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Is [USNews & World Report](http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings http://grad-sch

Is [USNews & World Report](http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-gradu...) a good source to decide which Masters Programs are legit and which are just junk? Seems like there's a lot of crap around...

mdasen 13y ago
The best advice I can give is to go to school websites and look at their course catalog. Specifically, look at the professors teaching the core courses and whether the courses you'll be taking are the same courses that undergraduates and PhD students at the university take. Many masters programs are what one of my professors calls "mercinary-masters". Their job is to bring in money in exchange for a piece of paper. You're taught by adjuncts, you take courses that are watered down from the courses that undergraduates take, some of the professors might not even have degrees related to computer science, etc. Your purpose is to subsidise the undergrads and PhD students and the main criteria for admission is whether they think you can get passing remarks to get the degree. The US News rankings are for doctoral programs, not masters. The rankings are formulated very simplistically via a survey asking people, "how good is the program at School X". So, they aren't such a good source. Plus, with your background, some schools aren't going to want you. That isn't a dig at you - you're re-training and some schools only do PhDs (with masters for those who drop out) and other schools don't do conversion-style masters. If you have more specific questions, I might be able to help. Still, the best advice I can give is to make sure that you're not getting segregated off into a special class of cash-cow masters students who are being given a watered-down experience in exchange for money. It's easy to look through course catalogs and who teaches the courses you'll be taking and look at the professor web pages and see where you're getting someone brought on board to teach a course and where you're getting faculty.
- mc-lovin 13y ago
  I agree that you want to ensure that the coursework is of sufficient quality. However, I wouldn't avoid terminal masters degrees with no financial support in themselves. E.g. Stanford's MS in CS falls into this category. Edit: not that the parent post was implying that such programs should be avoided, bit it is common advice.
- boingyjump 13y ago
  Do you have any suggestions for specific programs? I'm particularly interested in getting a better understanding of data structures and algorithms (granted, that's super broad), because that seems like the hardest kind of thing to learn well online.

mdasen 13y ago

The best advice I can give is to go to school websites and look at their course catalog. Specifically, look at the professors teaching the core courses and whether the courses you'll be taking are the same courses that undergraduates and PhD students at the university take. Many masters programs are what one of my professors calls "mercinary-masters". Their job is to bring in money in exchange for a piece of paper. You're taught by adjuncts, you take courses that are watered down from the courses that undergraduates take, some of the professors might not even have degrees related to computer science, etc. Your purpose is to subsidise the undergrads and PhD students and the main criteria for admission is whether they think you can get passing remarks to get the degree. The US News rankings are for doctoral programs, not masters. The rankings are formulated very simplistically via a survey asking people, "how good is the program at School X". So, they aren't such a good source. Plus, with your background, some schools aren't going to want you. That isn't a dig at you - you're re-training and some schools only do PhDs (with masters for those who drop out) and other schools don't do conversion-style masters. If you have more specific questions, I might be able to help. Still, the best advice I can give is to make sure that you're not getting segregated off into a special class of cash-cow masters students who are being given a watered-down experience in exchange for money. It's easy to look through course catalogs and who teaches the courses you'll be taking and look at the professor web pages and see where you're getting someone brought on board to teach a course and where you're getting faculty.

mc-lovin 13y ago
I agree that you want to ensure that the coursework is of sufficient quality. However, I wouldn't avoid terminal masters degrees with no financial support in themselves. E.g. Stanford's MS in CS falls into this category. Edit: not that the parent post was implying that such programs should be avoided, bit it is common advice.
boingyjump 13y ago
Do you have any suggestions for specific programs? I'm particularly interested in getting a better understanding of data structures and algorithms (granted, that's super broad), because that seems like the hardest kind of thing to learn well online.