4 ms·

It's perfect for me. I also attended GT as an undergrad, but have since moved on with life, have a full time job and family, etc. I would love to interact on ca

It's perfect for me. I also attended GT as an undergrad, but have since moved on with life, have a full time job and family, etc. I would love to interact on campus again, but it would hinder both my professional and personal life to do so. I don't plan on being in academia, but a MSCS degree will allow me more career opportunities. Online makes it easy for me to take the classes on a non-thesis track (which I'd be doing anyway, not planning to go into academia) at my own pace. Traditional grad school pace is not conducive to those living a full-time professional life. I think what makes this more attractive than a simple distance education version of most masters degrees is the following: - Prestige of a decent school (but, USC Viterbi offers a distance degree along with others) - Low cost (can't get a fellowship or assistantship if working full time) - High standard for classes (still have to earn the degree) - Custom pace (my life's schedule no longer fits into semesters) - Being on the forefront of education (how cool to tell your grandkids you obtained one of the first OMS degrees?) Interaction with people is only one of the many facets of a grad school course. For those intending to go the PhD route, absolutely go on campus, do research, network, etc. But don't assume that's what everybody needs.

k2xl 13y ago
I have to respectfully disagree with much of what you said. Just because it is from Georgia Tech doesn't mean the quality will be high. Georgia Tech is not the forefront of distance learning. Believe it or not, online classes are completely different than regular classes. Being in an online class you simply work with the material you have. There is nothing you will learn in an online masters class you couldn't find online elsewhere already. It is just an extended bachelors degree. Your job prospects for having an Online Masters in CS from Georgia Tech will not change too much IMO. The way you will get the job you want is from connections - the kinds that you build while AT a university. Most jobs that people get are from referrals. In most high skilled MS requiring jobs you have to INTERACT with people. You have to work together in teams. You have to have real world interactions. These are skills you don't obtain from an online masters class.
- rsanders 13y ago
  There's nothing I could learn from the Coursera compilers class I couldn't have learned from a $10 used textbook, and yet the Coursera class did make a huge difference. As Good Will Hunting sort of mis-stated it -- you can get access to a $150,000 education's worth of information for the cost of a library card and some late charges. Or, given Khan Academy and all the MOOC companies, with a cheap netbook and an Internet connection. None of that information may cross the book/brain barrier, of course. This clearly isn't a completely replacement for the existing Masters program. Yet it's a huge improvement over a stack of dusty books, and possibly, in some cases, an improvement over a stack of "Certificates of Accomplishment" from non-accredited MOOCs. I don't think this is necessarily aimed at people just exiting a BS program. It has a strong "professional" focus. If you haven't learned to interact with people fruitfully and work in teams in your professional life, you're at a disadvantage. As I said elsewhere, I believe a program like this requires more of the student than a traditional degree. You have to bring greater discipline, the ability to learn without interaction with the instructor, and as you point out, an assortment of other skills that you have acquired on your own. I do hope that online educators find some way to foster similarly valuable interaction between students on team projects as opposed to keeping everybody in individual solipsistic relationships with the course automaton. It's a challenging problem -- who wants to depend on somebody without any, or much, skin in the game? How would it even work with the flexible schedules this kind of thing will attract?
- drharris 13y ago
  I guess what I'm saying is that I do the professional networking stuff already. I'm at a point in my career where I do not need to get a referral from a professor or fellow student to get a job I'm interested in; I already have appropriate contacts in the relevant fields. I'm mainly talking about career path. I'm a Sr. Engineer/Project Manager now, but if I want to grow into a Principal engineering role or management I need an MS to speed things up. There are two ways to grow a career path; experience and education. I can wait twenty years until I naturally move up to that role, or I can get an MS (and other certifications) to prove my upward mobility and shave a few years off that. So, as far as working together in teams, and real-world interactions, I have those in spades. I don't need that anymore. Were I to get an MS right after a BS, it'd be a different story. But 15 years in industry gives you that. I need the education itself: horizon expansion and prestige of the school name. That's it. And as far as information that comes from other people, I work around other engineers and people I already contact when I have issues. I estimate that there's not much in an MS non-thesis program that will truly challenge me at this point. Not in an arrogant way, just that industry experience does this for people. GT may not yet be at the forefront of DL, but they're working closely with Udacity, which is. I will expect a quality program.

k2xl 13y ago

I have to respectfully disagree with much of what you said. Just because it is from Georgia Tech doesn't mean the quality will be high. Georgia Tech is not the forefront of distance learning. Believe it or not, online classes are completely different than regular classes. Being in an online class you simply work with the material you have. There is nothing you will learn in an online masters class you couldn't find online elsewhere already. It is just an extended bachelors degree. Your job prospects for having an Online Masters in CS from Georgia Tech will not change too much IMO. The way you will get the job you want is from connections - the kinds that you build while AT a university. Most jobs that people get are from referrals. In most high skilled MS requiring jobs you have to INTERACT with people. You have to work together in teams. You have to have real world interactions. These are skills you don't obtain from an online masters class.

rsanders 13y ago
There's nothing I could learn from the Coursera compilers class I couldn't have learned from a $10 used textbook, and yet the Coursera class did make a huge difference. As Good Will Hunting sort of mis-stated it -- you can get access to a $150,000 education's worth of information for the cost of a library card and some late charges. Or, given Khan Academy and all the MOOC companies, with a cheap netbook and an Internet connection. None of that information may cross the book/brain barrier, of course. This clearly isn't a completely replacement for the existing Masters program. Yet it's a huge improvement over a stack of dusty books, and possibly, in some cases, an improvement over a stack of "Certificates of Accomplishment" from non-accredited MOOCs. I don't think this is necessarily aimed at people just exiting a BS program. It has a strong "professional" focus. If you haven't learned to interact with people fruitfully and work in teams in your professional life, you're at a disadvantage. As I said elsewhere, I believe a program like this requires more of the student than a traditional degree. You have to bring greater discipline, the ability to learn without interaction with the instructor, and as you point out, an assortment of other skills that you have acquired on your own. I do hope that online educators find some way to foster similarly valuable interaction between students on team projects as opposed to keeping everybody in individual solipsistic relationships with the course automaton. It's a challenging problem -- who wants to depend on somebody without any, or much, skin in the game? How would it even work with the flexible schedules this kind of thing will attract?
drharris 13y ago
I guess what I'm saying is that I do the professional networking stuff already. I'm at a point in my career where I do not need to get a referral from a professor or fellow student to get a job I'm interested in; I already have appropriate contacts in the relevant fields. I'm mainly talking about career path. I'm a Sr. Engineer/Project Manager now, but if I want to grow into a Principal engineering role or management I need an MS to speed things up. There are two ways to grow a career path; experience and education. I can wait twenty years until I naturally move up to that role, or I can get an MS (and other certifications) to prove my upward mobility and shave a few years off that. So, as far as working together in teams, and real-world interactions, I have those in spades. I don't need that anymore. Were I to get an MS right after a BS, it'd be a different story. But 15 years in industry gives you that. I need the education itself: horizon expansion and prestige of the school name. That's it. And as far as information that comes from other people, I work around other engineers and people I already contact when I have issues. I estimate that there's not much in an MS non-thesis program that will truly challenge me at this point. Not in an arrogant way, just that industry experience does this for people. GT may not yet be at the forefront of DL, but they're working closely with Udacity, which is. I will expect a quality program.