# Going back to school for Computer Science, worth it?

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/going-back-to-school-for-computer-science-worth-it/266558>\
**Category:** random\
**Created:** [July 22, 2008, 3:19am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/going-back-to-school-for-computer-science-worth-it/266558 "2008-07-22T03:19:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@nobody](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/nobody)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2008, 3:19am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/going-back-to-school-for-computer-science-worth-it/266558/1 "2008-07-22T03:19:00Z")

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Hi ladies and gentlemen and ladies,

Today work handed me some lemons and my job as of next month no long involves travel and I won’t be doing what I want to be doing for the most part. I’m pretty devastated by the news; despite the fact that the transition is technically a promotion, it’s just not what I want to do and I wasn’t given an option to decline.

So now I’m looking at making lemonade with these lemons. I’ve always wanted to go back to school for Computer Science but I haven’t been able to do to work. Now that I’ll be working normal hours and not traveling and I have the time to get back in the game.

However I’m not sure if it’s worth the investment as far as money is concerned. A degree would be fantastic but I think my merits could carry me if I could really develop some skills. Basically what I want to get out of the degree is a more formal understanding of Software Engineering. Right now I write web-apps in Python/Django and I also know PHP, various SQL languages, and some other bit things.

I am not confident in these skills as enough to secure employment. I want to learn to write apps for the the desktop, not just the web, which would require me to learn Objective-C (interested more in the mac side of life) at the very least.

The other aspect I need schooling is formal software development techniques. I can develop the actual programs, but I don’t know why things work the way they work. All the nitty gritty things beyond “this works and this doesn’t” elude me.

So do I need to go back to school for this or can I teach myself these things through books and practice?

I’d really appreciate some help because I find myself at a crossroads and I’m lost.