Someone without a formal CS education who's selling programming courses telling you that formal CS courses don't necessarily teach you programming (duh).
He has a point that if you do a Master's you might be going without the extremely useful basic algorithms and data structures courses, but that is easily avoided by choosing a program that lets you take that. For other topics that aren't strictly programming, eg AI, ML, game theory, cryptography, quantum computing, probabilistic methods, optimization,... it would take a significant amount of dedication to match the amount of understanding that a rigorous course with problem sets can give you in self study.
>For other topics that aren't strictly programming, eg AI, ML, game theory, cryptography, quantum computing, probabilistic methods, optimization,... it would take a significant amount of dedication to match the amount of understanding that a rigorous course with problem sets can give you in self study.
You mean, the same amount it would take to do it through a university program? I fundamentally don't believe the material is unavailable. If you've done a CS undergrad at a respectable university, you should have enough instinct to build a curriculum to become well versed in those subjects
I am going through the autodidact process for all of those subjects (except quantum computing) (yes, it's brutal, especially alongside a FT job). But with the amount of MIT open courseware, books, and frankly, just wiki pages available, it's been easier than doing it at the pace of a university course
I am someone who has a masters degree and I have taken Distributed systems, Computer Architecture and Advanced Algorithms at Bradfield. In my experience, I would rate Bradfield better than a master degree for these reasons -
1. Was more relevant and practical. It was taught by people who have worked building real things in the real world.
2. Better ROI on time spent learning. In about 8 weeks (roughly 2 hours every week) and some self study I had the confidence to apply the learnings and continue learning more. Time comes at premium to me as I am working full time and have a family to take care of
3. Cheaper than a university course. It costs 2k USD roughly for a course.
During the same time, I also tried OMSCS from GATECH. I felt I got way more from these Bradfield's courses by spending less time and money than OMSCS as well. That said, its just me and YMMV.
Well the material that the authors have collected on teachyourselfcs.com is:
1) free
2) taken from outstanding courses at Berkeley, Stonybrook (the illustrious Steven Skiena), MIT and Stanford.
As I see it, this is evidence that those schools have some good courses. Graduate systems courses are pretty great as well, and of course you can hit other areas such as computer graphics, AI/ML, etc..
For formal education, I'm a bit biased toward multi-year programs (because it takes a while to learn this stuff) and schools (like those above) with good CS courses. But there's nothing to say that the authors' unaccredited graduate program is bad - based on the above I'd expect it's probably decent, although I worry about the 15 hours x 52 weeks though because I don't think that's enough time. In my experience a good systems or engineering course takes about 200 hours.
For other topics that aren't strictly programming, eg AI, ML, game theory, cryptography, quantum computing, probabilistic methods, optimization,... it would take a significant amount of dedication to match the amount of understanding that a rigorous course with problem sets can give you in self study.
Also, you're going to have an extremely difficult time getting to work on that stuff without a degree, given that even PhDs often end up on regular business bullshit.
On the Contrary: A Masters Degree is often easier than an undergrad degree. You get a lot more freedom to do whatever the fuck you want. In most Universities, Masters students can teach/do research and get tuition forgiveness.
If you want the experience of being in a college campus for a while without the bullshit involved in {undergrad, phd, jobs}, Masters degrees are the perfect middle ground.
I did a Masters degree. I didn’t do very well on some courses, really loved others, learned how to read academic papers and what research would look like if I wanted to do a PhD. But I also had enough free time to make friends, hang out and go on road trips and parties. It was a lot of fun!
Academia is running out of ways to convince people in that trap. Evolve already. I believe academia as we know it, is in stiff decline and the problems in CS are exarcerbated because of the faster reality of software.
Any degree, by the time you have it, might be deprecated or eroded to the point is pointless. If academia doesn't accelerate the pace between education/application, only wealthy people that can afford a lifestyle without income will seek them for entertainment and that's not sustainable to keep a society educated. The value proposition is just not viable.
Education has to go the tutorial way or it will continue to decline.
This is pretty much the real reason I’d consider pursuing a Masters degree. Being in an academic environment for a while sounds fun, even if the resulting degree is fairly useless or redundant. I’d love a second chance to be exposed to people who could become new friends, while also learning a thing or two maybe.
Lots of valid criticisms here against academia, but I'll take this time to get on a mini-soapbox about communication skills. The biggest value-add I honed over the course of my academic career is my ability to communicate technical topics. Now, that isn't to say every master's student or CS degree holder is definitely better than a bootcamp grad at tech comm, in fact the winning combo there would be a communications/english degree + bootcamp for entry-level positions.
And this isn't just making presentations and writing documentation. It's making effective use of your time in standups. It's conversations about your future relationship with your employer. It's knowing how to ask the right questions to weed out bullshit when digging through other technical documentation respectfully. It's taking a bold new idea that entered your head and figuring out which way would be the best to envangelize it at your organization.
I think in an ideal case, a master's degree in a computing discipline hits the intersection between intense training on a subfield of computing that can be difficult to break into (e.g. statistical machine learning, robotics, formal methods, cryptography) and your demonstration of your "mastery" is taking a cutting edge concept in that subfield and demonstrating mastery through effective technical communication in the form of a project/thesis.
A master's degree isn't guaranteed to make you a "better" programmer, but I would really hope that it would make you much more familiar with the field, and also teach you how to take that familiarity and leverage it to become a more effective communicator.
This post seems light on any actual data between the difference on individuals who have a CS masters and not, and instead argues against getting one on a few aux points:
* Opportunity cost
* two tweets of HM saying they don't find it useful
* cs masters aren't geared towards non-cs college grad students
* professors don't know how to handle online teaching
* programs are cash cows (mentioning two non-top-cs programs)
To address the core point about whether those with a masters from a top CS program (say top 20) vs self-taught _on average_ do know more about programming, in my experience they do! Topics like how programs work (interpreted vs compiled languages, memory management), how a program talks to the OS and underlying hardware, and even topics on AI/ML and how to do deep learning. Whether that makes them better at their job depends on what their role is - if it's making a web application or working on underlying infrastructure in C.
So I guess to provide an alternative view to the author's, there are good online programs like UT Austin and Georgia Tech where students don't have to take time off work as they can do it at night / weekends, both programs are low-cost (~$10k), and do have professors who do understand online teaching. I think it's important to make sure you pick colleges and classes geared towards learning, not go with the intention of specific "job training", and likely you'll come out ahead having done it.
What I found quite interesting were that these programs are both lower cost than the program the author was selling. Georgia Tech and UT Austin are both recognizable names as well.
I think the article has a sentiment that academia is wasted time. On the contrary. Of course it has its points, I agree.
I am a self-taught programmer who got later a CS degree. Also a self-taught entrepreneur who later (almost) got an MBA.
My experience is that these are much more valuable for people who already know how to do the stuff but missing the jargon and thoughts of a crowd of exceptionally brilliant people lived before us. I am talking about the scientists, inventors of algorithms, math, bookeeping, all the concepts. How faster you can tell complex thoughts when you just have the vocabulary to use. How do you even present a spectacular idea if you have to spend half an hour explaining something that you should have known has a name.
I never understand how some people get the hubris to think they can do better without all this. Of course if they feel they could not have used all these in their professional lifes - probably getting a degree would have been a waste of time for sure. Some of these folks of course are quite capable and can and will do big things. Also sometimes you have situations when you have to choose between your startup company and the degree. We know some successful dropouts. Still, I think there is big value here.
I've been self taught primarily in the computer networking space for a little over 10 years coming straight out of high school and I'd really really like to get more formal knowledge inside the CS field, both out of general interest but also to match the increasing scope of what I work with, but I've never been sure how to go about getting started mid career. Further education was never really something I planned for when I was younger and I barely even made it out with a high school diploma because I didn't value trying to chase education as much as I just enjoyed tinkering with computers. I was lucky to have an in to an internship via a high school robotics mentor to get my career started and now I'm in a principal role still on the upward portion of my career while also traveling a significant amount and working an irregular schedule so I'm not sure what education path is actually a worthwhile yet flexible enough. Do I just start looking up random universities with online courses? Is that even going to give me what I want or am I just going to end up qualifying for an official piece of paper instead of actually getting a useful amount of new knowledge? Do I have enough time to actually get a useful amount of new knowledge on the side?
So I haven't yet pursued a CS degree but whenever I hear of a story like yours it becomes more nagging in the back of my mind.
It appears a somewhat counter-argument is about getting high salaries and the corresponding positions without having to go into debt or at least invest the time and money into getting a degree. As we all know, student loan debt is a very real issue. Some of those people might feel they aren't missing anything, where in cases like yourself, there is a need to find out what they might be missing or a sense of wanting to be publicly viewed as a true equal in the field.
I think it should be noted that the Georgia Tech Online Master's in Computer Science (known as OMSCS) mentioned in the article costs about 7,000 USD, all-in for a 5-semester program. [1] This seems to me an amazing bargain for a Master's degree from a respected institution in the USA.
The article's argument against programs like OMSCS is that the only feedback is from teaching assistants. This claim is not true. There is (a) automated grading of programming assignments, so your program runs against unseen test cases, (b) informal feedback from TAs and other students on Slack and other unofficial channels, (c) formal feedback from other students as part of grades in certain classes and group projects, and (d) feedback from professors to student questions during video office hours (in some courses).
Yes, lots of assignment and exam feedback does come from TAs, but it is comprehensive and valuable. The TAs are well versed in the course material and relay information and questions from and to the professors. I completed the program and at no point did I feel like I was receiving too little feedback on my work.
They also have an ms of cybersecurity. Depending on the track you take, it can end up being 9/10 the same classes needed for the CS degree.
I’m currently enrolled and will say the networking is the best part. I’ve found a group of about 50 people in a private slack scattered all over the world. We all bounce things off each other.
It’s amusing to me how this article ended. It really discredits much of the author’s opinion.
I’m a self taught software developer that went back to school to learn the engineering aspects of what I’m doing. Boot camps and online tutorials like what the author appears to be selling teach you how to do a task. Higher education teaches you how to think, learn, and communicate at a higher level.
Do you learn how to build a React app? No. But anyone can go learn that on any of the thousands of websites that promise to turn you into a computer scientist in 6 weeks.
I fully enjoyed my experience in grad school, and wouldn’t trade it for anything. It might not have been the deciding factor in getting a job, but it sure as hell made me more confident.
I think CS masters degrees serve one valuable purpose. They are a gateway for foreign graduates to come to the US, work on their CS masters while doing TA work to reduce the load on the professor and then get a 27 month work permit .
In fact it is cheaper to hire foreign graduates under this program compared to a US national because you get to save on FICA taxes which are approximately 15k per year.
In fact many universities are already aware on this and have built coursework only masters degrees with no research required, as that provides more tuition to the university at a foreign grad rate and let’s the students graduate earlier so that a fresh batch can take their place.
My experience: I was interested in machine learning and was working in industry with no CS background. I was accepted to an MS in CS based on my undergraduate work and also programming experience. The program was in-person, not online. Through the courses and contact with professors both in CS and in other departments (Mathematics, Statistics) I developed a far better understanding of the field than I would have without being at a university.
All of the courses were the same regardless of whether or not you were an MS student or a PhD student. Professors actively encouraged MS students to continue on to the PhD.
The article says "If your undergrad degree was in some other field, you can get through an MS in CS without ever taking an algorithms or data structures class." In my department you had to take a minimum number of courses from a few categories. For the category that included the Algorithms course, I would say at least 90% of all students took that course rather than the others on offer. It followed CLRS and moved really quickly for someone with no undergrad background like me. The course had no programming in it so I have no idea what the author is talking about when per mentions programming experience.
I think if the program were online it would have been harder to have the multidisciplinary experience I got in-person. But for people who didn't want that aspect of it, I think an online program might work just fine.
My experience: The first two years of my CS PhD program, which overlapped significantly with the MSc program, were extremely engaging and pushed my intellectual boundaries much harder than OCW or any other online content.
Doing the OMSCS program for Georgia Tech and interviewers always comment on how that's impressive. It's a rigorous program, and I definitely think it's helped me grow as a developer.
It is impressive. Don’t let articles like this make you think it isn’t. Many people start it and can’t finish. Graduating is an accomplishment that should be celebrated.
Higher education is not designed to churn out 10x engineers.
My MS in comp-sci was super rewarding. I loved my classes, my advisors and professors, and it was great to be around students with similar interests and academic experience. I found it easier than undergrad because all of the classes were things I was interested in and better at - compared to many of the liberal arts requirements for my undergrad.
The credentials DID enable me to teach as an adjunct professor which was also great and helped more for my current role than actually taking classes. I recommend teaching to anyone that has even halfway considered it. If not at a university then still go to local meetups and clubs and participate as a speaker.
No one ever made the guarantee that it would make me a better employee or founder but it did get me an immediate pay bump from the company I was at when I completed it and does open doors when roles have it as a requirement.
I'm currently getting my BS in Computer Science with the University of Florida's Online Program, and I think that there is a duality between academic CS and applied CS, where the overlap is massive but college isn't particularly required. I find that many courses and tutorials online cover the topics well. Although these non-degree courses may not be of equal rigour, I leave them understanding the fundamentals needed to succeed in say an internship. By self teaching, I have proven that I know enough in my Freshman year of college to acquire an internship.
That being said, I think that someone with CS knowledge is always going to be more valuable than someone without. I really like teachyourselfcs, while in high school I skimmed a lot of the material preparing for what I had in store. I think that it's entirely possible to get good at CS with this method, but the issue is feedback and the stress associated with self teaching. Self teaching isn't always so glamorous as it is made out to be, a lot of people need the backbone of an actual program with structure than be thrown into a text book with courses that may go along with said text book. I think that entirely dismissing degree programs is equally as unwise as saying they're required, there is a lot of gray between the lines and I think that people should approach the issue with their strengths and weaknesses in mind.
The author is correct: you do NOT need a (masters) computer science degree to advance your career. I've worked with plenty of stellar principal software engineers — some with Phd degrees in CS, some with no formal education, most in between.
And while I am a life long learner and continue to self-teach myself a range of topics that pique my interest, Georgia Tech's OMSCS masters in CS was such a pleasant experience, a rigorous one at that.
I'm guessing the OP is bashing OMSCS based on Reddit comments from people who tried a course, found it difficult (because, hello, it's actual graduate school at a real university), gave up, and are now spreading negativity on the internets about something they only gave a half-assed try.
Sure, there are negatives of learning at-scale. Grades are going to be exam-driven (noisier) because papers/independent projects don't scale as easily, which means there's a chance that you do everything right and get a B. Sure, some of the videos are a couple years out of date. Overall, though, I've taken two GT OMSCS courses and so far the quality has been very high... and the professors, in my experience, are also constantly trying to make the experience better and more flexible.
I have an undergrad from a large, anonymous state school, and a masters (earned in 1993) from a smaller, regionally prestigious private engineering school.
I honestly don't believe that I learned anything useful when getting my MS. The upper level undergrad courses that I took at the state school were mixed grad/undergrad, and covered far more material than the ones at my grad school. I sailed through all the coursework because it was an easier version of the courses I'd previously taken.
I applied and was accepted to the PhD program at the school because I thought I wanted to study AI (in the early 90s). I was lucky enough to get a fellowship, so I took an overload of coursework. After 2 semesters, I decided that I was much more interested in systems, and was at the wrong school. So I decided to leave with an MS and did a project over the summer and left.
All that year really did was to pad my resume a bit and put a better known school at the top of it. I think it I may have gotten a marginally higher salary at one of my first employers because of that. I'm still thankful for the fellowship, and the knowledge that getting my MS cost me almost nothing beyond delaying my career by a year.
I stuck around another year and got my masters. It was mainly an excuse to go on another solar car race. Even though I delayed getting a job a year, I suspect the masters degree got me more stock options than I would have gotten otherwise, and that stock turned out to be rather lucrative. My wealth of experiences from building embedded systems for solar race cars also played positively into entering the workforce.
The graduate level algorithms course I took was definitely interesting and helpful.
> “Instruction” here includes faculty salaries and benefits, and a typical faculty member spends around 40% of their time on teaching-related tasks, so it’s fair to say that universities spend 10-20% of their budgets overall on teaching.
Reducing teaching costs to just faculty salaries ignores a wide array of elements that I consider teaching, including:
-- Student tutoring/learning assistance centers
-- Graduate student led discussion-sections
-- Instructional lab sections, often taught by staff, not faculty
-- Salaries for librarians, who often help students with class-related research projects
-- Open access computer labs and other facilities necessary to instruction
Most classes at a university are more than just a few faculty lectures; a big chunk of "Academic Support" and "Student Services" should also be included in the cost of instruction.
There's an interesting sort of credentialism talked about here where an MS is seen as a negative signal.
The theory here is that this is because of people doing MSs without a good underground background knowledge, although even ten years ago I'd stopped being impressed by an MS on a lot of resumes for a different reason: continuing on to an MS was often easier than getting a top-tier job offer out of school, especially at lower-tier or international schools without big tech recruiting presences.
I was originally in a BS/MS combo, but I didn't complete the MS (guess that was a good move? huh), but I learned a lot of interesting things in the extra 8 classes I took. In a world where engineers are judged on "demonstrated abilities" (even if that's just whiteboarding in an interview) having that much more exposure to math, logic, stats, algos, and operating systems definitely gave me more breadth to do better on both interview + real world projects. So for ramping up your knowledge of solving "CS problems" it's great.
Note that the article here is a sales pitch for kinda the same thing: study the fundamentals, just pay (? i don't see anything about pricing on the Bradfield site) them instead. Left unanswered is what will keep this a reasonable option or a meaningful credential over time. If it stays super small, it's probably too low-profile for people to see it as valuable. If it scales, it probably breaks in the same way as traditional programs.
It seems astonishing that people are paying large sums of money to obtain master's degrees in anything. If you have no opportunity to get paid as a research assistant / teaching assistant and have tuition covered by some other route, like a grant or something, then it's probably not a real graduate program, just a means of extracting cash from aspiring students.
Real research and teaching programs need graduate students and will offer you a package of some sort if they think you're any good.
> it's probably not a real graduate program, just a means of extracting cash from aspiring students.
If it offers a Master’s degree it’s a real graduate programme. Not being difficult, not covering material that is useful, not being impressive, none of these are disqualifying for being a graduate programme. Education schools exist. Law schools exist. Business schools exist. They’re all graduate programmes.
Personally, my undergrad was in electrical engineering so I always felt a little behind as a software engineer. Getting an accredited Master's in software engineering from Harvard extension gave me more confidence in a lot of the classes I would have taken in undergrad. Not to mention, development has moved on in the time since I took my undergrad, so it was kind of a mid-career refresher. There are definitely jobs that like seeing a Master's as well. So in my case I think it was worth it.
[+] [-] t_mann|3 years ago|reply
He has a point that if you do a Master's you might be going without the extremely useful basic algorithms and data structures courses, but that is easily avoided by choosing a program that lets you take that. For other topics that aren't strictly programming, eg AI, ML, game theory, cryptography, quantum computing, probabilistic methods, optimization,... it would take a significant amount of dedication to match the amount of understanding that a rigorous course with problem sets can give you in self study.
[+] [-] kache_|3 years ago|reply
You mean, the same amount it would take to do it through a university program? I fundamentally don't believe the material is unavailable. If you've done a CS undergrad at a respectable university, you should have enough instinct to build a curriculum to become well versed in those subjects
I am going through the autodidact process for all of those subjects (except quantum computing) (yes, it's brutal, especially alongside a FT job). But with the amount of MIT open courseware, books, and frankly, just wiki pages available, it's been easier than doing it at the pace of a university course
[+] [-] padiyar83|3 years ago|reply
1. Was more relevant and practical. It was taught by people who have worked building real things in the real world. 2. Better ROI on time spent learning. In about 8 weeks (roughly 2 hours every week) and some self study I had the confidence to apply the learnings and continue learning more. Time comes at premium to me as I am working full time and have a family to take care of 3. Cheaper than a university course. It costs 2k USD roughly for a course.
During the same time, I also tried OMSCS from GATECH. I felt I got way more from these Bradfield's courses by spending less time and money than OMSCS as well. That said, its just me and YMMV.
[+] [-] musicale|3 years ago|reply
1) free
2) taken from outstanding courses at Berkeley, Stonybrook (the illustrious Steven Skiena), MIT and Stanford.
As I see it, this is evidence that those schools have some good courses. Graduate systems courses are pretty great as well, and of course you can hit other areas such as computer graphics, AI/ML, etc..
For formal education, I'm a bit biased toward multi-year programs (because it takes a while to learn this stuff) and schools (like those above) with good CS courses. But there's nothing to say that the authors' unaccredited graduate program is bad - based on the above I'd expect it's probably decent, although I worry about the 15 hours x 52 weeks though because I don't think that's enough time. In my experience a good systems or engineering course takes about 200 hours.
[+] [-] ulrashida|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] f17|3 years ago|reply
Also, you're going to have an extremely difficult time getting to work on that stuff without a degree, given that even PhDs often end up on regular business bullshit.
[+] [-] pm90|3 years ago|reply
If you want the experience of being in a college campus for a while without the bullshit involved in {undergrad, phd, jobs}, Masters degrees are the perfect middle ground.
I did a Masters degree. I didn’t do very well on some courses, really loved others, learned how to read academic papers and what research would look like if I wanted to do a PhD. But I also had enough free time to make friends, hang out and go on road trips and parties. It was a lot of fun!
[+] [-] sirmoveon|3 years ago|reply
Any degree, by the time you have it, might be deprecated or eroded to the point is pointless. If academia doesn't accelerate the pace between education/application, only wealthy people that can afford a lifestyle without income will seek them for entertainment and that's not sustainable to keep a society educated. The value proposition is just not viable.
Education has to go the tutorial way or it will continue to decline.
[+] [-] xwdv|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] solardev|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] groestl|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dwrodri|3 years ago|reply
And this isn't just making presentations and writing documentation. It's making effective use of your time in standups. It's conversations about your future relationship with your employer. It's knowing how to ask the right questions to weed out bullshit when digging through other technical documentation respectfully. It's taking a bold new idea that entered your head and figuring out which way would be the best to envangelize it at your organization.
I think in an ideal case, a master's degree in a computing discipline hits the intersection between intense training on a subfield of computing that can be difficult to break into (e.g. statistical machine learning, robotics, formal methods, cryptography) and your demonstration of your "mastery" is taking a cutting edge concept in that subfield and demonstrating mastery through effective technical communication in the form of a project/thesis.
A master's degree isn't guaranteed to make you a "better" programmer, but I would really hope that it would make you much more familiar with the field, and also teach you how to take that familiarity and leverage it to become a more effective communicator.
[+] [-] f17|3 years ago|reply
If you have an advanced degree and your job is making you do standups, you should get another job.
[+] [-] sahila|3 years ago|reply
* Opportunity cost
* two tweets of HM saying they don't find it useful
* cs masters aren't geared towards non-cs college grad students
* professors don't know how to handle online teaching
* programs are cash cows (mentioning two non-top-cs programs)
To address the core point about whether those with a masters from a top CS program (say top 20) vs self-taught _on average_ do know more about programming, in my experience they do! Topics like how programs work (interpreted vs compiled languages, memory management), how a program talks to the OS and underlying hardware, and even topics on AI/ML and how to do deep learning. Whether that makes them better at their job depends on what their role is - if it's making a web application or working on underlying infrastructure in C.
So I guess to provide an alternative view to the author's, there are good online programs like UT Austin and Georgia Tech where students don't have to take time off work as they can do it at night / weekends, both programs are low-cost (~$10k), and do have professors who do understand online teaching. I think it's important to make sure you pick colleges and classes geared towards learning, not go with the intention of specific "job training", and likely you'll come out ahead having done it.
[+] [-] SomaticPirate|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hooloovoo_zoo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] szundi|3 years ago|reply
I am a self-taught programmer who got later a CS degree. Also a self-taught entrepreneur who later (almost) got an MBA.
My experience is that these are much more valuable for people who already know how to do the stuff but missing the jargon and thoughts of a crowd of exceptionally brilliant people lived before us. I am talking about the scientists, inventors of algorithms, math, bookeeping, all the concepts. How faster you can tell complex thoughts when you just have the vocabulary to use. How do you even present a spectacular idea if you have to spend half an hour explaining something that you should have known has a name.
I never understand how some people get the hubris to think they can do better without all this. Of course if they feel they could not have used all these in their professional lifes - probably getting a degree would have been a waste of time for sure. Some of these folks of course are quite capable and can and will do big things. Also sometimes you have situations when you have to choose between your startup company and the degree. We know some successful dropouts. Still, I think there is big value here.
[+] [-] zamadatix|3 years ago|reply
So I haven't yet pursued a CS degree but whenever I hear of a story like yours it becomes more nagging in the back of my mind.
[+] [-] Tozen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blamazon|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://omscs.gatech.edu/prospective-students/faq
[+] [-] mbil|3 years ago|reply
Yes, lots of assignment and exam feedback does come from TAs, but it is comprehensive and valuable. The TAs are well versed in the course material and relay information and questions from and to the professors. I completed the program and at no point did I feel like I was receiving too little feedback on my work.
[+] [-] Whinner|3 years ago|reply
I’m currently enrolled and will say the networking is the best part. I’ve found a group of about 50 people in a private slack scattered all over the world. We all bounce things off each other.
[+] [-] hacym|3 years ago|reply
I’m a self taught software developer that went back to school to learn the engineering aspects of what I’m doing. Boot camps and online tutorials like what the author appears to be selling teach you how to do a task. Higher education teaches you how to think, learn, and communicate at a higher level.
Do you learn how to build a React app? No. But anyone can go learn that on any of the thousands of websites that promise to turn you into a computer scientist in 6 weeks.
I fully enjoyed my experience in grad school, and wouldn’t trade it for anything. It might not have been the deciding factor in getting a job, but it sure as hell made me more confident.
[+] [-] ab_testing|3 years ago|reply
In fact it is cheaper to hire foreign graduates under this program compared to a US national because you get to save on FICA taxes which are approximately 15k per year.
In fact many universities are already aware on this and have built coursework only masters degrees with no research required, as that provides more tuition to the university at a foreign grad rate and let’s the students graduate earlier so that a fresh batch can take their place.
[+] [-] pm90|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m_nyongesa|3 years ago|reply
All of the courses were the same regardless of whether or not you were an MS student or a PhD student. Professors actively encouraged MS students to continue on to the PhD.
The article says "If your undergrad degree was in some other field, you can get through an MS in CS without ever taking an algorithms or data structures class." In my department you had to take a minimum number of courses from a few categories. For the category that included the Algorithms course, I would say at least 90% of all students took that course rather than the others on offer. It followed CLRS and moved really quickly for someone with no undergrad background like me. The course had no programming in it so I have no idea what the author is talking about when per mentions programming experience.
I think if the program were online it would have been harder to have the multidisciplinary experience I got in-person. But for people who didn't want that aspect of it, I think an online program might work just fine.
[+] [-] iskander|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] muh_gradle|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hacym|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MikeTheRocker|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] harrisonjackson|3 years ago|reply
My MS in comp-sci was super rewarding. I loved my classes, my advisors and professors, and it was great to be around students with similar interests and academic experience. I found it easier than undergrad because all of the classes were things I was interested in and better at - compared to many of the liberal arts requirements for my undergrad.
The credentials DID enable me to teach as an adjunct professor which was also great and helped more for my current role than actually taking classes. I recommend teaching to anyone that has even halfway considered it. If not at a university then still go to local meetups and clubs and participate as a speaker.
No one ever made the guarantee that it would make me a better employee or founder but it did get me an immediate pay bump from the company I was at when I completed it and does open doors when roles have it as a requirement.
[+] [-] coletonodonnell|3 years ago|reply
That being said, I think that someone with CS knowledge is always going to be more valuable than someone without. I really like teachyourselfcs, while in high school I skimmed a lot of the material preparing for what I had in store. I think that it's entirely possible to get good at CS with this method, but the issue is feedback and the stress associated with self teaching. Self teaching isn't always so glamorous as it is made out to be, a lot of people need the backbone of an actual program with structure than be thrown into a text book with courses that may go along with said text book. I think that entirely dismissing degree programs is equally as unwise as saying they're required, there is a lot of gray between the lines and I think that people should approach the issue with their strengths and weaknesses in mind.
[+] [-] itsmemattchung|3 years ago|reply
And while I am a life long learner and continue to self-teach myself a range of topics that pique my interest, Georgia Tech's OMSCS masters in CS was such a pleasant experience, a rigorous one at that.
Hard to beat the sticker price < 10k too.
[+] [-] f17|3 years ago|reply
Sure, there are negatives of learning at-scale. Grades are going to be exam-driven (noisier) because papers/independent projects don't scale as easily, which means there's a chance that you do everything right and get a B. Sure, some of the videos are a couple years out of date. Overall, though, I've taken two GT OMSCS courses and so far the quality has been very high... and the professors, in my experience, are also constantly trying to make the experience better and more flexible.
[+] [-] drewg123|3 years ago|reply
I honestly don't believe that I learned anything useful when getting my MS. The upper level undergrad courses that I took at the state school were mixed grad/undergrad, and covered far more material than the ones at my grad school. I sailed through all the coursework because it was an easier version of the courses I'd previously taken.
I applied and was accepted to the PhD program at the school because I thought I wanted to study AI (in the early 90s). I was lucky enough to get a fellowship, so I took an overload of coursework. After 2 semesters, I decided that I was much more interested in systems, and was at the wrong school. So I decided to leave with an MS and did a project over the summer and left.
All that year really did was to pad my resume a bit and put a better known school at the top of it. I think it I may have gotten a marginally higher salary at one of my first employers because of that. I'm still thankful for the fellowship, and the knowledge that getting my MS cost me almost nothing beyond delaying my career by a year.
[+] [-] sgtnoodle|3 years ago|reply
The graduate level algorithms course I took was definitely interesting and helpful.
[+] [-] secabeen|3 years ago|reply
> “Instruction” here includes faculty salaries and benefits, and a typical faculty member spends around 40% of their time on teaching-related tasks, so it’s fair to say that universities spend 10-20% of their budgets overall on teaching.
Reducing teaching costs to just faculty salaries ignores a wide array of elements that I consider teaching, including:
-- Student tutoring/learning assistance centers
-- Graduate student led discussion-sections
-- Instructional lab sections, often taught by staff, not faculty
-- Salaries for librarians, who often help students with class-related research projects
-- Open access computer labs and other facilities necessary to instruction
Most classes at a university are more than just a few faculty lectures; a big chunk of "Academic Support" and "Student Services" should also be included in the cost of instruction.
[+] [-] majormajor|3 years ago|reply
The theory here is that this is because of people doing MSs without a good underground background knowledge, although even ten years ago I'd stopped being impressed by an MS on a lot of resumes for a different reason: continuing on to an MS was often easier than getting a top-tier job offer out of school, especially at lower-tier or international schools without big tech recruiting presences.
I was originally in a BS/MS combo, but I didn't complete the MS (guess that was a good move? huh), but I learned a lot of interesting things in the extra 8 classes I took. In a world where engineers are judged on "demonstrated abilities" (even if that's just whiteboarding in an interview) having that much more exposure to math, logic, stats, algos, and operating systems definitely gave me more breadth to do better on both interview + real world projects. So for ramping up your knowledge of solving "CS problems" it's great.
Note that the article here is a sales pitch for kinda the same thing: study the fundamentals, just pay (? i don't see anything about pricing on the Bradfield site) them instead. Left unanswered is what will keep this a reasonable option or a meaningful credential over time. If it stays super small, it's probably too low-profile for people to see it as valuable. If it scales, it probably breaks in the same way as traditional programs.
[+] [-] photochemsyn|3 years ago|reply
Real research and teaching programs need graduate students and will offer you a package of some sort if they think you're any good.
[+] [-] barry-cotter|3 years ago|reply
If it offers a Master’s degree it’s a real graduate programme. Not being difficult, not covering material that is useful, not being impressive, none of these are disqualifying for being a graduate programme. Education schools exist. Law schools exist. Business schools exist. They’re all graduate programmes.
[+] [-] havblue|3 years ago|reply