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Big MOOC On Campus: Georgia Tech's $6,600 MS In CS
theodp writes "Next January, writes the NYT's Tamar Lewin, the Georgia Institute of Technology plans to partner with Udacity and AT&T to offer a master's degree in CS through massive open online courses for a fraction of the on-campus cost. Georgia Tech's Online Master of Science in Computer Science can be had for $6,600 — far less than the $45,000 on-campus price. The courses will be online and free for those not seeking a degree; those in the degree program will take proctored exams and have access to tutoring, online office hours and other support. AT&T, which ponied up a $2 million donation, will use the program to train employees and find potential hires. Initial enrollment will be limited to a few hundred students recruited from AT&T and Georgia Tech corporate affiliates. Zvi Galil, the dean of the university's College of Computing, expects that the program could attract up to 10,000 students annually, many from outside the U.S. 'Online, there's no visa problem,' he said."
Such as myself, I wonder if it's worth getting the degree? I'm already a partner at a start-up and a decent coder. Is it worth it?
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. - Hunter S. Thompson
It will be very interesting to see what their retention numbers end up looking like. We've had cheap, modestly interactive, education since 'correspondence courses' hit the scene (examples date to at least the 18th century, with spikes and troughs in popularity over time); but we've had less success getting the results achieved in-person from even the most tech-laden variations.
I already have two degrees from Georgia Tech, but not one in CS yet. For $6,600 a MSCS from Georgia Tech is a no brainer.
I'm not sure from a cursory glance at the program description, but this seems to only involve courses? My perspective of a Master's is that courses are really just a tiny slice of what you do. Research and synthesizing that research into papers and/or a thesis is what really makes it different from undergrad courses. Maybe it's antiquated, but I wouldn't consider the two on equal footing because it's rather easy to go through a bunch of courses without really getting deeply familiar and involved with anything.
How can they make sure a remote participant does not cheat during a test? Mandatory spyware?
Sorry, folks, but no Master's in CS is worth $45,000, and certainly not from Georgia Tech when better schools offer the same for half the tuition (Univ. of Texas comes to mind), and regional schools for a quarter of this. This seems to be nothing more than a marketing ploy to show what a good "deal" you could get if you went 100% online while at the same time inflating the quality of the on-campus program at Georgia Tech.
8 times cheaper for awesome HR bypass material? Count me in! Even if you have a job now, a CS from a pretty well regarded school could give you leverage for a better salary.
Somebody please *please* hear this message before it's too late. Too many bright foreign students who get into top notch schools are denied visas. I've seen this happen first hand multiple times at a good school. Politicians can debate visa allocation as much as they want in general. But when MIT (or some other top notch school) accepts someone can you please just give the kid a visa? Oh, and not kick him out when he graduates? Because if not, then your protectionist strategy creates a market for programs such as this one, which is a hundred times worse than the scenario you are trying to prevent.
Master's degree. You will have already dropped $100k on your 4-year degree before ponying up another $6k for this one.
Only idiots pony $100K on a BS/BA degree. Even when college prices have ballooned since 2008, the previous statement still remains true. $6K for a MS in CS, hell even $12 or $20 is still worth it, considering that, in the hands of capable professionals, a MS degree will pay over itself for the life of one's professional career.
It's a $7000 MA for people hand-picked from Georgia Tech's corporate partners, funded by the $2 million dollar donation from AT&T. So, assume that's covering a large chunk of the cost. The press release says that it's "initially" expected to be under $7,000.
So if you actually want the degree, it's currently not available to everyone, and it's eventually going to be more expensive.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/05/15/023234/georgia-tech-and-udacity-partner-for-online-ms-in-computer-science
Georgia Tech and Udacity Partner for Online M.S. in Computer Science
Nothing different, except this time an NYT article that references the same?
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
This makes some sense. Nearly all Fortune 500 companies offer some type of personnel training in the form of "University", aka Disney Univeristy, Oracle University, Cisco University, P&G University, etc... is typically what they are called. And if I recall can cost upto $2K (internal overhead) per course which lasts 2 weeks on avg.
"Off shoring" the corporate training basically to Academia removes the overhead costs and the companies can reducing training offerings as needed (during layoffs for instance). As for Academia, they would like to have the funding of this extra private money and will legitimize smaller schools that want to compete against the big dogs (Ivy, big state universities). Somewhat of a win-win short term, BUT will push training responsbility off corporations to individuals (we all might as well be contractors) and schools will push what businesses want rather than trailblazing or going against the status quo, as basis for a free thinking environment. Hence long term this is is likely bad.
I have two masters degrees (quant/stats and MBA), work in software development for 10+ years, and have been debating either getting a masters degree in CS or a law degree in IP in the next year or two. When I read this article, right this very instant, I realized it would be more profitable in the long run to get a law degree than to get a CS degree.
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
for some IT jobs 4 years is overkill and for some parts of IT CS is not the right fit vs more of a trades fit.
IT needs an trades / apprenticeship system or some kind of badges system.
in IT, the 4 year process doesn’t work for some, especially those who have learning disabilities,” “The older college system is not for all, and some people learn better on their own. It’s an antiquated system, especially in IT.”
“Schools that are based around 2 years of intensive, hands-on IT training are much better equipped than those spending on English or composition classes. That’s how you can be more flexible and keep up with the industry. Even awarding badges would make the system more relevant.”
some of them are no credit and do not lead to a degree. Or some may only count in as part of big block of classes that when you drop in / take as on going learning.
Also some stuff just leads to vendor certs but why can't we get away from degrees or have some kind of equivalent experience system that you can put down equivalent experience to X degree with not being said to be lieing about having X degree
if you're choosing between 20 freshly minted CS master degree holders (theroy loaded classes) and 20 say people with 2-4 years tech school degrees (classes with more hands on work) and experience
Learning new skills should be some kind of badges system not the old school system.
I know this sounds lame but Masters Degrees helped me draw higher pay. MBA my salary rose by 40% same company, Engineering another 20% new company, stuck it our for 1.7 years and my salary rose by another 25% -now I've breached six figures in non trivial way with options and decent bonus on top of the nice base. Although I think degrees are over rated especially from big name programs, I still can't argue with the financial results. At $6k or $7k -a Masters in CS sounds like a steal?
Wonder if any of the veterans on /. truly believe the extra letters and relatively cheap out of pocket expense would somehow hurt their careers or bottom lines. Most IT workers (managers and line coders alike) spend ours studying and techniques anyway. If you can get a few extra letters and more long term for a small outlay of $6k why wouldn't you???
Even if you thought the degree added little to the field of CS overall, it's impact on a programmers earning power seems like it would be real enough on a cost vs benefit basis... And god forbid a decent programmer actually made it into management and actually helped fix what ails many organizations' IT/Business relations (ie a sane use of technology to advance business instead pet projects not worth the 8.5x11 powerpoint page used to write 'em up)...
IT test needs to be more hands on based or graded not on all multiple choice but some kind of skill test.
I've been there and done that. The start-up almost surely won't last forever. Even if it does, you won't want to work 55 hours a week while your baby is waking you up at 3AM. At some point, you'll probably want a nice 8-5 with good insurance and time off. When that time comes, you need letters behind your name.
I had all of the other credentials. I have seventeen years of full professional experience. I'm an Apache contributor. At one interview, the interviewer asked me if I had experience with Debian, as that was their preferred distro. I asked if he'd seen that morning's Debian security update. He seen it and applied the update. My name was on that Debian alert, I discovered the security issue all Debian users were alerted to that morning. I didn't get the job. Put letters at the end of your name while you can.
Indeed. I work closely with Open University as we extend the software they use (Moodle) to work for our students at the Texas A&M System. Until this year, people would travel from all over the world to attend our firefighter school for twelve weeks. Now, all of the classroom part is online, so they can either come to Texas for just six weeks, or they can do our online classroom and then do field exercises in their home area.
We're rapidly expanding the capabilities of the software system it all runs on and trying to change the mindset from "correspondence" or "online book" to instead be a rich interactive experience. The students interact with the course content, with each other, and with an active instructor.
The blurb says 'Go ahead, take the courses online, $6600, work hard and get a degree'. The reality (when you read the site) is that online courses won't be available for over a year, if you want to be accepted to the program, you have to go through a rigorous application process, including multiple references from people, full documentation from post secondary institutions, and a highly regulated, process to allow entry to the program (there is a massive chasm between the blurb and the apparent reality). There is even stuff on the main site about 'even if you don't have a BSc in CS but a degree in something else, go ahead and apply anyway, whereas the actual application insists that you meet all prerequisites, that all payments must be prepaid, and it seems you face a very rigorous, highly discriminating process.
That's fine for trade schools, but worse than useless for real schools.
Required reading for internet skeptics
There are a lot of junk online courses out there. A lot of them are simply videos of lectures, repurposed as "online courses". Stanford does a lot of that. Their original machine learning class was like that, and it is painful. Especially since the instructor's blackboard writing (yes, it's video of a real chalk blackboard) is messy. This in a field which has its own unique (and not very good) notation.
Khan Academy has courses which consist of a color etch-a-sketch display of the instructor's writing plus a voice-over. I viewed the lectures for forces and torques recently. The instructor had clockwise and counterclockwise reversed, used a multiply symbol where he needed an add, and went from talking about a body in free space to one pinned at a pivot point without mentioning that he'd shifted. Not only is the production value very low, nobody is reviewing that stuff, or even proofreading it.
MIT's course on rotating electrical machinery is basically the class notes from a course. There are a few drawings, then endless math derivations. You don't get the labs online.
I've seen some good online courses, but most of this stuff is a low-budget conversion of old lecture and notes.
As someone who has taken a biology class at Georgia Tech, I can assure you they do teach about evolution.
The newest entrants may have never experienced a down part of the cycle. Employer get picky about credentials then. A college degress is usually always a requirement.
I've noticed a lot of wholes in MOOC course topics. However, at least half the courses seem to be in the computer sciences. So it would be likely that would be the first dsicipline to have complete curriculum.
I have two sisters with Masters degrees. One went the fairly traditional route of 4 years for an undergrad degree, a decade or so in the work force, then another decade or so working on her Masters at a traditional institution as time and budget permitted. She finally completed her degree shortly after she turned 40. She has been working as an globe hopping industrial trainer, author, and project manager all along.
My other sister took about 20 years to complete her undergrad degree and another 4 to complete her Masters' in non-profit administration online. She is now the director of a small non-profit organization that trains dogs as companions/ assistants for people with various physical disabilities.
While my younger sister would concede that the MOOC does have some disadvantages when compared to the more traditional model, she chose to go that route because it was (a) cheaper and (b) was something that she could largely adapt to her schedule.
Neither one of my sisters felt it was necessary or beneficial to be buried in a Masters' program for 24 hours a day, though. I think that's a model that may fit well with particular areas of study. I certainly don't think it's the only model that works.
I'm not sure what the benefit is of a degree that somebody takes over several years while she's working.
For some jobs, particularly in the sciences and technology, the degree gives you information and understanding you need to do your job. But if you're already working in your profession, what else do you need?
I realize that in some professions, like teaching, an advanced degree is high regarded for promotions and pay increases. I'm not sure whether that's just credentialization for its own sake or whether they become better teachers after a masters' degree.
Again, I'm not sure what benefit a masters' in non-profit administration has. I've met people with degrees in non-profit administration. It sounds like they studied MBA-style case histories to better understand how non-profit organizations work.
I'm not sure why people get these degrees and what the purpose is. Traditionally, people learned by meeting regularly in small groups to have discussions. You can supplement that with books and technology, but I wonder whether you can accomplish the same thing if you take away the face-to-face meetings in small groups. In a university, you can read a book or article and walk down the hall to talk to the professor who wrote it. Can you do that online? Is an online discussion with a low-paid temporary teaching assistant the same as a discussion with a professor?
This MOOC is supposed to give you a master's in computer science. Is that a testable hypothesis? Do CS students get specific knowledge in their masters' programs that you can test for? What do you learn in a CS master's anyway?
I've heard of people using their master's to develop some project, like a robotic device or a computer-assisted tool. Some of those projects take advantage of a university machine shop and other hardware resources. Some people develop a technology that they turn into a business.
Can you do that online? I don't know. Education is prone to fads, and most of them don't work out. What are the goals of a masters' program in computer science? What are the goals of this masters' program? How will they evaluate it? Will they evaluate it? Is this a real masters' program, or have they just selected everything that they can do online and tossed out everything that they can't? Is there something missing? Are they missing the point of a masters' program?
I wish the NYT had gotten into that. I'll have to read it in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
I notice from the NYT story that the projected profits are $240,000 for the first year, and $4.7 million for the third year.
Do these people have enough integrity to say, "I don't care about the $4.7 million. This program isn't working. It's not as good as a regular masters' program. We have to shut it down."
Does anybody have enough integrity to turn down $4.7 million profits when they realize a project isn't working?
Proctor, a variant of the word procurator, is a person who takes charge of, or acts for, another. The word proctor is frequently used to describe someone who oversees an exam or dormitory.
There is no GRE required, but a BS in CS or related field is needed for the degree program.
Dude, this is Slashdot, people here will never ever agree that getting an education can help your career. Around here, the mythology is that super-genius programmers don't need any education at all, and anyone who isn't a super-genius programmer can go to hell because they don't fit into the mythology.
As for me, my name-brand expensive education was hands-down the cheapest cost-per-value thing I've ever purchased by a long shot.
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