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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?"
There are other options too. Some major universities offer courses exclusively online in addition to the traditional classroom so you may want to consider that.
A traditional degree is better for grad school because in a traditional school you are more likely to have opportunites for interaction with professors who can recommend you.
However, are these internet degrees even worth the paper their printed on?
If you can't find the error in that sentence, you shouldn't be allowed to get an online degree!
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.
"Curiouser and Curiouser" - Alice
It completely depends on where you get your online degree. Many universities offer online degree programs that are fully recognized at accredited universities. This is something that you have to look for and be aware of. I suggest contacting other universities and inquiring whether they recognize degrees from the online university you are considering, and also make sure that credits from the online university are transferable to other universities.
Also, you have to make sure that you're able to stay motivated working in an environment of your choice. Like many telework situations, some people find that they're not productive at home due to too many distractions. I know a few people who are incredibly smart that have received online degrees and it really depends a lot on how motivated you are and how much you want to get out of it. They also recommending asking as many questions as possible to make sure you get the most out of your education experience.
"A Lisp programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing." - Alan Perlis
A good reason to attend school in meatspace is that you can interact with others, form groups, work on tasks.
Just because you have a degree doesn't mean you'll be successful in what you are doing. You have to actually do something people can use [e.g. want, has a value, etc] to make money and/or fame. If you're lucky enough to be self-motivated to do your own work/projects then online could be ok. However, most are not and required a good kick in the ass to get going.
Another good reason for attending real school is you get to meet new peeps, socialize, do something other than being alone at home.
I can see the value of an online degree but only in the most limited of situations, e.g. you're already working and you want formalization or you live in the sticks and can't afford to move out, etc.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
However, are these internet degrees even worth the paper their printed on?
Looks like the brick-and-mortar ones aren't worth much either.
As long as it is backed by a real school, I see no problem at all.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Depending on what kind of degree you want to pursue, an online degree definitely can be equivalent to a "traditional" degree. I have a B.S. from Rochester Institute of Technology, and completed my entirely at night through their Distance Learning program while I was working for a software company full-time. Because it's an accredited school and my degree was "work related," I was even able to use tuition reimbursement from work to pay for it.
When I decided to go to law school (2nd tier), the fact that I had earned my distance learning degree wasn't even mentioned (yes, I was accepted). In my case, there is no difference between my degree and the same degree earned on campus.
I'm certain there will be a lot of naysayers who are convinced that all online degrees are worthless, but it's not true. It depends on the school (accredited, etc.) and the type of degree you're looking for. Even if you're just looking for a way to get some extra credits, most schools will let you take DL courses from an accredited school and transfer them into your program.
Do your research and you'll find there are a lot of legitimate options out there. John Bear has written some good books about where to get quality distance learning education.
This is really, really bad advice. Even though I've learned most of what I know through practical experience, my 4 years of college has really helped me. Too many programmers don't understand foundational concepts, and subsequently they lack the tools to adequately understand how to solve a problem. Picking some arbitrary age limit and saying that you shouldn't do any formal learning after that time is just plain stupid. Shame on you for even making that suggestion.
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
I agree with your position, but not your reasoning. I find that good programmers are good programmers, regardless of whether they have a degree or not. I've never, in my career, seen a developer who understands fundamentals because of college, and I've never seen one who lacks skills because he or she didn't go to college.
However, a degree will generally add at least 10 g's to your salary, when you are compared to someone with comparable skill without a degree. College is the way to go. Doesn't matter if it is online or not - a degree is just an extra foot in the door. Talent and people skills will take you the rest of the way from there.
Rex is 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
But if you don't interact with professors not only will you not have to worry about grad school, how are you going to network for a job once you go to business school or law school?
Imagine getting a business or law degree online and trying to become a judge or work for a fortune 500 company.
The Open University in the UK could be considered to do "online degrees" although they call it "distance learning". According to TQI, an organistation that gives access to official information about the quality of Higher Education, the OU is rated very highly for all subjects.
There is no god but Google and GTalk is the messenger of Google.
Most grad schools want dozens of letters of recomendation. Sure, you can probably get them from your boss, mailman, ect... But they carry more weight if they are from a professor who worked with you on a research project for 3 years that was just featured on slashdot.
Some classes just do not do well online.
* Classes meant for you to present something in front of an audience. (Speech)
* Classes meant for the students to learn to work on a group project like they would in the workplace.
* Classes designed for face to face interaction of the students.
Otherwise it is mostly up to the student. Some people do fine taking classes online. Some people do not.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
Dude, if I may call you dude. Online schools like the University of Phoenix are great if you already have a great career and are just going after a piece of paper to look good to get that next promotion. However, life is more than have a framed piece of paper hanging on the wall. Life is about socializing, making friends, and sharing ideas. Consider that you may meet someone in a traditional college with whom you will start the next Google. Yes, that's right. The founders of Google attended Stanford together, however I am not sure if they ever posted a story on Slashdot.
:)
You might make friends in different fields that open doors which you never considered. You never know who you will meet and what opportunities will arise from these chance meetings. Additionally, social networking is one of the best ways to find employment. You might do an internship and get hired or find other talented people like yourself and start a company (read the history of Hotmail).
Online learning tends to be very isolated and there is very little chance of meeting interesting people and connecting with them. Online courses are likely filled with people chasing a piece of paper and missing out on a far richer experience. Online learning also decreases the number of females you will meet that aren't from India or China. Please note, I am not biased against Indian or Chineese women, they just statistcally tend to comprise the majority of female computer science graduates. Going to a brick-n-mortar college will land you in a liberal arts class where you might find a date or even future wife. Remember, sometimes the journey is it's own reward
Maybe Slashdot could do a longitudal study of your education and career path choices to find out the answer to online vs. traditional schools and lifetime opportunities at the 4-year and 8-year mark. I've been to both type of universities and definately prefer the face-to-face interaction at a traditional school and have found it to be a much richer experience.
But honestly officer, it's not a meth lab, I'm just working on my online chemistry class.
Question reality.
I've never seen one who lacks skills because he or she didn't go to college.
I have. Several. I've known some very bright programmers who could cut code just fine, but whose lack of formal education really limited the nature of the problems they could solve. There are a bunch of classes you get in a decent CS curriculum that seem very pointless and abstract -- things like Theory of Computation, Compiler Design, Algorithms and Data Structures -- but not having that foundational knowledge really hurts. There's also lots of benefit to learning a significant amount of mathematics (especially discrete math, but all of it is good).
Of course, you don't actually *need* to go to college, on-line or in meatspace, in order to learn that stuff. You can just pick up a book and do it yourself. In practice, though, it's much easier to learn it in college, and most people who don't go to college will never learn it on their own.
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I've never, in my career, seen a developer who understands fundamentals because of college, and I've never seen one who lacks skills because he or she didn't go to college.
I side with the other responses strongly disagreeing with this. I too have seen many gifted programmers who had gaping holes in their knowledge because they did not study various uninteresting or seemingly unimportant topics. They were great at what they did study but they were not well rounded, more like a technician in some ways rather than engineers. In my own personal work I have occasionally had answers to technical programs come from completely unexpected sources, from topics I would never had the forsight to have studied on my own initiative.
Your statement is only true for the extremely minute portion of the population that will read *all* the textbooks on their own initiative. It does a great disservice to otherwise intelligent programmers who would benefit from formal training. For example most aspiring game programmers out there might be under the illusion that they just need to read some OpenGL books, maybe some graphics and AI gems, and they are ready. They would never image that the answer to some problem they will run into comes from some boring databases book written in the 80s, or from a microeconomics text, or a psychology class, etc. I emphasized non-computer science but I want to be clear that the "gaping holes" I referred to above was in computer science. The material you cover in a formal degree program is valuable and almost no one has the self discipline to study *all* that material on their own and need the prodding of professors. I did. A friend did not, and he is the rare exception who did not, the rest delude themselves.
I'm a business partner for a internet security firm and, unfortunately, I see it the same way. Personally, I'm self taught from day one. BASIC and DOS knowledge helped me get my first technical job and since then, I've been moving up in the world. Now, I'm "self learning" for Cisco Certs (CNNA, etc) - although I'm doing it right - I have acquired so much equipment to help with my personal goals that when its all on, my home office sounds like a full data center. My wife only lets me use it during certain hours of the day...
The other thing that troubles me is the fact that you're studying computer forensics. This is more than studying habits of people - its where to find files on a computer, how to hack encryption, how to literally pull a drive and mount it on a clean machine, etc. I'm sorry, but I have a little bit of a problem trusting an online course for this type of stuff. Something that sounds as simple as pulling a drive and mounting it isn't as easy as it sounds. I have one machine thats so damn picky, I barely touch the hardware or make major changes to the OS, but I use it as a DB and test machine for home projects... I'd love to see someone attempt to pull that drive and make a copy of it... Wikipedia delves into the hardware argument a little more.
Hell, I want a degree in Mechanical Engineering and the most I'm THINKING about doing are my core classes and I've been researching online schools for awhile because I'm so picky about quality. The only reason I'm considering that is because of my current location - outside the US.
Sorry, DeVry may be a valid school, but its not on my personal lists. One thing you can do is transfer at some point so your degree will actually come from something better looking. When you do that though, you'll probably have to consider taking a few classes over and a lot more classes on top of what you thought was the degree program. Also, when you apply for jobs, don't be surprised if you actually get tested on the skills you say you have. I've been tested on everything from my typing speed to the ability to bring windows back from the dead. In a level 3+ technical support position, its not uncommon to be put in font of a computer and have someone say "theres your error - fix it". Something as simple as a Windows DUN error 691 sounds simple, but is it really the username/password or something else... (I just pulled that out of thin are - thats more of a level 1 question - sorry)