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Master’s Degree in Computer Science

evanp.me

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Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#251

Post by Arainach »

digisign wrote: post #224
Arainach wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are places that gatekeep on degrees as in "you must have a Bachelor's degree" or even "you must have a B.S. in Computer Science", but there are almost none that are gatekeeping on graduate degrees. I've worked at several FAANG-tier corporations, have friends at all of the others, and have interacted with all sorts of smaller companies. I can count on one hand the number of people I've worked with with graduate…

Correct for IC jobs. When you want to move up thru the "glass ceiling" to make the real money, guess who they'll pick of two similar candidates? The one with the better degree.

I'm really not convinced. I looked, and examples of my reporting chain at various points in my career:

Company A: Lead (yes, but undergrad in EE), Manager (no), GM (no), VP (?), SVP (no), President (yes), CEO (dropped out of MBA)

Company B: Lead (no), Manager (yes), Director (?), Senior Director (no), Senior Director (yes), VP (no), SVP (MBA), CEO (yes)

The plural of anecdote is not data, and I'm not a director, but a cursory comparison of senior leadership and LinkedIn doesn't leave me convinced that a graduate degree matters. Most of the folks who have one got one back in the 90s where things were very different.

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#252

Post by digisign »

Arainach wrote: post #251
digisign wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct for IC jobs. When you want to move up thru the "glass ceiling" to make the real money, guess who they'll pick of two similar candidates? The one with the better degree.

I'm really not convinced. I looked, and examples of my reporting chain at various points in my career: Company A: Lead (yes, but undergrad in EE), Manager (no), GM (no), VP (?), SVP (no), President (yes), CEO (dropped out of MBA) Company B: Lead (no), Manager (yes), Director (?), Senior Director (no), Senior Director (yes), VP (no), SVP (MBA), CEO (yes) The plural of anecdote is not data, and I'm not a director, but…

Degrees are more important today than they were in the past, preferably a brand name one. Part of the reason they have been getting more expensive.

https://www.aplu.org/our-work/5-archived-projects/college-co...

This one says 400k+ higher lifetime earnings with "advanced degree". The source from georgetown says they are less likely to loser their job in a recession as well.

No, the real world is not black and white and this is not a guarrantee. But, get an advanced degree looks like an easy power-up at the prices OP was willing to pay.

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#253

Post by ad8e »

Andrew Gelman's blog has a discussion of Columbia cheating on its numbers reported to US News, which had a huge impact on its ranking. I don't know how far it extends to its Master's CS program specifically, but I feel that Columbia's ranking should be discounted entirely. This is quite unfortunate, as it has a distinguished faculty who take no part in this evil.

Link: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2022/04/24/more-news-...

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#254

Post by petesergeant »

selfportrait wrote: post #220
grumpytiger wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ho…

> How is it

You get a degree from Oxford at the end, which definitely opens doors. Of the ten modules I did, 2-3 were exceptional and stay with me today. 2-3 were trash. There rest were OK. It's an excellent excuse to get familiar with the subject, and the one-week onsite format followed by the six weeks of coursework is excellent.

> 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?

Yes, we had quite a few Americans in my cohort doing this

> What was your background when you applied and how tough is entry?

I essentially flunked out of high-school, but I had ten years of solid commercial experience under my belt, and some interesting open-source contributions and tech talks at conferences, and they let me in. I suspect I had the potential to interview well as I also was awarded an academic prize at the end for highest overall marks...

However they also had this really interesting system when I was there where you could essentially earn your way in: they'd let you come and do the SEM module (challenging, but not nuts), and if you passed, they'd let you in as a real student.

> And how much is the cost?

£41,080 over four years for a non-UK resident

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#255

Post by fma »

I have a BS in Computer Engineering and MS in Electrical Engineering (ML specialty) from a top 20 public engineering school in the late 2000s and now have ~15 years in industry. I am currently enrolled at Georgia Tech for OMSCS. I was getting bored at work, my employer would pay for it and I figured why not? I enjoyed my time in real world grad program, OMSCS would be just just as fun. Plus, it's Georgia Tech! I can upgrade my MS from top 20 to top...5?

Well...it wasn't as educational or as fun as real world school. Those who claim Discord is a substitute (or even better?) for in person collaboration in an academic environment with like minded peers, uh ok...I am in those Discord channels and...100% disagree.

One thing I found out about Georgia Tech's graduate program is that it's more of a measure of grit, not a measurement of your knowledge. Their harder courses aren't necessarily hard material that one can't grasp. It's that the 40 hour projects...it's 10 hours of learning/implementation and 30 hours of a few little nuance issues that add no value to your knowledge base.

If you want to see how difficult the material are - many of the courses are on Udacity. Projects won't be listed, but maybe you can find similar ones online.

Since my employer pays for education (not just graduate, but if you don't have a BS they'll pay for it too!), I have a lot of colleagues as well as peers in industry who went the Georgia Tech route. It makes sense. Pure online, inexpensive, renown.

Everyone I know - and I mean everyone...when they have only a few classes left take the easiest ones to get it over with , i.e. Digital Marketing and whatever is ranked easy on OMSCS Central.

If someone is young in their career and wants to upgrade their piece of paper this would be an OK route. If you're older - you likely have an idea of what you want to learn. And if not, well, just watch all the Tech Udacity classes! There are plenty of online resources and communities of top professionals to surround yourself in where your time is spent more effectively.

As for me - I found myself taking Digital Marketing for my 5th class...I dropped my 6th class after getting tired of a particular bulls--- project. I will wait and see if I decide if I reenroll in the Fall. I am leaning towards a no.

IMHO if you are or want to be a software engineer, plenty of more relevant resources out there to grow your knowledge without wasting your time. If you want to be a hard core computer scientist, do an in person program so you can focus and be surrounded by peers and professors.

Tech's OMSCS is ground breaking in that it provides a quality education to everyone. But it is not a quality education for everyone and I wanted to have at least one post here with a contrarian point of view.

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#256

Post by grumpytiger »

selfportrait wrote: post #220
grumpytiger wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ho…

I guess @petesergeant already answered most of your questions, but to add a bit more colour...

I don't know how tough is the entry because I have not seen the other applications. What I did appreciate in the application process is that since the target audience is working professionals, you can get 3 letters of recommendations from people that you worked with, not necessarily academic recommendations (for someone who has been out of uni for a while, makes the process much less painful).

Some other selling points of the programme for me:

- 1-week modules, instead of one evening per week - much easier to organise if you don't live in Oxford

- No exams - for each module that you attend, you have one week of lectures, followed by an assignment that you have 6 weeks to submit the answers. Assignments demand a lot of time to complete, but I find it much more manageable when you are working than cramming for one big exam

- Flexible curriculum - to complete the course, you need to complete 10 modules plus a project (like a Master Thesis) in 2-4 years. But you have complete freedom to pick and choose any course from those that are offered (http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/softeng/courses/subjects.html). So you can customise the programme according to your interests.

- Time flexibility - you can complete in 2-4 years. There are 3 terms per year, so you can attend one module per term and finish in 4 years, or if you have more time available, attend more modules in a term and finish in less time.

The downside of the flexible nature of the programme is that you have less of a feeling of "class of '19", or whatever the year of your intake. You will bump into people that are taking their first or last modules, and some of them you will only see once. You will still have the chance of going out for a beer with them, so I don't mean that you won't have a chance of networking.

- It is in Oxford, which is a pretty cool town to visit, and as a student you have free access to places like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Humfrey%27s_Library#/medi...

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#257

Post by evanmoran »

barry-cotter wrote: post #76
evanmoran wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I taught my spouse to program when she decided to change fields, and did a similar thing where she wanted to master the advanced stuff by taking classes (she took them for credit on the off chance she needed it in a masters program) The classes she took were equivalent to three classes majormajor suggests: Data Structures and Introduction to Algorithms: everyone needs this and it is maybe 50% of leet code problems As…

> Data Structures and Introduction to Algorithms: everyone needs this and it is maybe 50% of leet code problems What’s the other 50%? I’d have thought DS&A would cover everything.

I think I know more about interview questions then leet prep, but I find the remaining 50% is specific to the job but in the same vein as data structures and algorithms. So in game programming maybe it is a path finding problem or 3d math hit detection. In backend it’s an algorithm about network flow or caching. Still data structures, but more practical for the role!

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#258

Post by selfhifive »

barry-cotter wrote: post #111
selfhifive wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A standard Introduction DSA course will generally not cover advanced DSA stuff like segment trees or Heavy-light decomposition, or theoretical stuff like number theory, or computational geometry all that stuff you would find in the competitive programming space.

Are there companies that ask a lot of leetcode bards in their interviews? That seems like overkill even for FAANGs though I can see why some groups might do so purely to filter by Math ability/interest.

From what I've seen and heard: Salesforce, Codenation, Wells Fargo, DE Shaw, so basically Hedge fund/finance or teaching/coaching/consultancy.

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#259

Post by selfportrait »

grumpytiger wrote: post #256
selfportrait wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ho…

I guess @petesergeant already answered most of your questions, but to add a bit more colour... I don't know how tough is the entry because I have not seen the other applications. What I did appreciate in the application process is that since the target audience is working professionals, you can get 3 letters of recommendations from people that you worked with, not necessarily academic recommendations (for someone who…

Thank you! This is not only helpful but sounds like my ideal program in terms of learning, flexibility, and chance to explore something new.

I’m curious to hear about the SEM (I assume Software Engineering Mathematics) method of qualifying perhaps as a post-graduate (non-matriculated) learner — this taken from the other commenter. This seems like an ideal way to test out the structure and style of a classroom and qualify by achieving high marks before committing and fully applying to the program. Is this a thing that you’ve heard about? There isn’t anything on the website about qualifying for the program through this.

Also, what was the application interview like?

Re: Master’s Degree in Computer Science

#260

Post by petesergeant »

selfportrait wrote: post #259
grumpytiger wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess @petesergeant already answered most of your questions, but to add a bit more colour... I don't know how tough is the entry because I have not seen the other applications. What I did appreciate in the application process is that since the target audience is working professionals, you can get 3 letters of recommendations from people that you worked with, not necessarily academic recommendations (for someone who…

Thank you! This is not only helpful but sounds like my ideal program in terms of learning, flexibility, and chance to explore something new. I’m curious to hear about the SEM (I assume Software Engineering Mathematics) method of qualifying perhaps as a post-graduate (non-matriculated) learner — this taken from the other commenter. This seems like an ideal way to test out the structure and style of a classroom and qua…

Email the programme office and start a conversation with them -- they're pretty responsive. My interview was just sitting down and chatting with one of their professors for an hour or so and we geeked out and it was fine.

> an ideal way to test out the structure and style of a classroom

My understanding is that all the courses are explicitly available to anyone who wants to take them and can be booked by members of the public, although expect there to be priority to matriculated students for very popular courses (of which SEM is _not_ one). They were about £1,400 each last time I checked.

I don't think I'm giving away anything I shouldn't by saying that SEM is the first 10 chapters of http://www.usingz.com/ taught in classroom form (see the course desc at: http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/pro/subjects/SEM.html and compare to the TOC of Using Z), and certainly I benefited by having read and understood it first (which was very challenging, but also SEM has kept coming in useful at the weirdest times in my professional career).

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