The Georgia Tech Online Master of Science in CS is now accepting applications | Hacker News Reader

The Georgia Tech Online Master of Science in CS is now accepting applications

omscs.gatech.edu

256 pointscrisnoble161 comments

Quick testimonial:

I went to Georgia Tech and did a CS degree there from 02-06. I taught some of the courses as a teaching assistant and did a year of grad school there before dropping out to go through YC in summer 07.

The CS education was good and rigorous. It's much more formal than you need for web apps (as are all CS degrees I would imagine), but it was a solid program and has served me well.

I've been looking for Georgia Tech grads/dropouts who have been to YC. Any chance you could send me a quick email at chintanparikh@gatech.edu? I run Startup Exchange at Georgia Tech

The CS education was good and rigorous. It's much more formal than you need for web apps

They adjusted the cirriculum after you left:

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/future/undergraduates/threads

I just did the oral defense for my doctoral dissertation on CSS floats.

As someone who is on the other side of the fence for this program (I'm currently a CS PhD student at Georgia Tech), I can tell you that many of the faculty are excited about online programs. Hopefully the learning process for the faculty goes smoothly and the online students have a worthwhile experience. I know I'm excited to help TA some of the courses!

What is the benefit of going up to Masters/PhD and what did you personally gain from the expereince?

I've just submitted my application.

I've got an undergraduate degree from Northeastern University in "Information Technology" and an associate's degree from the Community College of Rhode Island in "Computer Programming." I did both of these degrees almost completely online, part-time, working a full-time job to pay my tuition. Getting enrolled into a master's program for me has been a huge challenge. Many universities do not want to talk to you unless: a.) you've demonstrated independent research, and, b.) you have an undergraduate degree in computer science.

I'm currently a non-degree seeking student at Brown University. This has only been possible because I work a job where I can shift my hours around to attend courses during the day. When initially trying to obtain "non-degree" status, my previous education wasn't even part of the discussion, my experience as an Erlang engineer working in the distributed systems field was.

I find the online master's degree idea extremely compelling. I want to keep learning, but I don't want to drop everything to go back and do a master's degree. I imagine this is the case for many people who simply can't quit their job because they have other financial obligations, or a more restrictive work schedule.

You've had that difficult of a time going for a CS masters? What schools have you looked into?

I ask because I'm considering the same thing, but I find it surprising that you can't find anywhere that will take you without an undergrad in CS given that you have work experience, especially given that your degree is in IT, which is very related.

Around 7 years ago I looked into a grad program in CS with a bachelors in mathematics. I talked with graduate advisors from both my state university and Brown. Their requirements were similar: 4-5 undergraduate courses in comp. sci. and subject specific GRE. I believe the courses they listed were data structures and algorithms, computer architecture, programming language design, operating systems, and software engineering.

I think they've relaxed requirements a little but it's still not easy getting into comp. sci. from another field.

About work experience, the Brown advisor said that, for them, it's a mixed bag. A person from industry knows how to produce an application but there may be large gaps in knowledge. For example, a developer can go a long way using ArrayList in Java but not know a thing about it or alternatives, especially if code generators are involved.

Is studying in the UK an option for any of you guys? Many prestigious UK universities offer so-called conversion degrees for people with a non-traditional background. You should be able to produce a solid academic track record and some familiarity with the field, though. For those with a CS background there are many specialized MSc degrees, like Computer Graphics or Machine Learning.

A good example is University College London: http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/admissions/msc_computer_science/

The so-called generalist programs are for non-CS majors, while the specialist programs are for people with a CS or related background. Degrees in the natural sciences commonly involve introductory programming courses, so those may be a good fit.

Thanks for the reply. It looks like a great program.

Unfortunately, my wife would have a hard time finding work in her field and my daughter loves her school and friends too much. I'd feel awful asking them to make the sacrifice.

is there similar conversion degrees for other courses or is it pretty much always non-IT to an IT masters?

I have an undergraduate degree in history and was provisionally admitted to an engineering MS at NC State based solely on work experience. After receiving good grades the first semester the provisional part was lifted and I successfully completed the program. Getting to know the program/department directors and the online/distance admissions folks MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE.

Definitely a step in the right direction, but I wish the degree didn't have the word "online" in it. I'd like to see them advertise the same integrity of their "offline" masters program.

I imagine the work is equal, and the word "online" shouldn't carry a negative connotation, but it sort of does.

Best of luck to anyone taking this on - again, I'm sure the program is great.

Seems like a fair trade for the discounted price. Their normal program rates are about 5-10x more than the OMSCS program.

Is it a necessary or fair trade if the per-student cost to GT is proportionally less, and the work is reasonably equivalent?

It depends whether you think it is fair if someone sells a product for what people will pay for it instead of what it costs to produce plus a set margin.

Well of course fair is what people will pay for it. If it wasn't fair, people wouldn't pay for it. If you think "cost + some fixed preset margin" is fair, and they don't, then you won't pay for it.

I really don't care how much it is to produce. I do care about the value I will derive from it. To me, 7k for a GT MS is a steal, especially if I don't have to move or disrupt my family's routine in any way.

I can understanding hedging on the first class; nobody knows if this will work well or not, so GT might just be trying to protect its current alumni from dilution in prestige if things go wrong. In the long run though, I agree that the "online" label must go.

There is no online label.

Source? It seems that it does.

"The Georgia Tech Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMS CS) is now accepting applications "

http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/program/

http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/faq/ See the thread below too. It's the same degree.

Based on the FAQ the "online" label is gone!

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.

EDIT: jophde posted the relevant link to the FAQ where I searched for this question.

I'd be very surprised if the work is equal. I know in theory it should be, but I think reality is that it will have to be much more programatically grade-able and won't be.

From my memories at GT near the turn of millennium, most work in CS was already programmatically gradable. The course descriptions look every bit as rigorous. Seems the only real difference is the level of access to personal assistance in the class.

Same memories here for the everything through senior year of BS, but after that things were more self defined projects with a lot more gray area for functionality, API definitions, etc.

I thought/have heard secondhand here that MS was more along those lines, but I may be completely wrong there.

I only did undergrad there, but was friends with several MS students. It seemed to largely differ course to course. Some were more research/project oriented, and others seemed more like an undergrad course with a narrower focus. Format might have even differed based on professor. Either way it doesn't seem a stretch to use autograding for a MS, at least for non-thesis options.

Perhaps, either way I'm always hoping for the alma mater to do well in all areas its involved in.

I'm taking classes for an online program right now where the courses allow online-only part time, in-person part time, and in-person full-time students (a few in both undergraduate and graduate tracks). The last two had many hundreds of enrolled students.

Especially at larger universities, the question is the availability of TAs -- every assignment in all three classes so far has had writing components that require human grading.

Online students require a significantly lower load of in-person support (office hours, multiple lab sections, etc) because they're expected to do more self-teaching.

Stanford's public machine learning and other CS courses with their 10's of thousands of completing students, or EdX's Harvard CS50 class with its 1000's of students are good examples where grading against a rubric seems to scale.

Looks like the degree will not contain the word "online". From the FAQ:

> 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/faq/

They said the same thing on their Twitter Q/A https://twitter.com/GTOMSCS

"@GTOMSCS Is the Degree Awarded same as that for a residential program?"

"@sahuja79 Yes. The degree is the same as that for a residential program. Recommendations are not required but strongly encouraged."

Pretty black and white.

In my understanding this distinction makes the degree essentially worthless.

Udacity and Georgia Tech are comparing the real master's and online master's as equivalent, but there hasn't been any evidence that employers or other universities (for PhD programs etc) would treat the online master's any better than a string of MOOC completions.

While usual bachelor and master degrees offer a "costly advertising" function, the lowered barriers should actually make the degree less attractive to employers. They could always hire self-taught engineers at a considerable discount if they wanted to.

This is a chicken and egg scenario though. By producing masters online grads into the world employers will encounter them and firm their own opinion on the quality of their education.

Yes, chicken and egg. But the chicken (students) are putting up the eggs (tuition). So I'm not extremely sceptical about the whole thing, but I consider it a very high risk for students eligible for an established master's program...

On second thought I just learned that the "online" prefix is abandoned now, so I am much more optimistic about the whole thing. And yes, it worries me that I would worry about a one word distinction...

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6512943

Having just completed an MS CS here, I can tell you that the most important part of my experience was not the course work, but rather the research opportunities. I spent far more time working on research projects with professors and they developed me far better than my classes did. Though the class-work might be the same, the total work will not be the same. You're getting what you paid for: an elite graduate-level education for a small fraction of the cost for people who might not be accepted otherwise which can be completed remotely at each person's own convenience.

That being said, there are some pretty great professors here and you will probably learn a great deal from the classes you wouldn't be able to elsewhere. But the reality is that the two degrees will never really hold the same weight, and to pretend like they do devalues the "offline" program we worked hard and paid more money and time to get.

I disagree here.

What GATech is showing with this introduction of the course is the start. There are numerous links in the page referencing the College of Computing Website, which in turn discusses the Project Option and Thesis Option of the MS CS degree. As such, it seems likely to me that GATech will be putting their online students through the same ropes as their offline students.

The University of Florida EDGE program offers masters degrees in both Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer & Information Science & Engineering[1]. The EDGE program has been around for a long time. Before high speed internet was prevalent they actually mailed DVDs to students.

At UF they actually record the same lectures that on campus students are attending. Same quality, just a different medium.

Although UF's engineering program is not as highly regarded as Georgia Tech's it is still a very strong program and worth considering if you are considering Georgia Tech.

Disclosure: I'm an alumni of the UF EDGE program.

[1] http://www.ufedge.ufl.edu/degrees-and-certificates/offerings...

*alumnus

$725.75 per credit hour (non-resident) for EDGE vs. $134 for GA Tech OMS CS is a significant difference.

As a person who had a 2.92 GPA getting out of university(I transferred from one univ to another so while my credits were accepted from the first, the 3.3 GPA didn't carry), how critical are graduate schools of this sort of thing? I have a BS in CS, and about 9 years of real-world development experience under my belt and can probably get good recommendations from supervisors / professors. Can anyone comment on this?

Edit: I'm in the process of updating my resume and applying. While I'm still curious for anyone's thoughts for this, I figure it doesn't hurt to try anyway :)

From my experience people that have been out of school that long and don't have a good GPA usually take a few graduate courses through the non-degree program, then get a recommendation from the professors when they apply to grad school. It probably will vary from school to school. Grades alone however usually grad school will want over a 3.0 GPA and 2-3 recommendations from professors.

Thanks! That's sort of what I was afraid of, but if this might be the route I have to go then it'll give me a better shot of getting into a program. By then I'll see how well the current crop of Georgia Tech students like the program and go from there. I'm doing a Machine-Learning class from Coursera / Stanford starting next week to give me a taste of things, too :)

This is essentially how it worked for me, too. I had a 2.92 overall GPA but showed them a 3.6 GPA in my major, and was provisionally admitted (based mostly on my letters of reference and work experience). It seems admissions and department heads have quite a bit of flexibility if you can convince them to apply it. :)

Just a reminder these classes will be available for free on Udacity as well. To me that seems like a better option for the first round of classes.

Yup! The 7 grand would be for the accreditation. I find this model to be awesome. Makes me proud of my school.

source?

A list of all the courses:

http://www.class-central.com/initiative/gatech-oms-cs

Does anyone know how "accredited" this is an whether you could do this on an F-1 visa? Just curious. Would be kinda nice to do Georgia Tech without having to move.

I am wondering the same thing. As I am working full time on F-1 OPT right now, is it possible that I can enroll in this program? (I am not interested in the master degree OPT but rather the degree program itself).

I'm surprised at the 100 student limit they impose. I'm currently following MIT's 8.01x Physics course on edX along with 33k other students. So far I haven't had an issue that's a direct result of the number (like felling I don't get enough attention from the staff.)

So on one hand we have options like edX, which reach a lot more people and are mostly free ($50 for a verified diploma) that reach orders of magnitude more students, and on the other a paid-and-accredited degree.

I personally hope they'll be more of the first ones, because of a) not being able to spend $6k and b) the warm feeling I get in my stomach when I think about free and high-quality education that reaches tens of thousands of people.

This is the limit for their "pilot program" and will be dropped in the future.

Great. Do you maybe know if they plan on dropping the price in proportion to the number of students rolled in?

I'm thinking: if they enroll 10x students, their expenses will be covered if every student paid 1/10 of the price. And getting a masters degree for $600 from an accredited university... that's really something.

There is a non-trivial per student cost assuming they don't just put your programs through an automated tester.

And if everything you do for class can be graded by an automated tester, it's not going to be a very good MS.

In general, I think there is a lot more risk to the institution for handing out accredited degrees to paying remote students than for handing out an honor code certificate. They are just taking baby steps, which is a good thing.

They will only have limited resources for per-student support, they will have to authorize each student and they will want to gradually develop what "passing grade" (or similar) they want to require.

Slow roll-out is probably the smart choice.

I'm applying, but don't have terribly high hopes. I'm hopeful that they'll look past my lack of a high-school diploma, in favor of my industry and teaching experience, but we'll see. It would be awesome to be a part of this.

It will be interesting to see if they will accept students with no bachelors degree at all. Their site says: "significant professional or other work experience with supporting recommendations may qualify as an adequate substitute for the appropriate academic credentials"

However, there have traditionally been accreditation issues with accepting students into masters programs without an undergraduate degree (I ran into this when trying to take non-degree graduate classes at Stanford).

Very interesting, indeed.

I dropped out of engineering school to start my first company when I was a junior and never went back.

I'd probably have to retake everything since it has been so long. There are so many bullshit required electives and almost all of the undergraduate classes would be worthless in terms of actually teaching me anything. It would be so frustrating to waste that much time.

But I am 100% sure I could handle a master's program. It would be interesting and I would learn alot to boot. If a university was serious about the 'professional experience can be used in lieu of academic credentials' I'd seriously consider shifting my life around to get a Masters.

If you already know the material, an hour long CLEP test can get you out of just about every required elective most degrees have.

Looking through the CLEP tests...

It appears that they mostly cover freshman/sophomore level material. There are certainly not enough to get a full-fledged degree.

I never implied they were. They're designed exactly to let you test out of those introductory classes you think "won't teach you anything" you don't already know.

Yeah...I was talking about classes through upper division coursework not just the introductory classes.

Excelsior college lets one transfer 117 of 120 credits or something similar and you can complete a business degree almost entirely by examination. No residency requirement either.

If you just need some degree that's the way to go.

I'd wonder if any grad school in the country would let people in with a degree from Excelsior.

How can we help?

Erm, question. Are you the Sebastian Thrun? If so, that's awesome.

You are teaching one of the courses that I am interested in taking!

As someone that only has a roughly BS equivalent degree: I checked the application form and closed it again.

I'd love to enroll, I just recently discussed with my wife that I'd love to get a better theoretical background, enroll again.

But .. the list of requirements to apply corrects this German's idea of what bureaucracy means and I cannot provide most of the documents, nor does it seem that this is seriously targeted at non US citizens. Not for me unfortunately, but I do appreciate that this is offered in general, and even (in theory?) includes global applicants.

There is probably less bureaucracy than you think. It all depends on who is making the decision. You should email them.

When I looked into schools, some schools stated they wanted a 3.0 GPA, for instance. this seems standard and seems like school policy, but I have found out that it isn't very strictly enforced at many schools, even public schools. there are things that are stated because the state makes up what rules need to be advertised for public schools, but departments often don't care.

In the end, they want your money, especially for a master's degree where you'll be paying.

If you're interested, you should try emailing them and try to get a feel for how lax they are about such things.

Does anyone know if doing this masters will count in front of USA immigration department? In other words will this degree move me from EB3 to EB2 category in Green Card application: http://www.murthy.com/2011/07/15/eb2-or-eb3-understanding-th... . Masters from the school where I did bachelor's degree only counts as bachelor degree in USA, so it would be very important factor for some people.

So my problem is I never finished my undergrad. But I have no desire to put 3-4 more years work (its been 12+ years) into paying a whole lot in time and money for an undergrad degree. I've worked in the industry and learned the bits I was missing. (Advanced algo, statistic/probability, linear algebra)

I'd like to participate in the GA Tech program, its worth my time and the machine learning/vision curriculum is exactly up my alley. Mind you I've been picking this up anyway recently because I'm interested in the subject and have some product ideas to hash out with it. The grad degree would be nice to have, but not the end of the world.

I tried to email the contact for the program and they wouldn't really say one way or another if they would even consider people who didn't finish undergrad.

I would suggest that GA Tech should open a couple weeder classes. Let people who can hit a certain threshold take them and prove competency.

A degree is a nice benchmark, but in CS we have a pretty wide variety of ways to learn. It would be nice to be able to segue in and out of the academic system smoother to get needed credentials.

The page says:

Preferred qualifications for admitted OMS CS students are an undergraduate degree in computer science or related field (typically mathematics, computer engineering or electrical engineering) from an accredited institution with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher. Applicants who do not meet these criteria will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis; significant professional or other work experience with supporting recommendations may qualify as an adequate substitute for the appropriate academic credentials.

which seems to imply that they're at least willing to consider applicants without a degree.

Reading that a second time it does seem that way. At first it seemed to be less flexible and required a degree. Just that the particular discipline was flexible.

Thanks.

The page they link to [1] mentions that you need to submit your GRE scores. However the page itself doesn't have any mention of the GRE being a requirement? Any idea what the actual stance on this is?

[1] - http://www.gradadmiss.gatech.edu/apply/index.php

I was actually wondering the same thing.

I took the general GREs back in 2008 but I'm just over the arbitrary 5 year cutoff that the ETS imposes on score validity.

Incidentally, the FAQ on the OMS CS page says explicitly that you do not need to have taken the GRE.

Only a 100 open slots and potentially 10,000 of applications as it seems they accept applications from all over the world. And there will be no visa issues. That means they might be able to be even more selective than with their regular offline classes. => Very good to give the online degree an initial boost in prestige.

If you are a non-US student then you must still submit a TOEFL score. From the FAQ:

If my country’s primary language is English, do I still have to provide a TOEFL score?

Yes. TOEFL scores are required of all international applicants, except those who have spent at least one year in residence and enrolled at a U.S. college or university.

With a little digging, you can find this: http://www.gradadmiss.gatech.edu/faq/documents/TOEFL_Require...

I am faintly amused that Canada is not on this PDF list of either de facto or de jur countries where English is spoken.

me no talk english like muricans cause me being from BC eh?

I asked them about this, and its not a mistake. It depends on the province.

They clarified that any province outside of Quebec is exempt from TOEFL. Quoting their tweet excerpt back to me:

@GTOMSCS: Canadian universities outside of Quebec are exempt from TOEFL.

Yay! I got my application in before someone posted it to Hacker News. I might actually have a chance now.

Me too ... I was a lousy student (in the early '80s) and then scored well on the Comp Sci GRE in 1990. I'm wondering whether they'll see the change I recognized in myself during that span.

I'm curious about your GRE comment - I took the GRE in 2007, and did well, and thus would like to include it in my application, but ETS says GRE scores are only valid for 5 years.

But other than Coursera and employee development, those GREs are the last academic record I have. You would think my transcripts from '85 would be even less relevant with that line of reasoning, but that might be exactly what keeps me from enrolling.

FWIW, You can retake it relatively quickly.

If I knew this course was imminent, I might have but the Computer Science subject test was discontinued (see the note here: https://www.ets.org/gre/subject/about?WT.ac=grehome_gresubje...)

I don't see a note on that page. What did it say?

The GRE, yes. The CS GRE subject test, no.

I'm surprised they recognize GRE scores from that long ago. Anyways, good luck and if you don't get accepted try taking a couple of graduate-level courses somewhere else, or maybe there as a non-degree student if they allow it. Doing well would show your current academic capability, which is probably more meaningful to admissions.

I am just finishing up my SOP and I noticed the posting. I hope I still have a chance.

Based on the wording on the page, it doesn't appear that time is the most important factor in qualification (other than meeting the deadline, of course). I'm sure they're looking for quality applicants, considering this is a "pilot" run of the program, to give it the greatest chance of success.

They're using rolling admission -- so if they come across 100 qualifying applications before they encounter yours, it doesn't matter how good you are (they bump you to a future semester).

Does anyone know a good undergraduate online program?

I did some looking in to this a while ago, can't vouch for any of them personally, but known accredited schools with BSCS or at least related fields:

University of Illinois (BSCS) http://www.online.uillinois.edu/catalog/ProgramDetail.asp?Pr...

Drexel (BS Computing and Security Technology) http://www.drexel.com/online-degrees/bachelors-degrees/bs-gs...

Penn St. (BS Security and Risk Analysis) http://www.worldcampus.psu.edu/degrees-and-certificates/secu...

There may have been a couple more, but these are the ones I bookmarked.

This might be a naive question, but why is this so inexpensive? Don't get me wrong, education is definitely way more expensive than it "should" be, but I recently started a Master's in CS at DePaul and $7,000 for the whole degree is a fraction of what I'm paying.

I understand DePaul is private and expensive anyway, but $134 per credit hour is still far and away cheaper than anywhere else I've seen while I was looking for schools to apply to, even in-state public schools.

That's on par with public school tuition in my experience.

As a European I can only ask why this is so expensive...

I'm doing Computational Investing from gatech on coursera now, https://www.coursera.org/course/compinvesting1.

I do enjoy the course because I wanted to learn more about finance, although they could improve a lot on their presentation skills and material preparation. I hope they will take a lesson or two from their coursera feedback for the benefit of their online students.

Good class, I can't stand the first 15 second music intro.

Hm. I have a PhD in chemistry, am considering this as a career shift option. I can write software, I've just never done it formally.

You don't need a CS degree to develop software. I have one but plenty of my coworkers do not. If you want to see if the work suits you without jumping right into the deep end or going back to school, see if there are any Software Craftsmanship apprentice programs in your area. You'll get more exposure to test-driven development and other ideas than most jobs however it may have a consultant slant to it as that is what a lot of SC places are doing.

Yeah I know, but I'd like some a more in-depth understanding of certain topics, in particular neural networks. I think it's a field where my particular expertise (mechanistic chemistry and biophysics) can bring in translateable insights.

I have an ALM in IT from Harvard Extension School. I've always felt like a degree without any 'extensions' would be nice to have. On the other hand, I don't want to pay 7k a year for another program that's similar to the one I paid for already.

Am I even eligible? Is this program better or more challenging? Is it worth it? Other thoughts?

From the linked page:

  > Information Required for Application
  > [...]
  >   Ethnicity

Really? I could have sworn they're not allowed to require you to provide that. (They can ask, but only if they make it clear that the response is optional.)

Will students who don't have their application accepted be able to get a refund?

Generally in the US the application fee isn't refundable. I've always understood it as a way for schools to offset the cost of processing applications and prevent folks from applying to every college under the premise of "Maybe I'll get lucky and be accepted into MIT"

My credentials aren't that great, so I'll just wait and apply next term to increase my chances of getting accepted.

From the FAQ: . Students who qualify but are not offered admission during Spring 2014 will be offered deferred admission in subsequent terms.

In this case, I get the feeling they might make as much money from application fees as they might make from the actual program, There are lots of people who will can't make it to the US due to visa who will love a degree from a US university. Online or not.

> After you are satisfied that ALL information in your application is correct, you may SUBMIT your application. You will be asked to provide accurate credit card information in order to pay your application fee of $50. This application fee must be paid online and is non-refundable. Georgia Tech will not receive your application until the fee is paid online.

http://www.gradadmiss.gatech.edu/apply/index.php

Sometimes if you call them and explain why you can't pay schools can waive the fee. Especially if you are a strong candidate. Like another poster said, this is mostly to keep the school from being flooded with a million applications and not having the staff (money) to go through them all.

I'm working on my application now. I barely meet the requirements, so it'll be interesting to see if I can get in for the trial period or for the Fall 2014 semester.

Are they going to offer the course materials for free as well?

The application is asking for a Academic and Career plan upto 4000 words? How important is to meet this word limit?

I thought it was up to 4000 characters.

I applied this morning. I kinda rushed my statement of purpose but hopefully it was sufficient. Wish me luck!

i would love to apply to grad school to get a CS degree (or even get a second bachelor's). The problems are that my bachelor's is in journalism, and my cumulative GPA was only 2.9. And I've only had a year of professional programming experience :(

You shouldn't be allowed in right now because with your experience you would be unlikely to succeed.

This is intended to be a serious master's degree from a top ten university for people with strong practical knowledge. Unless you are a brilliant student, it will be very hard for you to pass the initial courses - those required to continue - especially because you probably will not be doing this full time. It's unlikely that you're a brilliant student because you chose to study journalism. I made the same mistake.

Udacity failed in their first attempt at accredited online courses with San Jose State. This was attributed to unprepared students with full time jobs.

Georgia Tech can't accept this. So for the demonstration classes over the next few years, they'll carefully choose the most motivated and capable people from all over the world.

That said, MOOCs likely respect the work of other MOOCs, and there are lots of courses on programming available. Udacity already has great ones (i'm currently taking debugging), and even these can be difficult to complete on time.

So it seems like using these to develop the discipline to complete the courses will be perfect preparation for you to take the Master's.

And when they begin to accept more students, they'll likely start looking closely at those who show demonstrated aptitude for working through online courseware.

heh. > It's unlikely that you're a brilliant student because you chose to study journalism. I made the same mistake.

i don't see the line of logic there, but oh well.

i just signed up with the course era python course, and i'll probably do a few more of those courses. So you think several of those in conjunction with full time programming will get me ready for a master's (or any other degree?) in a year or so?

Man, don't let people discourage you.

I guess the thing that you should realize though is that this isn't a degree in computer programming, or IT - it's a more or less a mathematics degree. As the saying goes, "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."

If you want to get ready for serious computer science, I'd recommend a few things which are what I think I got out of my undergraduate degree:

1. A solid understanding of algorithms and data-structures. To this end, topcoder.com/tc is invaluable and some serious study will quickly bring you up to speed. CLRS (Introduction to Algorithms) is a great resource, as is train.usaco.org.

2. A basic understanding of theoretical computer science. To that end, I found this a really useful book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321455363

3. Basic understanding of networking and operating systems. Not sure the best route here, there must be online courses. Not too many great self-study books in this area, unfortunately. So find some online courses.

4. A decent math background: linear algebra, calculus, combinatorics, and probability. For self study:

    Calculus: Stewart's Calculus is great.

    Linear Algebra: I've yet to meet a linear algebra text I liked, so not sure here.

    Probability: A First Course in Probability is an outstanding textbook.

    Other: Concrete Mathematics by Knuth is an incredible book, very VERY hard and took me a long time to get through, but packed with useful and interesting information. I'd recommend it after the rest of these.

5. Read Snow Crash and watch Hackers.

Also, keep writing lots of code. Daily practice is the secret to everything.

No, don't let people ever discourage you. That wasn't my intention.

I think I responded to myself and my friends j-school, all poor students with the wrong expectations. Largely journalism attracts and employs careless and self-righteous people, so I was a good fit.

In engineering though there isn't alot of room for that. And the opportunity before us is unprecedented, to build our capacity to do something special with our work.

And there's a risk that because it's so easy to sign up and get started, it'll be just as easy to fail and never try again, or worse get nothing out of it.

I've spoken to some people involved in program at Georgia Tech, and they're advice is to take other online courses because skills transfer. Plus they make us much better at what we do.

Would online students have access to paywalled research papers?

Now we just need an online BSCS from a real college.

This option has been around for well over a century: http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/

Do you have any experience with this program? BSc in Information Systems and Management looks interesting.

Not directly. I did study in London on campus. However, there are plenty of cases where outstanding alumni of those distance BSc programs got admitted to a later on-campus Master's program. Also, the content of those distance BSc courses is identical to the on-campus versions. They teach the same courses, and you'll sit the same exams.

True, but they have no CS degree. There are lots of online "information systems" undergraduate degrees out there.

This one seems to be pretty close to a CS degree: http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/g...

http://distance.fsu.edu/students/computer-science-bs

EdX is working on it. They're introducing the beginning of one. Not sure if they meet your "real" standard or not.

"Real" probably means "an official degree from an accredited institution". Is EdX going to offer diplomas in accredited programs?

No, but they are doing a new program-of-study (beyond a single course) certificate program called the XSeries Certificate (MITx is offering two of these, a 7-course one in "Foundations of Computer Science" and a 3-course one in "Supply Chain Management")

They offer "ID Verified" certificate on some courses for a small fee, certificates which should be more valuable than the regular ones. However I don't think they're accredited.

Seeing as I've met Stanford programmers that didn't even know how to write object oriented php before, what exactly is your definition of "real"?

Why would object oriented PHP be a part of Stanford's coursework?

You'd expect students of that caliber to work outside of the classroom.

What if the person did plenty of work outside the classroom, but it never happened to involve object-oriented PHP? I just don't understand the bizarre notion that if one hasn't written object-oriented PHP before, then apparently, well, I'm not even sure what the conclusion is supposed to be, but it seems to be along the lines of "you are a crappy programmer."

I think the problem is many people mistake CS programs for some sort of vocational education.

Right ... but why would you assume they'd have used PHP?

I would expect such a student to understand data structures and algorithms, language concepts, and other underlying principles for databases and operating systems. Yes, the passionate ones that are learning and participating in projects outside of class will have a better working knowledge and exposure to many languages. It goes without saying that it's not the best use of your time and money to be learning OO PHP at a university like Standford.

I wouldn't expect anyone to know object oriented PHP. However, if they have Stanford credentials, I would expect them to be able to learn it in a very short timeframe.

Also, a computer science degree does not make someone a software engineer.

Traditional schools are horrific at teaching web programming languages - but I agree they should be able to pick it up quickly.

That's because traditional schools teach CS, not web programming.

This seems a strange criterion. Do you mean that you expect all programmers to have written in PHP? Or do you mean, you'd expect a competent programmer to pick it up quickly?

I've been programming professionally for 18 years, and informally for 30. The most contact I've had with PHP is changing a couple of strings in an internal script.

Check out http://www.saylor.org/ , they have a full curriculum in CS and the course work would be comparable to a brick and mortar university. If you need a piece of paper that claims you are a "real" CS however, they aren't going to get you there.

I'm actually lucky enough to be in one. I work in the University of Maryland system, and I receive tuition remission. I take classes at University of Maryland, University College. It's not exactly the same as UMBC (where I did undergrad the first time around. Ironically enough I started off in computer science before switching to English literature; four years after getting the BA, I'm back for the computer science degree), but it's still within the University of Maryland system.

I'll be watching the George Tech program closely.

Georgia tech does that "half way" as well

http://www.dlpe.gatech.edu/dl/

I agree seeing the rest of the way would be good.

How much does it cost in total?

The page says:

"Tuition: $134 per credit hour

Fees: $301 per academic term of enrollment"

And I found this:

"Georgia Tech's M.S. in Computer Science requires a minimum of 36 credit hours for completion."

So at 4 semesters you would be looking at:

$6028