Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The case against CS master’s degrees

ozwrites.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 134 posts

Re: The case against CS master’s degrees

#21

Post by turns0ut »

blabla1224 wrote: post #19

The IT bar to entry the industry is lower than it used to be so you really do not need CS degree to become a developer, I think that with a time as the supply of these workers increases the value of University degrees will be restored as well as the meaning of a term of engineer.

Things must be well engineered and they can be without calling a person an engineer.

IMO we should focus on defining what well engineered means in contexts where a thing must be engineered, not handing people a sigil of power to exploit.

Re: The case against CS master’s degrees

#22

Post by kache_ »

I was about to write a blog post against CS masters degrees. I'm going through a pretty ambitious gauntlet autodidact process. Some background: I already have a CS undergrad degree.

- I've found all the online courses I would ever need, alongside high quality video courses (MIT, standford, 3b1b) + books

- A masters costs money & too much time (my time is better spent than getting an application together) (Opportunity cost of not working is too great)

- Arbitrary wait time (I have to apply like, 8 months in advance to starting? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics is available right now)

- I already know 80% of the stuff in a CS masters from building systems and learning how they work (looking at the syllabus of various online masters degrees)

- My employment history is much better for future employment opportunities than a masters ever would be. Getting a FANG job not only pays you, comparatively to a masters degree. It's also a much better signal than "cash cow online masters program"

- I can publish papers at my company if I wanted to (Not being gatekept from becoming a researcher)

- My workplace has a mathematics "guild" who I can outsource questions to whenever I want. Otherwise, I can go to /sci/'s math general or stack exchange.

In university, I learned the computational algorithm to pass the lin alg exams, and that took eight months. Being an autodidact, I relearned the true essence of lin alg in two weeks. Now, I can derive any computation lin alg operations from first principles. I'd even argue that undergraduate degrees are a waste of time. Mandatory electives? Give me a break. After going through this autodidact process, I'm actually offended by how much time I've wasted in HS & uni.

I'm basically redoing an undergraduate math degree + a CS masters + building real projects throughout it, all in the fraction of the time frame. At my current speed, I'll be finished learning all what I want to learn in ~2 years, while maintaining a pretty demanding FT SWE job. The knowledge provided in both highschool and university can be obtained in the fraction of the time, on your own. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is what you can engineer & build with your knowledge.

Universities are a meme in 2022. They're largely mechanisms to filter out the "peasant non-educated" class, through a proving function that can only be passed by coming from a family with enough resources.

I'm DONE being slowed down by institutions

Re: The case against CS master’s degrees

#24

Post by f17 »

dwrodri wrote: post #2

Lots of valid criticisms here against academia, but I'll take this time to get on a mini-soapbox about communication skills. The biggest value-add I honed over the course of my academic career is my ability to communicate technical topics. Now, that isn't to say every master's student or CS degree holder is definitely better than a bootcamp grad at tech comm, in fact the winning combo there would be a communications/…

It's making effective use of your time in standups.

If you have an advanced degree and your job is making you do standups, you should get another job.

Re: The case against CS master’s degrees

#25

Post by rootusrootus »

IMHO the best reason to get a master's is because you want one. For you. Not to fill a spot in a resume or check off a box on some application. You can go learn all of it yourself with self-study if that's what you're after (much of the curriculum and lectures are freely available), and I really think the value to a potential employer is fairly limited aside from some narrow corner cases. And if you fall into one of those cases you probably know it already.

So get it if you think the feeling of satisfaction and achievement is worth it. The major cost by far is not money, but time, be aware.

Re: The case against CS master’s degrees

#27

Post by nkozyra »

hiram112 wrote: post #13

Maybe 10 years ago I would have been impressed with any candidate with a masters from a legit CS department. However, in the last 5 years I've worked with numerous engineers with masters from both "prestigious" universities and also the typical "cash-cow" degrees that are so common today. One of my previous devs had a masters from a "public-ivy" in computer science, and he honestly was not qualified for anything more…

> For example, some of the qualifying courses included programming MIPS in assembly language, binary numbering systems, algorithms with assumed knowledge of Big O, data structures, dynamic programming, etc. There is no way anyone without both a good undergrad CS degree and some dev experience could legitimately pass these courses

What? Of course you can. Like any other subject it takes study and practice.

What happens very often in school, though, is you focus full throttle on the subject matter to get a good grade. That knowledge is extremely fragile, likely to be lost to the wind within weeks.

Day-in, day-out experience solidifies that knowledge, but you can pass nearly any CS class with bare minimum Python and surface level linear algebra / calculus knowledge.

I have an MSCS in machine learning and am not practicing daily, so if you ask me to do linear regression without a library I'm gonna be in trouble.

I'll probably struggle with Big O on some algorithms without putting a lot of thought into it.

Re: The case against CS master’s degrees

#28

Post by f17 »

itsmemattchung wrote: post #16

The author is correct: you do NOT need a (masters) computer science degree to advance your career. I've worked with plenty of stellar principal software engineers — some with Phd degrees in CS, some with no formal education, most in between. And while I am a life long learner and continue to self-teach myself a range of topics that pique my interest, Georgia Tech's OMSCS masters in CS was such a pleasant experience,…

I'm guessing the OP is bashing OMSCS based on Reddit comments from people who tried a course, found it difficult (because, hello, it's actual graduate school at a real university), gave up, and are now spreading negativity on the internets about something they only gave a half-assed try.

Sure, there are negatives of learning at-scale. Grades are going to be exam-driven (noisier) because papers/independent projects don't scale as easily, which means there's a chance that you do everything right and get a B. Sure, some of the videos are a couple years out of date. Overall, though, I've taken two GT OMSCS courses and so far the quality has been very high... and the professors, in my experience, are also constantly trying to make the experience better and more flexible.

Re: The case against CS master’s degrees

#29

Post by pm90 »

On the Contrary: A Masters Degree is often easier than an undergrad degree. You get a lot more freedom to do whatever the fuck you want. In most Universities, Masters students can teach/do research and get tuition forgiveness.

If you want the experience of being in a college campus for a while without the bullshit involved in {undergrad, phd, jobs}, Masters degrees are the perfect middle ground.

I did a Masters degree. I didn’t do very well on some courses, really loved others, learned how to read academic papers and what research would look like if I wanted to do a PhD. But I also had enough free time to make friends, hang out and go on road trips and parties. It was a lot of fun!

Re: The case against CS master’s degrees

#30

Post by havblue »

Personally, my undergrad was in electrical engineering so I always felt a little behind as a software engineer. Getting an accredited Master's in software engineering from Harvard extension gave me more confidence in a lot of the classes I would have taken in undergrad. Not to mention, development has moved on in the time since I took my undergrad, so it was kind of a mid-career refresher. There are definitely jobs that like seeing a Master's as well. So in my case I think it was worth it.
Post reply on HN