Accepted into Georgia Tech's Online MSCS program

[fmsoa]

Just to clarify, because it comes up a lot, how many of your (computer science) courses were ACE and how many were from a Community College or the like? For @frankc, I think most/all of your CS classes came from Study.com?

GT is the only establishment graduate program that embraces alternative credits/MOOCs. UT-Austin Admissions stated specifically that they prefer for-grade credit courses, UIUC is similar except they have an in-house Data Structure proficiency exam for non-traditional applicants to showcase their ability (with at least an A-).

An exception is Colorado's MSCS which does not require any bachelor's degree at all. Just finish the 30 1-hour course in the program with at least 3.0 GPA and you're set

[Jonathan Whatley]

Harvard Extension also added a Master of Liberal Arts, Computer Science field of study this year. Take pre-admission courses as a non-degree student and earn your way in. Success plus any accredited bachelor's gets you admitted. One three-week summer course on campus is required to graduate.

[frankc]

Here’s my update and thoughts on the OMSCS program after completing two semesters and starting my third next week:

Overall, I think it's a great program, especially given the current cost, around $650 per course/$6.5k for the entire MSCS degree from GaTech. It's hard to beat that value.

I think the courses are pretty rigorous, about 10-15 hours of work per week for the average course. Some courses, like Distributed Computing, can have up to 40 hours per week, which is really intense. They recommend taking one course per semester for the first two semesters to ease into the workload, which I think it's a pretty good advice.

One thing I've noticed is that this program has a strong emphasis on catching cheaters. You'll find a lot of warnings about plagiarism in the syllabus, on the discussion board, and in the assignment docs. While it's understandable that they want to maintain their standards, and I think it's a good thing, it can be stressful. I find myself constantly worried about accidentally plagiarizing, to the point where I'm almost citing everything just to be safe lol.

As for networking, it's not as bad as some people might think, especially if you choose the right courses with the right people. Most people think that in-person programs offer better networking opportunities, and I think that's true. However, I've found that most of my classmates in this program are already working in tech, so it can actually be a good opportunity to network with people who are already in the field, unlike in-person programs where most students are just full-time students. For example, in my last course, I worked with a Senior Google SWE and a senior Tesla Data Scientist in a group of 4, and we made a great team.

As of now, I plan to continue taking one course per semester, with a couple of semesters where I'll take two courses, pairing an easier one with a more challenging one. My current goal is to finish by the summer of 2026.

[frankc]

Here's my 2 year update...

I’m burning out... Working full-time while taking OMSCS courses is insanely demanding. The classes keep getting harder too.

The only thing that’s really keeping me going is the fact that I don’t have kids, I don’t have friends lol, and I work from home 5 days a week...so I can at least manage my time a bit better.

For anyone thinking about OMSCS, the workload is no joke. You’re looking at around 15–25 hours per course every week if you read the textbook and watch all the lectures... From what I’ve seen, it’s one of the heaviest workloads compared to other popular online CS master’s programs like UPenn MCIT, UIUC MCS, CU Boulder, ASU, etc. (I have a friend that's doing both UPenn’s MCIT and Gatech's OMSCS, alternating between them each semester. She can do 3 MCIT courses in a semester, but only 1 OMSCS course at a time...). The dropout rate is also really high, a lot of people I know left or switched to other schools bc it’s just too much to balance with life and work.

On top of that, I’m also constantly living with the fear of being accused of cheating. Every semester, there are tons of students, I mean tons of students that get flagged and send to OSI. Although I know I will not cheat but I still had to be extra careful with everything I do because I really don’t want to end up being accused of something like cheating or plargisim or using AI for homework...

Anyway...I’m currently finishing up my 6th course this semester and now aiming to finish by the end of 2026... hopefully completing the degree in 3 years total.

Update: Well...I just looked back at page 1 on what i wrote two years ago when i first got accepted... i was so excited back then lol. i’m still really glad i decided to do it, but honestly i’m just exhausted now. Can’t wait to finally finish and breathe a little.