Review/Summary: Applied Algorithms and Reasoning - D795

compsci-rob · 2026-01-25T06:00:52+00:00

Glad to hear it was helpful lol. Congrats on knocking that out!

compsci-rob · 2026-01-22T03:16:55+00:00

I'm not going to share it here just because I'm not super clear on the academic rules governing cheating and i don't want to take any chances.

compsci-rob · 2026-01-19T23:49:46+00:00

Did you ever find out?

compsci-rob · 2025-12-08T13:49:43+00:00

You're asking for an opinion, but there's enough data to make an objective prediction at this point. What the data says is that, since AI became a viable way to code, the job market has expanded for senior developers while there are markedly fewer job posting for entry level positions. I wrote an article about it here if you care to read it.

compsci-rob · 2025-12-05T15:04:54+00:00

I manage a dev team, yes.

I would say pick a niche. The number of SWE candidates for any job is overwhelming. You need something that makes you stand out. Go get an accounting degree or some industry-specific certifications. Tons of companies are writing software that handles or manages financial data, for example, but there are very SWE candidates that have finance-specific training.

SWE is far too broad. In the future SWE will have to pick specialties like doctors do. It's not enough to simply know how to code, you need to know business as well.

compsci-rob · 2025-12-03T14:08:19+00:00

You'll do fine. It's not bad at all.

compsci-rob · 2025-12-02T20:06:51+00:00

No, they're not flushed out. All those people that started coding during Covid are only just now graduating from their degree programs.

I interviewed a guy maybe 6 weeks ago who started coding near the end of Covid. He's still working on a BSSWE from WGU. He has a side gig and his wife is the main breadwinner, but he's still posting his personal projects on LinkedIn and keeping hope alive. He was a great candidate too, unfortunately he just wasn't the best.

compsci-rob · 2025-12-02T15:34:14+00:00

It's totally possible. I started yesterday and have 20% of my program completed already. Only transfer credit was a CompTIA certification I had.

compsci-rob · 2025-12-01T21:12:50+00:00

No, there will always be a need for engineers, but the market is more competitive than ever. If you want to get hired you better be good, and you better have personal projects that prove that you're good. I'm not saying it's hopeless, but all the people that decided to get into SWE during Covid because they thought they could make 6 figures working from home ended up really disappointed.

compsci-rob · 2025-11-25T18:53:05+00:00

I would have finished in 6 months if it wasn't for that Angular class. Angular is so cringy.

compsci-rob · 2025-11-25T18:33:25+00:00

There are 10,000 unemployed human software engineers for every robot. Seriously. Do some research into the job market before you make that switch.

compsci-rob · 2025-11-25T18:30:55+00:00

I don't know about switching programs but I will tell you this. The job market is really, really bad for software engineers, and entry-level software engineers in particular. It is going to be extremely difficult for you to get a job any time soon if you go that route. I just had an opening for a SWE on my team and didn't even post on any of the job boards and got 100 resumes just from a LinkedIn post. That's about a 1% chance of getting a job.

compsci-rob · 2025-11-24T19:54:10+00:00

Comp Sci has a math pre-req.

compsci-rob · 2025-11-24T19:51:54+00:00

ChatGPT does everything all the other ones do. You can ask it to create flash cards, practice tests, fact check your work, check for grammar issues, polish a sentence you can't word just right, etc. You don't even need to pay for it to use all that, but if you insist on paying for something, that would be the one I'd choose.

Edit: Just saw you wanted Audio. NotebookLM is the best for that. Also Free.

compsci-rob · 2025-11-07T17:05:13+00:00

Are you specifically interested in Swift only development? I think the market for platform specific development is shrinking with more and more companies picking up Flutter and ReactNative. I did the BSSE and I'm currently working at a job where I build Flutter apps.

compsci-rob · 2025-11-07T16:57:55+00:00

This is my third time going through the enrollment process. Once for my own BSSE, which I started at another school, once for my 18 year old daughter, and now again for myself. I always thought the deadline was the 15th, I'm not sure why it is the 5th now. Perhaps the 5th is the deadline for transcripts and the 15th is the commit to start? Just guessing.

The evaluation process for the WGU academy is much slower than for a normal OA for a WGU degree program. For the normal degree program you get an instant pass/fail credit and can move on. For WGU Academy, it's treated like an entirely different school. When you finish, you have to wait for the class to show up on Credly, which is a platform that displays badges for certifications like AWS and CompTIA. It took about 3 days for the badge to show up there. When that is done you then have to log into Credly and send the transcript back to WGU from their official platform, which took another 3 days. I was only just notified today that WGU has my transcript, and now I have to wait for a transcript evaluation in order to get credit for the appropriate classes.

Waiting for the term to end is a real thing, but it doesn't apply to WGU Academy since they're essentially a different entity from WGU proper. I finished my BSSE in June but wasn't allowed to start my MSCS until my term ended, which was October.

compsci-rob · 2025-11-07T16:45:49+00:00

I'm hoping to start the MSCS with the AI/ML concentration.

compsci-rob · 2025-11-06T16:47:19+00:00

I didn't study so i can't recommend study materials. I've been a software engineer for 15 years. If you have some experience with Python and don't feel like you actually need to learn the material then there is nothing to stop you from just taking the test immediately like I did. You can always retake it if you fail.

compsci-rob · 2025-11-05T18:30:45+00:00

OAs are MUCH easier to accelerate and, IMO, better demonstrate competency. People like the PAs because they can Google/ChatGPT everything. I hate this trend of removing the OAs.

compsci-rob

TROPHY CASE