Big MOOC On Campus: Georgia Tech's $6,600 MS In CS 163
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."
Returning start-up drop outs? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is this accreditation of corporate training? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Why Not? Would it hurt or help long term salary? (Score:3, Interesting)
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)...
Re:Returning start-up drop outs? (Score:4, Interesting)
Being a decent coder has little to do with CS. It's a very valuable skill in its own right, but quite different.
Very true. Unfortunately, many employers haven't a clue what the difference is. I see too many jobs ads looking for a CS degree when what they want is a good programmer. They end up with a CS major who hasn't a clue how to design or write good code. Or vice-versa, they get a programmer to do software engineering and wonder why they end up with a crap program that doesn't meet their needs.
startup won't last forever, get letters behind nam (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Returning start-up drop outs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, so data points - at 900k that was a decade ago - say ~'03? (I think @ 300k I joined somewhere in '99?) Maybe we can create a chart, I think it would be interesting... (and I'm sure the /. mods have all that info but am wondering if they would find it as interesting to divulge...)
Crap online courses (Score:5, Interesting)
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.