Can I be taken seriously with a social science background?

1 pointsTheGrkIntrprtr6y ago2 comments

Quick summary: BSc Econ 4.0 CPGA, data analyst/science exp, several years of R, SQL, and SAS programming, late twenties. Passed CFA level I & II exams.

Still struggling to make a decision as to whether to go ahead with the second degree CS program at UBC, or self study. Would I ever be taken seriously as a software professional with this background if I self taught with teachyourselfcs & developed a portfolio?

Curious to hear from developers with a background in Econ or a social science. Do you wish you had gone back for a second degree in CS? Or did you regret it if you did?

Should I try to leverage my data analysis background and rebrand as a data engineer, focusing on learning python & spark etc?

Or should I deliberately delve into difficult topics, and program in C or C++ to be taken more seriously?

I think I'm going to end up studying this stuff anyways regardless, starting going through SICP and loving it.

2 comments

2 comments · 1 top-level

cameron_b6y ago· 1 in thread

TLDR- Yes

An Econ background and great grades means a lot. If you can build some skills toward the CS work, you can prove that you'd be great at whatever you want to do.

so, What do you want to do? Bring an analyst angle to a dev team? That seems like an easy win.

No one really cares about your degree. Heck, I have a degree in Fine Arts. Start doing what you want to do. If you find you need some coursework, do it. If you find someone who wants you to have a CS degree, have them pay for it.

TheGrkIntrprtrOP6y ago

Thanks for this! I could self teach and my work in the public sector would let me go on 1 year of unpaid leave to try out a software dev job.

In some sense though, just on a psychological level, I feel like I'd still have lingering doubts. That I'm just an amateur hacking away etc., and that my resume will just get screened out without a CS degree. How did you deal with that, if you experienced it? And would you mind giving a few details of what it is you do now? Thanks again for the encouraging comment.