Laurabelle's Blog

I've been thinking for a little while about getting a second bachelor's degree in computer science. I've decided that I really want my career to be in library systems, not only because techies make more money than reference librarians but because that's really what I'm interested in. Also, I've been watching job postings lately, and lots of the library sysadmin positions say bachelor's in computer science required, MLIS a plus, which is the opposite of what I would like it to be! There's a real lack of librarians with hard tech skills, and I think that if I fit those criteria, I could pretty much have my pick of jobs.

I talked to Dad about this yesterday, intending to ask him whether he thought it was a good idea. I hadn't even asked my question when he started responding, and he concluded that he thought it was so professionally valuable that he was willing to invest in it. No promises at this point, of course, but he'll consider proposals.

I definitely want to be on in-state tuition when I do this, and putting Jeff and his grad school into the picture makes it more complicated as well. We've talked it over a little bit, though, and the current proto-plan is for me to graduate and get a job, let him graduate next year, and then we both move to wherever he chooses to go to grad school. I'll get a job, work on establishing residency, and maybe take a couple of classes in non-matriculated status. Once I'm eligible for in-state tuition, I'll apply for post-baccalaureate study in computer science.

I admit that when I started thinking about this, I thought it would be significantly easier than it seems now, after actually reading the requirements for the computer science major at UW. Computer science has absolutely no overlap with my undergraduate study, which means that I would have to take a couple of physics courses, about six math courses, and about eighteen computer science courses. I'm thinking that would take me about three years, which is a significant investment of time and money. That's fine, because I'll get a lot out of it, but I need to make sure that I really want to do it. A couple of years in the job market will let me know that as well.

The funny thing about this idea is that currently I'm a grad student and Jeff's an undergrad. If we follow this plan, in a couple of years he'll be a Ph.D. student, and I'll be an undergrad.