I have a more mixed experience with the OMSCS. Overall it's a good program, and if the choice is between Udemy or OMSCS then it wins hands down. For me the central issue is online vs. in-person.

Education is an interactive experience, the value of a good professor and classmates is helping to identify issues when you are stuck and nudge you just enough for you to connect the dots. As an undergraduate I liked attending study groups and office hours. I learned as much from my peers, both me helping them and them helping me, as I did from my professors. This spirit was difficult to replicate this in OMSCS.

The problem is that high tough, in-person communication is very effective but this doesn't "scale" well. I can only imagine how different the world would be if Plato was teaching online. :)

Also I was in the 2nd cohort, there were certainly a lot of "bugs" and issues they were working through. Additionally, the culture of video conference and zoom was also less a few years ago, which could make an impact.

I second this. I attended OMSCS for a few semesters and ultimately dropped out because I felt most of the courses lacked any interactive component. Another factor that led me to drop out was that one of my biggest reasons for enrolling in a masters degree was to strengthen my research skills. Although I did manage to do research in a couple of courses and assist a professor, I found it very hard to juggle research, a full-time job and the demands of a part-time OMSCS course load (which is very time-consuming due to lack of interaction with instructors and faculty since it requires a lot of autodidacticism). Right now I am trying to determine the next steps in my educational journey. I am taking some online extension course with a synchronous lecture component and am finding it a lot better for really learning the material than OMSCS courses without synchronous learning component. However, it doesn't seem like full masters programs are offered in this manner. Has anyone found such a program in Computer Science that is geared towards people who already have a bachelor's degree in CS and are working full time in industry.

If lack of peer interaction was your main hangup, I think it has been addressed. The OMSCS Slack workspace has become a kind of 24/7 office hours, study group environment.

But there is still little to no interaction with the professors.

I am also currently in OMSCS. One relatively recent change is that students actively use the slack or discord rooms for the course.

I actually found the interactive discussion to be more frequent then my (in-person) undergrad

The best part of my experience was trying to form a study group (Google Hangouts at the time). Most people dropped but I made a very good friend. We still stay in touch to this day.

Slack and other conferencing tools are game changers. People getting used to these tools is one silver lining to the pandemic.

Agreed, while I completely agree that in person is not the same as virtual, Slack makes it so that it's not as bad and I've made some good connections on slack. I check it every day and very much feel like I'm part of a community.

OMSCS alumni here. Almost all my classes had student organised study groups over video chat. But it does require you to seek them out and participate in class slack usually. Overall I had far more class related interaction than I did in my on campus undergrad.

I had near zero interaction in (physical) college regarding learning while we spent an awful lot of time on coursera dedicated irc rooms on (now dead) freenode, it was really vibrant, good spirit, no cheat, just sharing some hints at times, discussing the ideas. I preferred it to my IRL class memories.

I'm sorry, but this doesn't sound credible. You wouldn't let potential newbies write an important part of your infra. Plus a credible school has more than enough software developers. Might it have been the other way around, that the people who actually wrote the system have designed assignments that are based on their experience? That's something I sometimes did when I held classes: nothing gets you closer to a realistic real-world practice problem than the one you just solved yourself

I’m incredulous. That sounds like some kind of abuse of power.

I created this account for a specific question because the subject is something I'm thinking of right now. My question is:

How much time do you invest every day on this degree?

I dropped out of my MS degree 20 years ago and would love to do that again, but I feel like I would only have (at most) 1 hour a day to work on it due to all my work and family commitments. I could squeeze an additional hour at work to learn but that's about it.

I'm almost done with my OMSCS run. An hour a day won't cut it.

Most people either do a couple hours an evening plus a chunk on weekends, or else dedicate most of their weekend. I tend to fall in the first camp, and then also add more weekend for harder classes.

The time commitment varies from 5-30 hours per week depending on the class. Most classes fall pretty close to 10 per week in my experience, but I also have been mostly picking medium difficulty classes on purpose.

Not sure how old your kids are but last time this topic came up I asked someone a similar question. My kids are both under 3 and they said no way if your kids are very young. I don’t think an hour would cut it unless you had a large part of Saturday you could spend time doing projects.

I'm sad to say that an hour a day is unlikely to let you finish the program productively. You can look at https://omscentral.com/courses for student's estimates of how long they spent per week in courses, but most are over 10 and quite a few 20-30. You can get through it by taking some easier courses, but it is like a second job in many ways.

It varies for me. I am a bit over half way through. I think I spend on average 10-20 hours a week doing work for the class. But I typically am the type to burn a weekend doing a project then do not much work for the next week.

I’m curious whether anyone here is doing/has done OMSCS with a family in addition to a day job. I would love to do the program, but I’m not sure how realistic it is to take it on with young kids in the house. Does all of your non-work time end up being consumed by coursework?

I just graduated from OMSCS and have four young kids and a full time job. It took me four years and I made full use of my employer’s generous continuing ed program (50 days/year, introduced about a year after I started) which kept after-hours work to a manageable level. I had to pass on a few good courses due to predicted workload, but made it through a good number of the harder/more rewarding ones and am very happy to have done it. I do not think I would have stuck with it if I was working 40 hours/week and doing the program entirely on my own time.

You can do one class per term, and even skip terms. You can alternate hard classes and easier classes. If you don’t rush, it’s doable.

Source: graduated from omscs last year, with two small kids and a full time job. Took 3.5y though, and I had to skip a couple of hard but interesting classes because they would have been too difficult given the situation (covid lockdowns with kids at home and increased job-related workload)

I did my degree online with a "day" job and young family. My kids were 6 and 3 at the time. But my job wasn't a 9-5 so I didn't have that burden. Also, it got to the point where the day after lectures were posted, which were around 9 pm to midnight, I would get up at 3:30 a.m. to watch a 3 hour lecture.

The old adage "where there is a will there is a way" is definitely true.

OMSCS alumni here. OMSCS is no joke! I underestimated the program and did it in a similar situation. I completed it, but it certainly had a large cost to me personally. You will lose weekends and time with your family - whether it's a massive project you're trying to complete before the deadline, or a hard final exam you need to study for 50 hours to pass.

If you can accept those sacrifices, and your partner is willing to support you (mine wasn't, it turned out), then it's worth considering. I would also strongly suggest treating it like a marathon, not a sprint, and do the 2 courses a year option.

I did in person MSCS with a day job and one kid, about 7 years old at the time. It's doable with a supportive spouse. I spent one or two hours (outside of class) a during the week, and sometimes more during the weekends.

I completed this at one class per semester, except for the semester I attempted two classes to speed up the process. While I was able to complete both classes, I felt the learning suffered as I was just rushing to complete assignments in time instead of really learning the material.

I'm also a proud OMSCS alum! But "the opportunity to do some research and publish papers" is certainly not the default.

Can you describe how you were able to do that?

So there are a few ways now! I do agree that it's not the default, I'd probably say <5% of people do, but it does exist.

1. Courses -There are a number of courses now where you can create projects and publish papers. Again, not the default, but if you put in the effort it's doable. To name a few, Computing for Good, Big Data for Healthcare, Deep Learning, Educational Technology, Human-Computer Interaction and others.

2. VIPs! These I consider one of the "hidden" gems of OMSCS and what I personally did. You can see them here: https://www.vip.gatech.edu/ but basically instead of a class for a semester (but counts as a class for credit and graduation purposes) you work for a professor on a project with several other grads/undergrads. I did one this past semester and was asked to stay on as a research assistant over the summer doing work in NLP. Really excited for it actually and has been a fantastic opportunity. I put a lot more details here - https://redd.it/u6cj5z

3. Master's Project/Thesis - This is the option to do a Master's Project or thesis instead of just ten courses, but it does require more work from the student to find a professor and do that. There's many more details here https://redd.it/9t48b2 and frankly I wish I had done so, but too late now.

This is the most comprehensive list of what I've seen for OMSCS research opportunities. Thanks for pulling this together.

Check out https://lucylabs.gatech.edu! David Joyner started it to help foster this opportunity for students and alumni, alike.

I’ve had good experiences working with people from there.

The problem is when you have paid the tuition, and finished the degree, it's so hard to objectively rate it.

I have a Bachelor's degree from a decent state school in California.

At the time, I felt the courses were too easy, and my four years were a bit of a waste of time.

I remember going to a graduation party, and you would think we graduated from med school. The graduates were carrying on like it was so rigrigrous. (I have a very, very average intellect too. I actually flunked kindergarten.)

To this day I will not denigrate the school in any way.

I use to feel contempt for people really proud of graduating college. The actual college courses were all pretty easy compared to the difficulties of the rest of life at the same time - caring for family members, scraping together rent, etc. Someone proud of graduating college when all they had to do in the 4 years was study was upsetting to me.

I have a more mature perspective now, you never know what struggles people have and the courses are really tough for a lot of people.

> I use to feel contempt for people really proud of graduating college. The actual college courses were all pretty easy compared to the difficulties of the rest of life at the same time - caring for family members, scraping together rent, etc. Someone proud of graduating college when all they had to do in the 4 years was study was upsetting to me.

>

> I have a more mature perspective now, you never know what struggles people have and the courses are really tough for a lot of people.

Well done on you! I occasionally run into past versions of you. They usually dismiss my BSc degree and my MSc degree with an attitude that is similar to:

"I learned real lessons at the school of hard knocks. While you were partying with your college friends and memorising useless theory, I was making ends meet and learning practical programming by actually doing it."

Truth is, I've never been to f/time university. After school I (very briefly) apprenticed as a auto mechanic for a short while, then left to work in a factory assembly-line (12-hour shifts, all night-shift, 7 days a week) for a little more peanuts than an apprenticeship paid.

I used almost all of my meagre income to pay for part-time university (work at night, study+sleep during the day). Halfway through my second-year courses I finally caught a break and got a job as a computer-lab assistant at a nearby university.

It wasn't actual programming work (show new students how to log in, refill printers with paper, help students who destroyed or lost their access cards, etc), but it left me a lot of free time to waste on usenet, which is where I found my first actual programming job.

I don't narrate my origin story to those past versions of yourself, though. There's no point. Their self-identity includes their own bootstrapping story about how degrees are pointless.

I have no idea how one flunks the kindergarten, but I’m pretty sure that it does not reflect one’s intellect in anyway.

Am pretty sure there’s an interesting story there somewhere :)

Out of curiosity, I found a sample kindergarten curriculum for the province of Ontario in Canada. [0]

Children as young as four in the province are evaluated by educators on (pages 306–308): the development of the ability to interpret and respond to basic communication, demonstrate independence and "self-motivation" in learning, giving and accepting constructive criticism, developing problem solving skills ("e.g. trial and error, checking and guessing, cross-checking), personal hygiene, self-control of emotions, assertiveness when feeling safe or uncomfortable, and other skills. Indicators that educators look for include phrases from children such as "I'm really frustrated" (page 161) as a demonstration as an awareness and ability to label emotions; "I put my vehicle on the shelf so it would be safe" (page 167) as evidence of problem-solving ability; and persistence in difficult games (e.g. card games and outdoor children's games).

I was also curious whether education in kindergarten could actually have a causal effect on improving long-term outcomes. I couldn't find an immediate conclusion on whether or not interventions are effective, but in at least one paper, it's treated as established knowledge that interventions work. From a quick search, a longitudinal study published in a paper called "Task-Oriented Kindergarten Behavior Pays Off in Later Childhood" [1] with 2837 participants showed a correlation between self-regulation skills in kindergarten and long-term outcomes. The researchers wrote that "early screening by teachers [in kindergarten] introduces the possibility of preventing future learning and behavioral difficulties." They also asserted that "classroom engagement is malleable and amenable to interventions."

While causality was not clearly established in this paper alone, it looks like a reasonable prediction from the correlation that improving classroom engagement as early as in kindergarten could plausibly lead to better life outcomes in years later in life.

TL;DR: While kindergarten in Ontario in recent years may have different expectations than the commenter's time in kindergarten, it appears that educators do evaluate young children on general life skills (e.g. self-control and ability to be aware and label emotions) as a screening tool, and also potentially for interventions to improve engagement in the classroom (which could plausibly lead to better outcomes in years later in life).

[0] PDF, 2016: https://files.ontario.ca/books/edu_the_kindergarten_program_...

[1] 2013: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23369956/

I did flunk Kindergarden. In the early 70's (during the later parts of the Vietnam war.), they had something called Early Primary in Corte Madera, Ca.

I remember all the children had to go up to the calendar on the blackboard once a month and put the day, date, and year The teacher would whisper in our ears where to put the plackard on the black board. If you failed--you had to do it the next day.

I just couldn't remember what she whispered in my ear while walking up to the calendar on the chalk board. Looking back it was nerves. We just had to move the pre printed plackard to the right spot.

The children used to yell "right--left. I would go to 30-31 places until they clapped. (The kids were on my side. They wanted me to succeed.

I was frozen with embarrassment though.

I think I had some learning disability, or emotional problem.

I just remember I had a hard time learning. In all honestly, I just wanted hide in the playhouse from the other children. I was basically very shy, and nervious.

That's when they put me in Early Primary.

It didn't bother me because 1/3 of the class was with me.

My family moved two years later to San Anselmo.

I was happy. My father, and mother were happy. My dad bought a four bedroom home. We all had our bedrooms. I love life, but my family more.

When I entered 2nd grade, I became worried. These new kids had no problem answering questions the teacher would ask.

I------would just cower in fear hoping she would ask me anything. Well--she didn't overlook me, and I would just freeze in fear when she would ask me to repeat what she just said. (Looking back it was basically nerves, but maybe a learning problem? 99.99% of me now feels it was just nerves.

Ok--it's the 70's, and teacher, and my mom, had an unusually long conference.

They held me back again. They put me in this worthless Speech class. I was a studder. "A, E, I, O, U, any Y." Repeated in a route manner. It made no sence to my young self.

I did have a younger sister whom would remind Everone that we were three years apart in age, but 1 year apart in school. There was always a silence from intelligent adults, or an uncomfortable silence from the rest.

By the time I got to the 3rd grade, I knew I just could be held back again.

By the time I was in 7th grade, I was a B to A student. Everything just clicked in.

High school seemed easy, but it was only until my last year I took it serious.

Most blue collar kids knew nothing about good/bad colleges. My sister, and myself, knew nothing of the SAT. It probally didn't help that my Electrican father thought "College boys were tax dodgers." (It was a different time in America. If you didn't go to college, it didn't matter. A union job was a test away.

OK, Iloved my father, but didn't want his life, including the drinking, and Archie Bunker mentality.

I ended up working my junior year in highschool, and going to College of Marin. Back then it was called the Little Berkeley. It was a great school for many years. Those two years were with the cost!

I wanted to become a doctor for all the wrong reasons, basically I could memorize visually all those biology charts, and organic reactions. It just came so easily.

I needed a 4 year degree though. I went to --- ------- state for the four year degree, and graduated. I also had a very aggressive girlfriend at the time, and I knew she would hold it against me if I graduate from that joke of a school.

I had a panic attack while I was in graduate school on december 24th. It was probally comming. I was very much a hypochondriac at the time, and actually believed I has a brain tumor. I tried to go back to school every month for a year, but was just a neurotic mess. I went from being the most capable guy in the room to not being able to drive a car.

I was so neurotic. My girlfriend was a saint though. I had this period where I though sex was making my head pain worse.

We are talking about a 19 blond virgin until we became a couple. She believed my bullshit until she saw a Woody Allen movie with her mother. I belive it was Hanna, and her Sisters.

All I knew was I had this head pain, and life seemed to short. I had a hard time repressing my sexual desires. I had a hard time sitting in school--delaying gratification. I did know that the worst day in college was better than any job blue collar jobs though.

(Why did I write this? I use HN as. journal. My respect for this site has dwindled. When Dang isn't hellbanning me for no reason------I will write. It's not for anyone's benefit except myself, unless it comes to real subjects. I am not going to edit this, especially after a bottle of wine.)

I flunked kindergarden PE.

Too many times, the class was supposed to line up at one side of the gym, then one at a time each kids was supposed to do the thing.

I was never good at waiting in a "useless" line.

Oh agreed, and and I'm definitely biased towards my degree. What I can say is that without the degree I find it extremely unlikely I would have gotten the job I have now working in Data. At the least it gave me the confidence to apply, but also without the structure of the program, I would never have studied ML the way I have.

However, I do completely agree there are other great programs out there. UIUC and UTexas have great online MSCS degrees that are comparable and well worth considering.

The coursework in OMSCS can vary. There are ways to get through the program taking fairly "easy" courses, and then there are much harder ones. I have certainly had a class or two that was less useful to take than others, but that was mostly so I could graduate in 10 semesters as opposed to taking longer.