This: I had the same opportunity, and help with the tuition. All in all this was challenging but a good experience. Then the question is was it worth it? I think it depends: I had a mostly outstanding set of instructors and took a lot of graduate seminar classes where there was a lot of great class discussion among curious and experienced folk. I enjoyed that a lot. I might be able to get this elsewhere, but I suspect it's rare. For the more project-based classes the structure and added motivation was nice and the instruction again helped make the learning process more efficient, but you could, in theory do that yourself too.

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edit: Another thing is that I had a chance to dip my toes a bit into doing research without being in the PhD long haul. This was also very satisfying: reading papers is no longer intimidating and ended up being very helpful in my area (databases / systems).

Re: classes, yes the basic curricula always seems repetitive for folks who took a CS undergrad, but it's up to you to convince your advisor or graduation committee or whatever that you can and should skip basic requirements and instead tailor your major to more advanced stuff that you want to do.

Agreed. I think there may still be some value in the MS, but not enough to delay entering the job market by a couple years and spend a whole bunch more money.

I'm doing mine right now because 1) it is convenient now with online courses, and 2) my company is paying for it. Credit to HN as well because I probably wouldn't have noticed the Georgia Tech OMSCS if someone here had not mentioned it.

I will enjoy having the certificate on my wall as another accomplishment, and GT is even a halfway prestigious school to have a degree from, but I'm under no illusions -- at this point in my career it has no real monetary value. It's purely for my own satisfaction.

> I would only get a masters while working

Same here. Back in 2004, I found myself surrounded by Indian folks who all has master's degrees from US universities, and here I was with nothing but my lowly little bachelor's degree. Since my employer had a tuition reimbursement program anyway, I went ahead and did a master's program - it was free, and what could the harm possibly be? More education is always better than less education... right? That's what made that Aline Lerner blog post such a gut-punch when it first came out - I had never considered the possibility that somebody could be evaluating me on paper and reject me because I had _too much_ education.

The CMU part-time remote MS in Software Engineering was great, definitely extra worth it if you have your company pay for it. Not sure if they still offer it, they might have shut down the Moffett Field version of the program.

What kind of emphasis does the program have, as an MS in software engineering vs CS?

I believe there were two tracks: 1. real world senior software engineering skills (architecture etc) 2. development manager skills (using principles from various agile schools of thought to build a process that is custom to your team's strengths and needs)

The first year is identical for both, the second year is the specialization in one of the tracks. Everything's very project driven, you work remotely with other folks on almost everything you do IIRC.

Even the application to the program is somewhat similar to applying to a company: take home project, in person interview etc.

I'm currently planning on doing this as a new grad with a non-CS STEM degree, just starting my career in infosec. Seems like an online part-time degree is worth it.

I agree. My employer at the time paid for my MS.

I enjoy school, learning, and interacting with teachers and classmates so my personal value was high even if it didn't mean more money.