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Comment by CryoLogic | Hacker News Reader

There is very little a MS in CS can teach you that a BS in CS with some free time and books can't pick up. Look at this list from UChicago: https://masters.cs.uchicago.edu/page/12-course-ms-specializa...

Basically your masters program is giving you a choice of 9-12 courses split between:

1. Algorithms .

2. Your choice of a primer in Java, C, Python or Swift .

3. Databases, Compilers, Networking, Comp Arch, Functional Programming OS, Distributed Systems .

4. IoS, Product Management, UX, Intro to Software Engineering, Advanced C++, OOP, Android Dev, Web Dev Etc. etc.

I really don't see anything on that list that is worth paying for a years worth of classes for. Half of that list you already take in undergrad, and the other 40% you should be able to pick up with a book and basic experience and not need a class.

Maybe 10% of those classes you would be at an advantage in the classroom?

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Graduate courses are geared towards research and the generation of knowledge instead of just a consumer. It's probably the biggest difference most students don't get. Yeah, you can look up anything that someone else has done before but what something original that you can add?

You mean like an NPM package??

If you view CS education as merely credentials to obtain a job, and if you view the job as stringing together NPM modules and libraries to bang out simple CRUDs and websites, then in fact the CS MS degree is entirely in the piece of paper (the education itself has no value).

As is the case with the BS, you can learn all of the material from books and papers on your own without having to shell out thousands of dollars to a college.

The real money quote, though, really applies to both BS and MS degrees:

> I believe that the purpose has, in some ways, shifted to be a cash cow for the university in question.

Universities as a whole shifted their business model to focus more on revenue. This is a multi-decade trend that many people have discussed, and are currently debating in the context of the massive student loan bubble.

>>Graduate courses are geared towards research

Nope, only PhD courses. In the US, Master’s programs are widely understood to be “professional” programs, i.e. geared towards private sector.

There were no PhD courses when I was in grad school. There were grad and undergrad courses. The advent of online MS has turned it into professional programs.

This used to be true in the U.S. It's increasingly less so. That's true in a general way for all Master's programs.

Bachelor's degrees are mostly focused on covering all the general stuff that no longer gets taken care of in high school, plus a couple of semesters of consuming the basics of your degree program. The Master's is basically an intro to research + some deeper dives into focused topics.

I think the article is accurate but not particularly useful. The value of all degrees is dropping over time as degrees inflate. It's not specific to comp sci. It's a reflection of our incredibly shitty primary education.

Universities simply don't have a choice. They can't keep the standards of admission they had 20 years ago, let alone 50. They just won't have any students at all. And each link up the chain of education has to pay for the sins that came before. High schools have to deal with kids who can't read. Colleges and Universities have to deal with kids who can't write. Grad programs have to deal with kids who don't know wow to research, and PhD programs have to deal with people who don't know how to produce new insight.

There are some exceptions, of course. But it's a problem the entire academic system is struggling with very badly right now.

You people need a European style masters, which require a Bsc in CS (or closely related like math/physics with a CS minor). Such masters are 2 years of study to prepare you to start a 4-year PhD program (so the Bsc-to-PhD route is 3+2+4 years).

That’s the case for most American CS masters; the linked one is specifically for people without a bachelor’s in the field and is by far the less common type (though generally the American bachelors is 4 years, and the American masters is 1-2 years depending on the program and how many classes at a time a student is willing to take).

The program seems aimed at folks without a CS undergrad.

It is, explicitly.

Source: BS from UChicago

Yes, one of the main functions of a masters degree program is to help people who majored in something else change careers mid-life.

Agree. Some seem more geared for people who majored in it in undergrad, while professional degrees seem more forgiving on background.

I intend to start a masters degree a few years after I graduate. My reasoning is that some of the more formal ideas are easier in a classroom setting and it's good to be part of the community that develops around a university. I think there are networking opportunities in places like that which don't exist in the cooperate world.

I suggest you do both. Apply to work and grad schools at the same time, as a hedge.

Yes, that's how I intend to pay for it. The company that I'll work for after graduating has education benefits.

> There is very little a MS in CS can teach you that a BS in CS with some free time and books can't pick up

Well... let's be realistic - this is true of undergraduate CS work, too. If you're going to college to learn how to program computers, you're probably going to be disappointed - the point is more access to experts in the topics who can check your work, offer guidance, and help you get unstuck if you get stuck.

there's a difference between a MS thats aimed at people who have BS in CS vs those that don't.

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