Ask HN: Difficulties with going back to school

I went back to school at 37, and got my degree at 40 (2020). I don’t regret it, though it was very tough. My classes were almost all online, and I transferred a “Associates in general studies” from a community college (obtained in 2008).

Here are my thoughts: 1) You don’t have to study your career path. You will almost certainly make more money in software than as an EE. I do electronics as a hobby, and I’m pretty happy with it. I worked full time while taking two classes a term. You already have a career in software. I’m here to tell you: you probably won’t be learning much you don’t already know. I didn’t. Why do you want to go to school to study ME/EE? If you want it, go for it. But if you’re just wanting to complete college, play to your strengths.

2) School is expensive. I cheated by going to a church college that subsidizes tuition. I have since stopped being a church-goer. I’m still proud of myself for getting my degree.

3) My wife is going back to school in mid-forties. It’s not too late.

4) You’re younger than you think. If you’re not too tied down, tear up your life. You’ve got lots in front of you. I had a wife and a newborn (still have both) and a full time job.

5) US university programs strongly bias toward kids coming out of high school. They are a quagmire of bureaucracy. Ask lots of questions about the program, find out what you can skip, what you don’t need, etc. I managed to get out of an internship requirement due to my 15 years in the industry.

Good luck, and I’m proud of you. Education is a worthy goal.

Let me paint the average picture of adult further education for you....step 1: get excited by a degree, all the possibilities...the nerdiness...the minutae...step 2: first day in class spent doing roll call for 40 minures, followed by a lecturer trying to turn a pc on...finally gets it working, only for you realise theyll be doing a joint in person lecture + online lecture to save costs....step 3: you cant understand a word theyre saying as no one from admin vetted their english speaking ability (or more likely were the cheapest in a pool of candidates)...step 4:your course notes are outsourced to youtube videos and mooc links. Step 5: teacher announces a class quiz is coming up and not to worry because you can use chatgpt to answer its questions. Step 5: class is paused because a student needs spoon feeding every step of their classwork.

This is a summary of my actual experience doing a technical certification in Australia (and mirrored by others who have done proper degrees too), if youre not going to a top shelf institute or dont vet every teacher for every subhect, i can wholeheartedly say, fuck further education in 2025.

What country are you in now?

The difference between mechanical and electrical engineering is huge. Why do you want to do either? In your last paragraph you are also considering computer science.

You need to decide which degree you actually want and why. What will you be able to do with a degree that you can't do now?

I can only speak for the US but I would look at college curriculums and look at the actual classes you need to take. Many public universities in the US have partnerships with community colleges where you can take many general education classes from the first 2 years and get the credits to transfer.

I have an electrical engineering degree and there were labs in some classes but others had none.

Maybe when you get to that point you can work part time or with flexible hours and go to those classes during the day a few times a week and work during the night.

All of this means you are going to have a big change in your life. That could be cheaper housing, cheaper vacations, less time for a personal life, etc.

I would actually look at EU countries? Maybe if you feel like your country of origin is too much of a backwater, sure, look further, but as long as you are within EU, university courses come between 1k and 5k/semester? Which, even with the more expensive option, you are well below 60k.

And - you probably are too off path for "I am going to pick school for the prestige credentials", you already have 8 years of SWE in your CV, it is fine if your uni will be something random in Europe that works under Bologna Process.

So - focus on schools that seem to be teaching well - or possibly, if you have becomming an academic in your sights, ones that would support that well. Also, I have several friends in their 30's and 40's doing university courses targeted at working people - they have weekend courses every other weekend and otherwise self study. They will end up with proper diploma and everything.

Try talking yourself into it; the question sounds like you’re talking yourself out of it.

You don’t need all the money at once, $80k degree is $20k/year - and only if you do it in 4 years. You are allowed to take longer (and spend less per year). If you’re working while you do the degree, the yearly cost isn’t a very big problem. Find out how online degrees work, don’t use that as a reason to not try. Apply for grants, loans, and scholarships. Some grants and scholarships are need based, and you may be easily able to demonstrate need if you explain your situation. Some grants and scholarships just go to people with interest and promise, and you don’t know if you don’t apply.

Many employers offer tuition assistance, as well as some amount of time for school. If your employer doesn’t, consider looking for one that does. You might have to work there for a year before being eligible.

If you want a CS degree instead, you can easily do that online, and it’s not very expensive, and you can do it on nights and weekends.

If you want to change careers after receiving the degree, you might indeed be back on the bottom of the ladder, but that’s not a good reason to avoid it. Imagine staying at your current job for 30 more years vs doing mechanical engineering - which would you rather? Also your growth may be more limited without a degree. While you might take an income hit temporarily, you can also advance faster and end up making more money later.

I’m pretty sure going back to school while working full time can be quite difficult depending on your ability to sacrifice social life and free time for 4 years. Full disclosure, when I thought seriously about doing a graduate degree after working for 7 years, I opted out. The school even offered a fellowship, but I had 2 kids and a house already and the fellowship didn’t even cover the cost of health insurance for the kids.

Before you go full in on mechanical (ME)/electrical engineering (EE), I'd suggest you to try taking a course or two on it. For me personally, EE was a challenge and although I aspired myself to be a conventional engineer (either aerospace or electrical engineer), I ended up doing software/programming because EE was simply a subject I cannot master during college courses. If I had enough time in college (I was working 20 hrs part time and taking four other courses--was a greedy mistake of mine), maybe I'd have enjoyed my EE courses a bit more? Who knows?!

Just my two cents as a mid-40 years old (maybe I'm jaded), and don't take it the wrong way. I just don't want you to go fully commit to ME or EE without having tried a tiny bit of the college courses. Sometimes, we have ideals that we want to do, but when we actually go and do them full time, we realize we don't enjoy that activity as much as dreaming about the idealized version of such activity...

I originally dropped out of college after attending for two years. I went back to college to finish my computer science degree at the age of 28, graduated at 30.

I had just been laid off during a recession, and figured if I didn't go now I probably never would finish my degree. I applied for loans and used the extra I got beyond tuition to help pay my rent while I went, and for a year of it I had a part time job making just over minimum wage working as a software engineer for a department in the college faculty, which also counted as my internship, and that helped a bit as well.

It was a little weird going back at first, being a decade older than almost all the other students, but I got over it pretty quick and it was all pretty normal.

I went to a state school and it still took me about 10 years to pay off the student loans I had accumulated during that two.

If I had tried to go the online only route while workin full-time still, I don't think I would have been able to stick with it. Also taking a break from the work grind to focus on school was pretty necessary to get back into school again, especially at first, as I was suddenly expected to remember everything from my classes I took almost a decade ago (like Calculus, I forgot almost all of that).

Not sure if it would be worth it for you or not, as school tuition, at least in the US, has just been skyrocketing in costs since I graduated (even before I graduated, it was a bit of a sticker shock for me going back too...kind of wish I had just stuck with it the first time around, would have been way cheaper).

Also met a guy at a hike yesterday who was in architecture for about 4 years, then sales for 10 years, and then went back to school in his late 30s to study dentistry for 4 years and is now a dentist. So another example of someone who was able to make it work somehow. I don't know his financial situation, though.

I went to night school for a Masters in Information Science. It was 95% paid for by my company. I still kind of regret it. The people eho just worked extra hours got promoted much faster than the people who got a degree. It has never helped me. It was a waste of time and a waste of a few thousand dollars. Probably 75% of it was stuff I learned in undergrad or on the job anyways. I'm so disillusioned and feel like the world is so corrupt.

I recently applied for a demotion in my company and got turned down because I didn't match "the profile". The manager then told me the profile for the job, which was basically python, SQL, and Tablaeu. They then told me that other candidates had "real world experience like internships" (this is an entry level data analyst role). I told her examples of my on the job for each one of those, including my certification as a Tableau Data Analyst and building Tablaeu dashboards. I guess "the profile" also includes being young. I might have a disability, but I'm not stupid. I can see what's really going on. Fuck that shit.

I'm in Canada so the fee is a lot more manageable, but I absolutely have no time.

TBH I don't think going back to the school is a good idea. They have weird rules that you have to follow as a customer; You have to take a ton of BS courses to make the degree. It's just BS considering that they just have a monopoly of degrees and you have to go through one of them.

If you want to go into EE, maybe try finding some embedded job?

For all the people recommending/considering going to a 2-year college and transferring, some advice based on something that worked very well for a friend of mine:

He talked to his desired 4-year college admissions team and told them he hoped to transfer in. He got their advice on the overall process, and the classes they recommended he take at the 2-year institution vs. leaving to take at the 4-year. He did the leg work to research the local options, sent them briefs on each, and they recommended which one would fit most directly into their transfer application process.

n=1 but he did exactly what they said and ended up getting the 4-year degree he wanted from them with a minimum of drama along the way.

What about MSCSO at UT texas?

Online but same degree as offline, good AI offering that is recent and around $10K.

Georgia Tech is also a good one.

The university of Helsinki has similar things [1].

Germany and the Netherlands have affordable degree programs open universiteit/open universität are the keywords. Not sure if you need to learn the language.

I hope this seeds your creativity a bit so you can look for a solution that fits you.

[1] https://www.helsinki.fi/en/admissions-and-education/open-uni...

I don't want to sound negative, but why do you want to go back to school? Is this about changing career paths?

If you're already working in software development and you plan on continuing that, then I don't think the net benefits would outweigh the negatives you outlined (high cost, possibly leaving job to have the time to commit in person).

I think a better approach may be the online classes and/or self studying (computer architecture, etc). You can always follow multiple universities syllabi and do it yourself.