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Comment by EddySchauHai | Hacker News Reader

I interviewed at Oxford for an MSc in Software Engineering with no bachelors degree lol. There are sneaky gateways into a lot of top universities.

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It used to be possible to do a research MSc at Northern Universities (Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, etc.) with no bachelors degree, just needed enough industry experience to satisfy the department.

Masters degrees not requiring a prior degree in the field seem to be common, at least as far as I saw when I looked into it circa 2014

Yeah it’s becoming more and more common that universities allow previous experience to count, probably after raising the number of student intakes allowed in the UK. Now if you can pay and if you will probably pass you’re allowed in, from what I gather.

Maybe it was an MEng (Master of Engineering), which is an undergraduate degree in UK?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Engineering#United_K...

Nope; definitely an MSc! It’s a bit of a cash cow course, ended up doing an MSc in CS at another university.

I think that's why the most prestige for top universities is ascribed to those in the undergrad.

> MSc in Software Engineering

I think "Software engineering" degrees tend to be a strong signal: didn't study CS.

Yeah exactly.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with SE degrees, they can be as rigorous on CS topics while swapping later maths modules for engineering modules. I ended up taking an MSc in CS fwiw.

I believe high quality programs exist, but I bet most that use the name (masters in particular) aren't.

I don’t know, I got an MSc in Math/Finance from Oxford and there were tough exams, the selection process was very strict (only 30 people got in), classmates seemed high quality, …

This one was a bit of a cash cow. I lived in Oxford for a few years while my wife worked on her DPhil and agree in general the other courses are much more difficult to get in.

No bachelors degree in any field or no cs bachelors?

I can imagine someone coming from a numerical field (e.g. EE, physics, maths) could gind such a programme very beneficial.

No degree in any field. Ended up enrolling in an MSc in CS at another university though!

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