brad@sqwest.sq.com (Brad Might) (08/03/90)
I have been on the work force for several years and
have decided that it might be time to expand my
FORMAL education.
I am interested in getting a Masters degree
(and who knows, maybe Phd in the future) but have
found that there are obstacles in my way.
Local Universities require full time registration,
and/or have classes only during the daytime. This
makes it difficult if not impossible to carry on a
full time job at the same time. (For reasons that
are irrelevant to this discussion, I do not think
that I wish to give up full time work to go back
to school).
I am interested in other ways to obtain a Masters
degree. I had hoped that I could do it part time
by taking night courses or perhaps one course per
term during the day by shifting my work schedule
but at the moment it does not seem possible.
I have obtained information from an organization
called The American Institute for Computer Science
which offers a Masters degree in computer science
by mail.
They state that they are not an accredited school.
Questions:
What is the signifigance of being accredited.
What does it mean to get a degree from them,
did they have to meet some standards or can anyone
set themselves up to hand out degrees ?
Are they just a scam operation ? I would like to hear
from anyone who has dealt with them.
Are there other correspondence courses by which I could
obtain a Masters Degree ? What are they like.
Having looked at their curriculum for the Masters degree
from this institute,
it seems as though a lot (probably upwards of 75%) of
the content I have already covered via my Bachelor
degree, or through my own personal study.
It seems to be a general schooling for anyone interested
in computer science rather than something much more
advanced that what I have already taken. In fact
if I had had room in my schedule during my last year
of school I could have taken equivalent courses and thus
taking this Masters degree would have been meaningless
in terms of education except for perhaps being a formal
review.
If it was new and interesting (to me) material, then
I would be interested in it regardless of degree
conferred merely to further my education.
If I take this course of study then:
Can I say I have a Masters Degree in Computer Science ?
Is this recognized by other schools (for example to get
into a Phd program somewhere) or would I be laughed at ?
for misc.jobs
=============
Should I expect more compensation at work for being
"more qualified" ?
Would this help me in a job search,
ie. would I be looked upon favourably or for a higher
position or salary because of this "extra qualification" ?
respond by e-mail and I will summarize.
thank you.
brad
--
Brad Might brad@sq.sq.com
SoftQuad Inc. {utzoo,uunet}!sq!brad
321-9801 King George Hwy. Surrey, BC. V3T 5H5 (604) 585-1999
Not responsible for any warranties explicit or implied.mark@promark.UUCP (Mark J. DeFilippis) (08/07/90)
In article <1990Aug3.005036.20679@sqwest.sq.com>, brad@sqwest.sq.com (Brad Might) writes: > > I have been on the work force for several years and > have decided that it might be time to expand my > FORMAL education. I know so many people who went back for their Masters in Comp Sci. All of them for the wrong reason. I have yet to find a Masters CS program that is worth my time and effort. This was my chief problem when I decided I wanted my masters. I looked at the interesting code I was doing for my current company, much of it implementation of ideas/systems that are in the ACM currently, and I ask myself what they have to teach me at the masters level? A year of compilers, a year of arch, a year of language theory, and usually 15 - 22 credits of your "special topic" area. THey are all the same. Most universities don't even require a thesis, but allow the substitution of two exams, one is the fundamentals of CS, which requires little more then a 4 year CS degree. Of those that allow projects many, NOT ALL, but many universities project requirements are a joke. A friend of mine received his MSCS from a school in Brooklyn which I won't name. He handed in an application I banged out in the course of a month or so part time as his thesis. It was a simple database application. Others I know have their masters and are no better off and know little more then they knew before obtaining their masters. The point I am trying to make is that the degree has much less value when there is no standardization, and since industry really don't respect the degree many employers don't know the good from the poor schools (with a few noted exceptions) and could care less since they rarely pay you for the MS. One thing I found really helpful and very interesting are the technical conferences given by various vendors. When I had to do work with x25 and I didn't know anything about it, I attented a class at AT&T. It was great and I was treated as a professional who could suck up the material. I prefer this to the universities method of spoon feeding a little at a time to the point of boredom. If you have not tried a class or two at AT&T, DEC, or IBM try it. I think you will be pleased. I also list these classes on my resume and they always get a positive comment or two. -- Mark J. DeFilippis UUCP: uunet!adelphi!markd
gds@maui.cs.ucla.edu (Greg Skinner) (08/09/90)
In article <2717@promark.UUCP> mark@promark.UUCP (Mark J. DeFilippis) writes: >I know so many people who went back for their Masters in Comp Sci. >All of them for the wrong reason. Well, if you would like to hear my story. It's a little different. I went back to get my MS because I wanted to learn some things better that I didn't know very well. I had been a communications/distributed systems programmer for four years, but had weak and incomplete understanding of algorithms, computability, complexity, and graph theory. I also wanted to learn some more about the tools one uses to model communications systems (such as queueing theory, linear programming, etc.). >I have yet to find a Masters CS program that is worth my time and >effort. Well, at least UCLA's MS program had the courses and professors doing research in the areas I wanted to improve in. It's also cheap :-) because I'm a California resident. >Most universities don't even require a >thesis, but allow the substitution of two exams, one is the >fundamentals of CS, which requires little more then a 4 year CS >degree. You can do a thesis here if you want, and most people seem to. A number of people come here and decide to stay for PhD's, so their MS theses (which are quite substantial) are a major step towards their dissertations. >The point I am trying to make is that the degree has much less value >when there is no standardization, and since industry really don't >respect the degree many employers don't know the good from the >poor schools (with a few noted exceptions) and could care less >since they rarely pay you for the MS. One of the conclusions I have come to, having been in school for a year now (hopefully one year left to go), is that the worth of the degree is what you think it's worth. You can make it work for you if you want, or not. I tried to take classes which would help me be a better engineer in any job I might get, and so far it seems to have worked. >One thing I found really helpful and very interesting are the >technical conferences given by various vendors. I had been to a number of conferences before I went back to get my degree, and knew a fairly good amount of the latest networking standards. (I'd also done development work in some of them, so that helped.) However, I knew more about *what* they were, more so than *why* they worked (if they even worked at all). When someone asked me a technical question, I could parrot back to them the answer, because I knew the facts, but I didn't know all the principles. After taking a couple of classes in queueing theory, a class in algorithm analysis, and a class in graph theory, I felt like I was on much surer footing in describing why something worked, under what conditions it might fail, etc. --gregbo