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Comment by cdancette | Hacker News Reader

For a master, you have The Georgia Tech OMSCS. Most of the on campus classes are available.

Can attest to that (graduating from it next Friday!). Few points - the main pitch for this is the cost, even if it was not a top 10 ranked MSCS program, it was still one of the most cost effective degrees in the US. The total cost for me was around $8,000 including everything (you can lower it if you take it less slowly than I did).

The diploma is the same as the on-campus one by the way. I'm actually attending the commencement ceremony there like all the on-campus students (I'm from GA but some OMSCS students fly in just for the graduation ceremony)

One small correction, I wouldn't say that most of the on-campus classes are available online, I'd say a great deal of them are, but there are many that are offered only on-campus.

Thanks for sharing your experience with OMSCS.

Did you work on OMSCS full time or part time? How did you end up scheduling in studying masters level courses into your daily life? And how long did it take at the end?

(I'm also graduating this week, started Spring 2015.)

OMSCS is a part-time program by design, meaning you can only take up to 9 credits (3 courses) per term. Most students do it while working full time, although in that case, you'd either take one difficult course or two "easier" ones.

Most courses took between 6-10 hours per week (actual time spent on the videos/projects as measured by Toggl). That means you have to dedicate one full weekend day, or several evenings during the week. Note that if you're not a fluent software engineer (there is a significant % of students who don't have strictly CS background), some courses may take up to 30 hours per week as reported by others. So in summary, it's doable with full-time work but it requires planning and can be quite exhausting.

Btw if you're interested, pretty much everything about the program has been discussed at https://www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/

congrats on graduating!! would you recommend it vs the other online masters' on here? i dont even know how to think about comparing one or the other if i'm supposed to ignore ranking.

I think the comparable others are Berkley's data science and Stanford Master of Science in CS (I think it can be achieved fully online, but as opposed to GA Tech, they charge full on-campus tuition). If you get accepted and can afford it, go to Stanford. But I'd say GA Tech is definitely the next choice. Stanford is ranked #1 GA Tech is ranked #9, does it really matter? I don't know, but #1 will cost you around $70,000 and #9 will cost you around $7,000. So if you ignore ranking, I'd say in terms of rigor, I don't have evidence that GA Tech is any less rigorous than Stanford. You do get a GRE waiver at GA Tech OMSCS, I don't think you do at Stanford...

Don't be distracted by the rankings. Georgia Tech has an excellent computer science department. Rankings often include mostly-irrelevant details like the ratio of faculty to students. As far as I know, the rankings include essentially no information about the quality of instruction.

Agree that ranking is not that important, p.s. Pardon my english, it's not my first language, I might have wrote it badly. I meant event if it were not a top 10 program (which it is) it would still have been worth it, just for the cost. GA Tech MS in CS is current ranked #9 in USNews and World Report which makes it even a better bargain.

https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-sch...

I'm a bit biased here -- I was a Georgia Tech undergrad -- but GT is currently ranked 9th for the graduate computer science department :).

hey so how do you evaluate opportunities post graduation from Georgia Tech? really curious.

congrats btw!!

Genuine question regarding a masters programs instead of a BS:

I've already got an undergrad degree, but it's not related to the computer science field at all. I have taken a few CS classes and know the very basics of coding (loops, conditionals, using functions, etc). Despite that, I'm assuming I should go for the BS instead of the masters since there's still quite a bit of CS knowledge I'm lacking (most algorithms, working with APIs, proficiency in Linux, etc).*

Thoughts? CS BS first, or go straight for the Masters?

*Those might not be the best examples, but I don't know what I don't know... I'm just assuming those are a few things I'd learn in BS curriculum that I'm not very good at now.

In the UK, there are usually two streams of masters programs - those aimed at people with the necessary background, and conversion courses aimed at people who don't.

Assuming you're in the US, though, you probably had to study all sorts of irrelevant junk for your BS.

As an American that has gone through the process, I can confirm that there is a lot of irrelevant junk crammed down our throats and poured into our ears.

I'm in the same boat as you, what I'm currently planning on doing is getting the 'cs undergrad' experience by taking a bunch of the lower division classes at my local community college, then doing the upper ones through the university's program of extended studies (the one I'm trying for) then just going straight for the masters. There are some risks, ergo, if I don't reach the master's then I won't have much to show for it other than the classes I took (don't see that happening but still possible), and its going to take awhile; at least 5 more semesters, just to finish math prereqs (up to linear algebra). I don't think the latter is very avoidable, no matter where I go however, and the former is a factor of the later.

I replied generally above, but this is pretty much what I'm doing too. In addition, I think you can usually use extended university coursework to meet prerequisites in a degree program at a different school, if not count some of the credit toward the degree. So that helps mitigate the risk somewhat. Of course it won't line up as nicely as if you just do everything through the same school, but it doesn't have to be entirely for naught either.

UIUC also has something:

https://engineering.illinois.edu/online/masters-degrees/mcs....

Georgia has a few good ones. Georgia Tech and Columbus State University have fully online graduate CS programs

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