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Master’s Degree in Computer Science

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Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#211

Post by adamsmith143 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #197
evanprodromou wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not more interesting to you, but possibly more interesting to me!

What I mean is the jobs that you can get with a master's degree you can get just as easily with a bachelor's degree. The advanced degree really doesn't make a difference.

People always say this but I don't think you have experienced the other end in practice. There are countless job postings in the AI/ML/DS space for example that explicitly want people with MS or PhDs and recruiters will happily tell you that straight to your face. Hell I was just passed up for a Director of DS position and they explicitly said it was because I don't have a PhD!

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#212

Post by adamsmith143 »

sswezey wrote: post #177

As someone currently mid-career in UT Austin’s part time MS in Software Engineering program, avoid this program. I got my undergrad from Georgia Tech 10 years ago, and Georgia Tech is better in every regard. UT has this nice list online that they never truly offer - you have at most 3 courses to pick from each semester. And to finish in 2 years you have to take the summer course, which there is one class and no optio…

Thanks for the heads up, was also considering this recently and their list of courses does look very interesting but also saw their schedule seemed pretty bare.

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#213

Post by ransom1538 »

hn_go_brrrrr wrote: post #200
bo1024 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with some of the premise —- university education doesn’t focus on preparation for specific vocational skills. But you could say the same about high school. It doesn’t follow that reading writing and algebra are bad vocational investments, in fact the opposite because they support many possible vocations. As a CS professor, my goal is to push students to rewire their brains in ways that are better and more eff…

So teach them the importance of testing, code review, and design documents. As someone who graduated 15 years ago, I feel like the only two truly useful things I got out of my CS degree were 1) lots of practice writing code and 2) my algorithms and data structures class. The latter was useful in exactly the way you hope for, but it was the only such class.

I learned unit testing early at UCDavis. My professor would take in assignments via ssh, run them, if it failed, it would "echo F" for grade.

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#214

Post by evanprodromou »

TheOrange wrote: post #140

Have you looked at the amazing CS50 online courses on Harvard?

I hadn't, no. It looks like a great way to get a quick update on undergraduate CS.

It doesn't meet my requirement of having a real master's degree from an accredited university without the "extension" or "electronic" qualifier, though.

I'm doing the Algorithms specialisation from Stanford on Coursera right now, just to make sure I'm ready to get started on a master's in the fall.

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#215

Post by evanprodromou »

commandlinefan wrote: post #197
evanprodromou wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not more interesting to you, but possibly more interesting to me!

What I mean is the jobs that you can get with a master's degree you can get just as easily with a bachelor's degree. The advanced degree really doesn't make a difference.

I don't think that's true. I have seen job descriptions for Director or VP that require a master's degree in CS.

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#216

Post by evanprodromou »

yCombLinks wrote: post #207
evanprodromou wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, one of my criteria is a credentialed master's degree at the university, available 100% remote. I don't see a master's degree in CS or software engineering on their site. Also, it seems like the degrees they do give are from "Harvard Extension", which is also something I don't want.

Hi Evan, they do have a masters in software engineering through the extension school. I'm currently working on my degree there. It's not 100% remote. I'm very happy with the school though. Anyways, here's the link for the masters program : https://extension.harvard.edu/academics/programs/software-en...

Wow, thanks! That does look really good. I don't like "Extension", but otherwise it seems solid. The price tag sounds like they consider it a valuable commodity.

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#217

Post by mikesabbagh »

eldaisfish wrote: post #180
advael wrote: post #147

I view university education as poor-to-useless vocational training for software engineering as well as most if not all careers that aren't explicitly research-focused, and I say that as someone who's gotten a master's degree in computer science, intended to get a PhD, and for the most part didn't for financial reasons. I really enjoy and respect academia, but it exists to train researchers, and the more advanced a de…

this is dangerously reductive and needlessly pessimistic. The power of a university education is on several levels. One is the community of peers that you are part of. Second is the ability to learn what you need to and to learn what the limits of your knowledge are. Tech changes quickly and no university syllabus will ever be fully up to date. Besides, that is never their goal. Third is to to provide a safe environm…

I'm not sure we live on the same planet. In my previous job, my manager recruited a guy who was allowed to learn kubernetes on the job for 4 months (paid full time). Literraly this guy used to come to work and start completing exercises to learn only. That was his main task!!

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#218

Post by Big0_nlogn »

galcerte wrote: post #162
advael wrote: post #147

I view university education as poor-to-useless vocational training for software engineering as well as most if not all careers that aren't explicitly research-focused, and I say that as someone who's gotten a master's degree in computer science, intended to get a PhD, and for the most part didn't for financial reasons. I really enjoy and respect academia, but it exists to train researchers, and the more advanced a de…

I'm currently in a master's degree in data science and I haven't really felt like what you said was happening; we were taught just the right amount of theory (how things like backpropagation, PCA, statistics, optimization work) but more advanced techniques were described only briefly, just so we could understand how to use them in our assignments, which makes sense given the little time there is. There was much empha…

I would argue a data science degree is less a Computer Science degree and more Mathematics degree. Programming is simply a tool. The real meat of it is the maths.

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#219

Post by markus_zhang »

shazzdeeds wrote: post #208
markus_zhang wrote: post #19

https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/Master/2021-2022/parallel-and-di... This is the ONLY program I'd like to get into because so far it is the only program that I know deals a lot with hardcore malware analysis. There are probably more programs available but I didn't spend much time researching options. Unfortunately this program is NOT online, and I'm not in Europe. ALAS! If anyone knows a similar online program in NA pleas…

Georgia Tech online masters looks like it does. I found this in the article author’s links when he breaks down the schools. Id really like to take this class too so it stood out to me. https://omscs.gatech.edu/cs-6747-advanced-malware-analysis

Thanks! Love it, plus it is one of the most affordable program in top schools.

Me sending application of withdrawing a few grand to $wifie

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#220

Post by selfportrait »

grumpytiger wrote: post #169
evanprodromou wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! I was looking for a program at Oxford. USN&WR has it at #11 worldwide for CS. The SE program at Oxford doesn't seem to be available for 100% remote study, though. Am I missing something? I love this informal, friendly Web site, and I might be looking in the wrong places.

I’m currently attending it. It was full-remote during pandemic. Now you have a few courses still online but most of them are in person (1 week of lectures per module in Oxford). Not sure how it will be when things settle post-pandemic, but my impression is that it will continue to require in-person classes.

I’m interested in hearing more about this program. How is it, and would you recommend it for an American? Is it even possible for an American to fly in for the week-long intensives like the other comment on here says? That would be worth the experience.

What was your background when you applied and how tough is entry? (I see that there is a 99 application average over the past three years with 70 acceptances?)

And how much is the cost?

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