Online vs. Traditional Degrees?

Justin Rainbow asks: "As a computer science student, avid internet user and full-time programmer I find it very appealing to finish my CS degree online. Finishing at least a year early and studying whenever I want are just a couple of the draws to the online campus. However, are these internet degrees even worth the paper their printed on? Is an online degree just a waste of money? Can an online degree give you just as many opportunities as a traditional university? Has anyone in the Slashdot community graduated from one of these online schools? Did it help or hurt your career? What about graduate school admissions? Does an online degree hurt your chances to get into a great graduate school?"

Comments

They can be the same

[solarmist]

It depends. Right now I'm enrolled in University of Illinois - Springfield's (UIS) online computer science degree and they don't make any mention that it was online when you graduate. So, it is the same degree that the students on campus get, but UIS isn't exactly in the top of the computer science programs. I feel satisfied with the degree though. Also, University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign offers a professional masters degree in computer science (also no mention when you get your degree that it was online) and I believe that would help you quite a bit because UIUC is a very highly ranked computer science program. So, I would say as long as you take it from a school that has a traditional campus and degree in computer science. It'll be pretty much equivilent to their on campus degree. But I wouldn't touch University of Pheonix or similar "Universities" with a ten foot pole. That's as close to buying your degree as you can get and your school still being accredited.