>>11576587Why a PhD? CS is one of the few degrees where having a PhD in it doesn't necessarily make you more qualified to fill a need in the private sector.
If you want to stay purely in the academic world that's a different story of course, but you've already identified yourself as a poor student.
If you're that poor a student you really ought to do as much as you can on your own and via community college.
Most universities have a program where you can get cheap credits at a community college and then transfer 100% of those credits (PROVIDED THE UNI AND THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE HAVE A PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM).
I would also say if you make it past the first few university level CS classes to audit one of the harder ones.
>but if I can do the 101, 102, 103 why can't I get through the harder ones?Because the intro ones are really general while the higher you go the more esoteric it gets.
I'd also tell you to make sure you can pass the math requirements (Calculus, Discrete, whatever else) and possibly audit one of those.
If you're a bad math student then prepare to use a tutor (whom you'll want to get as early as possible).
I don't necessarily think you need to be strong at math to code, there are plenty of zero creativity coding jobs at the enterprise level (which is well below the PhD level), everything is coached in math terms.
You didn't say if you were good or bad at math but if your GPA is shit you're probably bad at math.
>all that auditing is going to cost money (you have to pay for the class) but won't give me any credits and I'll have to retake it for real next time!Yes so budget for it now, it's worth it if you're a bad student.
Both in that you get to find out if this shit isn't for you in a consequence(ish) free way, and also in that you get to take a potentially very hard/stressful class at no risk and then retake it again (often with nearly identical tests and homework) stress free.
