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If you haven't been working as a software developer long and you don't have a background in CS, it's going to be difficult. I'm about halfway through and many
by learc83 9y ago
If you haven't been working as a software developer long and you don't have a background in CS, it's going to be difficult.
I'm about halfway through and many of the classes assume that you have the equivalent of an undergrad CS degree. It's not intended to replace an undergrad degree.
That doesn't mean you can't do it, but your going to spend a lot of time catching up. From what I've seen, the students without a CS degree, even those with significant industry experience, have had a much harder time with the more theoretical classes.
It's also a graduate program, and the classes are pretty rigorous compared to what I did in my undergrad CS degree.
Also keep in mind that admission is fairly competitive. And admission is only probationary. You have to complete 2 foundational classes with a B to be fully accepted.
- pc86 9y agoHonestly this is what gives me the most pause. I have a BA in Political Science from a liberal arts school nobody's ever heard of. Even if I could get in (which is doubtful given my academic transcript and how competitive it is), I don't think my decade of programming experience has given me nearly the theoretical foundation I'd need to do well. And I'm not going to invest the time and effort required just to graduate by the skin of my teeth. Plus, I have a very good job already and it's not like an MSCS would help me get to the next step at all. Most of why I want one is to prove to myself I could get one. Probably the wrong reasons.
- uiwldiowd 9y agoI'm kind of in a similar position. I have a PhD in a field kind of far away from CS (although that's debatable) and am thinking of transitioning more into CS. The problem is that a second bachelors, while something I'm willing to do, seems kind of problematic for various reasons. Some of the curriculum in a typical CS bachelors seems like something I could benefit from tremendously, but some of it is very remedial. It's very uneven. What I'd like is something like the Georgia Tech online master's, but with some kind of program for persons such as myself. I know some schools have these kind of postbaccalaureate degree programs, but they're not online.
- smartician 9y agoOregon State has an online CS post-bacc program, but it's not cheap: http://eecs.oregonstate.edu/online-cs-students http://eecs.oregonstate.edu/online-cs-students
- uiwldiowd 9y agoThanks--that's very useful to know. It is not cheap, but might not actually be that much more expensive than some of the in-person programs I was looking into, with in-state tuition, etc.
- jordanpg 9y agoI would be curious to know what alternative folks recommend for people in this situation. That is, people working full-time as mid- to senior-level professional software developers, who have no formal CS training at all and would like to rectify that with a formal course of some sort. I recognize that going straight to graduate school probably isn't the best plan, and I'm not particularly interested in endless months of self-study (or more accurately, I admit it probably won't happen without more structure).
- 0xffff2 9y ago>I'm about halfway through and many of the classes assume that you have the equivalent of an undergrad CS degree. It's not intended to replace an undergrad degree. I'm curious what you expect. I will soon have a BS in computer science. I would be awfully disappointed if I went on to get an MS in comp. sci. that didn't teach me anything new.
- learc83 9y agoThat's exactly what I expected. I have a BS in computer science, and the OMSCS is exactly what I was looking for.