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World's First Massive Online Degree Program Starts Today

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Re: World's First Massive Online Degree Program Starts Today

#41

Post by dferlemann »

nightski wrote: post #15
freigeist wrote: post #4

I like Udacity's new focus on courses designed by companies. Traditional education is far too detached from what is required in industry, and has trouble keeping up with the pace of innovation.

Funny, as I have found most of the newer courses seriously lacking any tangible depth or usefulness (Intro to Hadoop/MapReduce took a few hours and barely covered the basics). The old Artificial Intelligence or Parallel Programming are probably some of the best on the site.

That's my general impression as well. That's why I didn't get a master in CS rather a MBA which is kind of relaxing and fun (my company offered for my master degree, otherwise I'd never go... ). Pretty much all CS master courses not that much in depth in comparison to an engineering master degree. And all these tech degree are quite "generic", which greatly reduce their usefulness in real life.

I feel like graduate school are for people who do not know what they want or interested in at the moment. Once they do, you already locked up in that degree plan, and have no time to go ahead implement the idea.

I much prefer to take classes from edX-like course education sites which I'm not obligated to anything. Once I feel I got a hang of this new field, I can just go and do my stuff.

Re: World's First Massive Online Degree Program Starts Today

#42

Post by kriro »

GFischer wrote: post #37
kriro wrote: post #22

Some dreaming on my part... I'm rooting for this to work out. If you can do it alongside a job they could very well "compete with nonconsumption" of sorts. This already exists on somewhat large scale in some countries. The biggest (by enrolment) university in Germany is a "Fernuniversität" Ultimately I hope these take off, prices go down (they become essentially free with payments for taking tests i.e. universities b…

I had to look up "Fernuniversität" (Google Translate says it's "distance university") I guess you're referring to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FernUniversit%C3%A4t_Hagen "a public research university focused on distance teaching"

Yes, sorry for leaving that untranslated. It's distance learning/teaching and that's the university I was referring to.

There are also a couple of more focused distance learning offers, usually started by some professor and then spun out as a not for profit (usually focused on a MA in a single field) which can be pricey (5-10k Euro for a MA).

Re: World's First Massive Online Degree Program Starts Today

#43

Post by richardfontana »

arethuza wrote: post #39
bgilroy26 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a mechanical level, a 4 year degree is an entrance requirement at med/law schools. On a more practical level, the schools that are good enough to land you a job as a doctor/lawyer are all so competitive that a hole in your CV like not having a bachelor's degree when everyone else has one is a real disadvantage.

"a 4 year degree is an entrance requirement at med/law schools" Yes, I know that - but why have this requirement - as far as I know most other countries don't (certainly the UK doesn't).

The requirement that one have a bachelor's degree prior to entering a first-degree law program gradually took hold, mainly during the earlier part of the 20th century I believe. One reason was to make it harder for people (particularly people from immigrant communities) to enter the legal profession. Another reason was to increase the prestige of the legal profession by turning it into a graduate degree program. This latter reason is also behind two later developments (making it standard for the law degree program to be 3 years, and rebranding the name of the degree from the traditional LLB (Bachelor of Laws) to the pretentious JD (Juris Doctor). The 3-year standardization was not fully in place until the mid-20th century, IINM, and the LLB->JD rebranding largely took place during the early post-WW2 era. The JD rebranding no doubt had something to do with the high prestige enjoyed by the medical profession by the mid-20th century.

As for why the bachelor's degree is required for medical schools, I don't know as much about that (I'm a lawyer and have studied the history of the US legal profession a bit). I suspect some of the reasons are the same (other than competition with the other profession, since I think the medical profession was the earlier mover here).

Edit: postwar -> post-WW2 as I realize most HN readers may not have grown up with that long-default US usage of "postwar".

Re: World's First Massive Online Degree Program Starts Today

#44

Post by atlantic »

afshin wrote: post #32
atlantic wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be correct. In Portugal, university fees are around €1000 per annum. A private university costs around €5000. So by our standards, this is expensive. A second disadvantage is that American degrees are not automatically recognized here - you have to ask for an equivalence; and very likely an online degree would not be recognized, because it does not follow a traditional format in terms of course attendance…

and very likely an online degree would not be recognized The actual degree that will be granted for this particular program is simply "MS in Computer Science" from Georgia Tech. So it is not going to differentiated from the on-campus degree.

That's good to know, but it might still not be accepted. While an Ivy-league education is sure to earn recognition, many second- or third-tier American institutions might fall short.

Re: World's First Massive Online Degree Program Starts Today

#45

Post by jlas »

atlantic wrote: post #44
afshin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and very likely an online degree would not be recognized The actual degree that will be granted for this particular program is simply "MS in Computer Science" from Georgia Tech. So it is not going to differentiated from the on-campus degree.

That's good to know, but it might still not be accepted. While an Ivy-league education is sure to earn recognition, many second- or third-tier American institutions might fall short.

In terms of Computer Science, Georgia Tech is ranked #10 (by US News & World Report [1]). I'd say that's a first tier institution.

[1] http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-gradu...

Re: World's First Massive Online Degree Program Starts Today

#46

Post by arethuza »

richardfontana wrote: post #43
arethuza wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"a 4 year degree is an entrance requirement at med/law schools" Yes, I know that - but why have this requirement - as far as I know most other countries don't (certainly the UK doesn't).

The requirement that one have a bachelor's degree prior to entering a first-degree law program gradually took hold, mainly during the earlier part of the 20th century I believe. One reason was to make it harder for people (particularly people from immigrant communities) to enter the legal profession. Another reason was to increase the prestige of the legal profession by turning it into a graduate degree program. This…

Thanks - my wife is a solicitor in Scotland (and has been called to the Bar as an Advocate) and she did her LLB as a second degree as she already had a first degree. Although her route was unintentional it certainly used to be "traditional" to do law as second degree (and some universities here do an accelerated 2 year ordinary LLB) after a degree in classics or similar. She trained in the Civil Service as a solicitor (when you get a law degree you are still 3 years away from actually qualifying - you have to do a postgraduate course then do two years training in a a law firm) and their filtering criteria for trainees was that they have 2 first degrees....

Only a very small number of people do law as a second degree these days.

Amusingly, the process for training as an advocate is known as devilling - where you are apprenticed to a senior junior and during that time you are literally an advocate's devil :-)

Re: World's First Massive Online Degree Program Starts Today

#47

Post by someguy235 »

I'm one of the students that was admitted to this first round of classes. I've been taking MOOC's since the first round of Stanford courses in 2011, so I was excited to see this program develop just as I was applying to other graduate schools.

Admission for the first round was very limited to keep it manageable while they address any issues that come up early in the new program (and there have been a few, though nothing major). I think the original idea was to offer 6 classes and allow 100 students per class - 600 total. But only 5 classes ended up being offered, and the total acceptance was lowered further as students will take more than one class at a time. Within a few semesters they intend to accept anyone who meets the qualifications, with no regard to class size.

Regarding the cost, it is in fact revolutionary for US residents. My bill for the one class I'm taking was $700 ($400 in flat fees and $100 per credit hour). My next choice of school was NC State which would have cost several times that even though I'm an NC resident. A good out of state school, even a public one, would have likely been unaffordable to me. At this rate my employer's limited education reimbursement program will cover the entire cost of my degree with GaTech.

Re: World's First Massive Online Degree Program Starts Today

#48

Post by ctdonath »

mrfusion wrote: post #38
afshin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and very likely an online degree would not be recognized The actual degree that will be granted for this particular program is simply "MS in Computer Science" from Georgia Tech. So it is not going to differentiated from the on-campus degree.

Yeah, but what happens when a job interviewer asks you about his favorite pizza place at Georgia Tech and you have to admit you have never been there :-(

Indeed. Giving a blank/puzzled reaction to a reference to "The Varsity" will raise lots of red flags.

Re: World's First Massive Online Degree Program Starts Today

#49

Post by mattmanser »

awjr wrote: post #40
mattmanser wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, "right" is a pretty contentious point here still given the still recent betrayal of the Lib Dems. And 20 years ago it used to be completely free and you'd even be given money to go in the form of grants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universities_in_the_United_King...

Not sure a political party can be relied on to do the right thing. It's the nature of politics. 20 years ago I could buy a house for a decent price. I started Uni in 1990 and that was the first year student loans were introduced. So you'd have to have graduated in 1989 (25 years ago) to not have been impacted by student loans. What has changed is that the cost of going to University has now been transferred correctly…

I definitely don't agree with "Correctly"?

It's a social investment in the future of the country, there's nothing objectively correct that at some arbitrary point in your education you suddenly need to pay. I wonder when you want to start having school children accrue their loans for primary/secondary school?

Why is part of your education free and part of it not? And perhaps the most important part that you arguably desperately need if you want to access a middle class job?

Isn't that massively elitist and a class discriminator? That when you do finally get that job you have to pay a load of money back that your richer peers just put in a saving account and earned some free money?

And if that's what's changed why do so many more people go to university now than previously?

Everything you've just said makes absolutely no sense from a different perspective.

Re: World's First Massive Online Degree Program Starts Today

#50

Post by cma »

James_Duval wrote: post #25
dragonwriter wrote: post #11

It's a not particularly massive online degree program using similar mechanisms to those used in MOOCs for classes—but it's not the first such program by any stretch of the imagination. Such programs are actually older than free MOOCs, and a number of instutions have had them for years; Kaplan has several, including a JD program. This seems to be the first to try to leverage the attention to MOOCs in te marketing, and…

I have to admit I don't see the difference between what Udacity are doing in this particular course and what Open University has been doing for years.

MOOC! YouTube!
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