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I've degrees in International Economics and Business Administration.

I consider myself an entrepreneur, certainly my past degree did give me perspective but I feel it lacked solid practical knowledge, so in my entrepreneurial career it didn't help me much.

I was thinking to go for computer science degree. But having bachelors degree in Economics/BA it will be hard for me to go directly for masters? (even though I've fairly good knowledge of the subject). Restarting bachelors degree in a completely different field could be a total waste of time for 26 years old.

Also I'm aware that allot of students do it the other way around, first they get science degree and than they do masters in business administration. Do you think my way will be harder and more intense? as master in computer science can be much challenging than masters in business administration or computer science bachelors?

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  • Where are you from btw? Would you be interested to move somewhere else or are you limited to your area?
    – superuser0
    Jun 8, 2013 at 13:00
  • @T.F. I'm from Republic of Georgia, I studied business administration in Hungary and Economics in Italy. I also speak four languages, so my preference is to move around :)
    – user7376
    Jun 8, 2013 at 16:56

3 Answers 3

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I can think of a couple of options off the top of my head:

  • Apply for a Masters in CS anyway and see how you go, you might get credit for your experience.
  • perhaps do a postgraduate certificate/diploma in CS (if available) and use that as a stepping stone to the Masters degree that you desire.
  • Perhaps consider a MBA that has a strong focus on CS (as a major).

It would also depend if you are intending to pursue your proposed Masters by coursework, research or as a mix of the two.

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    Regarding point 1, I can hardly ever imagine someone getting admitted to a CS master with zero CS classes (besides some math probably) in undergraduate studies. I like option 3 though, there seems to be a wide variety of MBA programs available.
    – superuser0
    Jun 8, 2013 at 13:02
  • So very true on point 3, as your post below demonstrates.
    – user7130
    Jun 8, 2013 at 13:14
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Another option is going for a masters degree in business informatics, a lot of european universities would admit you in it. I do not know if this kind of discipline is big where you live, but it is one of the biggest disciplines in a lot of universities in germany and austria. A study from the university of vienna has shown that graduands from business informatics earn the most in the industry and have the least problems to get jobs out of all graduands.

You would have to take roughly one semester worth of courses in algorithms, software development etc. extra, but that should neither be an intellectual problem, since you already know a lot about it, nor a practical problem, because you will get a more academic and thus systematic idea of what matters in computer science.

Even if you got into a computer science master right away, well how would that help you? You seem to have many practical skills from CS, but you would likely end up doing it just for the degree, because the students who have a bachelors in CS will most likely be much better prepared for doing the necessary methods for a masters program in that field. If you want the pure CS, you are likely much better off just starting with a bachelor, maybe aside working if you are already really good at CS.

If you care about how hard a master will be, well that can't be answered right away. But you have to keep in mind, that economics is a social science and thus not as exact as a technical science.

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  • The last sentence is interesting. Is business informatics social science or technical science?
    – Nobody
    Jun 8, 2013 at 13:21
  • Multidisciplinary I would say, but in your masters you can often choose between courses and could end up having a profile that is very technical.
    – superuser0
    Jun 8, 2013 at 13:29
  • This is very interesting. And in fact I considered this as an option. I wasn't able to find good university with with CS oriented MBI, I looked into switzerland unives particularly in Lausanne - EPFL seemed like a good spot, but their line-up of English only courses is very limited and it will take me some time to learn French.
    – user7376
    Jun 8, 2013 at 17:01
  • Is states best for this kind of Education?
    – user7376
    Jun 8, 2013 at 17:01
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As a serious question: what do you hope to gain from the additional degree?

You haven't really indicated why you want to get a master's degree in computer science, other than "it's the next step." You also haven't indicated why you think you'd be able to get into a master's degree program (do you have enough CS courses to convince a committee?).

But, most importantly, the question to ask yourself is whether or not there is anything really to gain from the two years or so spent earning a master's degree that you can't obtain via another route. If you can do that, then it's probably worth trying. If, on the other hand, it's just to improve programming skills, there are lots of better ways to do that than to spend two years in CS (which doesn't really do much in that regard).

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  • Well, one good reason I've is that local degree makes it easy to move to the other country and later find a job.
    – user7376
    Jun 9, 2013 at 21:30
  • +1 I think this is the big question. If you just want a degree in a country, then an MBA with a focus on IT would be the easiest to enter (and complete).
    – earthling
    Jun 10, 2013 at 14:24

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