Current OMSCS grad student; three down, seven to go. Loving the program so far.
The content is great, and most of it is available on Open Courseware, YT, etc, but here's what else you get by officially going through the program:
- the amazing community of TAs
- the assignments
- the feedback on reports & projects (either automated, or through TAs)
- the collaboration with other students on Ed, Discord, Slack, etc
- the forcing function of deadlines, having to study for exams, etc
- free access to academic libraries, IEEE, ACM, O'Reilly, etc
- access to software and services, educational packages from GitHub, Wolfram, Google Colab Pro, student discount in a bunch of places, etc
Another underrated aspect is GT's ability to preserve rigor of the program overall, despite the scale and number of students in some courses (the most popular ones have 1,000-1,500 students per semester).
If you're on the fence on applying, I strongly recommend you do. The program is affordable enough that there's no harm in trying for a few semesters to see if matches what you're looking for.
Glad to answer any questions.
zero-sharp [3 hidden]5 mins ago
In reference to the open courseware, is there a way to either just download all of the videos in bulk, or view them as part of a single video? It looks like they're broken down into ~2 minute long video clips through the Ed platform, which is very annoying.
guiambros [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Annoying indeed. I created a script using ffmpeg to merge all the 2-min clips into a longer video per chapter[1], so I could watch the lectures on my commute.
You may need to tweak for different courses, but I've used for ML4T, GIOS, and ML, and it has been incredibly helpful.
You can download the lectures from many of the courses, but not all, from the site.
rdudek [3 hidden]5 mins ago
You'll get there! Some of them you can take two at a time. I myself only need 3 more!
guiambros [3 hidden]5 mins ago
> ... you can take two at a time
I wish! I travel quite a bit for work, so it breaks my legs every time it happens. Plus family, kids activities, etc. ML was brutal this semester, but hoping the curve will help a bit.
But it's ok, slow and steady is the way to go. Besides, I'm doing this for the fun of it; I don't need the diploma for career or anything.
See you around!
rahimnathwani [3 hidden]5 mins ago
OMSCS requires ten courses to graduate. I completed one course (with an A grade) before realizing that, even at a pace of one course per semester, it was not a high enough priority for me to devote the time required to do each course well.
That course was great, though, and I definitely learned some things I'm glad to have learned!
IMO the instructional materials are a small part of the value. The things that stood out to me were:
- the assignments
- the autograding of programming assignments
- giving and receiving peer feedback about written assignments
- learning some LaTeX for those assignments
- having an artificial reason (course grade) to persist in improving my algorithm and code [on the problems taught in that course, I wouldn't have been self-motivated enough if they were just things I came across during a random weekend]
lumost [3 hidden]5 mins ago
The ability of OMSCS to scale paper writing, review, and grading with real human TAs is nothing short of astounding. While it's a ton of work (I'm just completing class #5) it's a great resource for both learning the material - and how to communicate it effectively.
BlackjackCF [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Things that I loved about the program:
* My fellow classmates. Had a small study group where we got on Discord to hang out and it was a blast
* The TAs - they were so dedicated to the students and fantastic. MVPs of the program
rahimnathwani [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Oh yeah I forgot to mention the class discussion board.
I wasn't in any discord groups but the class discussion forum was a nice community.
loph [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I have taken three of those classes as part of the Online Master of Cybersecurity program. They were all excellent. I can say that the assignments were an important part of the learning experience, for instance the practical experience of attacking weak RSA keys.
I would not let the lack of assignments, tests, and quizzes stop you from trying these if you are interested. At a minimum, they would give you a feeling for what the program/s are like, and possibly encourage you to enroll into the online degree program, which is an exceptional value.
warabe [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I once considered applying, but I gave up because collecting letters of recommendation was a major hurdle. My academic advisor from university has already retired…
How do you all deal with this?
Jtsummers [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Get recommendations from supervisors you've had. Academic references are hard to obtain for most professionals 5-10 years out of school unless they've made a particular effort to stay in contact with undergrad faculty members. They understand this and take it into consideration.
rootusrootus [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Unless something has changed recently, the letters of recommendation are pretty much a formality. If you have a bachelor's in CS with decent grades, getting admitted isn't difficult. I was pretty flippant about the whole thing, applied one afternoon on a whim after reading about it on HN. Asked my manager for a letter of recommendation as well as my nearest colleague. No letters from anyone in academia.
I think the people who have the most difficulty getting accepted are those without a bachelor's in CS who also don't have some good CS fundamentals courses to show achievement and interest.
I did complete the program, and I am happy for the accomplishment. But with my experience (I started working in the mid 90s) this wasn't for my career, it was for my own satisfaction. But in addition to being glad for the achievement, I was soooo glad to be done, LOL. The real commitment is not financial, it is time.
great_wubwub [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I have not applied to this program but I've gone through a part-time MBA. I doubt that an online program for working professionals is as rigorous about references as, say, undergrad admission to an Ivy League program or Oxford or Hogwarts or something. Just get a couple of coworkers with a similar advanced degree to write something that says "this person exists and I think they can handle the load" and you'll be fine. Remember that college is a business; if you look like you can both handle the program and pay for it, they'll let you in.
thisoneisreal [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I hit the same roadblock unfortunately. My academic references were all in a different field and I hadn't really stayed in contact except with one professor, who sadly has died. I did see that there's an option to use professional references, so even though I haven't done this myself, one route you could consider taking is to get references from managers, colleagues etc. who can speak to your technical knowledge. I agree though with your general point that after being out of an academic environment for a while that requirement becomes challenging.
bubblethink [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I don't think OMSCS is that selective. Get a couple of letters from your former professors and/or bosses. Letters are supplementary, not the sole determinant. More than the letters, they likely care about your GPA and GRE.
Jtsummers [3 hidden]5 mins ago
They don't even require the GRE. They have a very high acceptance rate but a pretty low completion rate.
sthu11182 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Last time I heard (like 3 years ago), the acceptance rate was 80%. The completion rate is much lower.
johnnienaked [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I got two letters from managers at work and one from a friend who I work with.
rs186 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
In the past they made videos available via Udacity, which were removed after Udacity turned their focus to short & easy (which often means superficial) courses for enterprise training instead of "serious" university courses. I guess that was not a viable business.
Of course they did not come with any assignments, just like these courses. Can't blame them, but other universities offer much resources -- for the same topic, you can often find a course offered by another university that provides videos hosted on YouTube, full assignments and labs, even exams. The only thing you are missing is TA/office hours and the course credit. In other words, unless you actually want to earn credits and work towards a degree, I suggest that you skip OMSCS videos unless there is no alternative.
cgearhart [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I was the head of enterprise curriculum in 2018 and an OMSCS grad in 2016. This was a weird time to work for Udacity and the company went thru a major shakeup in 2019. The “breakup” with GT happened before the focus on enterprise and the enterprise focus was somewhat short-lived as the CEO was replaced just as enterprise was ascending as the primary revenue stream. COVID was rough for Udacity, and content production was commoditized.
storus [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Udacity recently released their own MS AI though with shaky accreditation via Malta's MFHEA which was recently rejected by EQAR, making it unaccredited abroad.
storus [3 hidden]5 mins ago
UTexas seems to be crushing it in the ML/AI space as they offer far more recent courses with deeper topics; for everything else OMSCS is probably a better choice even though it has a relentless pace of busywork making even easy classes draining. Stanford OTOH is like GT and UT merged together (both crazy difficult projects and a lot of math), but at 2x the pace. UT is way more relaxing than either, one can take 3 courses alongside a job and be fine, which is next to impossible at GT and Stanford. Conversely, if one wants to continue by doing research, Stanford and GT are much more useful due to ample opportunities to do so.
sanufar [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Could you elaborate more on continuing with research?
storus [3 hidden]5 mins ago
GT used to have a collaboration with Meta's FAIR and one could do final projects in the DL and NLP classes on recent research topics from Meta AI; some people ended up at top conferences with their work. Not sure how it's going to be now given Meta effectively disbanding FAIR in favor of Wang's Superintelligence. GT also has team research project under VIP (Vertically Integrated Projects) where a prof leads a team of students towards new findings; there are also a bunch of PhD seminars one can take. Stanford has a plenty of CS3xx research classes one can take where the final project has to be some novel research.
grantgallagher [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I’m an OMSCS grad - the dedication to making higher education in CS more accessible is something that really sticks out to me from those in charge (shoutout to Dr. Joyner who heads the program). Although not every course is on the Open Courseware (nor course work), there’s still a lot of good material, and if you like it enough, the program is a nice little side quest in ones journey through computer science.
zero-sharp [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Hi is there a way to view the lectures in a more traditional way? For example, as one long video? I'm seeing lessons broken up into 2-5 minute long videos.
bubblethink [3 hidden]5 mins ago
ffmpeg
jay3ss [3 hidden]5 mins ago
This is how I've done it. Some courses have short lectures from 30s to 2.5min which can be annoying
oaxacaoaxaca [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I was in the very first cohort of this program. I loved it but had to drop for personal/family reasons after finishing three courses. Someday I'd love to jump back in! I highly recommend it to anyone who might be interested.
cgearhart [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I was also in the first cohort. Graduated in 2016. Transformed my career. 100% would recommend.
oaxacaoaxaca [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Oh boy, love to hear that. Would be willing to share how exactly it transformed your career?
LTL_FTC [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I have been considering the OMSCS program for some time but one of my reservations is the network one misses out on by working side by side with students and faculty vs online ed.
For context: non-traditional student who transferred to UCSD for college, two of those years were spent during Covid. Moved back to Bay Area. My network isn’t as big as someone who maybe went to San Jose state. And so they prob have an easier time finding jobs. I worked with other students through discord and so on, attended virtual office hours with professors and TAs (who were the reason many of us passed these classes, I’m sure) but never truly built a relationship that lasted beyond the quarter because zoom, essentially.
And if I go back to grad school, I would really love to build relationships with others around me. Wondering how others have managed with this regard?
jbverschoor [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Is there a way to do the actual degree in double the speed / self-paced?
I would like to get my masters from georgia tech's omscs program but between work and 2 kids I dont see how I'll ever have the time
ludwik [3 hidden]5 mins ago
As a childless OMSCS graduate, I also can’t imagine doing it while having kids, because it took basically all of my free time. That said, I met quite a few people in the program who were in situations similar to yours. I have no idea how they managed it, but they somehow did.
rootusrootus [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I did it with two kids (both were in school at that point, which helps). It -is- a lot of work. I spent maybe an hour a day during most days of the week, and then for some things I'd try to get a few more hours early or late in the day on the weekend. And for the most part I only did one class per semester. I did two for one semester because they were both expected to be fairly easy, and that worked out, but I definitely wouldn't do that with GA or any of the ML stuff.
It's doable, that's all I'm saying. But you will definitely need to be committed to see it through to the end, and you will be happy to have your life back when you're done.
hasyimibhar [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I completed OMSCS with 2 kids (both preschool), taking 1 class per semester from Fall 2019 to Spring 2023. It was possible thanks to having full remote job and a very supportive wife. I learned a lot, but I probably wouldn't do it again, it was extremely unhealthy, especially for certain classes like Distributed Computing (CS7210).
Jesus_piece [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Why was it extremely unhealthy? The work load? The lack of sleep with work, kids, and school? Asking because I’m sorta in the same position
legerdemain [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Specifically CS7210 is demanding because of its assignments. The assignments come from UW's CSE452, have very little direct connection with the course lectures, and require you to implement a Paxos-like system correctly, basically in one shot, in an environment that is very difficult to debug. So the projects turn into 60-80-hour slogs where students change parameters semi-randomly until something starts working. CS7210 shares that aspect with a number of other courses in the program.
rahimnathwani [3 hidden]5 mins ago
There's a web site where different people share what they think of each course, and how many hours they devote per week:
https://www.omscentral.com/
That might help you decide whether it's doable.
My first (and only) course was somewhere in the middle in terms of effort, and the courses I was most interested would have required another 50% on top, which wasn't going to work for me, between work, parenting, other learning etc.
marai2 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
One course per semester might be doable? Not sure how frequently the assignments are due because you could probably carve out some time over the weekends.
dannyfreeman [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Yeah, thinking about waiting until both the kids themselves are in school and then 1 course a semester for me. Not sure if that will be easier or harder than doing it while they are young
BlackjackCF [3 hidden]5 mins ago
OMSCS grad here. The awesome thing about the program is its flexibility. Some of the courses are definitely more time intensive, but I think if you took only one class and dedicated about an hour a day to the course materials, you'd be in good shape. (I know that's still a lot to ask of someone with two young kids.)
krapht [3 hidden]5 mins ago
There's no way to get through the harder courses in the program on 1 hour a day. And you're not getting value from the degree if you aren't pushing yourself to take those hard courses, unless you just need the diploma.
tayo42 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Is a masters of really holding anyone back once you have a couple years of experience?
analog31 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I didn't quickly find the entrance requirements for the OMSCS program and the other similar programs. I know someone who has an undergraduate arts degree and is learning programming and CS voraciously, but not in any organized fashion.
This program was so good, I was most of the way through it before it managed to help me land a better job. But now I have no idea if I'll ever finish it because it's pretty time consuming
The best two classes are AOS and HPC imo. Very grateful to Profs Ramachandran and Vuduc
AOS (and its prerequisite) gives a really strong foundation for working on infrastructure.
HPC pushed me farther than any other class I've done, it's very unique, helped me land my current gig
mgrat [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Very cool, thanks for posting this. I've had a number of colleagues try to level up through programs like this with mixed outcomes.
legerdemain [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Has anyone tried the courses in the ML or core CS areas? What'd you think?
ssnola504 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
The ML course is interesting. Some of the lectures are a bit chatty and the official course text book was written in 1997, but it’s a great survey of many different ML models, including Neural Networks. It’s a good segue into Deep Learning where you explore more advanced NN architectures, beyond Feed-Forward NNs.
For core CS, I found Graduate Intro to Operating Systems very rewarding.
__loam [3 hidden]5 mins ago
AOS destroyed me lol. Video Game Design is excellent. Graduate algo is a requirement for everyone and has great lectures if you're looking for an introductory course.
photochemsyn [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I really can't imagine that these online degrees have any real value in the modern world of LLM-assited coding - there's no way anyone looking at a resume would think such institutional online degrees still have any value. Perhaps there is some educational value for the student, but even there the only real value is the organizational structure - you might as well form an online study group on discord for free, and get the same learning benefit, just have an LLM write up the syllabus for a course based on a good textbook, no instructor overhead needed.
mym1990 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
The OMSCS degree you get is equivalent to the in person one, so there is no way to make the distinction in an interview. I actually don’t see how people see that an experience like this brings no value, given the rigor of the assignments. One certainly would come out with a better knowledge of how things work, develop a better work ethic, and hopefully make some network connections on the way…
t_mann [3 hidden]5 mins ago
> there is no way to make the distinction in an interview
Just ask?
Some online degrees state that they're equivalent, but interviewers may still have their own opinions. I would discourage anyone from failing to mention the online nature of a degree in their CV. You're really not doing yourself a favor. A rigorous online degree is something to be proud of. I see people with PhD's proudly announcing their online course certificates on LinkedIn. However, 'discovering' that an education was of a different nature than one had assumed based on the presented materials may raise questions.
mym1990 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
This just reeks of you being insecure and thinking online education is of lower quality than in person education. Are you also pining for everyone to go back to the office? The degree GT gives you is literally the same thing as the in person degree. If GT does not make the distinction, why would I???
Here is a tip: maybe don't assume so much!
rs186 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
> interviewers may still have their own opinions
That says nothing other than that the interviewers have a narrow mind and/or are ignorant. OMSCS is a very well known program, and it's their problem if they don't know it.
coolThingsFirst [3 hidden]5 mins ago
This is very debatable. The courses look like they were recorded in the 90s.
The DB course particularly sticks out. My undergrad's DB course was fathoms harder than this. This is what you'd expect a highschooler should be able to learn through a tutorial not a university course.
If it doesn't talk about systems calls like mmap, locking and the design of the buffer pool manager, it's not a university Database course it's a SQL and ER modelling tutorial.
rybosworld [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Respectfully, I think you should do more research.
The OMSCS program is well known and well respected in the tech industry. It's a masters degree from the currently 8th ranked computer science school in the U.S.
The university make no distinction between students who take the courses online, vs in person. I.e., the diploma's are identical.
linguae [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I’ve taken graduate-level courses in databases, including one on DBMS implementations and another on large-scale distributed systems, and I also spent two summers at Google working on Cloud SQL and Spanner. Database research goes further than DBMS implementation research. There is a lot of research on schemas, data representation, logic, type systems, and more. It’s just like how programming language research goes beyond compilers research.
mym1990 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I don't think watching the lectures is the hurdle that anyone at OMSCS is trying to jump. The program has a pretty low graduation rate, and the tests are known to be fairly difficult, which essentially requires the student to do work outside of class or go to the resources available through GT to understand the material. I can look up the highest quality lectures on any subject on YouTube, it doesn't mean I will understand any of it without the proper legwork.
FWIW I meant the diploma is identical, the actual experience will obviously vary. Some people will get better outcomes online, some will get better outcomes in person.
StefanBatory [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Is this a common thing to have at university? I'm from one of top universities in Poland; our database courses never included anything more than basic SQL where cursors were the absolute end. Even at Masters.
redbluered [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Yes. It is. Your database course was apparently broken.
StefanBatory [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I can tell you something scarier.
My specialisation was databases there.
...
Do not worry, I do not work with databases in professional life as my main aspect. But I was not given a comprehensive education, and not even once there was a focus on anything more in depth. I came out without even knowing how databases work inside.
Naturally, I know what I could do - read a good book or go through open source projects, like Sqlite. But that knowledge was not was my uni gave me...
I am jealous of American/Canadian unis in this aspect.
You might as well simply claim "I don't see a CS degree has any value these days". OMSCS is not any less than a "real" graduate school program experience.
xbar [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I am not sure what your point is. Is it that no CS is valuable or that only certain CS degrees are valuable?
HN.zip
The content is great, and most of it is available on Open Courseware, YT, etc, but here's what else you get by officially going through the program:
- the amazing community of TAs
- the assignments
- the feedback on reports & projects (either automated, or through TAs)
- the collaboration with other students on Ed, Discord, Slack, etc
- the forcing function of deadlines, having to study for exams, etc
- free access to academic libraries, IEEE, ACM, O'Reilly, etc
- access to software and services, educational packages from GitHub, Wolfram, Google Colab Pro, student discount in a bunch of places, etc
Another underrated aspect is GT's ability to preserve rigor of the program overall, despite the scale and number of students in some courses (the most popular ones have 1,000-1,500 students per semester).
If you're on the fence on applying, I strongly recommend you do. The program is affordable enough that there's no harm in trying for a few semesters to see if matches what you're looking for.
Glad to answer any questions.
You may need to tweak for different courses, but I've used for ML4T, GIOS, and ML, and it has been incredibly helpful.
[1] https://github.com/guiambros/vidcat
I wish! I travel quite a bit for work, so it breaks my legs every time it happens. Plus family, kids activities, etc. ML was brutal this semester, but hoping the curve will help a bit.
But it's ok, slow and steady is the way to go. Besides, I'm doing this for the fun of it; I don't need the diploma for career or anything.
See you around!
That course was great, though, and I definitely learned some things I'm glad to have learned!
IMO the instructional materials are a small part of the value. The things that stood out to me were:
- the assignments
- the autograding of programming assignments
- giving and receiving peer feedback about written assignments
- learning some LaTeX for those assignments
- having an artificial reason (course grade) to persist in improving my algorithm and code [on the problems taught in that course, I wouldn't have been self-motivated enough if they were just things I came across during a random weekend]
* My fellow classmates. Had a small study group where we got on Discord to hang out and it was a blast
* The TAs - they were so dedicated to the students and fantastic. MVPs of the program
I wasn't in any discord groups but the class discussion forum was a nice community.
I would not let the lack of assignments, tests, and quizzes stop you from trying these if you are interested. At a minimum, they would give you a feeling for what the program/s are like, and possibly encourage you to enroll into the online degree program, which is an exceptional value.
How do you all deal with this?
I think the people who have the most difficulty getting accepted are those without a bachelor's in CS who also don't have some good CS fundamentals courses to show achievement and interest.
I did complete the program, and I am happy for the accomplishment. But with my experience (I started working in the mid 90s) this wasn't for my career, it was for my own satisfaction. But in addition to being glad for the achievement, I was soooo glad to be done, LOL. The real commitment is not financial, it is time.
Of course they did not come with any assignments, just like these courses. Can't blame them, but other universities offer much resources -- for the same topic, you can often find a course offered by another university that provides videos hosted on YouTube, full assignments and labs, even exams. The only thing you are missing is TA/office hours and the course credit. In other words, unless you actually want to earn credits and work towards a degree, I suggest that you skip OMSCS videos unless there is no alternative.
For context: non-traditional student who transferred to UCSD for college, two of those years were spent during Covid. Moved back to Bay Area. My network isn’t as big as someone who maybe went to San Jose state. And so they prob have an easier time finding jobs. I worked with other students through discord and so on, attended virtual office hours with professors and TAs (who were the reason many of us passed these classes, I’m sure) but never truly built a relationship that lasted beyond the quarter because zoom, essentially.
And if I go back to grad school, I would really love to build relationships with others around me. Wondering how others have managed with this regard?
It's doable, that's all I'm saying. But you will definitely need to be committed to see it through to the end, and you will be happy to have your life back when you're done.
That might help you decide whether it's doable.
My first (and only) course was somewhere in the middle in terms of effort, and the courses I was most interested would have required another 50% on top, which wasn't going to work for me, between work, parenting, other learning etc.
The best two classes are AOS and HPC imo. Very grateful to Profs Ramachandran and Vuduc
AOS (and its prerequisite) gives a really strong foundation for working on infrastructure.
HPC pushed me farther than any other class I've done, it's very unique, helped me land my current gig
For core CS, I found Graduate Intro to Operating Systems very rewarding.
Just ask?
Some online degrees state that they're equivalent, but interviewers may still have their own opinions. I would discourage anyone from failing to mention the online nature of a degree in their CV. You're really not doing yourself a favor. A rigorous online degree is something to be proud of. I see people with PhD's proudly announcing their online course certificates on LinkedIn. However, 'discovering' that an education was of a different nature than one had assumed based on the presented materials may raise questions.
Here is a tip: maybe don't assume so much!
That says nothing other than that the interviewers have a narrow mind and/or are ignorant. OMSCS is a very well known program, and it's their problem if they don't know it.
The DB course particularly sticks out. My undergrad's DB course was fathoms harder than this. This is what you'd expect a highschooler should be able to learn through a tutorial not a university course.
If it doesn't talk about systems calls like mmap, locking and the design of the buffer pool manager, it's not a university Database course it's a SQL and ER modelling tutorial.
The OMSCS program is well known and well respected in the tech industry. It's a masters degree from the currently 8th ranked computer science school in the U.S.
The university make no distinction between students who take the courses online, vs in person. I.e., the diploma's are identical.
FWIW I meant the diploma is identical, the actual experience will obviously vary. Some people will get better outcomes online, some will get better outcomes in person.
My specialisation was databases there.
...
Do not worry, I do not work with databases in professional life as my main aspect. But I was not given a comprehensive education, and not even once there was a focus on anything more in depth. I came out without even knowing how databases work inside.
Naturally, I know what I could do - read a good book or go through open source projects, like Sqlite. But that knowledge was not was my uni gave me...
I am jealous of American/Canadian unis in this aspect.
https://www.omscentral.com/