That's exactly what it is: a job to pay the bills. It's what I can wrap my head around now. OP

It's what I can wrap my head around now and it pays well. I want to be a software engineer. OP

Too late. I'm over 40 and I already have a law degree (my third degree BTW). I'd like to think this doesn't matter, so I didn't mention it. But clearly it does in the IT world. OP

Here's a surprise: I've studied Cobol, Fortran, Pascal, C++, C, and Java, too. Web development is just part of the new curriculum. I've been there before, but I changed my major. Just trying to finish what I started a long time ago. OP

Which is why I'm transferring to another school. Big-O what? You want me sort this how? I feel like I have to start over. I won't call it a waste of time since I learned something, but I'd like to have my money back. I should've thought twice about a program that doesn't require any math or science. But, I wanted my degree fast (I already have 3 others). I don't feel like it helped me build a good foundation to be a software engineer (Web development is not my ultimate goal; it's what I can wrap my head around now). At least not when I look at Project Euler.

OP here. This is my 4th degree, the others being English, video production/graphic design, and law. I was a CS major initially and changed my major twice. Biggest regret. That's why I'm doing it now. I need a job because I have adult bills to pay. I have a year left on my GI Bill (pays rent), though, so I may just do school full time and do my one weekend a month, two weeks a year and live on savings.

OP here. This is my 4th degree, the others being English, video production/graphic design, and law. I was a CS major initially and, you're right, changed my major twice. Biggest regret. That's why I'm doing it now.

OP here. I've seen lots of jobs for front-end developers who are required to know PHP and MySQL and tons of other server-side technologies. They don't even understand that's back-end. It's very frustrating trying to decipher what these people really want/need.

OP here. I took a year off to travel. I guess I'm doomed.

I'm the OP. I just responded to Ray offline. Here's part of what I said: "I know I have a lot more to learn about security. What I wrote was a direct quote from my Web development instructor. I had grown frustrated with the CS program, believing I wasn’t getting the best education (after a year I don’t understand Big-O notation and other random things). Tired of his cut and paste approach, I asked him to explain to me what I would be able to put on my resume at the end of the course and “secure login-driven Web site” was one of his bullets. I learned about md5 vs sha, salt and hashing on my own. Reading a linkedin forum about security with PHP make it seem like that’s sufficient. I’m aware that PHP has changed the game on that a bit, simplified it, but I haven’t explored it yet....Incidentally, I don’t prefer usernames for login. I like using email addresses and sending verification emails. Future login systems will incorporate an email hash as well and will generate a new salt whenever a user updates his email address or password...just for a little extra security even if not 100% secure." Is that close enough?

Actually, I have a degree in English (and one in law). CS will be my 4th degree. I was being deliberately, conversationally casual. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've actually phrased something like that.