

Ask HN: Georgia Tech CS Masters (udacity) vs. a "Hacker School" - armenarmen

I&#x27;m considering both options and would like to hear other people&#x27;s experiences with either. Thanks!
======
orware
Well I guess my question to you would be, are you working currently as a
software developer?

In my case, I'm working full-time and none of the Hacker Schools are close by
and I wouldn't have the opportunity to take any of them on full-time as most
of them require.

I think it would be a wonderful learning opportunity and would be really cool
to do, but realistically having to leave my current job to go to one of them
wouldn't be a good choice for me.

I applied to the Georgia Tech Masters program back in November/December and
heard back from them in late December/early January.

I didn't end up getting into the first semester that started in January, but
they did give me the option of starting in either the Summer or the Fall and I
chose to start in the Summer, which means I should be taking my first classes
in May.

To me, this works out a lot better because since it's online I'll have a bit
more freedom to be located where I am and still hopefully get to learn a lot
of cool new things. Plus there's that additional benefit of having a Masters
degree at the end of the process (I work for a college and to teach any of the
Computer Science courses you have to have a Masters degree so if I ever want
to do a little teaching in that department I'd have that opportunity to do so,
since my day job is in the IT Department).

If you have any questions on how applying for the Georgia Tech program has
been I'd be happy to answer as many of those questions as I can as well!

~~~
OWaz
I have two questions: What was your motivation for applying to the masters
program and what will be your specialization?

I didn't get my undergrad in CS (instead it was Information Systems) and I
feel as if there's a whole body of knowledge regarding programming that I'm
totally ignorant of. I've started to think about attending some undergrad CS
courses at the local University here and applying to the Georgia Tech program
when I'm ready.

~~~
orware
Sorry for the delay, the wife took the little one to go watch a movie in the
park and I took my mom to go watch Divergent :-).

I would say my primary motivation was simply the cost of the program (at the
estimated $7000 they've mentioned) and the fact that it didn't require any GRE
scores to be submitted, which was a plus for me since I haven't taken the
test.

I've been looking at a bunch of Masters programs over the past 4 years or so,
mainly online ones since we don't have any local universities I could go to in
person for a technology related degree, but all of them have been in the
typical $30,000 range or so for the cost of the entire program and in my
current position there's absolutely no financial benefit to getting a Masters.

I've been debating about getting a Masters in Business instead (since that's a
local degree that is offered at a small university extended campus) but I'd
definitely prefer the Computer Science route and the Georgia Tech program was
the first one that really sounded like something I wanted to do.

As far as specialization, right now I'm thinking of sticking with something
I'm at least somewhat familiar with so the Databases and Software Engineering
one sounds like a good bet, but the others could definitely have something I
might enjoy too so hopefully I'll have the option to explore one or two of the
others as well.

While I started in CS for a year (and at least go a decent basic foundation in
programming), my degree is also in Information Systems. I definitely share
your feeling like there's a whole lot I still don't know that I missed by not
fully completing the Bachelors in CS, but I think so long as you've been in
some sort of development role these past few years, I believe that experience
will be helpful and also allow you to directly apply what you'll start
learning in the Masters program, which is another exciting aspect for me (one
of the lame things in college before you really get out into the workforce is
the issue of relevancy and doing things that actually matter...but when you're
already working and then end up start a program like this I think the results
are a whole lot better because you're able to apply things right away if
you're already doing similar work).

~~~
OWaz
Thanks for the response. I'll make sure to ask you after your first semester
how the class went.

