iamudit

Firstly, thanks for your time for reading my thread.

I'm in 3rd year my bachelors degree and my core subjects are economics, marketing and business management.

From the day I got a PC at my home(back in 2008) I always wanted to do something in the field of computer programming and IT. Due to limited resources and peer pressure I never got a chance to pursue my dream. I had no one to guide me and I foolishly took up some subjects to finish my studies.

Now I don't want to waste my life and I want to pursue my career in Computer Science. Going back for a second bachelor's is not really something I'm considering, 4 years is a bigge. I'm thinking of taking pre-reqs courses to cover up for the loss so that I meet the eligibility criteria for master program. I have been learning C++ since fall 2011 and it's fun writing codes.

Is it possible to study all the pre-reqs courses in 1 year(fall to spring)?
What courses should I take that will actually help later in future, while doing masters?

Any help from CS students will be really appreciated.

b@r!um

It's possible to cover all of the prerequisites in one year provided that you are comfortable enough with programming, the basics of data structures and math to jump straight into upper-level coursework. Otherwise it might still be doable, but crucially dependent on whether all courses are offered in the "right" semester.

Here's a short list of courses that's frequently required for admission to Master's programs in computer science:

Data Structures
Computer Organization
Operating Systems
One CS theory course (analysis of algorithms or theory of computation)
Discrete Math
Preferably: Linear Algebra

If you have some idea which university you'd like to attend, I'd encourage you to ask them about their admission policies directly.

Some universities will give you a 2nd Bachelor's degree for completing the requirements for another major; they would transfer all of the general education courses and free electives from your first degree. That means you could get another Bachelor's degree in 1-2 years - certainly worth looking into.

Another option are Master's programs in computer science that are specifically targeted at career changers and will teach you the prerequisite undergraduate material. Penn has one of those: Penn CIS

iamudit

Can you list some of the universities which such program?

I'm thinking of taking pre-reqs courses from Harvard Extension school and then transfer the credits to universities that accept HES credits.

I have shortlisted a list of universities; I'll call them up and ask them whether they consider HES credits for masters program and work my way accordingly.

What do you think?

After a quick search I found out most of the students don't recommend MCIT course and job opportunities are very less after completing the two year course.

FullMetal511

I think I can give a good perspective on this since I was an accountant for 3 years before going back and completing coursework for computer science. I originally was knocking out the pre-reqs for a masters, but never finished. I am now a software engineer of a Fortune 100 company.

1. Internships and open source projects will help you to build a portfolio and experience to land your first job. In Software Development, at least in my area, everyone is looking for experience with different technologies. Take advantage of your career services department and do whatever you can to land an internship.
2. Computer science programs will teach you the foundations and the theroy, but many times won't teach the specific technologies that they use in industry. I do .NET programming, but it isn't something I learned in college. I would look around for tech job postings or call a staffing agency to see what technologies are in demand in your area. Some areas of the country use mainly .NET, some use Java, and even some perfer Ruby.
3. Once you have a pretty good idea of what skills are in demand, I would take sometime outside of school to learn about those (through technical books). I would also, try get internships and work on Open Source projects in those areas.
4. There you have it! I went from being an unemployed Accountant to having a salaried development in job in a year, so you could probably do the same.