After a lot of careful consideration, I have decided that if I seriously want to turn my programming hobby into a programming career, I need to go back to school for a computer science degree.
I have weighed the pros and cons of a second bachelor’s versus a master’s and have decided that pursing a second bachelor’s in CS is my best bet to become a well-rounded programmer. One of my biggest concernshowever, was the time commitment required. I work full time and will only be able to study at nights and on weekends. Fortunately, I seem to have found my salvation in Oregon State University. They offer an online, post-baccalaureate degree in computer science. This program was made for people who received their bachelor’s in another field and want to branch out into CS. In other words, for someone like me. The program is very flexible, allowing students to study at their own pace. Students can complete their degree by following a one, two, three, or four year track. I’m hoping to get it done in two years. Also, check out this quote from OSU’s website:
This program in computer science is the only one in the nation that offers a bachelor’s degree online for post-baccalaureate students.
Yes, you read that right. It’s a real degree, done entirely online, and they are the only one offering it. The program even has an entire subreddit dedicated to it. I just finished applying online and classes start September 24th. It is a tad on the pricey side though. I’ll post back later when I hear a verdict on my application. Fingers crossed!
In other news, I’ve put Ruby on the shelf for the time being so that I can become more proficient 
with Python. Right now I am working on learning Flask but before I get too deep into it, i’m trying to better understand the boiler plate code that it requires. This has lead to me learning about “special (aka ‘magic’) methods” in Python, as well as Python decorators. Luckily, I’m a little familiar with decorators as I attended a presentation on them last Tuesday, hosted by The Boston Python User Group. I want to go to more of their events but unfortunately they are usually on Tuesday nights and I have to work at that time. Bah.
In any event, I’ve found that this Stack Overflow explanation is the most helpful by far. For the general Flask tutorial, I am currently using this one, however I noticed that he doesn’t use a virtual environment to setup Flask like most other tutorials do. I worry that may have some adverse effects. I’ll have to search around and find out!