[markus_zhang]

I'm in Canada so the fee is a lot more manageable, but I absolutely have no time.

TBH I don't think going back to the school is a good idea. They have weird rules that you have to follow as a customer; You have to take a ton of BS courses to make the degree. It's just BS considering that they just have a monopoly of degrees and you have to go through one of them.

If you want to go into EE, maybe try finding some embedded job?

[pavel_lishin]

I wonder if OP would be able to test out of the basic requirements - algebra, language, etc. I was able to skip some of my curriculum because I took some of classes in high school that transferred over, and some I just fully tested out of - saved me probably at least a semester's worth of classes.

[markus_zhang]

Yeah that's a good thought.

I'd say OP can probably do it a lot better and cheaper by building his own benches. I don't know what he exactly wants to do, but an introductory bench including an Oscilloscope, a multimeter, a dedicate power source, a function generator, a soldering station, a desoldering station and a logical analyzer is going to be a lot more affordable, especially if OP is willing to ask around for second handed equipments.

Then OP can take a look of MIT open course and similar materials to find labs to work on.

[ryandrake]

What are some of these "BS courses" that you think you could have left out? I used to think this way when I was younger, but now I'm glad my undergrad university had at least some arts and humanities requirements to round out the degree. IMO we have too many Spock-like figures in tech who aced linear algebra and can balance a binary tree in 13 programming languages, but have not even a remote exposure to ethics, philosophy or history. They end up working for terrible companies, happily building the Torment Nexus because it's an interesting technical challenge. Or they just can't have an educated conversation about a topic that's not tech related. University is not just job training.

[markus_zhang]

I guess it's different for each of us, but I would be surprised if you think EVERY course you took is useful. There must be one or two?

I used to read a lot of history and humanity books so I don't really want to spend money on any such courses. Plus there are so many free ones online so I can take whatever I want instead of being forced to take something I might dislike.

Some universities offer independent studies which is cool, in which people can take courses they want. But for OP's cause I think just building a bench by himself and working on open courses is better, unless that degree is really useful.

[ryandrake]

University degrees provide (among other things): Job training, a broad, well-rounded education, and a piece of paper at the end that certifies you got both. You may have independently studied the arts long ago, just like you may already have been a math or programming wizard, but the university doesn't know this and cannot certify it in writing.

Reasonable people can argue whether or not universities -should- just be single-subject job training. But as it stands today, they aren't.

I agree with you though: If OP just wants training in a single discipline, there are tons of online engineering courses, many of them free. That's not what a university degree is for.