How I got my Bachelor’s and Master’s in AI in five months and $10k

[JustinAngel]

Hi internet friends, thought I'd share about my journey of completing a TESU CompSci undergrad and a WGU CompSci MS-AI in five months and $10k. This post has a step-by-step guide, my rationale & context, and if I think it's worth it. Below are the first two paragraphs:

Twenty years ago I dropped out of college to start my own business. In 2025, I enrolled and completed both an undergraduate and master’s degree in computer science as an intellectual pursuit. It took less than five months and cost approximately $10k by speedrunning accumulating credits. I’m pretty established in my career (e.g., L8/principal engineer in FANG), so this wasn’t about career advancement. It was about enjoying shifting my attention towards AI/ML.

And there was lots of enjoyment in this process. The structure provided by the programs with their clear-cut expectations led to satisfaction and up-leveled my skills. I remember happily wandering the green fields of the Capodimonte in Napoli eating a pizza while listening to audio lectures on American history thinking “it doesn’t get better than this”. Completing courses in a single day ticked a lot of my emotional-validation boxes. And these new technical skills I gained in machine learning turned out to be tremendously useful.

A step-by-step guide of both degrees, cost breakdown, and credit breakdown are posted @ How I got my Bachelor’s and Master’s in AI in five months and $10k

(sorry for not posting the full content here, it's just much nicer with the blog formatting) 

[SteveFoerster]

Congratulations, Justin! I'm glad the experience was such a great one!

[alwayscurious]

Congratulations and well done!

[bustinjon]

Why isn't the TESU acceleration fee taken into account? Wouldn't that substantially increase your total by ~4k?