Omscs: The Revolution Will Be Digitized

> The instruction quality is comparable to free online courses

IMHO: the instruction (video classes) is comparable to GOOD QUALITY online classes. There're a ton of shitty online content.

And projects/exams are, IMHO, far harder.

But YMMV.

how soon after did you start the program after your first full time role?

It can definitely be difficult working full-time with a family. I hit the halfway point in the program in Fall 2017 (after starting in Summer 2014) and I haven't been able to make any progress since then.

I know in order to do well in the classes I sign up for that I need to spend the needed time to complete the work, but it's been super difficult for me and balancing time with my wife and kids and my work.

I really wish they could launch more self-paced options for the courses, rather than keeping strictly to their on campus semester schedule. To stay active in the program I have to keep on signing up for classes, but then end up dropping them over the past few semesters.

On the one hand I want the masters degree, but on the other hand it's difficult to force myself to stay motivated and interested in the classes since not all of them are fun/enjoyable (or allow for the time to learn in a more self-paced manner).

I'm also not a big fan of online testing / proctoring...I would rather just complete projects ideally.

There've been other students that have been successful in the program even with full-time work, signficant others, and children in the mix, but those first few years in the program were definitely a sacrifice personally and it's been difficult to continue with that same level of sacrifice since the end of 2017 for me personally (hence my wish for a more self-paced option where I could accelerate/decelerate my own progress since the tie to the regular semesters really slows down my ability to make progress as someone that has difficult fully dedicating the time regularly now).

Check with your employer. You may be able to bargain some time off that you can dedicate to your education. I was able to get a full day off, and it's usually enough to do most of the work, if you're able to leverage some parts of your lunch/commuting to watch lessons. I have a job and two kids.

Remember that nobody forces you to graduate quickly. I always take one class AT MOST at the same time, so I don't get overwhelmed, and I alternate easier classes with harder ones, so I kind of "prepare ahead" for the harder class while attending the easier one.

OMSCS grad, father, and full-time SWE, here, also currently enrolled in the OMS Analytics program. I had my first kid mid-way through the program, and it was pretty rough. Something's gotta budge, and for me, it was sleep. In total, I pulled about 15 all-nighters, give or take, and watched a whole lot of lectures holding an infant. Most of the all-nighters were for large assignments/projects. It's tough, but can be done. Some tips:

1. Load-balance your courses. omscentral.com is an excellent resource for this, and I made sure that the workload never exceeded 20 hours per week (there's crowd-sourced statistics there). Pairing some of the more work-intensive courses with "easier" courses was very helpful, in retrospect.

2. Spread out your courses. It's self-paced! You can take 1 course per semester, skip a semester, etc. Before my kid arrived, I front-loaded and took a 3-course semester.

3. Watch lectures at 2x speed. This was clutch. Most of the content has very slow speakers, likely for clarity, so if you're a native English speaker, watching at 2x speed is usually reasonable.

4. Be okay with mediocre grades. This was probably the most liberating aspect for me. In undergrad, I really cared about my grades. Not caring about grades in OMSCS (or caring more about learning what I want to learn) was more liberating. There were many times I submitted sub-par assignments because they just didn't interest me, or I would rather have spent time with my family.

Hope this helps. If you attend the program, join the unofficial Slack group (I run it). Happy to chat with you offline.

It doesn't.

You work your life around it. If you're only taking one course you can probably pull it off, otherwise you're going to have a bad time. There is a ton of lecture content, assigned reading, projects and tests -- much of it beyond what's available in the free udacity courses.

I've been taking two courses/semester and it's a significant commitment. 40+ hours per week.

Computer Vision is a somewhat outdated course that gives a good foundational set of knowledge in the field.

It's run completely by the TAs, it does have one project at the end that allows the students to explore a bit outside of the basics.

That's the only one in that specialty I've taken so far.

Not graduated yet, I'm about at 40%. So far it's very interesting and well done from an educational point of view. There're some rough points still - you can see the classes were originally taught at the brick-and-mortar university and they have been "ported" to online, plus sometimes there're some glitches between different systems being employed, but the overall quality is astonishing, especially for the price.

Probably an in-person MSc will be a bit better than OMSCS, but it will cost 7x-8x and would require people to move around the country.

I graduated from the program in December. Overall, the program was absolutely worth it for me. Based on my experience I'd say that the online program isn't quite at the same level of instruction quality as an equivalent in-person program simply due to the number of students in each class. However, for me personally the lack of cost (both real cost and opportunity cost from lost work years when pursuing a fulltime MS) more than made up for it.

I haven't interviewed or applied for jobs since graduating, but it's worth noting that the degree itself is the same as the one awarded in-person. If you get involved in the community, the network is also surprisingly good; the slack channel has hundreds of students at all sorts of places.

I was admitted to the program in the pilot cohort in 2014 and graduated in 2016. I left my civil service job as a mechanical engineer with the DoD 3 months later to take a job in SV, and I just started a new job two weeks ago at a FAANG company as an ML Engineer. I think having an MSCS from GT helped me get here.

I don’t know if my experience is considered typical. I worked as a TA in the algorithms course and then in Computational Photography while I was there. The algorithms professor was actually how I found the SV job I moved here for. I’ve seen it mentioned elsewhere already, but I can confirm that TAs run most classes—but it’s also worth pointing out that TAs in OMSCS are often comically overqualified, and 90% of the work in running a course is logistics (due dates, extensions, grading, etc.).

I think it’s as valuable as a resident program if you can’t justify leaving your current job or taking on debt to finance an advanced degree. Just make sure you try to learn everything you can while you’re in it.

I’m about halfway through and also did my undergrad at GT. Overall I’ve been pretty disappointed. The lectures are just YouTube videos played through Udacity, and the quality has varied from okay to bad. TAs make a big difference, but the quality there is a huge range. Some classes have had really good interesting active Slack communities, while others are basically just a Piazza page with people asking for help on projects. If you were disciplined and didn’t care about the degree at the end, you’d get a lot more bang for your buck just by watching the YouTube videos and reading the textbook, since that’s basically the level of instruction you get.

I graduated 2 years ago next month and will say that doing the OMSCS was the best professional decision I've made. There's one unusual thing about my case though: I have a lot of prestige on my resume (Ivy league school, BCG, Google), so I mostly just wanted a) the learning and b) to say I have an MS. I don't know how I would feel about the program if I were more concerned about prestige.

A quick plug for my writeup: http://writing.maxrosett.com/reflections-on-the-georgia-tech...

I'll be roughly half-way through at the end of the semester.

It's the hardest thing I've ever done, and well worth it.

The quality of instruction varies wildly. OMSCentral is a student-run review site that covers the courses well.

The logistics depend almost entirely on the quality of the TAs in the courses -- there are courses like AI4R where the professor is heavily involved and answers all student questions, but the majority I've seen the professors are very hands-off and the TAs handle all student interaction.

Is this your first semester? The waitlists clear up shockingly aggressively when the semester starts. I'm always surprised when I get into a class from position 300 on the waitlist, but it always happens.

First, this is not an ad. It's a post that was sent internally to students by the dean of the College of Computing in order to recollect the inception of the program.

Second, why should this be bullshit? I'm an OMSCS student, and others HNers are, too. Check the accounts: all of them seem in good shape.

I don't understand this attitude; if something gets praised, it must be a scam? Maybe it's just something good.

Current OMSCS student here. 30% of the way through. I'm a real person. These reviews reflect my experience.

I understand the cynicism but sometimes there are just good things in this world. For all of its warts, OMSCS is one of these good things.

It's not an ad. Most of the students I know love the program.

I will start it this fall. Can't wait!

I wouldn't say it's astroturfing. People who participate in the program just seem to be really enthusiastic about it.

What makes you think any of it is astroturfing?

Where is the astroturfing? Almost every comment starts with "I'm almost __% through the program and..."