13 ms·

The Declining Value of a CS Master's Degree (2013)

199 points by meri_dian 9y ago

Teeer 9y ago
(2013)
Kyragem 9y ago
The MS is really a gateway to a greencard.
time0ut 9y ago
My MS program was very geared towards giving a foundation to pursue a PhD. There were some aspects of it that were tangentially helpful in my career as a software developer, but it definitely was not the focus. Thinking back I feel like it was that way because that is what all of the professors knew. Few of them had experience outside academia so it makes sense that the program would reflect that. Maybe things were different at other institutions. This was also more than a decade ago, so things could be different now in general.
vinay427 9y ago
Can we get this tagged with a year (2013)? It's especially relevant because the article links to a previous HN discussion about the article.
- willhslade 9y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5786720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5786720
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  The topmost comment about getting a MS to qualify to get a job at IBM - that seems unintentionally funny after the discussion about IBM yesterday, but maybe new MS's are still cheaper than grey haired folks.
- sctb 9y ago
  Thanks! We've updated the headline.
ronnier 9y ago
I would only get a masters while working (that’s what I did). I wouldn’t forgo money and experience to get a masters and I wouldn’t go in debt to do it either.
- matwood 9y ago
  I agree. My employer at the time paid for my MS. I enjoy school, learning, and interacting with teachers and classmates so my personal value was high even if it didn't mean more money.
- makmanalp 9y ago
  This: I had the same opportunity, and help with the tuition. All in all this was challenging but a good experience. Then the question is was it worth it? I think it depends: I had a mostly outstanding set of instructors and took a lot of graduate seminar classes where there was a lot of great class discussion among curious and experienced folk. I enjoyed that a lot. I might be able to get this elsewhere, but I suspect it's rare. For the more project-based classes the structure and added motivation was nice and the instruction again helped make the learning process more efficient, but you could, in theory do that yourself too. --- edit: Another thing is that I had a chance to dip my toes a bit into doing research without being in the PhD long haul. This was also very satisfying: reading papers is no longer intimidating and ended up being very helpful in my area (databases / systems). Re: classes, yes the basic curricula always seems repetitive for folks who took a CS undergrad, but it's up to you to convince your advisor or graduation committee or whatever that you can and should skip basic requirements and instead tailor your major to more advanced stuff that you want to do.
- akurilin 9y ago
  The CMU part-time remote MS in Software Engineering was great, definitely extra worth it if you have your company pay for it. Not sure if they still offer it, they might have shut down the Moffett Field version of the program.
  - capitalsigma 9y ago
    What kind of emphasis does the program have, as an MS in software engineering vs CS?
CryoLogic 9y ago
There is very little a MS in CS can teach you that a BS in CS with some free time and books can't pick up. Look at this list from UChicago: https://masters.cs.uchicago.edu/page/12-course-ms-specialization-program https://masters.cs.uchicago.edu/page/12-course-ms-specializa... Basically your masters program is giving you a choice of 9-12 courses split between: 1. Algorithms . 2. Your choice of a primer in Java, C, Python or Swift . 3. Databases, Compilers, Networking, Comp Arch, Functional Programming OS, Distributed Systems . 4. IoS, Product Management, UX, Intro to Software Engineering, Advanced C++, OOP, Android Dev, Web Dev Etc. etc. I really don't see anything on that list that is worth paying for a years worth of classes for. Half of that list you already take in undergrad, and the other 40% you should be able to pick up with a book and basic experience and not need a class. Maybe 10% of those classes you would be at an advantage in the classroom?
- swiley 9y ago
  I intend to start a masters degree a few years after I graduate. My reasoning is that some of the more formal ideas are easier in a classroom setting and it's good to be part of the community that develops around a university. I think there are networking opportunities in places like that which don't exist in the cooperate world.
  - ianai 9y ago
    I suggest you do both. Apply to work and grad schools at the same time, as a hedge.
    - swiley 9y ago
      Yes, that's how I intend to pay for it. The company that I'll work for after graduating has education benefits.
- mathattack 9y ago
  The program seems aimed at folks without a CS undergrad.
theparanoid 9y ago
Regehr is beating around the bush. In my MS it was about 65% Indian BS students and 35% local students (various backgrounds). The local students were working professionals and the Indian students just wanted the credential. The cause is simple, an MS is very advantageous when applying for an H-1B.
- praneshp 9y ago
  > The cause is simple, an MS is very advantageous when applying for an H1-B. Not really. It's okay, I guess.
  - acidity 9y ago
    As an Indian who did MS in US. The parent is 100% correct.
    - praneshp 9y ago
      He's not. Think back about your peer group and see if you can pick many people that did a MS because there's an extra 20000 slots. It was zero for me.
  - Teeer 9y ago
    It increases your chances in a competitive system. It's good, not "okay, I guess".
  - cgmg 9y ago
    > The Immigration Act of 1990 limits to 65,000 the number of foreign nationals who may be issued a visa or otherwise provided H-1B status each fiscal year (FY). An additional 20,000 H-1Bs are available to foreign nationals holding a master's or higher degree from U.S. universities. > Those who have the U.S. master's exemption have two chances to be selected in the lottery: first, a lottery is held to award the 20,000 visas available to master's degree holders, and those not selected are then entered in the regular lottery for the other 65,000 visas. Those without a U.S. master's are entered only in the second, regular, lottery. That is definitely a non-negligible advantage.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
cantankerous 9y ago
If you're going to put the time into a research MS degree, you shouldn't be paying for it. Period.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
electricslpnsld 9y ago
At my alma mater the CS Masters program is a total cash cow for the department. 23K a semester multiplied by a few hundred students and you're talking a few million a semester.
vikascoder 9y ago
The moment I started reading the first paragraph the thought in my head went like, "he is pointing to Online Masters By Georgia Tech..it's definitely OMSCS he is now ranting about". Voila. He was indeed. I have a rigorous bachelor's degree in CS. Thee are many many topics which were never covered in that Undergrad course which are done in the Masters. Yeah it's maybe not useful if you are making a quickfire app for the play store but there are tons of work and research areas and jobs around for which you need the aademic rigor of having studied an MS atleast. Can we have this debate to rest? You are doing well with a BS, good for you! Education is expensive in the US? Dont do it! Now OMSCS is riling up a few heads here and there which it will. At 7000 USD its a fantastic way for a working professional like me to advance my knowledge. You think these kind of MS courses devalue the degree? These courses are not THAT easy to do and this is 2018, there are fresh disruptive ideas in very field , why not Graduate school ? Hey with enough of these courses you will not need the evil H1B sith lords eating up the jobs here right? Its a Win Win. The market will then decide whos the more worthy MS student they wish to hire.
- bitL 9y ago
  When you talk to OMSCS students and they tell you that they implemented their own Augmented Reality system from the scratch, used Deep Learning in classifying diseases in X-ray images of chest, programmed a Lunar Lander automated solution using Deep Reinforcement Learning, reconstructed 3D models from a series of photos in a weekend, I would say they are working on way more interesting things than most people get a chance to work on during their whole career. It seems more like you risk by not taking it, even if it is not really research based, though some people told me they have selective research courses as well, working e.g. with inventor of Google Glass etc.
juliusmusseau 9y ago
I always thought MS in USA was seen as failed PhD (e.g., did not make it past proposal stage). So perhaps these coursework MS degrees are actually increasing the value of the MS!
- cpwright 9y ago
  Not at all. It's very common to get an M.S. in CS; which is mostly course work to differentiate yourself from a B.S. holder, which because nearly everyone has a degree has less value than in the past. The reason many M.S.'s are failed Ph.D.s is that is easy to get funding for a Ph.D., but not for an M.S.
asdlfklei 9y ago
Stuff like this has me scratching my head. Here's my situation: I have a PhD, but in a different, non-CS field. Due to my research and experience, I have a ton of stats and programming experience across a range of languages, from lisp to C++ to javascript to python, to name just a few. I have published stats papers for example. However, I kinda find when I'm looking at jobs, there's a heavy focus on CS grads, or people with finance-type degrees, or engineering degrees, or some combination. And to be honest, there are certain things out of a BS in CS that I probably am not that familiar with, especially low-level hardware type stuff, and network stuff. So, I look at what's out there, and getting a BS in CS seems a little odd, for various reasons, in part because I feel like there's a lot of redundancy with what I have from my career and education already. A MS in CS, on the other hand, is kinda not so strange to me. I might have to take a couple of preparatory courses, like in OSs, but doesn't seem too grueling to me. So I read a thing like this, and it comes across as similar to the sort of gatekeeping that I bump into, like if you have a PhD in another field and then get an MS in CS, you aren't a "real" CS grad or something. I've supervised honors CS undergrads, and believe me, I feel pretty confident that my skillset is beyond many of theirs, at least in certain areas. At some point it just seems absurd to me. I share some of the implicit concerns about cash cow MSs, that seem to be part of the current employment climate, not unique to CS, but a symptom of problems with hiring practices and also contributing to it. But it also seems misguided to me to start arguing that someone who completes a MS in CS isn't as skilled as someone with a BS. There's just so much gatekeeping and pissing contest stuff that goes on in STEM, and it drives me crazy sometimes. It is maybe possible that that english grad actually understands programming, math, and algorithms at a pretty high level (I'm not an english grad, just making a hypothetical argument).
- watwut 9y ago
  > There's just so much gatekeeping and pissing contest stuff that goes on in STEM, and it drives me crazy sometimes. That is because too many people are insecure and evaluating who is good and who is bad is very subjective. We like to pretend it is objective, but the older I am the less I believe so. Moreover, programming is not one job, but multiple different jobs that require different skill sets, different aptitudes and different personality types. Combine that together and you have perfect environment for bullshit gatekeeping and pissing contests.
siberianbear 9y ago
I hired software engineers at a big company in Silicon Valley for many years. I interviewed thousands at university career fairs. I hired dozens of summer interns and full-time people. My take on a master's degree is that I treat it like a year or two of experience: experience that the poor fool didn't get paid for. Of course, a person with an MS is going to be a stronger candidate than one with just a BS, since they've had more experience. But I can take the engineer with the BS and give him the year of experience myself. Perhaps it's different in Europe: they seem to value high education credentials more. I didn't care about the status of an MS and neither did most of my colleagues. I think the only reason to do an MS in the USA is if you're a foreigner trying to get residency through an H1B visa. There's a separate quota category for people with an MS degree earned in the USA.
sowhatquestion 9y ago
I'm a (primarily backend/API) web developer, with 5 years of experience at this point, and I've been planning to apply to Georgia Tech OMSCS in order to branch out into different specializations like ML and data science. A better foundation in algorithms etc. wouldn't hurt either--my bachelor's is not CS-related. This article gave me pause, since I've never heard much skepticism expressed about a Comp Sci MS before. Is it really so overrated?
- xapata 9y ago
  Too early to tell, but probably worth the time and effort.
vsd13 9y ago
While I do get the sentiment, I'm not sure what's the recommendation. I do think there's more to it than gatekeeping, but what does someone who's REALLY interested in the topic and wants to change fields do? Get a second BS? I'm not familiar enough with education, but I'm under the impression that (at least within STEM -> STEM) it doesn't seem popular.
- bootsz 9y ago
  I imagine that's probably what the author would argue, but I'm not convinced that should be the only option. You can get a masters in a lot of different fields without needing a bachelors in the same subject. The question is whether CS should be an exception or not. He seems to value the MS more as a research-track degree and not as a professional degree. I'd argue the opposite: If you're research-track you really don't need to be getting an MS, just go straight to the PhD. That's how most top programs operate anyways.
odammit 9y ago
My masters was a waste of time and money - except that it’s been a job requirement for multiple jobs. None of which asked for proof. I think my bachelors was too besides the social experience of college (I’m from a small town). Most of what I learned was already familiar to me from developing as a hobby and I learned way more from studying stuff I was interested in than bubble-sorting and SAP case studying my way into boredom for an extra year.
- Myrmornis 9y ago
  You did a BS and a Masters and most of what you learned was familiar to you from hobby programming? Maybe you should have taken harder classes.
  - etxm 9y ago
    Maybe I read algorithm books for fun and finished all of my college math by 9th grade. But thanks!
    - Smaug123 9y ago
      I would still consider it very unusual for one to not learn much on a masters' course. Admittedly my masters degree was in maths, not compsci. Whether the degree was worth your time and money, and whether it was interesting, is an entirely separate question, of course.
      - kbwt 9y ago
        It's really not that unlikely. I had the same experience, I've been doing a lot of hobby programming before uni. Most of what we learned I was already quite familiar with from either experience or reading books. Pretty much all of DS&A but also more theoretical things like the halting problem.
      - watwut 9y ago
        Most students dont come to CS already knowing everything that is taught - that holds true regardless of how easy the school is. Many students decide they want to do CS only later on and even if they hobby coded, they did not learned everything yet. I code professionally for years and still dont know everything nor everything that is currently taught at universities. Either he had very easy school or picked courses he already knew about or he splits what he learned into "important" (the ones he knew) and unimportant (new stuff).
Myrmornis 9y ago
Please change the title to have the year in it. This is from 2013.
grzm 9y ago
(2013) Discussion at the time (over 100 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5786720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5786720
amriksohata 9y ago
UK based here, I have had a mix of friends that got a Bsc and a few that got Masters. In terms of jobs and salary nearly all are on a equal footing. I agree with the guy that said a Master's is more a route into research as few employers specifically seek it or reward it and if they do it's a very small number.
nikanj 9y ago
It seems like we've grown to dislike any and all indicators of maturity in a developer. Young people are smarter, plus easier to exploit too. And you don't have to pay them as much, as they don't have advanced degrees.
toolslive 9y ago
That's a very US centric view, especially: 'Whereas MS degrees used to be a means for departments to begin vetting future PhD students,...' This was never the case in Europe, where if you have only a bachelor, people assume something went wrong. The target at university always was a Master's degree. The PhD, something you did for your mother, or if you wanted to pursue an academic career.
- sarreph 9y ago
  I don’t understand how the highest voted comment (at this time) in this thread is a user spreading a false notion that ‘if you only have a bachelor [in Europe], people assume something went wrong’. Do they have sources to back this kind of snooty claim up? Anecdotally, the only time I’ve come across this attitidude is when individuals heavily-vested in academia are attempting to stake out the moral high ground.
  - maze-le 9y ago
    Exactly, I know plenty of people who spent years in academia, just to get their CS Masters degree. In the end of the day it seems harder for them to get decent (entry-level) jobs, because recruiters claim they lack work experience. Its not impossible mind you but on the surface, it seems harder. I wonder if there are recruiters out there, who could maybe explain this attitude?
  - barry-cotter 9y ago
    They’re probably German or Austrian. That’s an accurate description of how stopping with a Bachelor’s is read there. I think the same is true in Switzerland but I’m not sure. It’s probably relevant that prior to the EU’s Bologna Process the lowest university degree was basically equivalent to a Master’s. That’s true for everywhere in continental Europe but German speakers love their Doktortitels more than anywhere else.
  - arnvald 9y ago
    Certain countries in Europe (e.g. Italy or Poland) have only adopted concept of bachelor degree in 2000s. Before that you had to study for 5 years and you got master degree. Certain majors still follow that rule (e.g. psychology or law). I started university in 2007 and among ~180 people studying CS with me, majority continued with full-time master studies immediately, and most of the others did it part-time (either immediately or after 1-2 years break). These days it's different, it becomes more common to either finish formal education with bachelor degree, take a long break or continue in another, related major. 10 years ago it wasn't the case.
gota 9y ago
When I read the title I assumed this was going to be a very different piece, as I've recently been discussing with friends and colleagues about how degrees in general are going to be less and less important over time. This is a digression on the topic of the original post, so I'm sorry if I shouldn't be posting it here. The reasoning goes: the reasons why we need degrees are certification and reputation. By certification I mean that we only let people who we all trust practice medicine, as that kills people directly otherwise. So we restrict the people who can to those with the appropriate degrees. The second point is more relevant to most other careers. A degree is nothing but a more reputable institution 'lending' reputation to its graduates. The reason this is necessary is because nobody's got the time to verify whether every person knows Computer Science - we're better off just knowing that people from University of X know CS if UoX says so. Even if you're going to personally interview every candidate for a job opening, still relying on degrees helps you filter candidates. The thing is our interactions are recorded to the level that we can now reason about individuals in a way that was not possible before. Why do I need to trust UoX if I can mine your entire internet presence with reasonably comparable effort? I thought from the title that, since CS is the field that is making this shift possible, we'd be the first one to suffer this influence.
- paublyrne 9y ago
  I don't think your premise is right. University degrees are not only for certification and reputation. Your specific example of medical practitioners alone goes against it. There is no other practical way for people to learn to practice medicine than in university. You can't really pick it up on your own in your spare time, unlike CS. As well as being an opportunity for someone to have time and freedom to study for a period of years university also provides a safe world to learn other soft skills and grow as a person. It's not prerequiste to develop those, of course, but it really helps.
- wolfgke 9y ago
  > The reasoning goes: the reasons why we need degrees are certification and reputation. By certification I mean that we only let people who we all trust practice medicine, as that kills people directly otherwise. So we restrict the people who can to those with the appropriate degrees. That is why in Germany such degree programs (medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, food chemistry, law, pharmacy, teacher's training certificate, forestry) end with Staatsexamen (state examination), which is a special kind of degree that is much more tightly controlled by the state.
rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
I’m not sure where I fit into this equation. My employer is paying for me to get a CS M.Eng in ML/AI on the side while I work. I’m learning way more than I would have bothered - or had the hardware and guidance - to learn on my own, like parallel processing, CAD, 3D printing, and eventually robotics. I don’t have much interest in a CS MS. I don’t really see the point of it. If my degree goes well and after a few more years in the field I decide I want to specialize much further, I’ll just get a Ph.D. My $.02
k__ 9y ago
Still have to write my master thesis. But I have no hopes of instant value. I guess it's good to have it when I'm older to get into a management position or something
booleandilemma 9y ago
The problem with getting a masters in CS is that people just don’t care. I’ve had too many technical interviews where the hiring manager will ask me questions about his favorite ORM or dependency injection framework and turn me down if I never used them before. If I would have known that people in this field are so quick to disregard credentials and previous work experience I would have chosen a different technical subject to major in.
puppetmaster400 9y ago
As you get promoted up, being technical is a minus in management.
dimman 9y ago
In my opinion the biggest issue in general is the distance between ”the educational world and the professional world”. There’s so much more to being a great engineer than knowing the ins and outs of x, y or z. In reality you have to compromise, with everything, almost all the time. They don’t teach you that at school, you learn that while working. People who just graduated (atleast here in Sweden) think they are pro’s when graduating, only to realize they’re real green’ies when they start working. If they don’t realize it right away, they do realize it a couple of years in. I’ve been working as an embedded software developer for 7+ years at different #1 in their field companies without a degree. I’ve worked with a lot of newly graduates and the above is my experience. The best technical solution is not always the best solution.
bootsz 9y ago
> Wilfra mentions “disdain for people who don’t have a BS CS who want to get an MS CS.” It was certainly not my intent to express disdain for people who follow this path! Many people pull it off admirably. However, it is a difficult path to follow because it skips all of the introductory programming classes As someone who went this path, I'm troubled by the amount of assumptions and generalization being made here. To my knowledge any legitimate MS program will require that you have completed an appropriate amount of foundational CS courses before starting the program. I obtained an MSCS after getting a bachelor's in a different field, and I had to take 6 CS classes to satisfy the prerequisites. Including the MS the total amount of coursework I completed was slightly greater than the requirements of the university's Bachelor's degree, plus some graduate-level research. Granted, this is not as much coursework as someone who obtained both a BS and and MS, but from my understanding if you're not planning to pursue a PhD (or need it for immigration purposes) getting both is usually not a good use of time anyway. It seems he is trying to specifically criticize programs that fall far short of what I went through, which seems valid. But it would be nice to make that distinction instead of writing us all off as inferior.
- commandlinefan 9y ago
  > require that you have completed an appropriate amount of foundational CS courses In fact, I went back for an MSCS degree ten years after finishing a BSCS, and even then I was required to take a couple of foundational undergraduate courses before they let me start my graduate coursework, since there had been enough advances in CS theory since I graduated a decade ago that they felt (correctly) that I needed to catch up.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
samfisher83 9y ago
Its very useful if you want to come into this country. If you are in India its hard to get a job in America. If you come here for a master its much easier to get a job here. The salary difference between there and here can be massive.
- ng12 9y ago
  Yup. I went to a school with a pretty good CS program (not quite top N) and our master's program was almost exclusively international students.
laichzeit0 9y ago
I wonder what he would have to say for my example: I did a 4 year BS CS degree and graduated in 2005. I did calculus, linear algebra, real analysis, mathematical statistics, etc. until 3rd year and then the typical CS curriculum of compilers, distributed systems, programming languages, artificial intelligence, etc. I've been working in industry for 12 years doing typical systems/software development, but got involved in more "Data Sciency" things in the last 2 years. I liked it so much that I decided I want to change career directions and move away from just "building software" to more "building software that runs on data as the fuel", like machine learning/deep learning/NLP related problems. So okay, I have no real problem with doing anything that involves manipulating the data, building pipelines, or implementing things in Tensorflow or Gensim, etc it's just programming. Easy, peasy. I also understand most of the mathematics, and what I forgot was not too hard to "re-learn" very quickly. The problem is it is difficult to apply for jobs as a Data Scientist when you only have a BS CS, even with real world experience. I'm not "formally qualified" as a Data Scientist. So I enrolled for a 2 year course-based MS (1 year course work, 1 year dissertation). Basically it allows me to slap on my resume that (a) I have done university accredited courses in mathematical optimization, machine and statistical learning, deep learning, ethics, big data, etc. and I suppose the dissertation says that I can do more advanced work on data in an academically rigorous fashion. So basically I'm using the MS to change career trajectories 10 years after doing a BS CS. I suppose you could do the courses through MOOCs but I appreciate the dissertation part as I am forced to read journal articles and learn how to do things more "rigorously" than I would otherwise in a plain old MOOC. Isn't this a viable option for pursuing an MS? I don't think it's necessary directly after an undergraduate, but after a decade or so you might want to "specialize" into something that didn't really exist when you did your undergrad. BTW, I did this part time while working (you can kiss away your weekends and evenings).
- mr_overalls 9y ago
  Have you finished the MS yet, and has it improved your job prospects? Also, I'm curious which program you've chosen. The GaTech OMSCS program has gotten a lot of good reviews lately.
mslate 9y ago
Tsk tsk—not a single iota of quantitative analysis. How can we know that the value of a CS degree is declining? By what measure of “value”? This is pure “appeal to authority” as the author is a CS professor-—better to discuss Aline Lerner’s research which he references
justin66 9y ago
I was an exception to what regehr said in at least one regard: my public speaking improved pretty dramatically while working toward a coursework-only MS. I don't think it was anything more complicated than just needing to hit a lifetime threshold of presenting in front of people some number of times. The rest seems pretty valid, although at this stage, I doubt if there's any well-founded way to determine whether a given degree will prove to be worthwhile in a purely financial sense, if there ever was. With rising costs it's probably just somewhat less likely...
inieves 9y ago
I think your coursework-only MS needs to be further broken down into those programs that require a BS in CS and those that don’t. There are at least 3 types of MS in that sense. Without this distinction, your article is short-sighted, not realizing that there are actually many rigorous academic MS programs in CS that would not be doable by someone lacking deep knowledge already. Erosion of the value of the MS is not isolated to CS. Forget some universities eroding the MS, entire countries are eroding it. If im not mistaken, Italy is a massive supplier of MS degrees.
- bootsz 9y ago
  I agree, there is definitely a broad spectrum in terms of what amount of background a student needs to be able to complete a given MS program. But I'm not entirely convinced that it's appropriate to argue that the only "true" MSCS is one that requires a full bachelor's in that subject as prerequisite. That seems... overly restrictive. What if you got a bachelor's in math or engineering and want to further specialize in CS? Should your only option be to complete another bachelors degree? What if you did a minor in CS? There's lots of people in these categories that can and do get an MSCS, even from very reputable programs. Obviously coming from a related field will prepare you better than say a liberal arts degree, but where do you draw the line? In my experience most MS programs have a certain set of prerequisites that generally equate to a minor in CS.
bootsz 9y ago
The crux of the issue here seems to be that the author believes that a "true" MSCS is one that can only be obtained by those who have first completed a bachelor's degree in CS. We might want to consider whether that is a valid definition or not. This isn't really a brand-new thing either. One of my best instructors was a seasoned industry vet (former senior architect at a major firm, member of W3C and author of several of their proposals, etc.), and he had a bachelor's in Physics followed by an MSCS... from Stanford. Are we to say that his masters is not legitimate or that he is an inferior engineer because he technically did not complete a bachelors in the subject first? To me it seems to be a problem of defining in general what the purpose of a masters degree should really be. In some fields it is used as an extension of a bachelor's in the same field, while in others it is used to supplement undergraduate education with skills in a different field, typically for the purposes of better rounding out the student's knowledge in preparation for pursuing certain career paths. For instance, consider a professional degree like the MBA, where you can come in having a bachelor's in literally any subject. What the author is noticing is that universities are increasingly offering the MSCS as something more like a professional degree instead of solely as an academic-track stepping stone to the PhD. And clearly he does not like this. This issue seems to highlight the dual-purpose nature of universities as vehicles for training both practitioners as well as researchers. On the practitioner side, I think there is immense value in being able to supplement a bachelor's degree in one subject with a different set of skills obtained in a second degree. E.g., many people take the track of getting a science or engineering bachelors and then an MBA afterwards. The combination of those two disciplines can provide a very powerful skill set. What seems to be happening is that the increasingly tech-centric nature of our economy is causing the skills offered by CS to start to make a lot of sense for some people as a form of secondary training. Much like business, technology intersects virtually every industry, and those who have training in a specific subject domain in addition to CS can be highly effective problem-solvers, much more so than those trained in just one or the other. Sure, perhaps we can argue about whether an "MSCS" is really the most appropriate vehicle for such people. But being one of those people myself I will say that my experience does not at all reflect what the author claims (see my other comment re: coursework). The reality is that there are an increasing number of people who want to supplement their undergraduate training with CS, and this is a good thing. The author is correct in noting the distinction between this demographic and those who are on a research/academic track, but I'm just not convinced that we can definitively say that an MSCS must always require a bachelors in CS.
digorithm 9y ago
As a soon-to-graduate Masters CS student in a top research university, I'd like to share, for what it seems, a different opinion and experience about this matter. I came here from a 3rd world country that lacks a good education; Most of my CS experience and knowledge, at that time, came from the Internet, books, and personal projects. After working hard, I was accepted to this university as an MSc student. I have never learned this amount of quality content as I've been learning in these past 2 years in this MSc program. Deep topics and subjects like programming language theory, low-level knowledge in distributed systems and machine learning, all this being taught by excellent researchers in their respective fields. This was the first year, the course requirements part of the MSc program. Now I'm halfway through my research, and again, I've been learning tons. I've been writing very interesting code, building amazing things, writing papers, and working on my own ideas. I've never been this close to amazing scientists and engineers. This is priceless, in my opinion. I've worked in the industry (before the MSc. program), it was super great. But I can confidently say that the MSc. program has made me a better engineer and taught me how to do proper research. I'm sure this may vary from university to university, department to department, and most importantly, from advisor to advisor. But that has been my experience!
OnlyRepliesToBS 9y ago
This opinion is the reason software quality is shit today.

199 points by meri_dian 9y ago

Teeer 9y ago

(2013)

Kyragem 9y ago

The MS is really a gateway to a greencard.

time0ut 9y ago

My MS program was very geared towards giving a foundation to pursue a PhD. There were some aspects of it that were tangentially helpful in my career as a software developer, but it definitely was not the focus. Thinking back I feel like it was that way because that is what all of the professors knew. Few of them had experience outside academia so it makes sense that the program would reflect that. Maybe things were different at other institutions. This was also more than a decade ago, so things could be different now in general.

vinay427 9y ago

Can we get this tagged with a year (2013)? It's especially relevant because the article links to a previous HN discussion about the article.

willhslade 9y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5786720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5786720
stevenwoo 9y ago
The topmost comment about getting a MS to qualify to get a job at IBM - that seems unintentionally funny after the discussion about IBM yesterday, but maybe new MS's are still cheaper than grey haired folks.
sctb 9y ago
Thanks! We've updated the headline.

ronnier 9y ago

I would only get a masters while working (that’s what I did). I wouldn’t forgo money and experience to get a masters and I wouldn’t go in debt to do it either.

matwood 9y ago
I agree. My employer at the time paid for my MS. I enjoy school, learning, and interacting with teachers and classmates so my personal value was high even if it didn't mean more money.
makmanalp 9y ago
This: I had the same opportunity, and help with the tuition. All in all this was challenging but a good experience. Then the question is was it worth it? I think it depends: I had a mostly outstanding set of instructors and took a lot of graduate seminar classes where there was a lot of great class discussion among curious and experienced folk. I enjoyed that a lot. I might be able to get this elsewhere, but I suspect it's rare. For the more project-based classes the structure and added motivation was nice and the instruction again helped make the learning process more efficient, but you could, in theory do that yourself too. --- edit: Another thing is that I had a chance to dip my toes a bit into doing research without being in the PhD long haul. This was also very satisfying: reading papers is no longer intimidating and ended up being very helpful in my area (databases / systems). Re: classes, yes the basic curricula always seems repetitive for folks who took a CS undergrad, but it's up to you to convince your advisor or graduation committee or whatever that you can and should skip basic requirements and instead tailor your major to more advanced stuff that you want to do.
akurilin 9y ago
The CMU part-time remote MS in Software Engineering was great, definitely extra worth it if you have your company pay for it. Not sure if they still offer it, they might have shut down the Moffett Field version of the program.
- capitalsigma 9y ago
  What kind of emphasis does the program have, as an MS in software engineering vs CS?

CryoLogic 9y ago

There is very little a MS in CS can teach you that a BS in CS with some free time and books can't pick up. Look at this list from UChicago: https://masters.cs.uchicago.edu/page/12-course-ms-specialization-program https://masters.cs.uchicago.edu/page/12-course-ms-specializa... Basically your masters program is giving you a choice of 9-12 courses split between: 1. Algorithms . 2. Your choice of a primer in Java, C, Python or Swift . 3. Databases, Compilers, Networking, Comp Arch, Functional Programming OS, Distributed Systems . 4. IoS, Product Management, UX, Intro to Software Engineering, Advanced C++, OOP, Android Dev, Web Dev Etc. etc. I really don't see anything on that list that is worth paying for a years worth of classes for. Half of that list you already take in undergrad, and the other 40% you should be able to pick up with a book and basic experience and not need a class. Maybe 10% of those classes you would be at an advantage in the classroom?

swiley 9y ago
I intend to start a masters degree a few years after I graduate. My reasoning is that some of the more formal ideas are easier in a classroom setting and it's good to be part of the community that develops around a university. I think there are networking opportunities in places like that which don't exist in the cooperate world.
- ianai 9y ago
  I suggest you do both. Apply to work and grad schools at the same time, as a hedge.
  - swiley 9y ago
    Yes, that's how I intend to pay for it. The company that I'll work for after graduating has education benefits.
mathattack 9y ago
The program seems aimed at folks without a CS undergrad.

theparanoid 9y ago

Regehr is beating around the bush. In my MS it was about 65% Indian BS students and 35% local students (various backgrounds). The local students were working professionals and the Indian students just wanted the credential. The cause is simple, an MS is very advantageous when applying for an H-1B.

praneshp 9y ago
> The cause is simple, an MS is very advantageous when applying for an H1-B. Not really. It's okay, I guess.
- acidity 9y ago
  As an Indian who did MS in US. The parent is 100% correct.
  - praneshp 9y ago
    He's not. Think back about your peer group and see if you can pick many people that did a MS because there's an extra 20000 slots. It was zero for me.
- Teeer 9y ago
  It increases your chances in a competitive system. It's good, not "okay, I guess".
- cgmg 9y ago
  > The Immigration Act of 1990 limits to 65,000 the number of foreign nationals who may be issued a visa or otherwise provided H-1B status each fiscal year (FY). An additional 20,000 H-1Bs are available to foreign nationals holding a master's or higher degree from U.S. universities. > Those who have the U.S. master's exemption have two chances to be selected in the lottery: first, a lottery is held to award the 20,000 visas available to master's degree holders, and those not selected are then entered in the regular lottery for the other 65,000 visas. Those without a U.S. master's are entered only in the second, regular, lottery. That is definitely a non-negligible advantage.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

cantankerous 9y ago

If you're going to put the time into a research MS degree, you shouldn't be paying for it. Period.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

electricslpnsld 9y ago

At my alma mater the CS Masters program is a total cash cow for the department. 23K a semester multiplied by a few hundred students and you're talking a few million a semester.

vikascoder 9y ago

The moment I started reading the first paragraph the thought in my head went like, "he is pointing to Online Masters By Georgia Tech..it's definitely OMSCS he is now ranting about". Voila. He was indeed. I have a rigorous bachelor's degree in CS. Thee are many many topics which were never covered in that Undergrad course which are done in the Masters. Yeah it's maybe not useful if you are making a quickfire app for the play store but there are tons of work and research areas and jobs around for which you need the aademic rigor of having studied an MS atleast. Can we have this debate to rest? You are doing well with a BS, good for you! Education is expensive in the US? Dont do it! Now OMSCS is riling up a few heads here and there which it will. At 7000 USD its a fantastic way for a working professional like me to advance my knowledge. You think these kind of MS courses devalue the degree? These courses are not THAT easy to do and this is 2018, there are fresh disruptive ideas in very field , why not Graduate school ? Hey with enough of these courses you will not need the evil H1B sith lords eating up the jobs here right? Its a Win Win. The market will then decide whos the more worthy MS student they wish to hire.

bitL 9y ago
When you talk to OMSCS students and they tell you that they implemented their own Augmented Reality system from the scratch, used Deep Learning in classifying diseases in X-ray images of chest, programmed a Lunar Lander automated solution using Deep Reinforcement Learning, reconstructed 3D models from a series of photos in a weekend, I would say they are working on way more interesting things than most people get a chance to work on during their whole career. It seems more like you risk by not taking it, even if it is not really research based, though some people told me they have selective research courses as well, working e.g. with inventor of Google Glass etc.

juliusmusseau 9y ago

I always thought MS in USA was seen as failed PhD (e.g., did not make it past proposal stage). So perhaps these coursework MS degrees are actually increasing the value of the MS!

cpwright 9y ago
Not at all. It's very common to get an M.S. in CS; which is mostly course work to differentiate yourself from a B.S. holder, which because nearly everyone has a degree has less value than in the past. The reason many M.S.'s are failed Ph.D.s is that is easy to get funding for a Ph.D., but not for an M.S.

asdlfklei 9y ago

Stuff like this has me scratching my head. Here's my situation: I have a PhD, but in a different, non-CS field. Due to my research and experience, I have a ton of stats and programming experience across a range of languages, from lisp to C++ to javascript to python, to name just a few. I have published stats papers for example. However, I kinda find when I'm looking at jobs, there's a heavy focus on CS grads, or people with finance-type degrees, or engineering degrees, or some combination. And to be honest, there are certain things out of a BS in CS that I probably am not that familiar with, especially low-level hardware type stuff, and network stuff. So, I look at what's out there, and getting a BS in CS seems a little odd, for various reasons, in part because I feel like there's a lot of redundancy with what I have from my career and education already. A MS in CS, on the other hand, is kinda not so strange to me. I might have to take a couple of preparatory courses, like in OSs, but doesn't seem too grueling to me. So I read a thing like this, and it comes across as similar to the sort of gatekeeping that I bump into, like if you have a PhD in another field and then get an MS in CS, you aren't a "real" CS grad or something. I've supervised honors CS undergrads, and believe me, I feel pretty confident that my skillset is beyond many of theirs, at least in certain areas. At some point it just seems absurd to me. I share some of the implicit concerns about cash cow MSs, that seem to be part of the current employment climate, not unique to CS, but a symptom of problems with hiring practices and also contributing to it. But it also seems misguided to me to start arguing that someone who completes a MS in CS isn't as skilled as someone with a BS. There's just so much gatekeeping and pissing contest stuff that goes on in STEM, and it drives me crazy sometimes. It is maybe possible that that english grad actually understands programming, math, and algorithms at a pretty high level (I'm not an english grad, just making a hypothetical argument).

watwut 9y ago
> There's just so much gatekeeping and pissing contest stuff that goes on in STEM, and it drives me crazy sometimes. That is because too many people are insecure and evaluating who is good and who is bad is very subjective. We like to pretend it is objective, but the older I am the less I believe so. Moreover, programming is not one job, but multiple different jobs that require different skill sets, different aptitudes and different personality types. Combine that together and you have perfect environment for bullshit gatekeeping and pissing contests.

siberianbear 9y ago

I hired software engineers at a big company in Silicon Valley for many years. I interviewed thousands at university career fairs. I hired dozens of summer interns and full-time people. My take on a master's degree is that I treat it like a year or two of experience: experience that the poor fool didn't get paid for. Of course, a person with an MS is going to be a stronger candidate than one with just a BS, since they've had more experience. But I can take the engineer with the BS and give him the year of experience myself. Perhaps it's different in Europe: they seem to value high education credentials more. I didn't care about the status of an MS and neither did most of my colleagues. I think the only reason to do an MS in the USA is if you're a foreigner trying to get residency through an H1B visa. There's a separate quota category for people with an MS degree earned in the USA.

sowhatquestion 9y ago

I'm a (primarily backend/API) web developer, with 5 years of experience at this point, and I've been planning to apply to Georgia Tech OMSCS in order to branch out into different specializations like ML and data science. A better foundation in algorithms etc. wouldn't hurt either--my bachelor's is not CS-related. This article gave me pause, since I've never heard much skepticism expressed about a Comp Sci MS before. Is it really so overrated?

xapata 9y ago
Too early to tell, but probably worth the time and effort.

vsd13 9y ago

While I do get the sentiment, I'm not sure what's the recommendation. I do think there's more to it than gatekeeping, but what does someone who's REALLY interested in the topic and wants to change fields do? Get a second BS? I'm not familiar enough with education, but I'm under the impression that (at least within STEM -> STEM) it doesn't seem popular.

bootsz 9y ago
I imagine that's probably what the author would argue, but I'm not convinced that should be the only option. You can get a masters in a lot of different fields without needing a bachelors in the same subject. The question is whether CS should be an exception or not. He seems to value the MS more as a research-track degree and not as a professional degree. I'd argue the opposite: If you're research-track you really don't need to be getting an MS, just go straight to the PhD. That's how most top programs operate anyways.

odammit 9y ago

My masters was a waste of time and money - except that it’s been a job requirement for multiple jobs. None of which asked for proof. I think my bachelors was too besides the social experience of college (I’m from a small town). Most of what I learned was already familiar to me from developing as a hobby and I learned way more from studying stuff I was interested in than bubble-sorting and SAP case studying my way into boredom for an extra year.

Myrmornis 9y ago
You did a BS and a Masters and most of what you learned was familiar to you from hobby programming? Maybe you should have taken harder classes.
- etxm 9y ago
  Maybe I read algorithm books for fun and finished all of my college math by 9th grade. But thanks!
  - Smaug123 9y ago
    I would still consider it very unusual for one to not learn much on a masters' course. Admittedly my masters degree was in maths, not compsci. Whether the degree was worth your time and money, and whether it was interesting, is an entirely separate question, of course.
    - kbwt 9y ago
      It's really not that unlikely. I had the same experience, I've been doing a lot of hobby programming before uni. Most of what we learned I was already quite familiar with from either experience or reading books. Pretty much all of DS&A but also more theoretical things like the halting problem.
    - watwut 9y ago
      Most students dont come to CS already knowing everything that is taught - that holds true regardless of how easy the school is. Many students decide they want to do CS only later on and even if they hobby coded, they did not learned everything yet. I code professionally for years and still dont know everything nor everything that is currently taught at universities. Either he had very easy school or picked courses he already knew about or he splits what he learned into "important" (the ones he knew) and unimportant (new stuff).

Myrmornis 9y ago

Please change the title to have the year in it. This is from 2013.

grzm 9y ago

(2013) Discussion at the time (over 100 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5786720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5786720

amriksohata 9y ago

UK based here, I have had a mix of friends that got a Bsc and a few that got Masters. In terms of jobs and salary nearly all are on a equal footing. I agree with the guy that said a Master's is more a route into research as few employers specifically seek it or reward it and if they do it's a very small number.

nikanj 9y ago

It seems like we've grown to dislike any and all indicators of maturity in a developer. Young people are smarter, plus easier to exploit too. And you don't have to pay them as much, as they don't have advanced degrees.

toolslive 9y ago

That's a very US centric view, especially: 'Whereas MS degrees used to be a means for departments to begin vetting future PhD students,...' This was never the case in Europe, where if you have only a bachelor, people assume something went wrong. The target at university always was a Master's degree. The PhD, something you did for your mother, or if you wanted to pursue an academic career.

sarreph 9y ago
I don’t understand how the highest voted comment (at this time) in this thread is a user spreading a false notion that ‘if you only have a bachelor [in Europe], people assume something went wrong’. Do they have sources to back this kind of snooty claim up? Anecdotally, the only time I’ve come across this attitidude is when individuals heavily-vested in academia are attempting to stake out the moral high ground.
- maze-le 9y ago
  Exactly, I know plenty of people who spent years in academia, just to get their CS Masters degree. In the end of the day it seems harder for them to get decent (entry-level) jobs, because recruiters claim they lack work experience. Its not impossible mind you but on the surface, it seems harder. I wonder if there are recruiters out there, who could maybe explain this attitude?
- barry-cotter 9y ago
  They’re probably German or Austrian. That’s an accurate description of how stopping with a Bachelor’s is read there. I think the same is true in Switzerland but I’m not sure. It’s probably relevant that prior to the EU’s Bologna Process the lowest university degree was basically equivalent to a Master’s. That’s true for everywhere in continental Europe but German speakers love their Doktortitels more than anywhere else.
- arnvald 9y ago
  Certain countries in Europe (e.g. Italy or Poland) have only adopted concept of bachelor degree in 2000s. Before that you had to study for 5 years and you got master degree. Certain majors still follow that rule (e.g. psychology or law). I started university in 2007 and among ~180 people studying CS with me, majority continued with full-time master studies immediately, and most of the others did it part-time (either immediately or after 1-2 years break). These days it's different, it becomes more common to either finish formal education with bachelor degree, take a long break or continue in another, related major. 10 years ago it wasn't the case.

gota 9y ago

When I read the title I assumed this was going to be a very different piece, as I've recently been discussing with friends and colleagues about how degrees in general are going to be less and less important over time. This is a digression on the topic of the original post, so I'm sorry if I shouldn't be posting it here. The reasoning goes: the reasons why we need degrees are certification and reputation. By certification I mean that we only let people who we all trust practice medicine, as that kills people directly otherwise. So we restrict the people who can to those with the appropriate degrees. The second point is more relevant to most other careers. A degree is nothing but a more reputable institution 'lending' reputation to its graduates. The reason this is necessary is because nobody's got the time to verify whether every person knows Computer Science - we're better off just knowing that people from University of X know CS if UoX says so. Even if you're going to personally interview every candidate for a job opening, still relying on degrees helps you filter candidates. The thing is our interactions are recorded to the level that we can now reason about individuals in a way that was not possible before. Why do I need to trust UoX if I can mine your entire internet presence with reasonably comparable effort? I thought from the title that, since CS is the field that is making this shift possible, we'd be the first one to suffer this influence.

paublyrne 9y ago
I don't think your premise is right. University degrees are not only for certification and reputation. Your specific example of medical practitioners alone goes against it. There is no other practical way for people to learn to practice medicine than in university. You can't really pick it up on your own in your spare time, unlike CS. As well as being an opportunity for someone to have time and freedom to study for a period of years university also provides a safe world to learn other soft skills and grow as a person. It's not prerequiste to develop those, of course, but it really helps.
wolfgke 9y ago
> The reasoning goes: the reasons why we need degrees are certification and reputation. By certification I mean that we only let people who we all trust practice medicine, as that kills people directly otherwise. So we restrict the people who can to those with the appropriate degrees. That is why in Germany such degree programs (medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, food chemistry, law, pharmacy, teacher's training certificate, forestry) end with Staatsexamen (state examination), which is a special kind of degree that is much more tightly controlled by the state.

rm_-rf_slash 9y ago

I’m not sure where I fit into this equation. My employer is paying for me to get a CS M.Eng in ML/AI on the side while I work. I’m learning way more than I would have bothered - or had the hardware and guidance - to learn on my own, like parallel processing, CAD, 3D printing, and eventually robotics. I don’t have much interest in a CS MS. I don’t really see the point of it. If my degree goes well and after a few more years in the field I decide I want to specialize much further, I’ll just get a Ph.D. My $.02

k__ 9y ago

Still have to write my master thesis. But I have no hopes of instant value. I guess it's good to have it when I'm older to get into a management position or something

booleandilemma 9y ago

The problem with getting a masters in CS is that people just don’t care. I’ve had too many technical interviews where the hiring manager will ask me questions about his favorite ORM or dependency injection framework and turn me down if I never used them before. If I would have known that people in this field are so quick to disregard credentials and previous work experience I would have chosen a different technical subject to major in.

puppetmaster400 9y ago

As you get promoted up, being technical is a minus in management.

dimman 9y ago

In my opinion the biggest issue in general is the distance between ”the educational world and the professional world”. There’s so much more to being a great engineer than knowing the ins and outs of x, y or z. In reality you have to compromise, with everything, almost all the time. They don’t teach you that at school, you learn that while working. People who just graduated (atleast here in Sweden) think they are pro’s when graduating, only to realize they’re real green’ies when they start working. If they don’t realize it right away, they do realize it a couple of years in. I’ve been working as an embedded software developer for 7+ years at different #1 in their field companies without a degree. I’ve worked with a lot of newly graduates and the above is my experience. The best technical solution is not always the best solution.

bootsz 9y ago

> Wilfra mentions “disdain for people who don’t have a BS CS who want to get an MS CS.” It was certainly not my intent to express disdain for people who follow this path! Many people pull it off admirably. However, it is a difficult path to follow because it skips all of the introductory programming classes As someone who went this path, I'm troubled by the amount of assumptions and generalization being made here. To my knowledge any legitimate MS program will require that you have completed an appropriate amount of foundational CS courses before starting the program. I obtained an MSCS after getting a bachelor's in a different field, and I had to take 6 CS classes to satisfy the prerequisites. Including the MS the total amount of coursework I completed was slightly greater than the requirements of the university's Bachelor's degree, plus some graduate-level research. Granted, this is not as much coursework as someone who obtained both a BS and and MS, but from my understanding if you're not planning to pursue a PhD (or need it for immigration purposes) getting both is usually not a good use of time anyway. It seems he is trying to specifically criticize programs that fall far short of what I went through, which seems valid. But it would be nice to make that distinction instead of writing us all off as inferior.

commandlinefan 9y ago
> require that you have completed an appropriate amount of foundational CS courses In fact, I went back for an MSCS degree ten years after finishing a BSCS, and even then I was required to take a couple of foundational undergraduate courses before they let me start my graduate coursework, since there had been enough advances in CS theory since I graduated a decade ago that they felt (correctly) that I needed to catch up.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

samfisher83 9y ago

Its very useful if you want to come into this country. If you are in India its hard to get a job in America. If you come here for a master its much easier to get a job here. The salary difference between there and here can be massive.

ng12 9y ago
Yup. I went to a school with a pretty good CS program (not quite top N) and our master's program was almost exclusively international students.

laichzeit0 9y ago

I wonder what he would have to say for my example: I did a 4 year BS CS degree and graduated in 2005. I did calculus, linear algebra, real analysis, mathematical statistics, etc. until 3rd year and then the typical CS curriculum of compilers, distributed systems, programming languages, artificial intelligence, etc. I've been working in industry for 12 years doing typical systems/software development, but got involved in more "Data Sciency" things in the last 2 years. I liked it so much that I decided I want to change career directions and move away from just "building software" to more "building software that runs on data as the fuel", like machine learning/deep learning/NLP related problems. So okay, I have no real problem with doing anything that involves manipulating the data, building pipelines, or implementing things in Tensorflow or Gensim, etc it's just programming. Easy, peasy. I also understand most of the mathematics, and what I forgot was not too hard to "re-learn" very quickly. The problem is it is difficult to apply for jobs as a Data Scientist when you only have a BS CS, even with real world experience. I'm not "formally qualified" as a Data Scientist. So I enrolled for a 2 year course-based MS (1 year course work, 1 year dissertation). Basically it allows me to slap on my resume that (a) I have done university accredited courses in mathematical optimization, machine and statistical learning, deep learning, ethics, big data, etc. and I suppose the dissertation says that I can do more advanced work on data in an academically rigorous fashion. So basically I'm using the MS to change career trajectories 10 years after doing a BS CS. I suppose you could do the courses through MOOCs but I appreciate the dissertation part as I am forced to read journal articles and learn how to do things more "rigorously" than I would otherwise in a plain old MOOC. Isn't this a viable option for pursuing an MS? I don't think it's necessary directly after an undergraduate, but after a decade or so you might want to "specialize" into something that didn't really exist when you did your undergrad. BTW, I did this part time while working (you can kiss away your weekends and evenings).

mr_overalls 9y ago
Have you finished the MS yet, and has it improved your job prospects? Also, I'm curious which program you've chosen. The GaTech OMSCS program has gotten a lot of good reviews lately.

mslate 9y ago

Tsk tsk—not a single iota of quantitative analysis. How can we know that the value of a CS degree is declining? By what measure of “value”? This is pure “appeal to authority” as the author is a CS professor-—better to discuss Aline Lerner’s research which he references

justin66 9y ago

I was an exception to what regehr said in at least one regard: my public speaking improved pretty dramatically while working toward a coursework-only MS. I don't think it was anything more complicated than just needing to hit a lifetime threshold of presenting in front of people some number of times. The rest seems pretty valid, although at this stage, I doubt if there's any well-founded way to determine whether a given degree will prove to be worthwhile in a purely financial sense, if there ever was. With rising costs it's probably just somewhat less likely...

inieves 9y ago

I think your coursework-only MS needs to be further broken down into those programs that require a BS in CS and those that don’t. There are at least 3 types of MS in that sense. Without this distinction, your article is short-sighted, not realizing that there are actually many rigorous academic MS programs in CS that would not be doable by someone lacking deep knowledge already. Erosion of the value of the MS is not isolated to CS. Forget some universities eroding the MS, entire countries are eroding it. If im not mistaken, Italy is a massive supplier of MS degrees.

bootsz 9y ago
I agree, there is definitely a broad spectrum in terms of what amount of background a student needs to be able to complete a given MS program. But I'm not entirely convinced that it's appropriate to argue that the only "true" MSCS is one that requires a full bachelor's in that subject as prerequisite. That seems... overly restrictive. What if you got a bachelor's in math or engineering and want to further specialize in CS? Should your only option be to complete another bachelors degree? What if you did a minor in CS? There's lots of people in these categories that can and do get an MSCS, even from very reputable programs. Obviously coming from a related field will prepare you better than say a liberal arts degree, but where do you draw the line? In my experience most MS programs have a certain set of prerequisites that generally equate to a minor in CS.

bootsz 9y ago

The crux of the issue here seems to be that the author believes that a "true" MSCS is one that can only be obtained by those who have first completed a bachelor's degree in CS. We might want to consider whether that is a valid definition or not. This isn't really a brand-new thing either. One of my best instructors was a seasoned industry vet (former senior architect at a major firm, member of W3C and author of several of their proposals, etc.), and he had a bachelor's in Physics followed by an MSCS... from Stanford. Are we to say that his masters is not legitimate or that he is an inferior engineer because he technically did not complete a bachelors in the subject first? To me it seems to be a problem of defining in general what the purpose of a masters degree should really be. In some fields it is used as an extension of a bachelor's in the same field, while in others it is used to supplement undergraduate education with skills in a different field, typically for the purposes of better rounding out the student's knowledge in preparation for pursuing certain career paths. For instance, consider a professional degree like the MBA, where you can come in having a bachelor's in literally any subject. What the author is noticing is that universities are increasingly offering the MSCS as something more like a professional degree instead of solely as an academic-track stepping stone to the PhD. And clearly he does not like this. This issue seems to highlight the dual-purpose nature of universities as vehicles for training both practitioners as well as researchers. On the practitioner side, I think there is immense value in being able to supplement a bachelor's degree in one subject with a different set of skills obtained in a second degree. E.g., many people take the track of getting a science or engineering bachelors and then an MBA afterwards. The combination of those two disciplines can provide a very powerful skill set. What seems to be happening is that the increasingly tech-centric nature of our economy is causing the skills offered by CS to start to make a lot of sense for some people as a form of secondary training. Much like business, technology intersects virtually every industry, and those who have training in a specific subject domain in addition to CS can be highly effective problem-solvers, much more so than those trained in just one or the other. Sure, perhaps we can argue about whether an "MSCS" is really the most appropriate vehicle for such people. But being one of those people myself I will say that my experience does not at all reflect what the author claims (see my other comment re: coursework). The reality is that there are an increasing number of people who want to supplement their undergraduate training with CS, and this is a good thing. The author is correct in noting the distinction between this demographic and those who are on a research/academic track, but I'm just not convinced that we can definitively say that an MSCS must always require a bachelors in CS.

digorithm 9y ago

As a soon-to-graduate Masters CS student in a top research university, I'd like to share, for what it seems, a different opinion and experience about this matter. I came here from a 3rd world country that lacks a good education; Most of my CS experience and knowledge, at that time, came from the Internet, books, and personal projects. After working hard, I was accepted to this university as an MSc student. I have never learned this amount of quality content as I've been learning in these past 2 years in this MSc program. Deep topics and subjects like programming language theory, low-level knowledge in distributed systems and machine learning, all this being taught by excellent researchers in their respective fields. This was the first year, the course requirements part of the MSc program. Now I'm halfway through my research, and again, I've been learning tons. I've been writing very interesting code, building amazing things, writing papers, and working on my own ideas. I've never been this close to amazing scientists and engineers. This is priceless, in my opinion. I've worked in the industry (before the MSc. program), it was super great. But I can confidently say that the MSc. program has made me a better engineer and taught me how to do proper research. I'm sure this may vary from university to university, department to department, and most importantly, from advisor to advisor. But that has been my experience!

OnlyRepliesToBS 9y ago

This opinion is the reason software quality is shit today.