OMSCS Open Courseware

OMSCS requires ten courses to graduate. I completed one course (with an A grade) before realizing that, even at a pace of one course per semester, it was not a high enough priority for me to devote the time required to do each course well.

That course was great, though, and I definitely learned some things I'm glad to have learned!

IMO the instructional materials are a small part of the value. The things that stood out to me were:

- the assignments

- the autograding of programming assignments

- giving and receiving peer feedback about written assignments

- learning some LaTeX for those assignments

- having an artificial reason (course grade) to persist in improving my algorithm and code [on the problems taught in that course, I wouldn't have been self-motivated enough if they were just things I came across during a random weekend]

I have taken three of those classes as part of the Online Master of Cybersecurity program. They were all excellent. I can say that the assignments were an important part of the learning experience, for instance the practical experience of attacking weak RSA keys.

I would not let the lack of assignments, tests, and quizzes stop you from trying these if you are interested. At a minimum, they would give you a feeling for what the program/s are like, and possibly encourage you to enroll into the online degree program, which is an exceptional value.

I once considered applying, but I gave up because collecting letters of recommendation was a major hurdle. My academic advisor from university has already retired…

How do you all deal with this?

I’m an OMSCS grad - the dedication to making higher education in CS more accessible is something that really sticks out to me from those in charge (shoutout to Dr. Joyner who heads the program). Although not every course is on the Open Courseware (nor course work), there’s still a lot of good material, and if you like it enough, the program is a nice little side quest in ones journey through computer science.

I was in the very first cohort of this program. I loved it but had to drop for personal/family reasons after finishing three courses. Someday I'd love to jump back in! I highly recommend it to anyone who might be interested.

I didn't quickly find the entrance requirements for the OMSCS program and the other similar programs. I know someone who has an undergraduate arts degree and is learning programming and CS voraciously, but not in any organized fashion.

I would like to get my masters from georgia tech's omscs program but between work and 2 kids I dont see how I'll ever have the time

Very cool, thanks for posting this. I've had a number of colleagues try to level up through programs like this with mixed outcomes.

Has anyone tried the courses in the ML or core CS areas? What'd you think?

AOS destroyed me lol. Video Game Design is excellent. Graduate algo is a requirement for everyone and has great lectures if you're looking for an introductory course.

I really can't imagine that these online degrees have any real value in the modern world of LLM-assited coding - there's no way anyone looking at a resume would think such institutional online degrees still have any value. Perhaps there is some educational value for the student, but even there the only real value is the organizational structure - you might as well form an online study group on discord for free, and get the same learning benefit, just have an LLM write up the syllabus for a course based on a good textbook, no instructor overhead needed.