Easiest online master's in IT or Software development?

[susanah4]

My son-in-law is graduating with his bachelor's in software development and is just burned out with school.   There is a possibility of an internship at a company he would love to work for in a field he is excited about but in order to apply he must be in school!  His degree choice must be in IT or CS.   We are looking for a situation where he can go at a slow pace and not too difficult because I don't even know if he has the energy/will to finish at this point but also don't want him to just be throwing money down the drain either.  He would also need to be able to start January of 2026 so programs that require GRE, reference letters, etc. might be out of the running as late as it is.  I'm assuming it would need some type of accreditation.   We are looking at IT at Columbia Southern University but I think it might be a lot of essay writing and he would much rather be on a computer learning to code than writing papers.  And he doesn't have the math (calculus) for many of the CS majors.   Any ideas???  TIA

[ss20ts]

It sounds like he should be the one posting on here. Graduate degrees ALWAYS have a good amount of writing. There's no escaping that. He will do less coding as a grad student than an undergrad. If he wants to learn code then he'd probably be better off in a certificate program. He already has a bachelor's degree. Is he looking for a full-time permanent job? The time to do an internship was when he was an undergrad.

[susanah4]

It sounds like he should be the one posting on here. Graduate degrees ALWAYS have a good amount of writing. There's no escaping that. He will do less coding as a grad student than an undergrad. If he wants to learn code then he'd probably be better off in a certificate program. He already has a bachelor's degree. Is he looking for a full-time permanent job? The time to do an internship was when he was an undergrad.

He currently has an internship but one in a department he REALLY wanted just opened up with him only having 4 months of school left and would give him experience in the area he was most interested in.  This is where he would love to work full time but no billets for anything in the near future and they don't come open very often.

[Jonathan Whatley]

We are looking at IT at Columbia Southern University but I think it might be a lot of essay writing and he would much rather be on a computer learning to code than writing papers.  And he doesn't have the math (calculus) for many of the CS majors.   Any ideas???  TIA

Maybe the Fort Hays State University Master of Professional Studies (MPS) in Web and Mobile Applications?

[bluebooger]

WGU

https://www.wgu.edu/online-it-degrees/co...ogram.html

they have 3 Masters in Computer Science programs

1 st link gives general info
2 nd link gives a lsit of courses and descriptions

Computing Systems, Computer Science – M.S.
https://www.wgu.edu/online-it-degrees/co...stems.html
https://www.wgu.edu/online-it-degrees/co...guide.html

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Computer Science – M.S.
https://www.wgu.edu/online-it-degrees/co...rning.html
https://www.wgu.edu/online-it-degrees/co...guide.html

Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Science – M.S.
https://www.wgu.edu/online-it-degrees/co...ction.html
https://www.wgu.edu/online-it-degrees/co...guide.html

for each
Tuition per six-month term is $4,385

which can get expensive
because you can take as many courses as you can complete in a term

so if you're lazy and take only one course per term ... well it adds up

its all up to you how much effort you wnat to put into it
and it really is up to you -- there are no class schedules, no meeting times -- you do the work when you want to, but its all on you

enrolling is easy

there might be some info over here
https://old.reddit.com/r/WGU_CompSci/

[bjcheung77]

I would look at UofPeople and other institutions we recommend as well, UofPeople has the MSIT option if you're looking for that. I would also recommend investigating the MS Applied Computer Science programs and also the MOOC options from Coursera and EdX. Look for a balanced mix/match of cost, ease, speed to finish the Masters, these MOOC options are from pretty well known institutions...

[spohara]

For most people on these boards, the goal is completing a degree for the least amount of money in the least time possible - often with a preference for working at a very fast pace to get done sooner. If you're looking to stretch things out, you might find interest in the CU Boulder on Coursera programs. Admission is performance based (must complete 3 credit hours), the classes have a lot of code and few essays, and you can enroll in 1 credit at a time to keep workload to a minimum. It isn't the absolute cheapest, but 1 credit is $525, so it isn't breaking the bank either. Compared to committing to a 6 month term at WGU, you can sign up for 4 8 week terms @ 1credit @$525 for half the price. It also has an 8 year time horizon to finish if he decides to go back and finish later on. Depending on if he enrolls in the MS-CS, MS-AI or MS-DS, there are also graduate certificates available along the way.

[davewill]

You don't say where he's graduating from. Could he add on a minor and stay another semester where he is? It would delay graduation, but could allow him to maybe complete the internship.

[lisarox]

Can he delay his graduation to qualify for the internship?

[Tomas]

If foreign universities are not out of question, eg. University of Gloucestershire in UK has online masters in CS, eg. MSc Computer Science with Software Engineering.
https://online.glos.ac.uk/degree-programmes/
Under 9000 USD in total. Starts November, payment seems to be per module, and it clearly looks like for those who didn't study CS before, so it shouldn't burn him that much.
But includes research modules.