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Comment by jbkly7 | Hacker News Reader

This is positive. More quality online degrees please.

You would still have to look into how these courses are structured. A lot of these online courses/MOOCs tend to be heavily watered down, even when they're offered by major universities.

So you're saying I can get an MSCS from a top tier school AND it won't be as hard as normal?

No. A BIG no. Stanford has been offering an on-line MS in CS for about 30 years using videos of the same courses taught on campus. Same tests. Same grades. The degree is exactly the same, on-line or not. Same for U of Illinois. Same for Ga Tech. The word "online" does not appear on the diploma. THESE ON-LINE DEGREES ARE EQUAL IN EVERY WAY TO ON-CAMPUS DEGREES.

Yes, there's a HUGE range of quality in on-line degrees these days. Many of the degrees are sold by degree mills calling themselves universities and cheating the hell out of their students. Almost all MOOCs are watered down subset of an on-campus course.

But the on-line degrees from these top tier schools do not suffer from that.

Yeah - but employers will see online and give it as much credit as if you'd watched a few youtube videos.

Where would employers see online?

the difficulty in a lot of top tier university is usually not the courses but more "getting in".

And if it were any other way, then our field would go the way of the lawyers.

A lot of these online courses/MOOCs tend to be heavily watered down, even when they're offered by major universities

I am curious as to your basis for this statement. Have you done many? Why would a prestigious institution be willing to dilute its brand in that way?

It's not true in Georgia Tech, at least in OMSCS. After you finish 10 classes you will have done 20 to 40 projects and as many exams, in addition to homework and papers.

You will at least have a rich gitHub repository if you go through it. If you try your best you will also learn a lot and make connections.

The advantage of a part time masters is that the connections are of a much higher value. During your undergrad you and all your connections will go on the job hunt. In a part time masters some of your connections will be hiring.

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