Oh agreed, and and I'm definitely biased towards my degree. What I can say is that without the degree I find it extremely unlikely I would have gotten the job I

Oh agreed, and and I'm definitely biased towards my degree. What I can say is that without the degree I find it extremely unlikely I would have gotten the job I have now working in Data. At the least it gave me the confidence to apply, but also without the structure of the program, I would never have studied ML the way I have. However, I do completely agree there are other great programs out there. UIUC and UTexas have great online MSCS degrees that are comparable and well worth considering. The coursework in OMSCS can vary. There are ways to get through the program taking fairly "easy" courses, and then there are much harder ones. I have certainly had a class or two that was less useful to take than others, but that was mostly so I could graduate in 10 semesters as opposed to taking longer.