Life After OMSCS | 4 Things I Didn't Like About my Online Computer Science Program | Georgia Tech
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- Опубликовано: 24 июл 2024
- In this video I review four things that I had a bad experience with during my time in the OMSCS program.
TOC:
Introduction: 00:00 - 00:50
Lack of Synchronous Interaction: 00:51 - 01:37
Course Lecture Videos Are Too High-Level: 1:38 - 02:19
Sink or Swim! You're In the Deep-End With OMSCS: 02:20 - 04:07
OMSCS Advising: 04:08 - 06:55
Conclusion: 06:56 - 07:30 
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Thanks for the honest review of the OMSCS program! I'm on my first semester taking CS 6400 and I agree with you that lectures are too "big picture" rather than going into the specifics. I don't come from a CS background either and find myself googling information or watching youtube videos with a more thorough lecture.
Great info! Thank you very much.
Great video! Most top schools are similar in-person as well. High level lectures on complicated topics. And then the students figure out rest on their own. Rely on piazza etc. Only difference is access to TA/Prof. office hours which is in person but even those are crowded sometimes. However, they only admit the smartest kids and it is not a problem for most.
But that's a huge problem though! At mid-tier schools (Schools ranked 30 - 100), I believe that students learn a lot more. Personally, I started with OMSCS and I disliked it! A lot of what is discussed in this video is why I left the program (there is a reason why the program is only $7000). I am now in the UIUC Masters CS program and I think it is better as the Coursera lecture videos are far better than the Udacity videos. I withdrew from the first 2 courses. Grad programs are actually supposed to teach you something. My father went to a top tier grad school for pharmaceutical sciences.
Hi@@MalamIbnMalam! : ) I'm thinking about applying to both OMSCS and UIUC. Would you please elaborate on how UIUC's videos were better than OMSCS's? Thanks!
@@ZacharySmith89 omscs videos are quite short and force you to look elsewhere for a more detailed explanation.
UIUC has videos that can be quite lengthy and go into more detail.
Beside the asynchronous part, this setup is what post-graduate degree is, whether its synchronous or not. In most cases, GPA requirement not new. Self-learning is also a must, as a graduate we are expected to do more than what is taught to us. I think at the end of the day, just have to remember that is OMSCS is a Masters Degree, and not just any online certificates.
Definitely agree. I don't have on-site campus experience to be able to compare, but I think you're absolutely right that at the Master's level you're expected to do most on your own.
I think a lot of these issues are also present in most traditional in person degrees
Hello, thank you for the useful insights about the OMSCS. Do you think that this course prepare someone to work as a software developer in a company ? Did you gain practical aspects of Software Development through your studies ? How much time did it require to graduate ? I am comming from engineering background and would like to delve into that particular field (SD and CS).
So you need a 3.0 to graduate right? Can you repeat any course or is it either failed or passed? And can you do additional courses to improve your GPA?
Thank you for sharing those aspects. I am researching the questions you answered in this video. A lot of the students are experienced engineers, unlike us, who had irrelevant background and insufficient understanding of the study of computer science.
I will submit my application to Georgia's OMSCS anyway, because I really don't have that many options :) i.e. choosing between stanford's in-person MSCS and Georgia's OMSCS? lol
Besides the difficulties you mentioned, how was the quality of teaching? Were they all like recorded videos or on live? Do you know if the professors are different from in-person MSCS program...I don't want to learn from a bunch of lecturers and adjunct professors with bad ratings.
How do you feel the connection with other student? Do you get to establish relationship or everyone would just be like kind-of stranger even till the end of the study.
Do you find it easy/difficult to ask your OMSCS professor to write you recommendation letter in the future?
thanks!
I am in the program. I feel that the lectures do not cover enough material to do some projects.
Hi Elaina! Overall, the quality of teaching was good. I think there isn't much live instruction going on except for office hours which might happen once a week. So the teaching that does occur is through the projects that are assigned to you, and I think most of these projects did a good job of teaching you the subject material. I always used the omscentral.com/courses website to select the highest rated courses in the program.
I think some of the professors who teach the OMSCS are always on-campus as well, but I'm not sure what percentage are.
You also don't connect with students much outside of Piazza and Slack. Although, I did find a group of students who I connected with through Slack and we continued staying in touch following the end of the semester and throughout the remainder of the program. It's less likely that you'll build a relationship with other students, but it does happen as it did with me.
I never asked any of my OMSCS professors for recommendations, and I probably wouldn't unless they for some reason acknowledged the work that I did in the class (for exemplary work on projects or supporting other students, etc.). The classes are huge so it's likely the professor won't really know you unless you significantly stood out from other students by being extremely active in Piazza and going above and beyond the requirements of the project.
I hope this helps! And I encourage you to use the Reddit forum dedicated to OMSCS as well, as there's a lot of active students in that forum: www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/. It's a great resource for new students.
@@tech_with_moss Thank you very much, that gives me more confidence to study the program. Best wishes to you and your career!
Also, some of the lecture videos and content are just outdated.
synchronous communications during office hours? TA and professors?
I agree with you. The on demand lecture videos are very superficial. These are not enough.
Very fair assessment of OMSCS. I wonder if there is value in someone (Ed Tech?) creating an advising chat bot to help with standard questions (that can be answered by cut and paste). That could free up some advising resources for less routine issues?
That's a great idea for Ed Tech, actually! I bet Dr. Joyner would be interested in that project. Kind of like an Automated Virtual Assistant for general advising questions.
What is the abbreviation of the program, link?
Hi Moss. I've watched your previous videos and they've been really informative. I'm planning to apply for OSMCS in 2021. Do u think the merits outweigh the demerits?
Hi Aanchal, glad you like my videos! Overall, yes. I do think that the merits of OMSCS outweigh the demerits. I can say that for my own experience, but it may be different for other people. For instance, some people will feel that the time commitment of OMSCS doesn't justify the benefits of getting an MSCS, and that really just depends on that person. For me, I think sacrificing my weekends and week nights for several years was worthwhile, considering how much I learned, but not everyone will feel the same. I hope this helps!
@@tech_with_moss did it help you get a good job?
Hey, I do not know if you answered these questions somewhere else, when you completed MOSCS where you hired/paid as junior/entry-level SE? In other words, what was your role in the company?
Hi Mohammad, my role did not change after completing the OMSCS program at my current company, and my current role is non-technical (Product Owner, which is more project management related)
Hi man, I have been watching your video and they are every informative straight to point. Continue this work please. I have a question though, I am planning on getting MS with ML specialization what are your thoughts on Udacity courses since they are the same? I am already taken intro classes from community college, so do you think it is worth it to take Udacity as preparation?
Hey! Glad that you've enjoyed my videos and thanks for the feedback. To be honest I don't think it's necessary to take the Udacity courses in preparation unless you feel like you're lacking heavily in pre-requisites needed for ML (I didn't do the ML Spec so I'm not entirely sure what the pre-requisites are, but I think the classes rely more heavily on a math background than other specs do). When I came into the program I really didn't have any prior programming experience and didn't do much prep work that was particularly relevant for the program.
@@tech_with_moss how did you get into the program without meeting the prerequisites?
I've found that Piazza is next to useless, couldn't even get a single lecture question answered. Had a few positive experiences with Slack, found only 1 TA that was nice. After that it was all aholes for the rest of the semester. I would love to pay more for a bit more "service" so to say. Piazza had less than 1/3 of the posts actually commented on by the teachers. The course office hours is right smack in the morning, where most people are working.
OMSCS : is it evaluated as Masters when it comes to education credential assessment for WES ?
Did you get the answer of this question?
Are the advisors students of the program too? lol props to you for the research skills
Thanks! I believe most advisors are full-time employees of Georgia Tech. I don't think they're also students, like the TAs sometimes are.
Looks like it's been a few years since this video. Has getting the degree helped your career / helped make more money?
I do think that it has helped in my career as well as make more money, but I still had to work hard after the degree to get higher paying jobs and more advanced roles. That is something I probably wasn't realistic about while pursuing the degree - thinking that it would be very easy to get higher paying/advanced jobs afterwards. At least in DevOps and SRE roles, they still heavily weight experience over education.
@@tech_with_moss Thanks for the advice (+ all the videos you make). I'm currently debating applying to OMSCS but not entirely sure. So I'm binge-watching videos about it. I'm also debating just taking 12 months off once I get my Bachelor's (this is my final semester) and focus on finishing a game I've been working on.
Something I have observed with this program is they are not trying to teach as much as possible. It is not very pedagogic. However, there is a desire to sink half of the students. People should be helped to achieve their best. Also, this program doesn't really prepare you for the industry. It's just python coding for some ml/dl/ai algorithms. I am not sure how much the industry would value that. On top of that, some of the classes can cut points from some stupid reasons for not satisfying this requirement or not plotting right etc. The program is cheap for sure. However, it may be a very long effort to get into tech.
Also, I definitely agree that the lecture quality should be improved. They are making millions of dollars from this program. Just to give an example, AI lecture of Berkeley are much better than the one in here.
I am enrolled in the program now (taking Intro to Information Security) and I can attest to the videos not being super helpful (they are 5 years old!). Also, the professor isn't in Piazza or Slack or Office Hours! The TA's run the class (including writing the test questions, quiz questions, and even the projects!). It's so irritating that this is the situation.
I totally agree, Ayana. I had a similar experience with IIS. Not all of the courses are like this but unfortunately there is a good percentage of courses that are. I'm not sure if you've taken any of these, but Adv Operating Systems, Intro to Operating Systems, and Educational Technology were all classes I took where the instructor was very active and interacted with the class regularly (especially during office hours). They were a much better experience than IIS.
@@tech_with_moss ah! thanks! That's good information! I really appreciate all your videos about OMSCS, btw. It is really good to see someone on the other side of this.
No problem! Thanks, I'm glad you like the videos!
Can you tell me where those guidelines are?
These are the guidelines I'm referring to: registrar.gatech.edu/info/petition-faculty
registrar.gatech.edu/info/guidelines-for-preparing-petitions
I also had to clarify these guidelines with my advisor to make sure that they were applicable for graduate students in addition to undergraduate
Do you think that you found the lectures too high level because they assume that you come in with a computer science degree and the knowledge that comes with it? It is really impressive that you got through the program without at least a data structures course at the undergrad level! Most CS masters programs want at least data structures before admission. Did you learn data structures on your own? Great video, as always!
Thanks, Angela! I think in many courses, they are too high-level even for folks with a ComSci background. It does take quite a bit of effort to create videos, so I can understand that they don't want to go into too much detail, but still. I pretty much learned data structures along the way (during OMSCS). I think data structures weren't as hard to grasp as algorithms and their analysis. Queues, stacks, etc., mostly made sense to me.
Thanks Moss for the informative videos, I intended to apply to OSMCS but the application deadline for Spring 2021 term ended a bit early so I missed it, I eventually got accepted to the OMA (master of analytics) which seems to be a newly launched program on edX. I know it sounds odd but could you do a comparison between the OMA and OSMCS (Machine Learning/Analytical track) ? And is it possible to switch from OMA to OSMCS program later ?
Hi Alex! I'm not super familiar with the classes in the Machine Learning/Analytical specialization in the OMSCS program, unfortunately, so I can really only provide a very high level comparison of the two programs in this regard. I took a look at the courses required in the OMSA and the OMSCS Machine Learning specialization, and there doesn't seem to be much overlap. Only one class in the OMSCS ML spec is also an optional elective in the OMSA program. I'm not sure if you could switch between programs and if so, how much of your credits from one program could transfer to the other. It might be worthwhile to ask your question in the Reddit communities for OMSCS and OMSA! Sorry I can't be of more help: www.reddit.com/r/OMSA/ , www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/
@@tech_with_moss Many thanks Moss !!!
It's not perfect, but a much bang for your buck, compared to other Master degrees
There are too types of online curriculums.....either the student has a process of learning already mapped out or the program holds your hand to the point where mandatory class time, homework, and weekly check-ins are a staple. The latter just doesn't work for most people.
wow that's insane! the advising seems to be horrible. god forbid I fall below 3.0 gpa seems like you were hung out to dry.
It was a frustrating situation. But all's well that ends well!
Advising sucks *everywhere* lol
I honestly hate this program. I'm deep into it and I want out.
Do you mind explaining why?
@@fintech1378 I'd like a program with a more in depth look at machine learning algorithms etc. This program is not that. It's really just busy work with a few lectures of the professors recent research. It's a nice program over all but not what I'm looking for.
@@Lou-jf4rl OMSA suits you better?
@@fintech1378 I'm not sure to be honest.
@@Lou-jf4rl I'm in the same boat. I want out but when I think of all the professors I contacted to write recommendation letter for me it bothers me to quit now. The program is not adding to my knowledge at all. I learned better when I forked open-source codes and turned them into cool projects that are interesting. I'm still thinking about stay or quit for now.
It sounds like you got a RUclips MSCS and GaTech just put their stamp on the degree. That may dilute the value of the degree down the road if graduates do not perform. I would expect excellence from GaTech.
This honestly comes down to what class you are taking. There are enough reading resources in the program where RUclips is not needed. It really depends on the how one prefers to learn. In no school can you go to a lecture and call it good for exams. You always have to supplement with videos or readings.
Very true. I am already in the course and really hate it. I am learning nothing. I feel it is better for me to go learn all these things on the internet. It is so high level talk.
@@joyceawesome1705 what was your experience prior to joining ? Did you have a undergraduate in comp sci already or you are new to tech ?
@@sh0kwerm I don't have a CS degree. I was already working in DevOps and ML from teaching myself to code using online courses.
I agree with ArJ. I just finished the program: the real learning is working through the non-public assignments. They are generally very rigorous.
There is nothing special about a college lecture hall that can’t be done online. This is a perfected “flipped classroom” model. The class forums are very active for specific questions or confusions.