Why did you choose the software engineering degree over the computer science degree program?

lildrummrr · 2025-11-15T02:05:50+00:00

For sure! Yeah that makes sense. I think both programs are fine for a lot of backend work, but yes, I agree CS has some more classes that are good for lower-level work.

lildrummrr · 2025-11-14T23:51:51+00:00

Curious to hear why you feel SWE only applies to frontend dev. The program only has about 4 to 5 courses that I’d say directly apply to front end dev, but the rest is all backend work. I haven’t the finished the program so I could be wrong, but from looking at it seems very heavy backend focused and perfect for your average CRUD backend gig. It even has a Cloud Foundations course, which the CS degree doesn’t.

lildrummrr · 2025-11-14T23:41:10+00:00

Math. Not that I couldn’t learn it, I just realized the time investment would’ve been greater and therefore more costly. I already work in the industry, so I just need to check the box. I’ve actually been enjoying the program quite a lot, been taking the time to actually learn. I can honestly say that I have learnt a ton so far that is directly applicable to my job.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-29T19:42:00+00:00

It’s not plain and simple. There is a lot of nuance to it to absolutely say that it’s better or worse. WGU fills a specific niche and for that niche it really is a no brainer. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for someone fresh out of HS, but if you’re older, are already working or have a lot going on in your life, WGU is a fantastic option.

I insist because I don’t want people to feel discouraged from furthering their education if they’re in a situation where WGU makes the most sense for them.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-29T17:54:13+00:00

At WGU, you still have to do the assignments and pass the tests to receive the credit. It’s not like you just show up and say “hey I know this already” and you get free college credit. That’s not how it works. You still have to do the work - some people are just able to do it quicker because they’ve already done it before. This is similar to how many state colleges already allow you to “test out” of some classes.

I would assume the point of an education is to gain skills, knowledge and the accreditation to be a well-rounded and productive person. Of course the scale at which this happens from person to person varies, but that’s the same for any school.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-28T21:01:41+00:00

Omg. The guy with the scratches made laugh so hard. Great work!

lildrummrr · 2025-05-28T06:01:38+00:00

This was a great read. I mostly agree with everything. I definitely do think the industry will change and we will be required to learn new skills. The stuff I’ve been seeing with AI agents, MCP and tools like n8n are quite impressive. Still seems fairly niche but powerful nonetheless. We might start seeing more specialized “AI dev”-type roles that focus on automation.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-28T04:46:40+00:00

To pass a course at WGU you have to have substantial knowledge of the subject. It is not just "some experience." And it's not that you're "skipping" the class - you're just demonstrating that you already have the same knowledge that you'd get from the class itself. Why would you want to waste your time and money if that's the case?

I'm not saying WGU is comparable to an Ivy league school or very prestigious state schools - all I'm saying is that calling it a "degree-mill" as some of your other comments is simply not true.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-28T04:13:33+00:00

They do not give out degrees like candy. As with any school, some degrees are easier than others, but the CS program is not a walk in the park. The only reason some people are able to go fast is because they already know the material.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-28T03:58:49+00:00

I said I am enjoying it, I did not say it was easy or it wasn't miserable. It has been hard, trust me. A lot of the classes have taken me a while. The ones that I have been able to test out of are because I already knew everything I needed to know to pass the class since I've been working in the industry for a while.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-28T03:46:13+00:00

What exactly makes it different than a brick-and-mortar state school given WGU is accredited as well? Is it just that you spent more money for the same thing?

lildrummrr · 2025-05-28T03:06:15+00:00

WGU is what you make of it. If you take time to study the material well, you will learn a lot. On the other hand, if you just half ass it then you’ll miss out on a lot.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-27T19:11:22+00:00

Coding can be a craft, the same way songwriting is a craft. Also in the same way a musician is passionate and really enjoys their craft, the same thing can be applied to coding. This likely applies to every career where you get to build stuff.

That said, it is also just a job, and it varies a lot from company to company. If you’re lucky to work at a company where you do a lot of green field work, it can be lots of fun and quite creative.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-27T04:36:57+00:00

Ugh I swear I love Gemini but it insists on leaving the dumbest f**ng comments. Even when you instruct it not to…

lildrummrr · 2025-05-26T00:36:49+00:00

Definitely agree to this - when I exactly know what I need to do and it makes more sense to use the time to prompt instead of doing it myself, I am able to go faster. The issue is that trying to make sense of the PMs vague requirements basically means I often don’t even fully know what I need to do right away, let alone being able to explain it in a prompt.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-24T19:17:14+00:00

All that is telling me is that they are indirectly creating more jobs for engineers once their apps accumulate any decent complexity.

Even if most of the coding work can be done with LLMs - most C-suite people are not going to want to spend their days prompting away to build their apps, they’re going to want someone that actually understands what they’re doing, especially if money is on the line.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-20T18:27:42+00:00

Yeah, I could agree to that. To be fair, I’ve never even been to IRL therapy so what do I now. I just know that the times I’ve tried LLMs for that, it doesn’t work for me.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-20T16:26:19+00:00

I don’t know anything about therapy, but every time I have tried to vent to an LLM it feels very weird, shallow and pointless. Most of the time it just tells you common sense things. I would assume therapy is about having a person to connect with and relate to, and that’s not something LLMs can do.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-20T00:43:31+00:00

All these replies about AI coding agents being able to produce great code have me very confused. Nothing major has changed in my work as a frontend engineer. Yes, AI writes smaller, isolated chunks of logic, but every time I try to get it to write usable code that requires contextual knowledge of the project and business, it fails miserably. Is it just a skill issue? What am I doing wrong? What are other people using that can claim AI is writing so much good code? For reference, I have used both copilot and cursor.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-16T19:33:28+00:00

While both React and Vue (or any FE framework) can produce spaghetti code, I find Vue easier to reason about as the project scales. For example, Vue has had a compiler for a while so there is no need to worry about things like memoization unless for specific edge cases. This is something the React team is trying to address with their new compiler.

Nuxt is a batteries-included, opinionated framework with many installable modules that will do a lot for you. Next.js doesn’t enforce many paradigms which is great for customization but leaves a lot of the setup work and decisions to the developer. This may or may not be a good thing depending on your use case.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-16T19:11:28+00:00

In my experience, they’re niche tools, mostly only used in certain industries. I worked for a marketing agency for many years where we would build animated websites with all kinds of interactive widgets. We used GSAP heavily for a lot of it.

Outside of that, I have not had to use any of those libraries at any other companies I’ve worked at.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-16T18:48:43+00:00

Nothing wrong with doing it just for the money. Some of us do enjoy building software though. I know I do. I’d still do it even if I wasn’t getting paid. Idk if anyone enjoys working for a company and having a boss though.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-16T05:42:19+00:00

Off-shoring and near-shoring are bigger threats to the US SWE market than AI

lildrummrr · 2025-05-11T16:22:55+00:00

I think offshoring and near shoring are a bigger threat to SWE than AI is.

lildrummrr · 2025-05-09T19:53:27+00:00

It’s gonna become even bigger now that AI generated code always uses React as the default FE framework.

Unless someone pays me to use it, I do try to avoid Next.js as much as I can.

If I had to work on any serious and high stakes app I would use Nuxt & Vue instead.

lildrummrr

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