OMSCS - Online Masters of Science in Computer Science at Georgia Tech

Hi, this is Abby and this is Ariel. Welcome to the Recompilot Podcast. I guess we're back. We're back. Shocker. It seems like we were gone and I know our five listeners are gonna be so excited to hear from us. Sorry to disappoint you. (laughing) Yeah, we'll do a little bit of a catch up. I have a job now. Yay. - Yay. - I did get to really enjoy my time off. I went to Europe. - I think we talked about that. - Yeah, and the Ada Lovelace episode. - Yeah, that was really fun. I did a lot of figure skating. That's one of my personal hobbies. And then I got a job at a company in Virginia, and the DMV area. So now I get to be close to Washington, D.C. I've been to a lot of museums. I got a really cool apartment. - Yeah, I love your apartment. We are in her apartment right now in the view. - So pretty. - Yeah. - I'm very excited to live in a city with public transport. I was previously living in Detroit, which I feel okay saying because I don't live there now. And Detroit's got a lot of great aspects. It does not have amazing public transport, at least where I was. So it's so cool to just take the metro everywhere now. Abby has not driven her car for two months, is it? - Four. (laughing) - Not since I moved here. The metro's so nice. I forget, I think, I don't think we've recorded an episode since I moved as well. 'Cause I moved a bit before you. - Yeah. - Also to Virginia. We live like right next to each other. (laughing) And I also don't like to drive. So we've just been meturing everywhere. And walking, we're kind of training for a marathon right now, but we want to walk in. (laughing) Yes, as much as we can without getting disqualified. So everything is walkable right now. - Yeah, you have a whole plan for a marathon, right? We're gonna, well, our training marathon. I don't think we're doing an official marathon. We're just walking the 21 miles or whatever. - Oh, I was gonna do an official one. - Oh, I didn't know that. - Yeah, I was, that was our new links. - Oh, okay. So I know you have a plan for us training for it then. - Yeah. - Okay. - I have a plan for us training as well as the official one. - Oh, okay. I'm happy to do both. - I was, I wasn't gonna sign up for it yet. Just like based on how our training goes and we could feel it out. - Yeah. - But I think we could do it. - I think we could. I love walking and I feel like we were pretty good walkers. - Yeah. - So this is gonna happen. - Yeah. - Whenever I'm walking on the sidewalk and there's someone in front of me, I'm like, get out of my way. - Yeah. - I've been trying to record on Strava. - Oh. - And it like messes it up a little bit when there's someone in front of me and they're walking slow. But like I understand that, like it's just a family and you're just trying to enjoy your day. But like, I'm training for a marathon. - Mm-hmm. - People should respect that. - Mm-hmm. (laughing) - So that's our updates. - So what we've been doing, moving states, training for a marathon that we're gonna walk. (laughing) And it's cool that we're able to still stay close together. Like we were pretty close in Michigan and now we're even closer in Virginia. It's just nice to have that. - Yeah. It's lovely to be near you and to have such a good friend in the area, especially such a good friend who has a hot tub in her building. - Yeah. - That's really nice. (laughing) - Theoretically, this should make podcasting easier since you could just walk over. - Yeah. - We're gonna definitely do more podcasting. - Yeah. - It totally hasn't been four months since you've been here. We haven't had a court of single. - Definitely haven't. A lot of life has happened though. And I feel like we're finally in a space where we're both like pretty good. - Yeah. - And like I've been really excited about podcasting. I made two episode right up the other day. Just spur of the moment. Like, I've just been feeling really inspired lately. So I'm excited to keep doing this. - Yeah. I think it'll be great. Our five listeners are gonna be so grateful. - Yeah. We have so much in free. - Yes. Ariel, you and I went to the same undergrad university, but we were never in the same class. So recently, well, a couple of years ago now, I started online Masters of Science and Computer Science program at Georgia Tech. And I was having a good time, bopping along, and you mentioned, oh, hey, I wanna start my graduate degree. And I was said, oh, great. Turns out it was the same exact program that you wanted to join. And you didn't know which program I was in as far as I remember. - Yeah, and trying to remember if we talked about this before or not. - But I was interested in it because I had other people that I knew in this program that I worked with and I talked to every day and they kept talking about it. But you are also in it. - Yes, I remember the conversation because you were like, oh, have you heard of this program? And I was like, yeah, that's the one I'm in. (laughing) And that shows how much we pay attention. (laughing) Is that enough you, or? - And in your indifference of that, I was living far away and it was just kind of a thing. - Yeah. - No animosity, it was just funny that we ended up being in the same program. (laughing) - Also, we literally, like I've come across as people that just at random events that I talked to that are part of this program. - It's a very big program. (laughing) So what is this program? It's called OMSCS or Online Masters of Science and Computer Science at Georgia Tech. Forbes called it the greatest degree program ever. - Actually. - It's for students who want a top-ranked degree, but also the flexibility to fit it in around their work and family lives, which is great for us because we have work in family lives. - Yeah. - And we want a top-ranked degree. I feel like they do do a good job in that. Like there is a lot of flexibility just in being able to have a remote program and for it's via a university with a good name, like that's awesome. - Mm-hmm. - They did a great job. So I joined in, I've gotta think about this now, 2023 and I literally joined because I was bored and this sounds like you. I just, I had a good job, but I was living in a very rural area. There wasn't a lot to do. And I was just like, you know what? I'm gonna get a master's degree and this one was the most available and had a very good price point. So I did that. The application was very simple, if I remember. I think I had to fill out a couple of like short essays but they were very short. I remember this 'cause I applied to a couple of grad programs and a few of them required like paragraphs of essays. OMSCS did not require paragraphs. In fact, it wanted you to be really succinct. So I'll tell you the classes that I've been through. I took Knowledge Base Day I first in 2023. That was a great class. I really enjoyed it. But then I had to take a health break for about a year and a half. So I've actually been in the program for a while but I've taken a lot of time off. You're probably someone that's been in the program earlier than most people I know who've been in the program. Yeah, I would expect that to be the case. Nice, yeah. I take three semesters off and two of them were just completely off and then one I tried to come back. I think I tried to take the robotics class that they had. And I just still was dealing with a lot of health issues and just wasn't able to finish it out. So I took a withdrawal. And that has been a really good process for me. I felt like I got a lot of support. I even reached out to the accommodations department because I was really worried they were going to kick me out of the program or something. And they were really helpful. They said, basically, you don't even have to do anything. The program was made for flexibility and this is completely fine. Yeah, that's great. 'Cause they are very clear when they allow you to take six semesters off. The third one, I think you're supposed to just take two and I don't know if you need special permission for a third one, but since you registered for a class and would you permit, I think you didn't even have to get approval for that, which is great. I like that they're just very transparent about that type of thing and you're able to take a semester or two off if you need it. I also took some semesters off just because I had a lot going on outside of school and I didn't have a need to rush to get this degree. So it's just great that it has that flexibility. Yeah, I believe the degree requires you to finish in six years total. So it's a lot of flexibility. Yeah, and there's only most of the tracks that you take are only 10 classes. So that's about 10 semesters if you do them right in a row. So about two and a half years, very doable, very flexible and they accommodate for things like this. So after my semesters off, I took a database design with you. Yeah. That was an interesting class. Yeah. I don't know how much we want to go into it. It was interesting. I think topic-wise, it wasn't the most exciting thing to start off with. Pros, it was fun. We were in a group together. Yes, we did the group project together. We did the group project. You had a lot more free time than I did. So you ended up doing a lot of the project. Yes, this was during the time where I was unemployed, which we talked about in our Abbey Guff. - I'm not sure at episode. - That's right, where you got laid off, not fire. - Sorry, I got laid off. - We need the views. - Yes, the clickbait views. Um, yeah, no, I was laid off, it was mass layoffs, it was fine, but yeah, hell of a time. So I actually took three classes the next semester. I took video game design, machine learning for trading, and educational technology, which I took with you as well. - Yeah. - That one was fun. We had an individual project. So we actually got to review each other's projects and support each other, which is pretty great. - Yeah, I really like that class. I think there's just been some aspects of the classes that I haven't liked this one. But overall, it's just fun to take it, especially with people that I know. And even if we're not always in the same classes, just being able to talk about things with each other, I think really adds to the experience. - Yeah, I think it helps to get perspective. EdTech was really unique in that you did a lot of research. A lot of the CS classes are very project based and very hands on. This one felt a lot more like a rigorous masters program that you might get from like a science perspective or something like that, which I've never taken that. But from what I've heard, people do a lot of research in their masters programs. And this one was very research heavy. - Yeah, and it was to approach it from a level that I think they were very understanding that a lot of us didn't have a background and heavy research of this level. So there was a lot of really great resources and instructions for how to write research papers and find different sources for things. I think that was really helpful. And then we did receive a lot of peer feedback, which was really cool as well. And being able to read other people's papers really helped inspire me with how I could write better and construct better ideas and a better argument for things. So I really liked that. - Yeah, I really enjoyed the peer review process too. It was a lot of work, but I think it was reasonable. It was on the higher end, but reasonable. - Yeah, all of the classes are just a lot of work. I know they build it to be able to do it and it's built for people who are working with a full-time job to be able to still be able to do this program. But I've had trouble taking more than one class that once while working. It's just a lot of the classes, even if it's not this research one, are just very project heavy or you have to study a lot for different exams. - Yeah, I will say it's a good course, but it's rigorous. It is not something that I would recommend if you have a full life of social activities because you will probably be dropping some of those. - Yeah. - Also for the research one, I should say that both of us are avid readers and enjoy writing. So we might have a different opinion on that one. I think if you hated reading and writing, like I would not recommend that class, unless you also hated programming them. (laughs) Maybe it's on part of the rest of the program. But maybe I would recommend the program if you didn't really like any of it at all. (laughs) - I very much agree. I will say the view game design class was super fun. Like that was just fun in general. - You were a game that you made was so cool. - It was so much fun. And I had a huge shout out to my group project members. Normally I feel like group projects are very hit or miss. This one was a hit. We had a lot of fun. - That's great. - And then machine learning for trading, I think you took that class, but I took that as my first class. - Now at the same time, yeah. That one. I would say it's a good course, rigorous, but I don't know. I spent so much more of my time on the other two classes that I was taking that semester, just because I kind of enjoyed the topics more. And just had a good time. - I think neither of us are really into like the stockmar. - Yeah. - I remember that was one of your complaints about it. You're just like, I feel like I can't get into this class. - Yeah. - Those are both very interested in machine learning. - Absolutely. - But I just, it's not trading. - Not, yeah. It just wasn't an interest of mine. And I spent a lot of time learning about the stock market. And there's a lot of really good reading in that course, but it just, I don't know, it's a little bit of a slog for me. - Yeah. - And then this semester, I'm finishing up software development processes. That course, I took because I knew it would be kind of easy for me and I'm transitioning into a new job. So I was like, I need something that's just gonna be quick. I'm gonna be able to do it easily. And I was right. It's pretty straightforward. If you're a software engineer, I'd recommend it. If you want just a nice easy class as a software engineer to get those credits. - You also just really enjoy the project-based classes. I feel like when you just get to sit down in code and even if you have to collaborate with other people, you really enjoy that. As long as there are some what-do-sync group members. So I could see why you enjoyed that course. - Yeah, exactly. It has a group project and individual project and then a little bit of individual assignments. Yeah, it was mostly testing, honestly, which I've done a lot of testing. So I was prepared. Nice. My class plan, I'm hoping to graduate this year. So I wanna do one of the research projects 'cause I have a free credit. And then I'm doing health informatics and cognitive science because I wanna focus on some health research. I'm just interested in that particular area of research. And then you and I are hoping to take artificial intelligence together, yes. Yeah, so those are my classes. The things I like are the flexibility. Overall, I would say the instruction is really hit or miss. But when it's hit, it's really good. Like I found KBI especially, had a lot of good lectures. It was really interesting. I was engaged. And once I got the hang of the projects, I felt like I learned a ton. Some other things I liked about it were the projects because I just like projects. - Yeah, I feel like projects. - Yeah, yeah. If I'm like bored, I could think. It's a problem. - And you're really good at hearing whatever the project is. Even if it's a class like SDP, I don't know if I've talked to you too much about your project. But whatever the project is, like even if it's kind of a strict assignment, you kind of make a way where you really enjoy working on it anyways. Or rather it'd be like a programming language that you really like picking that one or just like with your video game. There were different things that you enjoyed in the design of it. So you just find a way to make it fun for you. (laughs) - I like to think I do. I like coding and I also get bored easily. So maybe I'm a little ADHD. Maybe there's something going on there. - I think you just enjoy coding even in your free time. Like even just outside of doing it for a reason, like for a job or for a class. You just enjoy coding in general, so you don't really mind working on it. - That's true. I think that's what it is. - So sorry to Dr. David Joyner. He is our head of the program. We actually got to meet him. - Yeah, I was gonna say, what are you gonna say about Joyner? (laughs) He was really nice when we met him. - He was, he was really great. He actually recognized my name. My, I think I've told my name before, right? - Yeah. - Yeah, okay. So my last name is Lovelace, which is a name of a famous programmer. Ada Lovelace, of course, we all know this. - He's been recognized. - Yes, so that was really cool. I was in two of his classes at the time, so I think he just did see my name on the forums. - Yeah. - He was so nice. He was really great. - That was cool too, 'cause they did a meetup in the area where we are. So we were able to meet other people from Georgia Tech in the program. So that was just really cool that they would even do something like that. It was nice to be able to meet classmates. - Yes. - Yeah, that's true. That was the first time that we had meet in class, met classmates that we didn't know before. - Yeah. - Okay. - But I do have to apologize. I do have some critiques. But I think Dr. Joyner is one of those people who will accept critiques and leave it. - Yeah, he's so good at listening for feedback. - He is. - And every course at the end of it, and even midway through it, they do these feedback surveys. I think it's very like professor dependent, how much they're going to adjust the course, at least for that semester based on your feedback. I've seen some like correct for different things, and others, it seems like they more take it into account for like a future class. But it's really great that he organizes the program around getting that feedback. - Yeah, he's like his classes are known in the program as being the best ones because they tend to be updated, they tend to be interesting and structured well. So it's super interesting. What's your critiques? My critiques, the main one is that I have ran into a lot of information that just hasn't been updated in a while. I think with the advent of AI becoming so present in our everyday lives, there's certain things that just aren't taught. Like for example, KBI is kind of an older topic. It's very foundational and I learned a lot, but none of the actual techs, I learned would be applicable in a job because it's foundational and maybe that's by design, but I think that the course offerings need to be updated to reflect to the current state of research and information and stuff like that that could really be a great way to improve the program. The other thing is the grading can be so dependent based on your TA and based on the class. There's just such a huge variety. Yeah, I remember when we had the research class that we took, the ATEC one that we were both in, but we were working on different projects and we would both submit papers and like we would get different grades or I guess we didn't really read each other's papers, but we have like a very similar like level and I just seem styled of writing. So just the fact that we'd get like, I don't know, like a 10% different in grades, the time to 15% around there was weird because we both had different people grading it. Well I remember I got like a 75 on a paper. Oh yes, you got like 110? I don't think I remember 10. You got bonus points or something, didn't you? I don't know. I remember when it was. So ATEC, you don't get hundreds unless you go above and beyond. So a 90 is you've done, you've met all the requirements and a 100 is or above 90. Oh yeah, because I kept getting, I would consistently get above 90 and then you just, because we weren't really sharing grades, but you just kind of made some comment about like, oh I bet it's like impossible to get above 90 in this class. Yeah. What? Yeah, and like I wasn't trying that hard. So I really don't think, I don't know, I think it's already. I think it was a little TA based and like you deserve your grades to be very clear. I'm not saying anything about that. Yeah, yeah. I can't use it. Yeah, and you know I did have room to be a better writer. I am a better writer from that class I would say because I wrote a lot. But yeah that was, that's a critique I would say is just it can be inconsistent. I think that's true of all education. Yeah. I do like with the joiner classes, when you take exams, they have the breakdown and the statistical analysis of each exam. Oh yeah, and then they drop questions that have too much variability because they showed that the question wasn't a good test of knowledge. I think that's really cool and I wish that was implemented throughout the program throughout all of education. That would be a great idea. Yeah, yeah, because some of the questions on exam are kind of lengthy and complex and I've had somewhere I could read it different ways and have different responses. So I like that they allow that. Just that feedback and that flexibility and grading. Absolutely. All right, so that has been my story, my journey, some of my classes are real. Do you want to tell us why you joined? Sure. So I always told myself that I wouldn't get a master's degree unless I had like a clear reason career wise to get a master's degree because undergraduate, we went to the same school, going to the same school as you was really fun. I didn't enjoy the record the classes. Yeah, it was just and I got a grade from the classes. It wasn't that. It was just there was so much work and there's so much that doing these types of programs takes away from your personal life, which is something that I really value. So I joined it because I did see it as a way. I joined it at a time where I was trying to move up in my career and move from more of a mid-level position to a senior engineering title. And I noticed a lot of people who had that title also had master's degrees. I noticed a lot of people who didn't have that title had master's degrees. And I was thinking of a situation where if I was put up against someone with a master's degree, it would make me look less credible if I didn't have it. Not that maybe that's the way that it should work, but a master's degree does add a certain level of credibility to you and your resume. So that's why I was looking to join it. I think it did help give me my senior engineering job because of that. I know that's something that they looked at on my resume and they commented on during the interview process, but I think now I'm in it for a different reason because I was able to get it like why I was still in the process of having the degree. I feel like I kind of checked the box with the title thing. But now I feel like I'm much less concerned about titles than I was. And I'm much more concerned about just what do I want to learn from this program. And I have considered dropping it at points just because I feel like the pieces of engineering that I'm really interested in are less of like examining a certain programming language or a certain method of doing something and more of just like the overall way of how you create an idea. So in some ways like when I was looking at this program I also considered doing an MBA because I think that would also be very interesting to me. I love the idea of leadership and having product knowledge and business knowledge, but this program was just much more accessible. And then I also got advice that if you're an engineering a lot of times it's better if you have a more technical knowledge then like a business knowledge and I'm trying to word this properly. Like a business knowledge like if people are looking for someone to promote at a tech company a lot of times the technical knowledge is really valued because sometimes people have the the business perspective but they don't have as much of a technical perspective like that's sometimes harder to get. So I thought that that's would be better for this degree and then also just cost wise, flexibility wise. I knew a lot of people who were doing it. So that's why I originally joined but now I am really trying to look at the classes and figure out like which classes can I take that I'm actually interested in even if it's not like the classes that everyone talks about I was really originally thinking like what if I just picked like the easiest classes like let's just get this degree done? And now I'm just really trying to gear it more towards what I'm genuinely interested in which is probably how you should approach the program but it's just so hard when we have this kind of work being held over us where it just feels like work is something that needs to happen so this is something that I need to do to get further along in my field but just lately I've been really valuing how do I want to spend the time in my life and what do I want to be working towards and luckily for this program there are a lot of electives I've switched my what did they call it concentration? They call them tracks tracks am I right I might be wrong about that I don't remember something like that you you can kind of it's not a major like everyone has the same like masters in computer science specialization specialization yeah I switch my specialization to the AI one partly because you have a lot more opportunity to take electives and I'm also very interested in AI and but I'm more interested in like how it's being used and the ethics behind it and the implications behind it and I think being able to understand it from a technical perspective is going to be a great way to build that further knowledge of it so that was a really long answer yeah that's great but that's why I originally joined and that's why I'm staying nice I like how do you have a journey in there I have a long journey nice storytelling yeah it's kind of funny we're both switching our perspectives in a way where you kind of focusing on a lot of business information and I'm focusing on a lot of the health opportunities they have and it's really cool that it's flexible enough to allow us to pursue the same specialization but have different focuses in it yeah yeah because we're specifically picking our classes around the things that we like and there's just so many especially electives like we had the same specialization so we had the same core classes we kind of need to take but beyond that they have just a lot of flexibility I think some of them that I want to take are some of the classes that I want to take one of them's like an entrepreneur class another one's like a law class and I think it's just so great one of those the cybersecurity ones so there's just so many different areas that you can take classes in that that's just really cool that there's a lot of flexibility and then there's also like not just the two areas that we're focusing on like there's game mechanics for video games there's computer systems compute systems networking graphics like that's actually one area that I was really interested in was the computer graphics course but I just don't think I'll have time to take it one of the cool things though is you can take classes as an alumni you still have to pay for them and I'm kind of cheap but I probably won't I'm gonna say you would be someone who would take classes as well I mean I would who knows maybe I can I can swing it so the company pays me for it oh true because they will pay for upgrading your education. Yeah. Anyways. So what classes have you taken and what have they been like? So the classes that I've taken, I started with machine learning for trading. I thought that was a really good first class because I got a little bit of a dip into machine learning. Like we talked about the trading part, like it was kind of how to analyze stocks so you would get all this data and then apply machine learning to it. It was cool that I had a practical application. I think I just wasn't as interested in that side of it. But I didn't enjoy it. And then I took the data space class with you. Yeah. We're gonna be honest. We didn't love that class. We like working with each other and have me excuse to talk and meet up. Yes. That was nice. I remember we had to submit something. Can I tell the story? Yeah. I feel like I have to say this. I'm just gonna say I had done my part. And I went to bed and I woke up at like 11 p.m. because I go to bed super early. And I looked at it and I was like I wonder if they've submitted it yet. And I went to look at it and it had not been submitted. So I got in a call with our group mates you and then our rest of our group mates and we're like rushing to get this thing done. And we submitted it at 11.59. It took a bit longer to tie up all the loose ends that we were expecting. But yeah it was 2 at 12 p.m. We submitted it at 11 p.m. Yeah. Oh it's so stressed. I remember just being on the phone with you. I'm like have you just submitted it just so you can't be so stressed. I'm like looking at the button. I'm so mad at you. Because they're very clear at like it. I don't know how much they hold you to this but it's very much like if you submit it past then like we will not accept it. Yes. And it marks it automatically as late. Yeah. It's not like you can be sneaky about it. Yeah. That is so stressful. I think okay so our big complaint about the classes. It had this unnecessary group project I feel like. I didn't feel like the group project really. You had to have a lot of web knowledge for it. And we were fine with that. But I think it's hard for other people taking the class that they don't have that background. And then they're expected to contribute at the same level as other people. Because you would also have surveys to rate your teammates. So naturally as someone doesn't have that background which people from the I forget. There's people from other specializations. Yeah. Outside of the computer science one that are able to take this class. It doesn't teach you how to do that type of coding. So naturally you just wouldn't learn it in the class. So it just be really difficult to contribute at the same level as other people. Yeah. Yeah. It was a kind of difficult class to have a group project in. Yeah. And I think too. Just the project just it felt like it was mostly. Most of the work was spent towards making the website versus setting up the the back end of it. Yes. And the point was the back end. Yeah. And a lot of the back end was SQL queries which was great. But the system of the class taught you about like how databases actually work. Which I think could have been more interesting if the project had been more specific to like internals to databases instead of just here's some like figure out how to do this SQL and then put it in a front end. Yeah. Because some of them were pretty complex SQL queries. And I kind of get it. But the class wasn't a SQL class. Right. So it just felt like it wasn't super applicable to the class but it was a lot of work to do the project. Yes. It was. And kind of grateful I was unemployed because it did not feel like a huge lift to me which was kind of nice. I'm grateful you were unemployed. We had to tell her to stop working. The project so much. So the other people could do so. Yeah. I'm sorry. But I'm glad you did. It was like it was fun coding. The front end was fun. And it was bored. Yeah. We kind of had you do like we all shared the core database part that was the important part of the project. And then you also tacked on a lot of the front end work that was less relevant to the class. So I think that made sense. Yep. The other one that I've taken is a tech and we already kind of talked about that. That was the research based one that the TAs just liked me better. I guess they did. So rude. I would recommend that one too though. Yeah. I enjoyed that class. And then classes I'm going to take. I'm hoping to take AI ethics this summer and global entrepreneurship if I'm able to get into it. And what else? Fall. I had knowledge-based AI but we might take artificial intelligence together. If you want to do that one, I'm going to swap it. Thank you. Cybersecurity, introduction to computer law and then software development process. Nice. Yeah. Okay. We'll have taken like half of our course work as the same. Yeah. Yeah. So let's kind of what we were talking about. Like we had different interests and reasons for taking this but a lot of we do have a lot of overlap and then some flexibility. So that's kind of cool. I'm excited for you to take the entrepreneurship class. Yeah. Because I really want to hear what you learn about in that but I don't want to take it. I'm so excited for it. They have this thing where you can't register for two classes over the summer. At the same time you can register for one and then you need to wait for everyone else to do their picks and then you can do a second registration. So I'm hoping it says open. I think it will. I'm just kind of a nervous person and I'm really excited about the class. So I am going to be the little bit disappointed if I can't get in it. Yeah. I hope they let that happen. I've heard that that one's not like crazy popular. Yeah. I don't think it is. Have seats. Yeah. And hopefully it's fun. Yeah. I'm excited for it. So what do you like and do you have any critiques about LMSES? What do I like? I really like the flexibility. I actually haven't taken in online class before during undergrad. So this was my first online class and it's completely online. So I wasn't sure if I would like the program but I do really like the flexibility that you get with being able to take online classes. I think what I don't like is the instruction sometimes feels a bit lacking. Because it's not even like a recorded lecture. It's more like I'm trying to think of how to explain it like a YouTube tutorial type thing. At least most of the classes that I've experienced, the videos are broken up but a lot of times they're knowingly broken up where they're each like one minute long. Like 30 seconds to maybe five minutes max long and then it just goes onto the next section which is fine if you're watching on your computer but sometimes I just like to listen to something while I'm commuting to work. So it makes it really annoying if I have to click to the next one. I can't just like have my brain be on autopilot and it just runs. So I think that's kind of the most annoying part to me and I think as well if I had a question about something, they do a pretty good job of having chat rooms but it does feel like it's harder to have a connection with the professor. Sometimes it I don't know. Like it doesn't, sometimes it doesn't feel like I'm in like graduate program because of that. I just feel really distant from it. Yeah. I've seen that discussion a lot. People will say that it's hard to make connections and one of the positive aspects of a lot of grad programs is the networking opportunities you get. Yeah and it's a lot harder to do that in this online format and it doesn't seem like they've tried to put a bunch of effort into doing that which maybe that's just not a high priority because that's not what they're trying to serve yet. Yeah. I think one thing I thought of too is for a lot of my classes like I said like I started this just wanting to get the degree and wanting to get it done. So I kind of didn't put in my full effort into it but if I'm thinking about what I want to get out of this program then I shouldn't just be contributing the minimum amount for the discussions. If I want more collaboration with people then I should collaborate and I've been working on that. I've been working on signing up for they've had these different lectures that they might do or they'll have coffee chats that they can do where you can interact with people and I think that's something that I'm going to try and sign up for a lot more just so that I can get more interaction out of this program. Nice that's a great idea and we live in a big metropolis in area like I'm sure we could find like more grads in the area if we wanted to really grow that network. Oh yeah we could organize our own thing too. Oh go us. Right so there's a couple of questions I see repeated quite often online or even in our like Ed STEM forums. Ed STEM is a discussion board that oh MSCS uses. So the first question that we've both had is should I get a master's as a software engineer? That's a really good question. question. And I think at least for me, what I would say is it depends on what you want to get out of it. I think a lot of companies look at like obviously your resume and it's a really good thing to have on it that a lot of recruiters will use as a checklist item, but it also does just take a lot of time. So it depends on just what you want. And if the company is that you're looking at or if you're a current company, if that's something that they will value, or if this is just something that you think will naturally provide value to you through these classes, then you should go for it. But it does take a lot of time. I've known a lot of people who consider dropping out. I know a lot of people who have dropped out and not because they aren't brilliant software engineers, but just because it takes up so much of your time to complete these classes. So it really depends on if it's worth it for you. Yeah, I agree. No notes. The only thing I'll add is it's important to consider your life circumstances as well as your career goals. And also what opportunity cost there is. Because if you're doing this program, you're probably not going to do an MBA, but an MBA might be more along the lines of what you want to need for your career goals. Yeah. Yeah, I think for me to try and decide between this and an MBA, an MBA is one where I've heard you need you to get the most out of it. You want to have a lot more networking. And so naturally you would want it to be an in-person program. And at the time I wasn't 100% sure that I wanted to stay where I was located. I wanted to have more flexibility and I felt like an MBA program would tie me down for two plus years. And while it would be something I'd be really interested in, would probably be very beneficial from a networking perspective. I just didn't feel like I was quite ready for it and quite interested in taking away that flexibility in my life at that time. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So another question I hear a lot is I want to break into software. Will OMSCS help? I think it would, but I would stress that it's not in an insured software program. I think it's a lot of building on foundational knowledge already. So if you have zero or very little, especially formal knowledge of software, informal, I mean like you've worked at a company and had a software development position, I wouldn't recommend this program for you. I think there are other things that could help you get those foundations. And this would be a good one to take after you have those foundations. But I, there are a lot of people who sign up for this program that don't have that, like that don't have a software engineering degree or computer science degree. And I do feel like they struggle in this program. And I think you could probably do it. I think it's going to be hard. And I think it's not going to be the best use of your time. Yeah. I think the struggle might not be quite worth it when you could do something like getting a second bachelor's degree or getting a degree more closely aligned with your current experience. However, I do agree it is doable. Especially with the tools available and how good the software community is online, you can find the answers you need. It's like if this is all you do, I think you can do it. But I wouldn't recommend it highly just because the level of struggle would be immense. Yeah. I know someone for example that has an electrical engineering degree. And as part of that, they had to take some software engineering classes, but just wasn't the focus of that degree. So I think for people in situations like that, where you're in a software adjacent field and already kind of have that background and just want to build upon it, this I would recommend. Like I think that would be good for you, but if you don't have any of that training at all or very little, then yeah, I think maybe consider a different program. Yeah. It'd be very difficult. All right. Our last question is what is OMSCS like for women? And I have some statistics here. I took a look at similar programs and I noticed that women are pretty well represented, I would say. So MIT was the scarring belowist from what I researched. And I mean I only looked at four of these. This is data from 2024. And I compared statistics that were put out by grad programs for CS. So MIT's grad CS program had 16.6% of their graduating class was women in 2024. Stanford had 47%. U of M, University of Michigan, which is a pretty high performing school, if you're not familiar, although I don't think it's a maybe league. No. Okay. U of M was 45% women. And OMSCS comes in at 22%. So we're not the best, but it's a good percentage, especially considering the graduating numbers that we've seen before. Yeah. And I think that's on par with the field of software development. Like I think it's about like a quarter of software developers are women, something around there. So at least it's on par with how the field is represented. Yeah. I would say so. I've not felt like there's specific targeted sexism or any, I've not had any negative experiences related to being a woman. There have been quite a few times where I'm in a group project and I'm the only woman or I'm in office hours and I'm the only woman. But I wouldn't put those as negative experiences. It's just you know part of the field right now is it's primarily men. Yeah. I wouldn't say it's anything outside of my normal experience in the field. And then I think too for our EdTech project, there were some women in there and they had really interesting projects that were focused around topics about women. So I thought that was really interesting to see those projects and I think they did bring like a diverse perspective to the class. So I think there is like some advantage there of I think your perspective is important in this field and it can be valued and kind of differentiate you in the classes. But I think for the most part like it's it's going to be on par with what you experience in the field. Yep, I would absolutely agree. Well those are all our questions and our discussion of OMSCS. Yeah. What do you think OMSCS would be if it were a plant? If it were a plant. Oh I would say because I think they're trying to do a lot of new things with it. And it's like it is kind of your typical like it's a it's a graduate degree. But they're also just trying to do a lot with really gearing the classes towards AI for example and with what they're doing and allowing it to have flexibility around your work style and it's a really great name to have on your resume. So have you heard about those plants? I saw an Instagram reel about this where they're selling them at Costco and it's like a tree like it's not like a big tree but it's like one of the ones that you can plant it's eventually going to grow into the big tree in your backyard. Okay. But they grafted they grafted different types of fruit on it so you could get like one branch would be apples one would be lemon one would be oranges I don't remember what the exact fruit was like a Frankenstein tree. I think if it was a plant it would be a Frankenstein because it's like it's a classic but they're trying to innovate with it as well. Okay I feel like that's a really positive really even thinking. I would agree it's like a Frankenstein tree. All right and you get fruit off of it and some people get lemon. Can I say that? Yeah. Some fruit drops some fruit stays like a branch until it's right. Yes and it grows even after you've planted it like they can continuously get fruit back from it. Yeah. Okay nice. All right it would be a Frankenstein tree. Okay and that's how we feel about this program. Thank you everyone thanks for joining. Code something fun today. Bye!