MIT MicroMasters
micromasters.mit.edu
micromasters.mit.edu
To get full masters https://scm.mit.edu/admissions/
(Micromasters + 9 months on campus), it is approximately $50k Tuition, fees, books ONLY.
Total estimated cost: $71-76K
Full residential $84k Tuition, fees, books ONLY
Total estimated cost: $129-140K
It’s hard for me to appreciate the value of the MIT brand as a graduate. This feels like a small dilution of that brand, but so what?
I wonder what the Institute’s objective is. Education is such a minescule part of what MIT does that perhaps it’s just an experiment in democratization of the MIT curriculum that someone wanted to try, and nobody else cared enough to say no?
When you look at the rankings of world universities the judgement is mostly by research output, not quality of education (though I think an MIT education is great, for the right students).
MIT is a large research organization with a small school attached: tuition revenue is less than 10% of MIT’s total revenue and education is about 15% of expenses though the web site mixes it in with other activity to make a larger number (you need the more detailed budget to dig the true number out).
Surely there are papers studying that? I'm certainly interested if you know of any.
My personal experience was the opposite - engineering degree teaching maths and how to be compliant[1] to an academic system of grading, but virtually nothing on practical engineering, causality or interpersonal skills. I have noticed the same problems in many of my academic peers. I went to a university in my country that was supposed to be an excellent engineering school.
After graduation I have met great piratical engineers with zero academic skills. Two close examples: a dyslexic friend, another who left school at 14.
[1] I think this is relevant where it talks about being taught to be compliant: "Escalation Theory: Compliance, Violence, and Overachievement In Society - How Elites Cause Crime By Acing Marshmallow Tests - Conrad Bastable" https://radicalcontributions.substack.com/p/escalation-theor...
Good compromises and independence of thought are engineering skills.
This is an exaggeration. Mathematics and physics teach you a way of thinking. Engineering another way. Chemistry, biology et al require another. Philosophy (king of the sciences) and the humanities yet another way.
FWIW MIT has a significant philosophy department and a whole school of Humanities. You can get a degree from that school, and people do. These are historians, linguists, musicians etc who also took differential equations, lab science, E&M etc
I think that's true of many good schools; perhaps it's even the definition of a good school. It certainly was true of my own relatively well regarded engineering school. Who I met who influenced my future success, the opportunities I got access to, the way to approach learning new things, my preferences in extracurriculars, many more, all came from my time there.
but even state schools, you get out of it, proportional to what you put in. I'm not sure your exact association with the word "value" , but even basics like resume building are directly impacted by clubs you are a part of. I know many that received job offers explicitly because of their involvement in a robotics F1 or nasa affiliated competition
I did study with other students and learned a lot from them. I'm still friends with a lot of people I met there. The stuff we were learning was often the source of interesting conversations. I'm sorry that didn't work out for you. I do know some of the undergraduate dorms are more isolating than others.
Also MIT is very research oriented -- a lot of faculty only tolerate undergrads because they can be put to work on research. That experience had a huge influence on what I did after graduating and how I approached what I was learning in class. Also by being in the lab I met lots of interesting people from outside the institute who visted for one reason or another.
On the learning side, I really wonder how much you can really learn that way. Maybe some math.
I completed the Data, Economics and Development Policy one around 2019 and it definitely contributed to a job / career switch (data science job at an NGO in the experimental economics space). The courses I took were highly applicable to that work and I'm fairly confident that they helped me get hired as well, some of the people running the organization were collaborators of the ones who set up the micromasters.
I completed the Manufacturing micromasters last year as part of learning and development during my job (different job, manufacturing in biotech). It gave me a lot of valuable perspective on monitoring and optimization of manufacturing processes and I learned some "Design of Experiments" theory that I later applied at work.
I'm currently in the last part of the Finance micromasters for my own interest. It's too early to say whether this will have much of a career impact, but I definitely perceive the skills I'm acquiring as valuable (basic accounting and NPV calculation are useful in many different corporate environments, and financial skills are helpful for planning retirement as well).
I think the programs have gotten a lot more expensive which might make it a harder decision, I didn't pay more than ~$1500 for any of these and each covers a lot of ground so I thought they were worth it. There are some technical glitches here and there with EdX but overall the quality of instruction is high.
The Finance one is the only one so far where I've had significant contact with peers, it's not easy to benefit from the social aspects of a degree with these programs. I think doing well in these programs gives you a good shot at getting into full degree programs on campus though (I got accepted into the Economics masters but it didn't fit my plans at the time). Obviously the full program is much more expensive (I think it was $40k-ish for the Econ one, $100k-ish for the Finance one).
Your mileage may vary - I really enjoyed the programs, they fed my curiosity and they came in useful so I have zero regrets about spending time and money on them.
But having now completed both a degree in-person and a degree online… I have to question the value of online education if you’re serious about progressing in a field, not just casually interested in a subject.
With in-person programs, even at a low-prestige local college, you gain a network of people who you can collaborate with in your community, and those relationships are at least half the value of the program (if not more). With an online program that just doesn’t happen. Of course some people will post exceptions, but I’ve done both and online is just not the same.
I wonder what we’re expecting from online education. For casual exploration and self-learning, amazing! But for entry into a new profession, or serious career advancement? Not nearly as good as “traditional” schools.
Personally if I look at someone’s education on a resume I simply ignore anything that’s not a “regular” multi-year degree. That includes those year long executive MBAs which probably are useful for someone working for a big company.
But if someone has had a couple of years in the workforce I don’t even look at their education at all.
Small businesses and startups may not have as much HR mechanization to get in the way, but unless you have an in through networking, such places can be very hard to find, especially if you are looking for a place that is at all stable or paying a competitive salary.
I have 20 years of experience in software development, with the last 10 having various degrees of management responsibility as I've been "the most responsible adult in the room" for a bunch of small companies. My last job ended when the company lost funding for my position. Now, at my 2k+ people current employer, I've already been administratively shoehorned into my current position (managing a development team), responsible for level X but titled at level (X-1) because I don't have a master's. My level is higher than most other people in my group, but the actual job I'm doing is a level higher, which would come with a very, very significant pay increase, because it's breaching the barrier of being primarily and individual contributor to being primarily a manager.
My boss has said that my promotion track is basically frozen until I get one. The company will help pay for one, and there are a lot of people in my group that have taken advantage of the benefit, so it's not bullshit. But I really don't feel like I'd be doing it to learn anything, it'd just be for credentialing.
Back when I first started my career, the only people I knew who had master's degrees were working in honest to goodness scientific research, or C-suite executives. We had ICs that didn't have CS degrees at all. Those days are clearly over.
Interesting, would an online degree count? I was asserting "online credential -- meh" and you'd be a good example that I am wrong.
Also, are you in Europe? I haven't seen this kind of thing in the US since the 80s, but then again, who really gets exposure to lots of jobs?
Thanks for your comment.
I weigh this in my mind against the fact that Andrew Ng's Machine Learning course that I did online in 2011 that was the single most valuable course I ever took, online or offline, and it totally changed the trajectory of my career. I did not seek a credential to put on my resume though because I viewed that as signaling the exact wrong thing.
The pain of working with Octave arrays in that course pushed me to learn Python.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/07/26/mit-deems-hal...
MIT MicroMasters Program - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13127094 - Dec 2016 (1 comment)
MIT's free online classes can now lead to MicroMaster's degree - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10409044 - Oct 2015 (72 comments)
>Earn a program credential by completing the course and passing one or more proctored exams.
Hah great. Just another way for people to game through online courses to attain a credential to be called an "MIT grad"
I attended the very first MITx on electronics back in high school.
It got me a job being on my resume
The schools prestige is what they sell since you can learn the material online for free or from a state university.
You are essentially buying into the network and using the name as a status symbol.
I know of such a person.
He claims a MicroMasters from MIT. There are actual edX certificates in search results, so I suspect that's true. However, he often presents it without the MicroMasters part.
He created a website for a fake MIT alumni association in his country. He was listed as the president, naturally.
He holds a PhD from Universal Life Church. Yes, that Universal Life Church. He neglects to mention the latter part though.
He ran a political campaign several years ago. He was exposed by the media for fake academic credentials. They also revealed that while he claimed to live abroad he was actually living with his running mate who also happened to be his mother. No, I am not kidding.
He created a website for a fake consulate of a country abroad. The website claimed that he had been knighted by said country and was serving as an honorary consulate in the Caribbean. Neither true.
The website was used in an attempt to get a Wikipedia article created about himself. It was removed. He's a long-term abuser and well-known sock.
The website is currently used to attack the journalists who exposed him. It falsely claims they were all convicted of crimes against him and in absentia.
He briefly worked/volunteered (online sources are not clear) at an online university. The sources claim he was let go for fake academic credentials. He ran an academic cheating service using that connection.
He also runs numerous websites attacking various academic institutions, local politicians, and journalists.
It was pretty wild learning about the guy.