a lotttttt on genomics which is something I don't find particularly interesting. But I guess beggars can't be choosers, so I should just try to meet more BNFO people.

Yes I do go on stack exchange when I get stuck on a homework problem; I suppose I will do that more!

** Haha I just saw your edits. Thanks for adding the link! And thanks for everything else!!!

* Edit: Added the ** stuff above.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Snowbun

[velua]

I recommend going to talk to a specific professor. Look some people up and try to see if it looks like anyone might be open to a chat. You could even talk to math professors if you know them (or maybe they could direct you to someone in the CS department). Lots of math folks know programming, have taken classes like algorithms or AI when they were in school.

I wouldn't even bother with some CS advising office if it's just staffed by some department secretary. Only talk to such a person to see about rules for taking classes as a non-degree student or in the post-bac program or something like that if you choose to consider such plans after talking to a professor (many professors are totally clueless about all the red tape involved in these situations).

[velua]

Also, while the list of pre-reqs I wrote is probably pretty accurate, give or take, you should look up schools you're interested in and see what pre-reqs they specifically require.

[Snowbun]

Do you think it would be a good idea to email professors/principle investigators whose labs I find interesting? Like an email of interest or something. I could ask them what I would need to do or what prerequisite knowledge I need to be in their lab.

... Or do you think my email would get trashed because they get a flood of emails from students asking to be in their labs? Especially if they do research at a really good school or in a very narrow research area. 

[pascal_barbots_wager]

If you did ask to "be in their lab" what would you be able to do for them? A tricky thing about CS research is that it's usually not like biology or psychology where someone has to do simple but tedious grunt work (e.g. taking measurements or actually sitting people down for experiments or whatever), here grunt work is often along the lines of "code something up to do this" or "debug this". So while it's not bad to look at existing research and see what you find interesting, I'd pick up some experience coding or something first.