Need advice for school.

**pudlonious** · September 29th, 2012

Hello,
I have been thinking of going to back to school to get a better understanding of programming. Playing with linux for the last two years has inspired me to do so. Does anybody know of any schools in the Chicago area that are affordable? I would love to have some suggestions. Thank You in adavance.

**sandyd** · September 29th, 2012

moved to community cafe

**oldsoundguy** · September 29th, 2012

Really not familiar with Illinois education system .. but in many states there are 2 year community colleges .. they usually offer PRACTICAL courses and you can start there. Lower cost and you can find out which way you want to go .. and day or night courses. Worth looking into.

**JDShu** · September 29th, 2012

If you want to do a full 4-year program. the University of Illinois system is very prestigious and you would be able to pay in-state. Maybe look at UI Chicago?

**layers** · September 30th, 2012

if u just want to understand programming better, why cant u just walk into the lectures? there are no bouncers

shhhhh

**stalkingwolf** · September 30th, 2012

many colleges allow for auditing classes (just walking in, no credits), many also offer the classes and programs online. or a combination.

**pudlonious** · October 3rd, 2012

Thanks for the ideas. UIC would be my best bet, but online classes might fit my price and schedule better. Any online school to consider?

**JDShu** · October 3rd, 2012

I personally don't recommend paying for an online school for a degree. In fact, there are a lot of online resources and courses for learning programming and computer science for free! These are taught by real professors at world famous universities.

https://www.coursera.org/
http://www.khanacademy.org/
http://www.udacity.com/courses
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

I you have self discipline and a passion for computers, then I can imagine you'd be able to learn everything yourself from the resources above.

**pudlonious** · October 29th, 2012

I appreciate the advice and encouragement to all who replied. I am very happy to start with the links provided by JDShu. This is a good place to start.

**Mikeb85** · October 29th, 2012

Another vote for free online learning. If you just want to gain an understanding or hack away at your own programs/web apps, there's no need to go to school. There's a ton of free learning resources, as the creators of most of the languages want as much uptake as possible.

School would be good if you want to do programming professionally on a team, otherwise learning on your own is OK.