8 ms·

Is it a "Master's Degree" or is it an "Online Master's Degree" because they keep saying online, and OMS instead of MS, etc. I suspect that will be stigmatic, o

Is it a "Master's Degree" or is it an "Online Master's Degree" because they keep saying online, and OMS instead of MS, etc. I suspect that will be stigmatic, or is already. If that is the case, then why waste $10K on a degree that is no more valuable than "self taught"? Is an OMS from Georgia Tech more convincing than "I read some books and here's a good portfolio of personal projects" ? It's a hard sell.

knuththetruth 8y ago
It probably depends on the market where you’re job-hunting. In tech worker starved areas like the Midwest and South, it’s probably a sufficient credential. Either of the coasts, obviously less so.
EduardLev 8y ago
Taken from the FAQ: How will this degree appear on my diploma and/or transcript? The name "Online Master of Science" is an informal designation to help both Georgia Tech and prospective students distinguish the delivery method of the OMS program from our on-campus degree. The degree name in both cases is Master of Science in Computer Science. The point stands that it would be relatively easy to know which version someone completed (you worked in New York but got a masters at Georgia Tech?). I personally believe the value to be roughly equal to a "real" degree.
- tptacek 8y ago
  I think the question is less whether the "online" part of the degree is problematic, and more whether the "masters" part is. Pay-for-play vocational masters degrees are kind of a known quantity in the field already. A BSCS from GATech is something! An "MS in Cybersecurity" is something else.
  - zebraflask 8y ago
    They aren't exactly the University of Phoenix, either. Compared to the average cost for an online degree from a decent university, I can see a lot of people compromising over only 10K - even if some parts of the program aren't perfect.
    - bunderbunder 8y ago
      They aren't, but, as someone who holds a non-academic Master's degree, I think I still support the distinction - MA and MS should be reserved for people who've defended a thesis. Conferring it to people who have completed a professional education program is muddying the waters.
      - zebraflask 8y ago
        That seems a bit self-defeating. A thesis is just a longer than average paper, there's nothing magical about it.
  - hacym 8y ago
    I'm in the CS program and the rigor is definitely there. It's not pay-for-play at all, although I am not sure that's what you're suggesting.
    - tptacek 8y ago
      Georgia Tech has a top tier CS program and I am not disparaging it. I'm talking specifically about vocational masters degrees like this Cybersecurity thing.
      - hacym 8y ago
        Makes sense. I’m curious, what are your thoughts on vocational certificates for other industries?
rootusrootus 8y ago
If it's like OMSCS, it will be a simple MS, no mention of online. The method of delivery isn't really relevant, just the content.
ralmidani 8y ago
It mirrors an on-campus program. Online !== self-study.
ctdonath 8y ago
You're paying for certification, acceptably proving you've learned what an accredited institution expects you to learn. The problem I've seen with "I don't need a degree!" people is gaping holes in their self-taught education, missing things that every degreed person learns. Yes, I'd trust an OMS from Georgia Tech over "I read some books and here's a good portfolio of personal projects". I'd be seriously concerned that the latter missed stuff any MS in the subject should know.
- p1necone 8y ago
  I'd trust an actual bachelors or masters degree over "self taught" too yes, but as someone else in this thread also pointed out this "online masters degree" looks like it only really covers 100 level bachelors content and not much else.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    If it’s like the OMSCS they cover lots of topics that are covered in anundergrad but the marking scheme is that an undergrad A guarantees you’ll pass and if you want an actual A on the course you’ll have to work harder. Any OMSCS grads feel like (dis)confirming?
    - m000z0rz 8y ago
      Currently in OMSCS, after very recently taking some bachelor's level courses. The OMSCS classes are significantly tougher, go far deeper into the material, require more research and involve less hand-holding than the bachelor's level classes.
    - bitL 8y ago
      I interacted a bit with OMS CS students that were taking Udacity courses (there is some link between Udacity personnel/classes and OMS CS), and they all reported being flooded with difficult homeworks/projects, often racing against the clock to submit things before deadline. Some classes even take >40h/week according to them. It doesn't seem to be anything trivial as you'd have implied; more like a proper MS from a Top-10 school. Imagine you need to get a lunar lander module landing on the moon in OpenAI gym via Deep Reinforcement Learning, write your own real-time Augmented Reality system as your final project in Computer Vision, beat real-world radiologists using the very latest Deep Learning research from Stanford as a final project in health informatics, write your own Swift-like compiler etc. Does that seem trivial? If anything, it's awesome people can learn those things online with the proper academic rigor and without dumbed-down curriculum.
chaostheory 8y ago
> Is an OMS from Georgia Tech more convincing than "I read some books and here's a good portfolio of personal projects" ? It's a hard sell. Part of the price is GT's credibility. Someone not familiar with security may not be impressed with a portfolio of personal projects.
gaius 8y ago
I suspect that will be stigmatic, or is already. The FAQ on EdX says the certificate is identical to the on-campus one, it doesn’t mention “online”. In the UK we have had “distance learning” for a long time (Open University) and there is no stigma attached, OU is probably actually more prestigious than most ex-polys.
- servesystem 8y ago
  It's hypocritical of the business world to use open source software but reject open education.
  - civilitty 8y ago
    To the business world, open source is just a business calculation and HR really doesn't care about it except when it's useful as a recruiting tool. The same is true of hiring decisions and open education. Degrees from well known universities are part of a cost/benefit/cover-your-ass strategy in hiring decisions so when open education has proven itself to the degree that open source software has, then it will be as widely accepted.
  - user5994461 8y ago
    The business world uses microsoft windows and office. Couldn't care less about open source.
- chupasaurus 8y ago
  University of Liverpool has an online MSCS program for a while too with the same certificate as if it was on-campus.
kayoone 8y ago
I am a Senior Software Engineer in my mid thirties doing an Online degree at a local university of applied science in Germany. I am doing most of the work at home and just go there 4 times per semester and once for exams, but i have a lot of deadlines for assignments during the semester, while i work a fulltime job obviously. As far as i can tell, they apply the same standards to exams and grading than they do for normal on-campus students and I need to go much deeper into subjects than i would if i would self study for fun, to get good grades. I also need to study stuff that might not be on my list if i would only self-study, but in the end often is really valuable. Maybe some people can go really deep into topics when learning by themselves, for me the fact that i need to pass an exam and want a good grade helps a lot to go the extra mile on some of the harder stuff. So when someone says an Online degree equals "I read some books and here's a good portfolio of personal projects" i honestly get mildly offended.
- thiago_fm 8y ago
  where is that? I also live in Germany with time constraints...
  - cpursley 8y ago
    I'm interested as well. Are the courses in English?
    - kayoone 8y ago
      For the remote programs unfortunately I think they are german only.
  - thesimon 8y ago
    Not OP, but from my research Fernuni Hagen is supposed to be good https://www.fernuni-hagen.de/mi/studium/msc_informatik/ https://www.fernuni-hagen.de/mi/studium/msc_informatik/ (German only) Around 1000€ for the Computer Science Master.
  - kayoone 8y ago
    In my case it's https://www.vfh.de/ https://www.vfh.de/ which is a group of Universities of Applied Science throughout Germany that offer a selection of degrees. I myself am in Berlin, experiences may vary between different universities. I am doing a Medieninformatik Degree which equals something like "Computer Science and Digital Media", meaning some emphasis on Computer Graphics, Web/Mobile Development combined with CS fundamentals etc. If you want a Degree from a research University in pure Comp Sci, Fernuni Hagen is the only options for remote studies afaik.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Spooky23 8y ago
There’s a lot of money getting dumped into all things cyber, and its attracting waves of people like flies to a lightbulb. It’s also a place where marginal people can burrow in or even thrive - either doing policy work (in the form of monk-like transcription of NIST documents), being a gatekeeper for exceptions and reviews, or doing threat intelligence. Figuring out how to measure and hire people is hard, and banks and Federal contracts need to fill thousands of chairs. The racket of expensive certifications was restricting the talent pool, so these cyber security programs are sort of like a substitution for that. This isn’t going to ever produce real technical leadership — the smart people are ultimately engineers who do interesting security things. IMO it’s a waste of potential — smart kids are bypassing Computer Science or Engineering for a much less rigorous education.
- noxToken 8y ago
  > IMO it’s a waste of potential — smart kids are bypassing Computer Science or Engineering for a much less rigorous education. There are some opposing forces at play that students and new grads may not quite understand: Computer Science and Software Engineering (boot camps by extension) are basically branching paths to the same entry entry level job, but where you go beyond that can have a stark difference. I always ask our interns a few questions about their education when they start. One of the chief complaints for CS students is that they don't learn enough practical knowledge to enter the work force. They talk about people who went to a boot camp or were self-taught, and they always express that those people are much more prepared for a given position. Thus we have students who are looking for SWE courses but are taking a CS curriculum. In my experience, no one bothers to make the distinction until it's too late. True story that drives this home: Our client hired an intern who didn't think a CS degree was practical. He clearly had gaps in his skill set, but I chalked it up to him being a college junior. He was given a small task to parse some text, and I suggested regular expressions (the programming construct) - something he said he had experience with. He came back to me a hour or so later utterly confused on how people could catch all of the edge cases and branching paths that a small regex can generate. Turns out he hadn't taken formal languages yet. I sat him down to build a DFA and talk regular expressions (the formal language concept) with JFLAP[0], and it blew his mind. That conversation changed his entire outlook on CS degrees. [0]: http://jflap.org http://jflap.org
nwsm 8y ago
What would personal projects look like for cybersecurity work?
Yhippa 8y ago
I think it depends on how it's done and who it's offered by. Georgia Tech is one of the best US overall engineering programs in the US and I'd hope they would take this seriously and employers or other credentialists take it seriously. I took a master's course in cryptography at a university as part of a job perk. The IRL aspect was lectures and office hours sometimes. The professor did not have a great grasp of the English language so I had to work with other students and do extensive internet research to understand things. I also did one of Udacity's FEND program. It had a Slack channel and pretty cool feedback mechanisms for homework and tests. If the grad school class had that I think I would have enjoyed it more and had greater mastery of the subject. I think it's past time for us to consider OMS legit instead of automatically second-guessing them.

knuththetruth 8y ago

It probably depends on the market where you’re job-hunting. In tech worker starved areas like the Midwest and South, it’s probably a sufficient credential. Either of the coasts, obviously less so.

EduardLev 8y ago

Taken from the FAQ: How will this degree appear on my diploma and/or transcript? The name "Online Master of Science" is an informal designation to help both Georgia Tech and prospective students distinguish the delivery method of the OMS program from our on-campus degree. The degree name in both cases is Master of Science in Computer Science. The point stands that it would be relatively easy to know which version someone completed (you worked in New York but got a masters at Georgia Tech?). I personally believe the value to be roughly equal to a "real" degree.

tptacek 8y ago
I think the question is less whether the "online" part of the degree is problematic, and more whether the "masters" part is. Pay-for-play vocational masters degrees are kind of a known quantity in the field already. A BSCS from GATech is something! An "MS in Cybersecurity" is something else.
- zebraflask 8y ago
  They aren't exactly the University of Phoenix, either. Compared to the average cost for an online degree from a decent university, I can see a lot of people compromising over only 10K - even if some parts of the program aren't perfect.
  - bunderbunder 8y ago
    They aren't, but, as someone who holds a non-academic Master's degree, I think I still support the distinction - MA and MS should be reserved for people who've defended a thesis. Conferring it to people who have completed a professional education program is muddying the waters.
    - zebraflask 8y ago
      That seems a bit self-defeating. A thesis is just a longer than average paper, there's nothing magical about it.
- hacym 8y ago
  I'm in the CS program and the rigor is definitely there. It's not pay-for-play at all, although I am not sure that's what you're suggesting.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    Georgia Tech has a top tier CS program and I am not disparaging it. I'm talking specifically about vocational masters degrees like this Cybersecurity thing.
    - hacym 8y ago
      Makes sense. I’m curious, what are your thoughts on vocational certificates for other industries?

rootusrootus 8y ago

If it's like OMSCS, it will be a simple MS, no mention of online. The method of delivery isn't really relevant, just the content.

ralmidani 8y ago

It mirrors an on-campus program. Online !== self-study.

ctdonath 8y ago

You're paying for certification, acceptably proving you've learned what an accredited institution expects you to learn. The problem I've seen with "I don't need a degree!" people is gaping holes in their self-taught education, missing things that every degreed person learns. Yes, I'd trust an OMS from Georgia Tech over "I read some books and here's a good portfolio of personal projects". I'd be seriously concerned that the latter missed stuff any MS in the subject should know.

p1necone 8y ago
I'd trust an actual bachelors or masters degree over "self taught" too yes, but as someone else in this thread also pointed out this "online masters degree" looks like it only really covers 100 level bachelors content and not much else.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  If it’s like the OMSCS they cover lots of topics that are covered in anundergrad but the marking scheme is that an undergrad A guarantees you’ll pass and if you want an actual A on the course you’ll have to work harder. Any OMSCS grads feel like (dis)confirming?
  - m000z0rz 8y ago
    Currently in OMSCS, after very recently taking some bachelor's level courses. The OMSCS classes are significantly tougher, go far deeper into the material, require more research and involve less hand-holding than the bachelor's level classes.
  - bitL 8y ago
    I interacted a bit with OMS CS students that were taking Udacity courses (there is some link between Udacity personnel/classes and OMS CS), and they all reported being flooded with difficult homeworks/projects, often racing against the clock to submit things before deadline. Some classes even take >40h/week according to them. It doesn't seem to be anything trivial as you'd have implied; more like a proper MS from a Top-10 school. Imagine you need to get a lunar lander module landing on the moon in OpenAI gym via Deep Reinforcement Learning, write your own real-time Augmented Reality system as your final project in Computer Vision, beat real-world radiologists using the very latest Deep Learning research from Stanford as a final project in health informatics, write your own Swift-like compiler etc. Does that seem trivial? If anything, it's awesome people can learn those things online with the proper academic rigor and without dumbed-down curriculum.

chaostheory 8y ago

> Is an OMS from Georgia Tech more convincing than "I read some books and here's a good portfolio of personal projects" ? It's a hard sell. Part of the price is GT's credibility. Someone not familiar with security may not be impressed with a portfolio of personal projects.

gaius 8y ago

I suspect that will be stigmatic, or is already. The FAQ on EdX says the certificate is identical to the on-campus one, it doesn’t mention “online”. In the UK we have had “distance learning” for a long time (Open University) and there is no stigma attached, OU is probably actually more prestigious than most ex-polys.

servesystem 8y ago
It's hypocritical of the business world to use open source software but reject open education.
- civilitty 8y ago
  To the business world, open source is just a business calculation and HR really doesn't care about it except when it's useful as a recruiting tool. The same is true of hiring decisions and open education. Degrees from well known universities are part of a cost/benefit/cover-your-ass strategy in hiring decisions so when open education has proven itself to the degree that open source software has, then it will be as widely accepted.
- user5994461 8y ago
  The business world uses microsoft windows and office. Couldn't care less about open source.
chupasaurus 8y ago
University of Liverpool has an online MSCS program for a while too with the same certificate as if it was on-campus.

kayoone 8y ago

I am a Senior Software Engineer in my mid thirties doing an Online degree at a local university of applied science in Germany. I am doing most of the work at home and just go there 4 times per semester and once for exams, but i have a lot of deadlines for assignments during the semester, while i work a fulltime job obviously. As far as i can tell, they apply the same standards to exams and grading than they do for normal on-campus students and I need to go much deeper into subjects than i would if i would self study for fun, to get good grades. I also need to study stuff that might not be on my list if i would only self-study, but in the end often is really valuable. Maybe some people can go really deep into topics when learning by themselves, for me the fact that i need to pass an exam and want a good grade helps a lot to go the extra mile on some of the harder stuff. So when someone says an Online degree equals "I read some books and here's a good portfolio of personal projects" i honestly get mildly offended.

thiago_fm 8y ago
where is that? I also live in Germany with time constraints...
- cpursley 8y ago
  I'm interested as well. Are the courses in English?
  - kayoone 8y ago
    For the remote programs unfortunately I think they are german only.
- thesimon 8y ago
  Not OP, but from my research Fernuni Hagen is supposed to be good https://www.fernuni-hagen.de/mi/studium/msc_informatik/ https://www.fernuni-hagen.de/mi/studium/msc_informatik/ (German only) Around 1000€ for the Computer Science Master.
- kayoone 8y ago
  In my case it's https://www.vfh.de/ https://www.vfh.de/ which is a group of Universities of Applied Science throughout Germany that offer a selection of degrees. I myself am in Berlin, experiences may vary between different universities. I am doing a Medieninformatik Degree which equals something like "Computer Science and Digital Media", meaning some emphasis on Computer Graphics, Web/Mobile Development combined with CS fundamentals etc. If you want a Degree from a research University in pure Comp Sci, Fernuni Hagen is the only options for remote studies afaik.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Spooky23 8y ago

There’s a lot of money getting dumped into all things cyber, and its attracting waves of people like flies to a lightbulb. It’s also a place where marginal people can burrow in or even thrive - either doing policy work (in the form of monk-like transcription of NIST documents), being a gatekeeper for exceptions and reviews, or doing threat intelligence. Figuring out how to measure and hire people is hard, and banks and Federal contracts need to fill thousands of chairs. The racket of expensive certifications was restricting the talent pool, so these cyber security programs are sort of like a substitution for that. This isn’t going to ever produce real technical leadership — the smart people are ultimately engineers who do interesting security things. IMO it’s a waste of potential — smart kids are bypassing Computer Science or Engineering for a much less rigorous education.

noxToken 8y ago
> IMO it’s a waste of potential — smart kids are bypassing Computer Science or Engineering for a much less rigorous education. There are some opposing forces at play that students and new grads may not quite understand: Computer Science and Software Engineering (boot camps by extension) are basically branching paths to the same entry entry level job, but where you go beyond that can have a stark difference. I always ask our interns a few questions about their education when they start. One of the chief complaints for CS students is that they don't learn enough practical knowledge to enter the work force. They talk about people who went to a boot camp or were self-taught, and they always express that those people are much more prepared for a given position. Thus we have students who are looking for SWE courses but are taking a CS curriculum. In my experience, no one bothers to make the distinction until it's too late. True story that drives this home: Our client hired an intern who didn't think a CS degree was practical. He clearly had gaps in his skill set, but I chalked it up to him being a college junior. He was given a small task to parse some text, and I suggested regular expressions (the programming construct) - something he said he had experience with. He came back to me a hour or so later utterly confused on how people could catch all of the edge cases and branching paths that a small regex can generate. Turns out he hadn't taken formal languages yet. I sat him down to build a DFA and talk regular expressions (the formal language concept) with JFLAP[0], and it blew his mind. That conversation changed his entire outlook on CS degrees. [0]: http://jflap.org http://jflap.org

nwsm 8y ago

What would personal projects look like for cybersecurity work?

Yhippa 8y ago

I think it depends on how it's done and who it's offered by. Georgia Tech is one of the best US overall engineering programs in the US and I'd hope they would take this seriously and employers or other credentialists take it seriously. I took a master's course in cryptography at a university as part of a job perk. The IRL aspect was lectures and office hours sometimes. The professor did not have a great grasp of the English language so I had to work with other students and do extensive internet research to understand things. I also did one of Udacity's FEND program. It had a Slack channel and pretty cool feedback mechanisms for homework and tests. If the grad school class had that I think I would have enjoyed it more and had greater mastery of the subject. I think it's past time for us to consider OMS legit instead of automatically second-guessing them.