I'm a relatively new developer at 33, with about 2 years of experience now. I was in a different industry for 12 years, but always wanted to be a dev. I dropped out of CS about 13 years ago after I chose a bad (for profit) school that I didn't enjoy. I enrolled in a local state school a couple months before getting the job I have now. I'm half way through my degree, working full time and going to school about half time (6-9 credits per semester). I don't know if I would reccomend it or not. I only went back because I needed to take concrete steps to get myself on the career path I wanted. Now that I'm in it, it's a bit of a struggle to stay motivated for school.
Pros:
-I'll have a degree at some point and will no longer have to have awkward conversations about why I don't have a degree. This is probably the #1 reason I'm doing it.
-It removes a way for employers to filter me without seriously considering me as a candidate.
-I'll be proud of my accomplishment at some point and won't feel bad every time I think about my relationship with college.
Cons:
-Money. At a local state school, nothing crazy, I'll be about $35k in debt by the end of it with plenty of up front costs (books, etc).
-Time. It eats an incredible amount of time. Some classes require an hour or so of study time outside of class, but many require a ton. Depending on how polished your math skills are, you'll have a huge wall to climb here. I hadn't been in a math class in 13 years and then get tossed into calculus. Yowch. In addition to 5 or so hours of class time, I probably put in 10 hours a week of studying/homework just for that one course.
-Scheduling. Your scheduling needs might be different, but I work a pretty standard workday of 9-5. The university's latest CS courses start at 5:30 two days a week, which means if I am taking two CS courses simultaneously, I'm in class four nights a week. That means studying has to happen on virtually every off night. It also makes it very tough to take more than 2 classes at a time. Keeping a decent pace is key to actually finishing in a reasonable time. It'll probably take me 5 years total to get through it all.
-Content. The actual courses will drive you crazy. Professor's requirements are usually a clinic in what not to do in the real world. Your good habits will be punished in many circumstances. About half way through, I can't say I've learned anything invaluable that I couldn't have learned better on my own if I were sufficiently motivated. I'm hoping the upper class courses are more interesting, but so far it's been a bust.
-Bandwidth. You only have so many hours in a day. You'll be spending your time on things you have to learn instead of the things you WANT to learn. I'd love to spend my evenings getting more proficient with modern tech, but instead I find myself reading about anthropology or the like. My university is very Java/C/C++ heavy, which is not what I prefer. I'm happy to learn these things, but I don't see myself ever being a happy Java dev professionally.
So there are a lot more cons than there are pros for me, but I think the pros are still worth it. I'll let you know in a couple years. If you're looking to be indy dev, I doubt a college degree will help you get where you want to go. I'd spend that time and effort on a project of your own. By the end of it, you'll have demonstrable skills and a product you can show off.
C3.js[0] has a built in image exporter[1] you can use from the command line if you want to generate chart images programatically. I use something similar that I wrote just before this became part of C3 to generate the chart and upload it to S3. Then my email links to that image. Works very nicely!
Yes, but that represents a very small minority of artists. Most lose a lot of money or break even if they're lucky. Check out this article by Pomplamoose, who are a relatively successful band.
Spotify has been villified since the beginning, and I certainly want a more fair system to exist for artists.
That said, has there EVER been a business model in the US that was profitable for artists? I don't think there was ever money in music for artists from album sales.
The cost of distributing and promoting music is just more expensive than making an album.
And I don't care for the independent keys on the top row. It's a stretch with how often I use them. My argument isn't "It's not that hard to...", it's "I prefer this." Different (key)strokes.
I have an older xps 13, which has the same keyboard layout as the m3800. I actually really like stacking page up/down, home, and end on the arrow keys. I use keyboard shortcuts as much as possible and can hit these very quickly. The function key right next to the left control key in conjunction with these works very well for me. It took a few days to get used to, but I love it now. Certainly much better than some of the other more funky positioning of dedicated keys on some keyboards.
Pros:
-I'll have a degree at some point and will no longer have to have awkward conversations about why I don't have a degree. This is probably the #1 reason I'm doing it.
-It removes a way for employers to filter me without seriously considering me as a candidate.
-I'll be proud of my accomplishment at some point and won't feel bad every time I think about my relationship with college.
Cons:
-Money. At a local state school, nothing crazy, I'll be about $35k in debt by the end of it with plenty of up front costs (books, etc).
-Time. It eats an incredible amount of time. Some classes require an hour or so of study time outside of class, but many require a ton. Depending on how polished your math skills are, you'll have a huge wall to climb here. I hadn't been in a math class in 13 years and then get tossed into calculus. Yowch. In addition to 5 or so hours of class time, I probably put in 10 hours a week of studying/homework just for that one course.
-Scheduling. Your scheduling needs might be different, but I work a pretty standard workday of 9-5. The university's latest CS courses start at 5:30 two days a week, which means if I am taking two CS courses simultaneously, I'm in class four nights a week. That means studying has to happen on virtually every off night. It also makes it very tough to take more than 2 classes at a time. Keeping a decent pace is key to actually finishing in a reasonable time. It'll probably take me 5 years total to get through it all.
-Content. The actual courses will drive you crazy. Professor's requirements are usually a clinic in what not to do in the real world. Your good habits will be punished in many circumstances. About half way through, I can't say I've learned anything invaluable that I couldn't have learned better on my own if I were sufficiently motivated. I'm hoping the upper class courses are more interesting, but so far it's been a bust.
-Bandwidth. You only have so many hours in a day. You'll be spending your time on things you have to learn instead of the things you WANT to learn. I'd love to spend my evenings getting more proficient with modern tech, but instead I find myself reading about anthropology or the like. My university is very Java/C/C++ heavy, which is not what I prefer. I'm happy to learn these things, but I don't see myself ever being a happy Java dev professionally.
So there are a lot more cons than there are pros for me, but I think the pros are still worth it. I'll let you know in a couple years. If you're looking to be indy dev, I doubt a college degree will help you get where you want to go. I'd spend that time and effort on a project of your own. By the end of it, you'll have demonstrable skills and a product you can show off.