Hacker News Reader

> The degree is exactly the same as offered to the residential program and the credits acquired are all legit and transferable to other universities.

This is not entirely true. The online masters does not have all courses available. The on-campus masters has a much larger breadth of courses one can choose from.

All things considered, for $7000, the value is phenomenal.

I am 7/10 through the program right now. I joined the program to get a specialization in Robotics. There is only currently one robotics course(AI for Robotics by Prof Thrun) and supposedly the various robotics professors have been resistant to putting their classes online. I was able to do a Special Projects class this summer with a Professor from GT Lorraine in France. He helped me design and build a outdoor robot, it was pretty awesome. But it is only 3 credit toward the degree.

I think GT is just understanding all the potential they have in this program. There are a lot entrepreneurial resources that are only catering to on campus students and they realizing that the OMSCS students want to take these electives and be apart of these programs.

Isn't the availability of classes an orthogonal question?

When OP says it's "exactly the same degree" I read that to mean that the school gives you exactly the same piece of paper at the end, as opposed to giving you a piece of paper that has the word "online" on it. In other words, I read it as meaning that there's no way for an employer to know whether you completed the degree in person or online short of asking you directly.

I'd love to be corrected but my impression was that you earn a different degree with this - the paper says OMCS vs MSCS.

How will this degree appear on my diploma and/or transcript? The name "Online Master of Science" is an informal designation to help both Georgia Tech and prospective students distinguish the delivery method of the OMS program from our on-campus degree. The degree name in both cases is Master of Science in Computer Science.

http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/prospective-students/faq

That's tremendous, thank you. Perhaps I was thinking of UIUC which makes a distinction between an MCS and an MSCS (of which only the former is available online).

Correct, the availability of courses is limited and there are four specializations available but its still early days in online education space and as I understand, maintaining, editing and publishing a course is a huge effort for a public university such as GaTech. They are adding courses every semester as of now and there are enough general purpose courses in core computer science like Operating systems, compiler theory, algorithms etc and current ones such as Machine Learning and various AI related topics.

Course availability is different, just as course availability varies from semester to semester in the residential program. Not every class is taught every semester. However, the coursework has the same rigor and the degree awarded is the exact same one as the residential one.

>"This is perhaps the cheapest Computer Science masters in the United States from a premier school."

Actually, there are funded ones! Princeton and Cornell both have 2 year thesis-based M.S.E CS programs which are fully funded + stipend. I'm starting Princeton's in the fall. These are small programs though, I believe there's 12 of us incoming.

First of all, congrats. That sounds like an amazing opportunity and I am legitimately jealous.

I imagine the competitiveness is quite different between an online program from Georgia Tech for ~4,500 students[0] and an onsite program at Princeton for a few dozen. :)

[0] https://www.omscs.gatech.edu/prospective-students/numbers

I did reasearch during my MS as well. Tuition + Healthcare + Stipend. Still lost out on 1.5 years of $100k+ a year to slowly lose money (whatever the stipend didn't cover in my living expenses) and get a MS, but I'm happy in the end.

I haven't looked into the details for a very long time. But whether there's research/thesis at least used to be a big variant among MS/ME programs and there wasn't an obvious pattern based on the "prestige" of the school. One will be one year of mostly classroom learning. Another will be a couple years about half of which is primarily focused on research and writing a thesis.

For context, I'm pretty sure all of Princeton's grad students are funded (including masters of public administration).

Still cool, just wanted to put it out there in case anyone was wondering what their CS dept is up to.

That's very cool if true. Usually it's very difficult to get funding as a Master's student because prof's want the full PhD commitment.

I only see references to the Princeton program being self-funded. Do you have any details?

You're welcome to contact me, rteixeira@princeton.edu

The funding implies a requirement that you will work on research, which for most people would preclude working a full-time software engineering job. Assuming a full-time job would bring in more income than the tuition plus stipend, when we take opportunity cost into account, pursuing the OMSCS while working full time still is financially less expensive.

I don't know why one would even consider a non-funded research based graduate program. Even with my tuition waived and stipend I still almost feel ripped off despite being at a good school (UIUC MS).

Can you expand on this? Is it because of the opportunity cost of working during that time, or because you have to work so hard that the small positive amount of money you come away with is not worth your labor?

My OMSCS experience was rewarding, but I think I echo most other commenters when I say it is entirely dependent on how much effort you can put in. Personally, I graduated in May 2017 after 2 years of study (worked full-time during those years), with a decently high GPA and a good understanding of the basics. As my undergraduate degree was in Mechanical Engineering/Math, it was interesting to get more involved with machine learning/robotics from the software side. If you already have CS experience, I don't know how much this would be beneficial over more traditional on-the-job training, but for someone who is diversifying/changing specialities, it was very useful. Though in my current role, its mostly used as a filter, so all the hard problems that encompass both departments seem to end up at my desk... Additionally, one of things about OMSCS vs a MOOC or self study is that because you have invested financially, you are more motivated to succeed. This can be especially useful if you are maintaining a full-time job while attending, as getting home from work to do nightly programming can be a challenge some days.

Do you think it would be possible for an Information Systems major that isn't phenomenal at math to succeed in this program?

I took a couple of incredibly basic programming classes, a decent class on web development, and discrete math. However, I didn't do any higher-level programming, calculus, or an algorithms class. I'm not sure if I would be able to jump right in or not.

Graduate level algorithms is a required course. Many of the courses in the Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence tracks are very math intensive.

"Isn't phenomenal" is hard to qualify. It's kind of relative to what you consider phenomemal.

I've always done well academically relative to my peers. Most of the courses are on some kind of curve. So I've done fine in OMSCS.

I guess what I'm getting at is...if you've done good enough academically in the past and you're willing to apply your full effort, you'll likely do well at OMCS.

> Cmon guys, a US Masters for 7000 USD?

For US costal software engineers, $7k is relatively inexpensive.

The average monthly income in Brazil is ~$620 a month. The average top end worker is $3500 a month. So $7k would likely be a significant investment for many Brazilians.

https://www.worldcrunch.com/business-finance/in-booming-braz...

I think he means that it's a deal compared to other good CS masters degrees. Obviously, things are expensive for people in different places. Hell, 7k is pretty damn expensive for a lot of Americans too.

I did a masters an Johns Hopkins and completed it all online. It's a similar style program where you can do it all online, on campus, or as a combination.

Still cost me slightly over 40k even though Innever stepped foot on campus.

It's a total rip-off, but only in the sense that I couldn't get a decent paying job without a masters (work in biotech).

> It's a total rip-off

I've always been under the impression that most masters degrees are money mills for the university. They expect your employer to foot the bill.

Mine did for most of it, still a rip-off. But at the same time I got a much better job out of it, just didn't actually need the degree to do the job.

MS in CS from UW-Madison here. Also taught CS240B to masters students at Stanford.

Stanford masters seemed almost entirely like a money mill.

Wisconsin masters was a much better education in my opinion. Worked you harder, it was actually worth the time I put in.

Agree, that's why I said its "for a US Masters". There have been other traditional offerings from CMU, Stanford and JHU etc which are all in the 40k USD range. Most of the international students would normally get more out of a residential MS in the US but 100k+ investment is sometimes out of the question. The other view is that the coursework lets say in a country like India will leave a lot to be desired and even an online MS such as from GaTech is a window to the outside world where they can interact with a wide variety of students and immerse themselves in a nearly international study experience. So the cost factor is just right. Also admissions to the Gatech cohorts are very competitive now, so its not also a cake walk to get in these days :)

I work full time as a systems engineer and have been a software engineer professionally for the last 3 years. I have a Bachelor's but it's not in anything remotely related to CS. Is it possible to be working full time and doing the OMSCS and succeed?

Hopefully, because I'm in a similar situation and starting the program in a week!

Good luck. I'm planning on enrolling and working full time once my kids a little bit older.

Good luck.. I start my first class next week as well

Get on the omscs-study slack. It's really helpful (and fun). Good luck!

Yes but it's a significant commitment. I work full time and take one course a semester. It's definitely doable but occasionally very stressful.

I'm half way through OMSCS while working a full time software job with an hour commute and a family with kids. It is doable but difficult. Large portions of my weekends are spent on homework and assignments. I find I spend about 20 hours a week on school. I haven't had to miss soccer matches or piano recitals but I've frequently skipped mowing the lawn or working out to finish assignments.

Yes, it is doable. I worked full time, and managed to take two classes my first semester, and a couple of other semesters I took one class and TAed another. Plan on having it take up all of our evenings and weekends. It won't always, but often will. For a couple of classes I even had to take some vacation days to finish up a project.

So it's totally okay to just maybe take 1 class a semester?

Yes, but it all depends on your ability and capability to strain yourself beyond normal, just for the short duration compare to the benefits in the long run.

How much of a time investment is it?

Most graduate CS programs in the US have a lot of programming assignments and projects, and with a full-time tech job, it might be a bit hard to do it while maintaining a work-life balance.

I'd prefer a testing-heavy approach, with written exams, one- or two-hour programming/coding exams (similar to an interview), and in general other low-time-investment ways of verifying you've learned the material.

Hey, can you tell me the name of the awesome company you work for that is reimbursing your tuition fees, please? I'm not aware of many companies that reimburse you for an MS.

Side note: You've got "its" and "it's" the other way around.

I've had the opposite experience. Except for very small companies or startups almost every company of size I've worked for or interviewed reimburses for continuing education.

Is it a straight MS in Computer Science, accredited and all, from GA Tech? Or some other thing?

It is.