i’ve seen a lot of posts and discussions about switching to the new AI engineering degree, so wanted to share some perspective.

for context, i got my SWE degree from WGU while already working in the field. 8 years total now, been both an engineering manager and a senior IC, so ive done the hiring side and the building side.

first, AI engineering is not ML research. its mostly SWE. youre building apps that integrate models, deploying them, keeping them running. theres some ML and a math course, but youre not going deep into theory. so dont think of the AI degree as better or worse than SWE. its basically the same job with a different title. the keyword might help you on a resume, but it wont protect you from layoffs any more than SWE will.

and fwiw i say this as someone who has trained and shipped my own models with ONNX, using an LLM as a judge and labeler with a human in the loop. none of that needed an AI degree. its applied engineering, and you can learn it on top of SWE or CS.

if youre genuinely torn, get the CS degree instead. it carries far more weight and its what most filters and hiring managers recognize by default.

having done the SWE program myself, the course depth honestly isnt great. it does NOT teach you full stack. finishing the program doesnt make you full stack, so stop labeling yourself that way. anyone interviewing you will figure out pretty fast what that actually means.

and to be clear, CS wont teach you the job either. no degree does. software engineering isnt about stitching tools together. its about owning what you put out there. knowing when something fails, why it failed, and how to respond. observability, monitoring, thinking in failure modes. thats what separates people long term, and almost none of it is in any curriculum.

the degree gets you past the filter. everything after that is on you.

Any suggestions for how to approach D385? I just started, and there isn't much information out about the new PA version. Any study tips, tricks study thoughts? I technically have 2 weeks until end of term and I want to really knock it out.

Hello, I am looking for anyone who may also be in c856/D479 who would be willing to provide me with a peer review. I am one short of completing task 2 and hoping to get it completed soon so I have a bit of time left for a revision if needed before the term ends at the end of the month.

On the peer review dashboard look for Justin - C856 Prototype - REQ10299

Thank you if you are able to help me finish out reviews!!

Did chapters 2 and 3 in ZyBooks, read through the 'Red Text' study guide a few times and then watched a couple videos on YouTube that went over Database Design.

Tried the PA and passed. Wondering if this represents the OA at all and if I'm good to go for the OA?

Hey everyone, I'm starting my degree in software engineering on November 1st.

Would love to be part of this community and keep track of my progress here. If you all have any recommendations or advice, feel free to reach out.

My mentor is Michelle Oaks. Hopefully, she's a good one. Wish me all luck :)

Also, I don't see a group for the software engineering degree, if there is one, would love to be guided to it.

Greetings all,

I was wondering for anyone who has taken the class if the quizzets shown in the study guide are worthwhile? I've been doing em and I can say some of the questions are weird by nature, but is it reflective of the OA? If not, does anyone have better resources to throw at me?

I've pushed this class back so much since this is now my last class before the capstone (I didn't switch over to the new curriculum because I only had a few classes left anyway) and I have a month and a half left to finish everything. I'd say i'm absorbing the material rather well, but i'm nervous because of all the horror stories I've seen previously

UPDATE: RESOLVED - Check your dang DevTools

I am losing my actual mind trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong here. I’m trying to confirm my Add Customer page is working and the dropdown for selecting a Country is blank. I have tried:
- Confirming @Column and @JoinColumn names match the information in MySQL
- Ensuring I’m using @Getter and @Setter
- Making my own Getter and Setter for country_id within Division just to test
- Ensuring I include billable/insertable/updatable = false for country_id within Division
- verifying my relationships with the ERD diagram
- probably 100 much more silly and circuitous possible fixes

I don’t know how to see these dang Countries, so I can’t even begin troubleshooting setting the division. (This is also confusing to me. How can knowing the customers Country determine its Division? If many Divisions belong to each Country? Have I gotten my understanding entirely tangled up and wrong about the nature of that? I’m digressing.)

Anyone who ran into this that can offer some pointers would be awesome. I CAN see the vacations on the homepage, so my database is at least partially connecting.

For context, I graduated from the BSCS program in July while interning as a SWE. I was extended an offer and have been working full-time since August. Previously, I worked in IT doing helpdesk and some non-technical project management. I am a career changer who previously worked in social services.

As an intern, the team pushed me to only use AI and spec-driven development to complete my project. This was a huge loss for me because I don't feel the software courses are very rigorous. I tend to agree with this opinion on the CS program. Maybe the time for that is gone, but I still wish I knew it with more depth. I can write basic syntax, but looking at enterprise level software written for a F50 company is beyond my knowledge.

In my full-time role with the same team, I feel deeply unqualified. I realize this is somewhat illogical, because if I was that unqualified they probably wouldn't have extended an offer to me. However, they have a strong recruitment pipeline with interns and I feel this was just a 'body to fill a position' offer since we are working through a huge cloud migration. Another junior started 2 months before me on the team and I already feel she is infinitely more knowledgeable because her education. She went to a big engineering school and has much more granular knowledge. I feel I better understand team dynamics and organizational objectives because I have been in the workforce for about 7 years longer than her.

My manager said my focus for the next six months should be "ramping up" and gaining as much knowledge as possible. He made it clear that we didn't have the same expectations as SWE2 or Senior for the next 6 months and that he has "no expectations." He has also admitted that this team has never had junior SWEs in the past 8 years - so they are learning how to train as much as we are learning about the product. This has made it quite hard to learn for me. Senior devs would rather do the work than pair to explain things. Only two of our team of 14 have taken any time to work with me on tickets. Most of the time I am just hit with "Run that through Claude" when my question is specifically about accessing a resource or what portal we are using for something. Every single ticket I pick up I cannot do independently because there has been sparse onboarding.

How should I approach this? What worked for alumni who started a new role and were working at a disadvantage compared to other students? I am aware that I'm new and don't know very much. However, there are obvious gaps in my education and the reliance on AI has made it harder to pair and get real learning from anyone on the team. I don't want to bug my manager by asking for more support or make the senior devs look bad by saying they haven't been very helpful.

TLDR: Feeling underqualified for my junior role on a primarily senior team. I am curious how other people have handled this and what worked for learning on a new team or early career.

Disclaimer: I know this sub is for "students and alumni who have started or completed either the BS in Software Engineering or the BS in Software Development" - but I do fall under the "anyone who is taking, has taken, or is planning on taking software courses at WGU" category since there is some program overlap.

Does anyone know who completed the online CS at UF? Doing a little bit of research, people say the curriculum is basically the same as In-person and a little cheaper. I think the full tuition cost for this program is estimated to be around $15K.

I actually start the CS degree with WGU tomorrow haha but wanted to ask to see if I should just stick with WGU and get it done. Sucks we don’t have calc 2 & calc 3 but I guess it’s not really needed as a SWE (depending on the position).

I’m halfway done with the BS in Software Engineering (2023 program), and I don’t have any previous experience in tech. I learn pretty fast, and this is going to be my second career since I’m a former nurse.
The problem is that I keep having this feeling of insecurity about actually being able to get a job after graduation. My goal is to finish the degree in 6 months, and so far I’m on track to do that, but I’m starting to wonder if I should slow down and try to get an internship while I’m still a student.
I feel like having an internship would give me some real experience and make me feel more legit when I graduate. But if internships are really important for getting that first SWE job, I guess I’d have to slow down my degree progress so I can stay enrolled long enough to apply for one.
For people who graduated with little or no previous tech experience, how important was having an internship? Would you slow down graduation for one, or just finish the degree as fast as possible?

................

What did you do for your security feature that wasn't a log in? I'm doing a log in but not really going the best.

Which course should be the quicker one of the two? D480 or D385? I’m on a time crunch and have to complete at least one more class in the next 5 weeks. I’m hoping for both, but my work schedule has gotten very chaotic and my schedule has been out of whack. Just in case something falls through and I’m not able to get both, which should be easier to complete?

Just for note => you can label this projection. This may not remotely apply to you.

--

Tech is one of the most ageist industries when it comes to entry-level.

I've done 2 paid internships as a SWE, and I have 40 CUs left before I graduate.

Personally, I have been coding since I was 32, now I am 37, so the window of opportunity for me is shrinking hard. Enrolled April 2025 and WGU was my last Hail Mary because most ATSs will filter out any resume without a recent degree, degree in progress, or professional experience.

I pivoted to applying for help desk and IT support roles just get a foot in the door.

I have never had a w2 paying job (only 1099), and honestly it scares/pains me to think that I will never get an opportunity. I think in hindsight, thinking this degree would be what helps me finally get a job is understandable, but likely misguided. I want to scream that Nepotism/Cronyism is really the only way forward right now. Not everyone's reality will be mine, and I could be projecting, but I imagine a lot of you are in the same boat as me.

What's your outlook for the future?

Title & image should explain it all. My notes make it look like my 6th grader has better handwriting than me 😩😩😩😩

Any army officer here got the degree from WGU? Any advice?