If you have significant experience and have taken multiple MOOC’s in Computer Science, you may qualify for the OMS CS. They filter based on admission letter and a variety of factors including the GPA.

I am a Fall 2018 student.

My background: B.S in Business Administration. Some honors pre-undergrad years. Some signs of intelligence and laziness apparent in my transcript. 11 years experience in Software Development.

kathgironpe/awesome-omscs

Everyone admitted into this program have a lot of experience, or have met the minimum requirements explicitly stated here:

https://www.omscs.gatech.edu/program-info/admission-criteria

CS Transcript

Many have planned years ahead of time. Read this post:

Hacking My Way Into Georgia Tech's OMSCS

I have not planned years ahead of time. It was more like a few months for me, and almost done out of desperate need for a change in my career.

This is my mistake. Lack of preparation. Because now I have to read over 50 books and go through multiple courses. I admit most of the courses I took were Discrete Mathematics, DevOps, Android and iOS courses. They are not sufficient for preparation for the OMS CS. You have to review what Quentin did to prepare:

CS Transcript

Or better yet, check this excellent path to a free self-taught education in Computer Science.

Good luck! If you have more questions, let me know.

Thanks for this question. It's been really encouraging for us to see so many people of diverse backgrounds show interest in the new online MS program.

Udacity doesn't control for-credit admissions, but I'll do my best to answer, based on what I know of the program.

Georgia Tech recently updated their admissions page: Program Information - OMSCS

Preferred qualifications for admitted OMS CS students are an undergraduate degree in computer science or related field (typically mathematics, computer engineering or electrical engineering) from an accredited institution with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher. Applicants who do not meet these criteria will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis; significant professional or other work experience with supporting recommendations may qualify as an adequate substitute for the appropriate academic credentials.

Based on this, I'd say someone with your background could get into the program if you have relevant work experience and strong recommendations.

You're likely going to have better odds after the pilot round because the first run will be small (<600 students). Applications to the pilot are being accepted from Oct 7-27, 2013.

Assuming the pilot goes well, Georgia Tech will offer admission to more students in later rounds in 2014. Hopefully, this gives you some time to beef-up your credentials and improve your chances.

As you state, we do not know enough about the program, and it is too early to say. That said, there are two things in the FAQ that raised a flag in my head:

How long does it take to complete and receive a degree?
We anticipate the typical time for students to complete the OMS CS will be about three years, though we will allow for longer enrollments— up to six years—for those students who need greater flexibility.

However, they also state the below:

How does the student workload compare to a residential degree? How many hours a week will students spend on it?
The total workload is the same as the residential program; the weekly or hourly workload depends on how quickly students wish to complete the program.

There are two broad categories of people that I can think of who may enroll for this program:

• Fresh college graduates who can't afford to actually make it to the US, and want to gain a graduate degree.
• People who actively hold a job (or two, or three) who can't afford to take that time off from work to get that graduate degree.

If you are right out of college, and are taking this program, if you take anything longer than 2 years to finish the program (barring any research endeavors, and other such things, of course), then I would question the effectiveness of the program. One of the things that were particularly challenging during my time there was the constricted timeline we had for most of our work there. It was a constant struggle to meet deadlines, to just keep up with the pace, and most of us worked almost round the clock. Why do I say this? Because it teaches you how to work smart, and makes your brain automatically faster in the process. To the extent that when I took up my first job, I could do 40 hours of work in 20 hours, and I had to look for more work.

On the other hand, for the second class of people I was talking about - if they finish the program in 3 years or less, I wouldn't hesitate to say they are on par with the people who complete the residential program, perhaps even better than that.

The other factor that comes into mind is the environment that I was in, and the people I worked with. I can easily say that I learned much much more from the people I worked with, than just attending the classes, doing the homework, or working on the projects.

There's also the fact that you will be missing out on doing any research assistantships, (or potentially special problems), depending on how they handle this for the online programs. Those are obviously easier to overcome if you have the motivation and the inspiration to do so, but that's definitely going to be a factor too.

At the end of the day though - you're learning from the best of the best. GT has among the best MS CS programs out there, and no matter how you obtain it, its going to mean a lot. Not everybody is going to be able to complete the program, and make it to the end. The fact that you make it, however long you might take, proves that you have the skills and the knowledge to be valuable to any company, and it will expand your future opportunities in a very big way.

FINAL NOTE:
This isn't a big factor, though it is something a lot of people consider at this point. To me, it is a good thing that Georgia Tech is stating the below, but keep in mind that a lot of uninformed, brand conscious people (especially from my end of the world) are going to scoff and say "Oh, its not an actual MS CS, its only a Online MS CS." An MS CS is an MS CS, no matter how you take it, but the outlook of a certain set of the populace is something to be cognizant of.

Is there a cap on admissions?
Our goal at full scale is to admit all applying students who satisfy the basic admissions prerequisites and qualifications.

Update: Its been few years since I posted this answer and wanted to add to what happened afterwards and also answer some of the questions in comments.

The program was definitely gruelling, but the material definitely worth its weight. Especially harder courses such as Machine Learning, Reinforcement Learning and a new Deep Learning are worth if you are pursuing the ML specialization (which I did). Coming from a non-CS background, Graduate Algorithms was that one course which really introduces you to the interview preparedness part especially in Bay area and other software engineering roles.

After graduation, I was able to make the switch to a ML research team within eBay and currently working on eBay search and applied ML for Content understanding in Search. The program definitely prepared me for the transition and for someone with an undergrad degree in 2005, this program introduces the more modern literature, and prepares you for a switch if thats what you desire.

I did not utilize the placement support which GaTech provided which is similar to onsite students (via Handshake) and cannot comment on its efficacy, though I know few OMSCS students who switched using these services.

Original Answer

I am currently at the end of my third course (out of 10 courses to be completed). During the early stages of the program there was an interesting statistic posted in one of the op-eds. This course attracts folks who wouldn’t have dreamt of pursuing their further education given their current obligations. For example, I have a full time job with two kids with a home mortgage.

It would have been impossible to take two years off to pursue my dream of doing a graduate program.

I picked OMSCS over other options which offer similar MS degrees due to two reasons:

1. The integrity of the university and their trust in the program to issue a full degree for students graduating out of this program.
2. The quality of the professors and the intensity of the program. I can assure that this is not an easy program with many folks not even getting the admit and withdrawing during the first few weeks into a course.

Last parting words: OMSCS is not for the faint hearted or folks who believe its easy to skate through like any other online program. Just in terms of comparison of intensity, I was part of the first cohort for Udacity’s Android Nanodegree and OMSCS courses are atleast 10 times to even 50 times tougher.

As a student, you work with a rich set of awesome peers from various parts of the world and backgrounds. One of my peer is a NASA engineer.

Good luck!

I am currently halfway through the program (5 out of 10 courses) and studying full time. I am also a TA for Reinforcement Learning this semester.

Overall my experience has been very positive. In particular:

• The material is actually hard. This is not like regular MOOCs where most of the assignments are basic quizzes that you get to retry as much as you want: there are complex programming assignments, papers to write, proctored assignments etc..
• This is an actual GT Master’s (the final degree does not distinguish between online and on campus), and the performance of the online students seems to be on par with on campus students [1].
• There is a good choice of courses, at least in my domain of interest which is machine learning. The program requires taking 10 courses and I can find around 13 or so that I’m actively interested in taking.
• The program is highly flexible due to its online nature: I was able to take many courses while working full time in the Bay Area even though the campus is in Atlanta. It is also really cheap (around $7,000 for the entire degree).
• The community is pretty good and so many students are taking classes that a lot of information is available (eg at OMSCentral).

That said there are of course some downsides:

• Personal interactions are difficult: you are unlikely to make good friends with other students (although you’ll be able to have class-related conversations).
• Relatedly, professors are unlikely to get to know you: the typical class size is around 300 and some classes go up to 650. Besides, because professors don’t need to lecture and most of the grading is done by TAs, a non-negligible minority of professors don’t really engage directly with their online classes (they are still there behind the scenes though). If you ever want to get a good letter of recommendation from a professor (eg if you want to get into a PhD program), you really need to stand out in a major way.
• Although there is a good number of classes, it is still much smaller than the number of classes available on campus. This is not changing very fast, probably due to the lack of urgency (the requirements for all available specializations can already be met with the current classes) and because most of the faculty that is bought in to the program is already providing courses.
• You constantly need to work with timezones, something which would never happen on campus. Additionally, different classes work with different timezones (some are in EST and some in AoE) so keeping track of all this can be a pain.
• All available exam formats involve significant compromises compared to having an in-person exam. So far the formats I have done include:
• Really hard, open book exams: since it is hard to prevent online students from looking at their notes, simply make the exam open book but make it hard enough that not reviewing in advance would still be a major problem (my favorite type).
• Proctored exams with major constraints: these use a software called Proctortrack that basically takes over your computer and captures your screen as well as a video stream of you through the webcam. To prevent you from looking at notes next to you you must always be looking at the screen throughout the exam, which means you can’t use scrap paper for calculations, go to the restroom, or even drink coffee or water during the exam. This greatly restricts the types of questions that can be asked and sadly often leads to shorter and simpler exams.
• Proctored scanned exams. Haven’t done this yet but this is the format used by my algorithms class this semester. Apparently we will use Proctortrack to film us while we take a paper exam, and will then have to scan the exam while still being filmed by Proctortrack and then submit it. Seems like a decent compromise but also kind of a pain.

Overall for me the upsides far outweigh the downsides, and I am very happy to be part of the program.

[1] This performance claim is based on anecdotal evidence: the instructors for Knowledge Based AI claim that the performance and engagement of online students is much better, while I’ve heard that online students were doing slightly worse in AI. Not sure what other classes are like but I’m averaging this out to “about the same” between on campus and online.

This is a very good program, and when you graduate, you’ll have the exact same Master’s degree as on-campus students (your degree - at least at last check - will not say “online” anywhere on it).

Be aware however. If you’ve taken college (or any other type of online courses), this is different. The lectures are pre-packaged videos. Some courses allow you to move ahead and build knowledge for when you might have a busy week coming up next month. However, you won’t get your assignments and projects ahead of time.

In addition to pre-packaged videos (most of which are available for free from Udacity, Coursera, etc. sans any graded assignments or projects), you’ll find it very, very difficult getting answers to questions.

Some professors are great at keeping weekly virtual office hours, however you have to wait until the office hours to “speak” to the professor - in reality, you submit online questions during the office hours. Other professors don’t do office hours, they put those off onto their TA’s. The only other method of getting your questions answered is via online class forums. You submit your question which may in turn be answered by the professor, but that’s very rare. Usually other students answer and sometimes TA’s answer, but in any case, often times the answers you get are incorrect, or several different answers are provided. You must participate in the online forums and answer questions to the best of your ability or get docked on your course participation grades.

If your class involves software development (most do in the case of the online master’s of computer science), you can forget completely about the notion of anyone looking over your code to help you figure out what’s wrong with it. At best, you may be assigned to a project group and may be able to reach out to a group member for help, but they’re pretty much just trying to get their own code to work so they likely won’t have a ton of time to help you.

Thus the reason I dropped out after completing a few courses. My software development skills were rusty and what was taking most people 10–20 hours per week per course was often taking me 60 hours per week. I never adjusted to having hundreds of people in the same class and the mass market for online learning is frustrating for guys like me. Completely different when you’re in a program where the video lecture is live, where you can stop the professor to ask a question, where you are permitted to have direct communication with the professor (or even the TA) and where class sizes are 15–50 people instead of 400+.

It’s very cheap for US residents / citizens to complete your online master’s degree at Georgia Tech - $7k - $10k, and the admissions requirements are not as stringent - especially if you work for AT&T as AT&T working with Udacity and Georgia Tech developed the concept for these online degrees. Just make damn sure that you have 100% of the prerequisites and that your knowledge is current. If you’ve progressed in your career past the software development stage and instead mostly manage developers or you’re a project manager or you’re now an architect, enrolling in these courses will cause you to lose your hair or it will all turn gray.

Otherwise, pony up the money, get your credentials where they need to be, get your bank account ready, and then enroll at Georgia Tech on-campus or find another full-price online degree somewhere else.

I have completed 70% of this degree. Some points that come to my mind

1. Almost all courses are pretty good. You will definitely learn a lot.
2. I feel they are scaling up too fast. There is too much crowd in Machine learning specialization and the courses are always full. you will have to do some other not so interested courses and earn credits before getting into Machine learning courses.
3. schedules are not that flexible. you have 1–2 weeks for a project and 5 days for a exam. You cannot move fast when you want to and some weeks, if it is hectic, you have to work on this.
4. Discussion forms are very crowded, with too many useless posts, every semester. Some classes have a strength of ~400.
5. It seems like they are trying to normalize all courses and bring them to common difficulty level. Due to this, some classes are getting hard for the sake of it. Also, due to all courses being reasonably hard, it will definitely take two years to complete, if you are doing it part time.
6. Cost is definitely not low if you are from outside USA. If you are considering moving to USA, y ou will not get any OPT or likewise advantage, but I think you will be eligible for the masters quota in H1B’s.

Consider nano-degrees from Udacity or micro degrees from edx, coursera, if you want to learn a specific topic. I do not have reviews on them, but they are tempting. Ofcourse, grass looks greener on the other side!

To add to Karthik's great answer, I wanted to clarify that graduates of this program earn a FULL Master of Science in Computer Science degree from Georgia Tech. The word "online" will not be on the degree. It is the exact same degree as the on-campus degree. Students achieve the same learning objectives and learn the same material.

Update (12/19/14): Prof. Ashok Goel (GT) and Dr. David Joyner (GT/Udacity) have a fantastic brown bag seminar about their OMS course here: GVU Center Brown Bag Seminar Series: Ashok Goel and David Joyner

Relevant to the question asked here, this presentation makes it clear that online students get the exact same assignments and are assessed with the same rigor as on-campus students (they employed blind grading, so graders did not know whether assignments came from on-campus or online students). One can infer from this that students who matriculate from the OMS receive the same credential and should be viewed with the same level of respect as on-campus graduates.

I’ve completed OMSCS in 2 years while working as a software engineer full time at Amazon. Also, I have a family with small kids; without my family's support, I would never be able to complete all the courses in 2 years (I have to sacrifice almost all the weekends in 2 years).

In my experience, time management and course selection are the key factors to success. Before taking any courses, I researched and picked the specialization that I really like (Machine Learning) and planned more than 10 courses to complete the degree. Why more than 10 courses? Because it’s unlikely that you will be able to enroll in all the courses you want the most due to the busy schedule and other factors. For example, while working full-time, it’s unrealistic to take two super difficult courses (e.g., AI + ML) in a semester. You always want to pair a difficult course with an easy/medium one or taking a difficult course in the summer semester if possible. OMSCentral is an excellent place to research the course difficulty and obtain useful tips about succeeding in the course.

Yes, it is definitely good.

Reasons:

• In the end you get the very same diploma as on-site MSCS students get (there's no distinction or mention of the delivery mode). So, it is Tech's reputation at a stake, which means you will have to work hard to earn that degree.
• There are some courses that are really easy (minority of available courses, actually), but I suppose they'd be easy for me on-site as well. There are some courses (CS 6210: Advanced Operating Systems, CSE 6220: Intro to High-Performance Computing, CS 6505: Computability, Complexity & Algorithms) that can (and most probably will) make you cry. Try acing those, and you will have no further doubts whether program is any good at all - they will challenge you, you will learn a lot.
• Let lowered entrance requirements not mislead you: it is one thing to get into the program (which is much easier in case of online version), it is quite another thing to successfully complete it (it is equally hard for both on-site and online versions).

I have just completed two semesters of my Masters degree so I am 50% eligible for writing this answer! :P

Now, on a serious note.

It is totally worth it. Its not just about knowledge its about overall development. Overall development includes confidence, maturity, personality, respecting values, knowing about “money saved is money earned” and time management.

Having done my undergraduate from Mumbai University where there is perception of only “theoretical knowledge” (Which I partially agree), coming in USA for masters was a whole new experience. Things I learnt:

• How to apply concepts: This is really important. I had taken a course called Artificial Intelligence both in my UG and Masters. What I ended up doing in UG was just learning a concept and mugging up answers. ( solving some numericals ). But here, it was about learning a new concept and applying it somewhere. In our homework, we were actually given an assignment to develop a game playing agent for Mancala game. How often do you actually make something cool like this?
• How exams should be?: The exams here are very unbiased, and evaluation/grading criteria is totally fair. Its about applying concepts. The grading criteria here is not only on exams but also on class participation, weekly quiz, programming assignments and projects.
• Partial Marking scheme: This concept really awestruck me. So if your first step is wrong, and you propagate that mistake to solve for subsequent step, you get partial marks since your new step is not wrong. You applied right but got the answer wrong due to previous mistake. Awesome. Isn't it?
• Projects: This is the best part of a course. Working on a project with team or individually will give you lots of self learning opportunity and will allow you to research in your topic. At the end of course, you have that satisfaction.
• Directed Research/Independent Study: Its a course where you work under a professor of your choice and end up doing some interesting project/research. This I feel is very amazing opportunity to dive deeper into your area of interest.
• Entrepreneurship/Startup Jobs: There are many business minded students who need programmers to execute their idea and often need them. This is a great way to join an existing startup.
• Part time Jobs: These are also called on-campus jobs and they are fun to do. You are not missing out anything if you are not doing it except earning some penny which you can spent in food or leisure activities.
• Summer Internship: Best way to cover up your loan/college fees and learn about the work culture of US, brilliant minded colleagues and most importantly experience.
• Independent you: Staying away from parents and loved ones is not easy. It takes time to settle. You will cry but you will become stronger. You will learn to cook - Which I say is very important and pretty easy.

Also remember one thing, do not compare yourself with anyone( Like GPA and Job comparison). I bet you, you will find a smarter person than you.

I always say this: Hard work is the most important thing, but you need quite a bit of luck.

Hope this helps :)

Thank you!

My company Gradvine has guided 100s of students to the top CS programs in the world like MIT, Stanford, UPenn, CMU, Columbia, UToronto among several others. Hence I should be able to answer this.

It depends on your course. If you’re from an IT undergrad then certainly yes. If you’re from an ECE undergrad then there’s a couple of things you need to consider but there is a possibility. If you’re from Mechanical or Chemical Engineering then I wouldn’t bet on it

Most MS CS programs will require you to have 4 prerequisites in your undergrad. Data Base Management Systems, Operating Systems, Object Oriented Programming and Data Structures and Algorithms. As a mechanical engineering student, you will be missing some or all of this. As an ECE student, you might have 1 or more of these.

Also considering the competition, there will loads of applicants with CS backgrounds applying to MSCS programs and hence the university doesn't really have a very compelling reason to pick you over them.

If you’d like to shift to CS roles and a career in computer science and related fields you can do one among the following.

1.) Get some work ex in the IT sector and apply for an MIS or BA degree. The job roles can take you into core data science or product development. MIS programs have core CS courses like DBMS in their curriculum which will aid your transition. Also, MIS programs will take you in even if you graduate from a non CS undergrad.

2.) Get work experience and apply to software engineering programs. Software engineering programs are also not as strict in terms of the undergrad background they expect from you. The will allow you to shift to the software sector as well. Hence you can consider going down this path too.

3.) If you have strong research experience or work experience you can apply for Data Science masters degrees as well. But keep in mind that these courses are very selective and will require a strong math background in your undergrad.

Despite the alternatives, if you still wish to pursue a CS degree, then you might still get in. However the university may not be the best and they might ask you to take the prerequisite courses you don’t possess before joining the program. This will increase the cost of your education as it will be an additional semester before your actual program starts. So keep this in mind!

Hope this helps. Do get in touch with us at Gradvine for further queries!

Yes. It gets you an MSCS from a top ranked program. You will be part of something pretty amazing in graduate CS education. You will learn a lot. You will be part of a large community of like people - far larger than you will find at any other MSCS program.

You can be like some of us and actually work as TAs. We have an amazing group and several are continuing to work to make the program better even though they've graduated. A few of us have moved on to PhD programs as well (and I know more that will be).

The (completely unofficial) Slack community is amazing. There are thousands of participants. There are channels for most of the classes (a few have separate slack instances). You can have near real time conversations with other students in your class around the clock.

It's mostly US students, but there are a good number of non-residents as well. You will get a broad range of perspectives. You will make friends.

When it's done, it's most likely you will conclude it was a great experience, like a growing number of us have concluded.

Best part is that when it's done you won't have spent $60k to get it, either.

I’m about a month away from graduating, and I’ve worked full time the entire time doing the program. I think that when you are working and have a family, time management is a really important factor - you can’t pull all nighters anymore, and you have a lot more obligations, so you have to work really hard to stay ahead of schedule.

I found that taking one course a semester while working full time was very doable, even for hard courses. My strategy was to spend the week watching the lectures, and then the weekend doing homework, but you could almost always do everything over the weekend. Each class was typically about a 10 hour commitment per week, with lectures, readings and assignments, but some classes were more. I could usually manage to do this without changing my other life commitment too much - still saw friends, travelled, etc.

The semesters that I took two classes got really challenging, although it was still doable. During these semesters, there were a lot of times where I’d have to shut myself off from friends (wake up, work, go home, study, sleep, repeat) and cut down obligations to a minimum. I’d recommend starting with one class, and building up to two classes once you have a good rhythm going.

Yes you can - this is what my son did and how he did it.

My son originally was admitted to college in computer science and then immediately switched majors and ended up with a liberal arts degree. He graduated in 2009 and there were no jobs in liberal arts. UC also changed their rules so you could not get a second undergraduate degree. So, he was stuck.

While working some low paying jobs, he studied computer science on the side. There is an amazing amount of material available on the internet. For a short time Stanford put their entire computer science program on the internet, and various sites backed it up before Stanford took it down. My son said one of the Indian technical universities had their CS courses on the internet. He also took a few Coursera courses. He learned enough to get a technical support job. He then learned enough to get a developer job at a startup.

OK - so he was in software development without a computer science degree. He decided at that point he wanted a computer science degree. He checked into the graduate program requirements at one of the local universities. He was only missing two courses to start the program. He already knew the material but they needed a grade from a certified school. So he took the courses from a community college and was admitted to the graduate program.

He now has a masters in computer science from a good university. He interviewed with a number of companies that would not have considered him without a CS degree. He now has a job with a well known company.

TL;DR : GT CS > GT Virtual CS > College with a weak CS program

The cost is pretty great, matching in-state hope scholarships and much less than the normal tuition.

The college is probably one of the most tech-savvy around the nation (based on word of mouth with other college students, etc.), so it has a good shot at giving an online-only education.

CS is definitely one of the better choices for an online-only as the CS degree is primarily individual effort, and GT is a top dog there.

Some of the most useful courses to me were group-based however, learning team software development dynamics and learning how to build trust and compromise in face-to-face conversations.
This way of thinking was critical to me in software development internships and full-time work. So that's a thing you'll be missing, however if you can get that elsewhere (do team projects on your own in open source etc., and you'll be more than fine).

You'll have a harder time building a network without face-to-face meetings, especially with professors. That's a big negative. Networking is how you get your foot in the door, then your excellence gets you where you want to be.

If I had to choose between GT virtual education and a community college or an accredited college without a strong CS program, I would choose the GT virtual CS course.

If it came down to money, I would take the loans to go to the actual college, because I would have had no idea what I would be missing out on back then, and would never have gotten to where I am today otherwise.

Welcome to the future! Such degree programs are the wave of the future. In the next ten to 15 years, we will see the concept of a university undergo some fundamental changes. It will no longer be buildings and physical spaces - instead it will be the Internet, virtual worlds, Google glass, and brain implants that deliver focus and brain power.

Georgia Tech is a reputable university that is on the cutting edge. What its $7000 degree program is doing is leveling the playing field. In other words, you don't have to be rich or you don't have to take loans to follow your passion. How cool is that! For an affordable cost, you get world class faculty and your classmates are brilliant minds from all over the world. The quality of the program is no less than a student who shows up for class and heck, you don't have to circle around for a parking spot. Irresistible, wouldn't you say?

There is a severe shortage of computer professionals and what better way to fill the gap? Employers don't care whether you went to a physical location or cyberspace - as long as you can deliver talent.

The only drawback I see is that a physical classroom has its own charm. But with skype, videoconferencing, and social media, e-coffee bars sounds good to me. Kudos to Georgia Tech!

Read more about this program here:
Georgia Tech admits first cohort ahead of online master's degree program launch | Inside Higher Ed

I'm from the first cohort so here are my 2 cents:

• very attentive staff and passionate faculty, OMSCS is their baby and they spend a lot of resources making it work and are very proud of it.
• they are very careful on rigor and keeping things on high academic quality
• some of the courses I took were excruciatingly hard (Advanced Operating Systems, which was just "lot's of coding in C and remembering stuff for the test" hard and Computability Complexity and Algorithms which is "solve a couple of google interview questions while proving their asymptotic analysis in 20 minutes a question" kind of hard.
• having that said, there are at least 2 cure courses (that you must pass in B or more to stay in the program) that are pretty easy if you ever wrote any piece of code in your life (Software Development Process - which is good but all projects, no tests, and Software Networks which was challenging at times but getting an A was pretty much the only option)
• great student community, lot's of activity on Piazza
• most courses have AWESOME TAs and staff. tons of office hours and all questions are answered.
• very, very professional administration staff

I really wish more universities would at least attempt doing this.

I think it really depends on what you are trying to achieve with the degree.
If you are a working professional with a previous CS background who wants to get an advanced CS degree , gain more skills and possibly move up your career ladder, I'll say this program is definitely the best bargain out there. With $7,000-- a fraction of the cost of a traditional master degree, you are able to get a MSCS degree from a reputable school whose CS department is consistently ranked as top 10 in the nation, and you can do all of that without having to leave your work.

But if you plan to make a career change or try to find a job with this degree when you don't have any previous working experience related to CS, the actual effectiveness of this program remains yet to be seen.
The program starts in 2014 and so far nobody has graduated with the degree. The first cohort will graduate in Dec 2015. We won't know how well this degree will be respected until the industry absorbs enough graduates. People might say that as long as it's a Georgia Tech degree, it should be equally respected just like the on-campus degree. Not necessarily, at least for now. While in both settings you eventually earn the same the degree, the selectivity is not on the same level. Their on-campus program admits approximately 50-60 students each year while the online program accepts 800-1000(as of Fall 2015, there are about 3,000 students in the program). Its selectivity is really low--admission is almost guaranteed when you have an undergraduate degree and your undergrad major doesn't have to be CS, engineering or even science-related. GPAs don't matter. I have known people entering the program with GPAs well below 3.0, a normal minimum requirement for you to APPLY almost any of the traditional graduate programs. Besides the quality of teaching, a prestigious degree always carries some level of selectivity. Back in any days a Georgia Tech CS degree can always get you into an interview with any big companies, but guess now what hiring managers will do when the stacks of applications on their desk are all from the same school, from the program they know that carries the least selectivity? ----You will most likely get scrutinized.

So I think whether it's good or not really depends on your situation.

I am an OMSCS student, so obviously cannot speak from on-campus perspective.

I find the online program extremely useful: it has the same rigor, it challenges me, it lets me expand my knowledge. However, there are number of things lacking (due to delivery mode being online):

• Networking: while you are free to discuss anything on Piazza forums, it is really not the same thing as having in-person conversation or some on-campus hackaton.
• Career Opportunities: While there are attempts to make career fairs online-friendly, I still believe that getting a job or internship is way easier if you participate into actual events.
• Courses Available: This is crucial for me. Our department offers amazing courses, but only tiny portions of those are available online.
• Research: if you only take courses, then online option is a really good alternative. If you are into research, then the only viable option is on-campus.

Being a working professional I am glad that the online program exists, as otherwise I'd hardly be able to participate in graduate studies. However, if I'd be fresh out of college - I'd definitely go with onsite program, just to truly experience campus life and opportunities it presents.

So, in my opinion two delivery modes can co-exist.

For me personally, I would say overall, yes. I have an MSCS from Stanford, and here are some of the pros and cons I came up for evaluating the "worth" of my degree:

Pros:

1. Academically, an MSCS is a great way to dive into more advanced coursework. As an AI concentrator, I learned a ton from 200-level courses in NLP, speech recognition, robotics, and even cognitive psychology. My course selections were a bit more eclectic than most, simply because I was more interested in getting a breadth of academic exposure rather than depth. Stanford's MSCS allows you to do either.
2. An MSCS is a great way to see if academia is a good fit without a huge commitment of time and effort. Many students use an MSCS as a test drive of academia to see if a PhD is a good fit for them. When I was an undergrad, I considered applying to PhD programs, and now am glad that I got an MSCS first. I realized pretty quickly that I did not want to go into academia, and it was good that I came to that realization before committing to a multi-year PhD program.
3. Although I didn't personally take advantage of this opportunity, an MSCS is a great way to get into research. Stanford in particular has a Distinction in Research program that encourages students to get significant research experience under two advisors.
4. Many firms, particularly tech firms in the Valley, pay higher salaries for MSCS grads than they do for undergrads. Unfortunately, my future employer isn't so generous :-(

Cons:

1. There is a sizable time commitment to the degree (1-2 years for the majority of people). Each person has to weigh whether that time spent will be worthwhile. For me, I didn't mind spending an extra year in school because I wasn't ready to enter the real world yet.
2. There is a potentially big financial commitment to an MSCS degree. Graduate tuition is higher per unit than undergrad tuition, and most schools don't offer need-based financial aid to Masters students. Fortunately, this can be remedied with TA-ships or RA-ships. I got 50% TA-ships every quarter, so the financial cost of my degree was minimal.
3. Because I got my MSCS from the same school as I got my undergrad degree, I felt bored at times. Sometimes it felt like I was simply spending another year in college.

Overall, the pros definitely outweighed the cons for me. The past year for me was a huge evaluation period. Figuring out what I didn't like was just as important as figuring out what I did like. And even though an MSCS isn't directly relevant to what I'll be doing after graduation, it was a great learning experience, both academically and personally.

The lectures are probably about 15-20% of the time commitment, they are suppose to correspond to classroom lectures but without the interactivity, all of that interaction is conducted in Piazza. Some people I know frontload watching the lectures during the break between semesters to get a preview and survey of the course. Unless the course material is already familiar to you, the lectures just keypoints summary and understanding checkpoints and usually kept at high level in sense of synthesized understanding, most of the actually learning that will be in writing papers, reading papers, programming assignments. Though lectures are great for midterm/final review! Usually the corresponding on-campus class page is a MUCH better indicator of the workload.

Absolutely. When I was at Georgia Tech, one thing became clear fast—it’s not just a school; it’s a place that pushes you to be better. The professors aren’t just teachers; they’re researchers, innovators, and some of the best minds in AI, cybersecurity, and data science. Sitting in their classes, you realize you’re learning from people who are shaping the industry.

Tech is also one of the best research universities in the world, which means students don’t just study theory—they get hands-on experience. Whether it’s working in labs, collaborating with professors, or joining projects with companies like Google and NASA, there’s no shortage of opportunities.

And then there’s the career side. Internships, co-ops, career fairs—Tech sets you up for success. The big tech companies know how tough the program is, and they come looking for graduates. By the time most of us left, we had solid job offers lined up.

So, is it worth it? Yes—but it’s intense. If you’re ready for a challenge and want a degree that actually prepares you for the real world, Georgia Tech is one of the best places to be.

Generally, a Master’s in CS will not make up for the lost years in a high-growth work situation. If you are deciding between getting a Master’s and working at a high-growth engineering-oriented technology company, you generally should pick the latter … especially if you are not independently wealthy.

However, here are some scenarios where you likely SHOULD get a master’s degree.

If you trying to immigrate to the U.S., a masters degree is really worth it. It is very hard to move to the U.S. without first going to school here. Getting a STEM degree from a university will allow you to be employed in the U.S. and on a path to staying in the U.S. (if you subsequently get a work visa).

If you went to a lesser school and you have a chance to get a master’s degree from one of the top schools, it could help your brand. Of course, if you could do this, you probably also could get a job from a high growth engineering-oriented company … and likely the latter will be a better bet overall.

If you are independently wealthy, going to school can be really fun. Living on the Stanford or MIT campus can be exhilarating and introduce you to new people. Of course, if you are independently wealthy, you probably already have a good network and have lots of interesting opportunities.

overall: super interesting growth-oriented job likely trumps graduate degree.

I don’t agree with Siau-Way Liew that the projects are the most relevant outcome of this program. I don’t publicly share any of my projects but still getting emails from top companies recruiters all the time. The fact is, it is the same Master in Computer Science program as the on-campus program just delivery method is online, you don’t have to sit in the classroom. As the professor Tucker R Balch said in one of the threads discussing OMSCS, the content may be even better than for on-campus program or as professor Charles Isbell said in one of his recent interviews, he has even more interaction with online students on the Piazza than with on-campus students that have one or two 1 hour consultations weekly.

Would it help or hurt you? It will help for sure. The program is great. And yeah it will hurt. It will hurt a lot if you take courses such as Computability, Complexity and Algorithms or High Performance Computing or Advanced Operating Systems or some other tough course that usually require more than 20 hours a week to go through materials, books, research papers to complete assignment or project…. You will not get a lot of sleep especially if you take two or three of them together, you may sometimes look disoriented, lost or mad. But once when the semester is over you can go like chandler bing dance gif and no one will judge you :)

A2A OMSCS - Georgia Institute of Technology is an accredited Master's degree offer in a MOOC format as opposed to classroom format offered by a traditional MS, see Frequently Asked Questions - OMSCS

The role of the University is changing especially since most classes can be offered at a self pace. The only difficulty is grading the students and verifing that it is the student's work. This can be accomplished by holding proctored exams that validate the students identity. If the coursework is automated in this fashion, then the Universities will only offer practicums and seminars focusing on practice and research. What this means is that the undergraduate curriculum will change to tutorial system, see Supervision system.

There is more to traditional programs than coursework. Faculty and Students networking is extremely important as demonstrated by MBA programs. If you are planning to do a Master's as a stepping stone for a Doctorate, writing a Master's Thesis as preparation for a Dissertation with the same thesis advisor will save time because a Master's Thesis requires an understanding the current research by taking seminars classes in the thesis advisor's field of expertise that covers the research literature.

I only recommend full-time studies only if you are pursuing a doctorate or if need more training to get a job. The nature of the doctorate is original research that requires being a doctoral candidate by passing the Qualifying Exams and having a thesis advisor.

Certainly, and since CS or Software are probably the easiest graduate degrees to get with a different undergrad major, it shouldn’t require you be the next Einstein on the block.

I’ll admit, back when I got my CS degree, it wasn’t all that common for folks to have undergrad degrees in computer science so there were a number of us in class with varying backgrounds. We all ended up taking various prerequisites based on what we lacked and that added time to the degree but if one can get a master’s, one can certainly take grad CS classes. Just ensure you have the needed background for that class or you could end up in a