
Georgia Tech to Offer $7000 Online CS Master's Degree - mhb
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/14/georgia-tech-and-udacity-roll-out-massive-new-low-cost-degree-program
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tych0
To be honest, this doesn't seem like a great deal, unless you're the sort who
wants that piece of paper validating your existence. Classes for an MS (at
least in my experience at a top-10 US university) are not particularly more
valuable than classes in undergrad.

Where you really learn a lot is from your peers, which you wouldn't be able to
do in an online course. Debates at lunch, in reading groups, and at the bar
all made me a _much_ better CS geek and programmer than any course I took. In
fact, I'd go so far as to say I didn't learn much at all in the classes.

This is nothing against the classes, the profs did a good job and prepared
well (for the most part), it's just that the sheer volume of knowledge
inflicted on my by my peers couldn't have been in a lecture 3-5 hours a week +
some homeworks.

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gtCameron
The piece of paper isn't to validate your self worth, its to validate to your
prospective employers that you are worth more money.

My quick Google search pegs the increase in starting salary going from BS to
MS at $18,200 a year [1]. Being able to make that leap for $7k seems like a
pretty good deal to me.

[1]
[http://www.naceweb.org/Press/Releases/Payoff_for_Master_s_De...](http://www.naceweb.org/Press/Releases/Payoff_for_Master_s_Degree_Evident_in_Starting_Salaries.aspx)

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michaelochurch
I don't disagree with you. I have no idea how the market will react.
However...

PhD admissions are highly selective, and terminal MS programs are highly
expensive. The Master's degree means you were either a top student (able to
pass PhD admissions) or independently wealthy and probably packing serious
connections.

When it no longer means that, is it still going to provide the salary bump?
Quite possibly, yes. I wouldn't call it guaranteed, though.

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gtCameron
One of the most interesting things about how they are handling this is that
they claim they are not lowering admission standards, they are just allowing
people who meet those standards but can't participate in the regular program
due to having a full time job, inability to move to Atlanta for 3 years, or
whatever the reason is.

It will be interesting to see how the market reacts to this degree. Will it be
regarded as a masters degree from a top 10 program, or will it be seen as a
cheap online degree that doesn't hold the same esteem?

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vyrotek
Yesterday's thread: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5709445>

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datalus
If wonder if the degree will note that it was online vs on-campus.

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leishulang
let the online phd begin....

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michael_miller
An online PhD would be much harder to do in a large scale. The first part of a
PhD is (essentially) a masters degree. That part, as evidenced by the article,
could be provided in a MOOC-style format. The second part of a PhD is doing
research with an advisor. You meet with your advisor every week, and he guides
you through a research project. Unfortunately, this type of 1-1 interaction
doesn't scale, so doing an online version of a PhD would offer comparatively
few benefits compared to doing it in-person.

~~~
michaelochurch
I have a different take on that.

Some PhD students meet their advisors once a week. Some see them once a year.
What's different about a PhD vs MS is the expectation of a unique, individual
contribution to the field: something that's never been done before.

Many people can learn existing material on their own, but very few people can
get to the frontier _and deliver something the field considers important_
(noting that what's considered important is often subject to fads and
political trends that one needs social access to know where things stand) on
their own.

It will be interesting (and exciting) to see whether we can democratize
education up to the MS level.

Here's the real question, though: once we train people up to be strong
computer scientists, what are they going to _do_ in a world where priorities
are set and work is defined by mediocrities? Is just knowing more going to
give us the power to outperform them, or is it just one of many steps?

