101–110 of 134 posts
My experience: I got a master's degree from a pretty weak school about 10 years ago. There was rampant cheating on tests and I didn't learn that much. While I'm not sure it helped me land any jobs, I do think it did help me get a higher salary at a few places.
I think the article has a sentiment that academia is wasted time. On the contrary. Of course it has its points, I agree. I am a self-taught programmer who got later a CS degree. Also a self-taught entrepreneur who later (almost) got an MBA. My experience is that these are much more valuable for people who already know how to do the stuff but missing the jargon and thoughts of a crowd of exceptionally brilliant people…
So I haven't yet pursued a CS degree but whenever I hear of a story like yours it becomes more nagging in the back of my mind.
Are there any OMSCS students lurking that can share their opinions? (I'm a prospective and would love to hear it).
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 degre…
How did you pay for living expenses while getting the degree?
It seems astonishing that people are paying large sums of money to obtain master's degrees in anything. If you have no opportunity to get paid as a research assistant / teaching assistant and have tuition covered by some other route, like a grant or something, then it's probably not a real graduate program, just a means of extracting cash from aspiring students. Real research and teaching programs need graduate stude…
If it offers a Master’s degree it’s a real graduate programme. Not being difficult, not covering material that is useful, not being impressive, none of these are disqualifying for being a graduate programme. Education schools exist. Law schools exist. Business schools exist. They’re all graduate programmes.
Are there any OMSCS students lurking that can share their opinions? (I'm a prospective and would love to hear it).
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 degre…
How did you pay for living expenses while getting the degree?
I think the article has a sentiment that academia is wasted time. On the contrary. Of course it has its points, I agree. I am a self-taught programmer who got later a CS degree. Also a self-taught entrepreneur who later (almost) got an MBA. My experience is that these are much more valuable for people who already know how to do the stuff but missing the jargon and thoughts of a crowd of exceptionally brilliant people…
I think CS masters degrees serve one valuable purpose. They are a gateway for foreign graduates to come to the US, work on their CS masters while doing TA work to reduce the load on the professor and then get a 27 month work permit . In fact it is cheaper to hire foreign graduates under this program compared to a US national because you get to save on FICA taxes which are approximately 15k per year. In fact many univ…