Computer science degree vs. post-bachelor computer science certificate My background:  I'm currently 1 year out of my undergrad in psychology and I currently have a job working on a educational grant project at a university.  I've lost some interest in the field of psychology as a whole and I'm considering going back to school for computer science.  When I expressed this interest to an adviser at my old school she mentioned that I might be interested in a post bachelor comp sci certificate.  The certificate is 30 credits and can probably be done in about half the time that another bachelors could be completed in.  I asked her if any of the graduates of the certificate program had had any trouble getting into graduate school with said degree and she said no.  However, I believe there is probably more to this than she let on considering that it is her job to promote this program.

Question:  I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with these type of certificates?  I know that I will have a more complete computer science education with an undergrad but I'm wondering if it is completely necessary.  All said and done I would like to get a masters in computer science because it seems like the smart career move.  Will I be limiting my job potential by only having a certificate and a bachelors in an unrelated field?  Is graduate school really possible with just a certificate?  My dream job would be working for a company in research and development for human to computer interfaces.  I also have a fleeting passion for gaming and music production, but I consider these to be more hobbies than serious career interests.
There are two issues: whether it will be a formal barrier (i.e., you'll be screened out before anyone ever looks at your application carefully) and whether it will impress people.

For graduate school applications, there's no way you'll be officially screened out for this reason.  There are several programs aimed at encouraging post-baccalaureate certificates to help women enter computer science.  They attract excellent students, so grad schools are happy to see these applications; furthermore, if any grad school ever turned down applicants with such a background just because they had no "real" degree in CS, they'd be in big trouble on gender equity grounds.  So you have nothing to worry about there: grad schools are aware of these certificates and willing to consider applicants with them.

Of course, there are still issues of people's personal reactions, for example how rigorous or extensive they think the program is.  It presumably depends on the program, and also perhaps on which courses you take within the program.  If take you challenging courses and do well in them, ideally do some sort of project with a faculty supervisor, and get strong letters of recommendation, then you should be in good shape for grad school applications.  As a sanity check, you should ask about the placement record of previous students in the program: without some reason to think otherwise, you can expect you would end up somewhere in that range.  If they all do well, that's a very good sign; if some but not all do, then you need to make sure you end up in that top group.

As for industry, CS hiring is much less credential-driven than some branches of engineering (where there are more regulatory or liability issues).  If you can demonstrate talent and skill, then nobody will really care what your degree is in (except sometimes for research jobs that require a Ph.D.).  There are some tricky issues: for example, some of the top tech companies get enormous numbers of applications and have to filter them rather brutally.  However, even there the filtering is more often by prestige (did you get impressive grades at a top university) rather than the field the degree is in.