For those who went to DePaul online, did you ever have issues getting courses you wanted in to?

For example, some of the AI courses have prereqs that seem to only be offered on the main campus. What do you do in that case?

Also, what if you want a specific course and they never end up offering it during the time you're there? Just SOL?

Didnt have issues get into classes I wanted. It can happen that a class you want is full, but if you register early youre fine. I cant really respond to the AI prereq, that never came up for me. Lastly, afaik most classes are usually offered at least once per year. If you want to take one that they never end up offering, not sure what could be done about that. I would ask your counselor about that.

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Fantaz - I'm planning to enroll this Fall quarter and will be taking 2 classes each quarter for this school year. If I do well in my classes, I'm planning to take 3 classes per quarter for the 2017-2018 school year since I want to graduate asap.

Do you think it's doable to take 3 classes per quarter? I'm planning to switch to only working part time 20-25hrs/wk if I take 3 classes per quarter.

Thanks!

I did 2-3 while working full time. You should be fine if you are willing to work

Probably depends on which courses you're taking and how dedicated to studying you can be in your off hours.

I think loading up on work like that becomes highly class dependent. Theres quarters I could have pulled off 3, and other quarters I nearly killed myself to get through 2. It mostly depends on what classes you are taking and where your skill set is at.

If you take 3 classes and 1 of them is a no lifer, its gonna be a rough time. If you take 3 and 2 are no lifers, RIP.

Be very careful and know ahead of time what to expect from each class and structure it wisely. I took Architecture of Computer Games and it was absolute ****ing insanity on its own. Very smart and motivated people dropped it because it was too much alongside work.

Hey all,

I am also in the MS in CS program at DePaul. I originally came across this thread last fall when I was googling for information on the program. My bachelor's degree is also in a completely unrelated field. Sometimes I wonder whether I should have tried for a more prestigious school, but it is very encouraging to hear the success stories here.

I'm just about done with the introductory courses and planning on taking 3 classes this fall (not working). I'm also hoping to start some side projects soon and then maybe start applying to internships in a couple months. Should be a busy quarter.

Anyway, I wanted to thank Go_Blue and everyone else for sharing their experiences, which have been very interesting to read.

Where does one find credit hour listings for the courses at DePaul? I feel like I looked but didn't see any obvious places for them

Pretty sure every class I took was 4 credit hours

I can only answer one of these, but a lot of companies hiring will actually look away from masters degrees because they usually have to pay higher so they're more interested in hiring bachelors to pay less.

The fact that masters degrees are paid higher is direct evidence of greater demand for them...

That must mean there's huge demand for McDonald's CEOs, since they're paid more than the billion cashiers they employ.

Generally higher pay is a sign of a favorable supply/demand ratio for a job seeker. It would be ******ed to deny this. Cherry picking CEOs is not really analogous since A) there are very, very few of them and B) they are essentially in an extremely rare position to artificially influence their own pay outside the bounds of supply/demand. Such a situation is neither relevant nor informative to the aspiring software developers in here.

People in this thread are trying to be software developers, not CEOs. Cashiers are paid **** because the job is low skilled and therefore the supply is extremely high since almost any human can perform the job. Anytime 99% of the population can perform a job, the supply will outpace the demand and push down wages. This all falls perfectly in line with the laws of supply and demand, sorry if you do not understand them.

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There are a lot fewer opportunities for people with Master's degrees. Which is to say, there are a lot fewer jobs requiring a Master's degree. In reality, it's about how much you're willing to work for: if you are only willing to work for more than 100k/year and justify it with having a Master's degree, then you'll have a lot harder time finding a job. This is because you will need to go after jobs putting an emphasis on a Master's degree. Naturally this will be way more competitive because a lot of your competition will have more experience than you. Having said that, just because you have a Master's degree doesn't mean companies will rule you out for jobs not requiring a Master's degree. Often in the first round phone interview they ask you what you're currently making, what you're looking to make, and then tell you if you fit the range they're looking to pay. So, even if you didn't have a Master's degree and you said "I want to make 100k", that would rule you out of a lot of entry level jobs. The cool thing about this industry is the degree itself doesn't matter--it's all about what you can do.

I currently make closer to some of the salary ranges you see for a Master's candidate. But, I started out in my first job making what an undergrad would make. I did well my first year and got a 15% raise. Then a year later, I took a new position that gave me a 20% raise on that. Then 6 months later, I took a new position that gave me a raise on that. So, it took me a few years to get to some of the salary levels people expect right out of school.

5-term master's from a top ten school

For under 7 grand

https://www.omscs.gatech.edu/prospective-students/faq

Apologies if this has been linked before.

Why are there so many legitimate schools offering fully online masters degrees but the only place to get an online bachelors is like WGU or worse?

Masters degrees are probably more suited to self-study and research, especially since you are usually already well versed in the subject. A bachelors degree is usually quite broad and is presumed to be taught to a person who doesn't yet know how to learn.

Oregon State offers a legit online bachelors, accelerated too iirc

Their site still uses flash, so take that for whatever you'd like to

I thought that you generally can't get scholarships once you complete your first undergrad (so even if you are doing a post bacc, you can't get scholarships). Or are you just talking about the subsidized loans from the federal government? I wouldn't call the subsidized loans scholarships.
Although I believe there can sometimes be scholarships through your state or the department at the school. But, I doubt that's very common & small in size.

I have come across several online bachelors degrees. Here is my list so far:
-Oregon State (mentioned above)
-Old Dominion (it's a VA state school)
-Franklin (it's a school in Ohio)
-University of Maryland University College
-DSU - Dakota State - not an official post bacc but the person I talked to made the credit transfer process sound "friendly" (could have also been a misread by me).

I believe the first 3 are official post bacc programs. The last 2 are bachelors that seem to be friendly about transferring your credits.

Oh, and if you are thinking about applying, you need to apply for OSU immediately. The rest you have time on.

There are quite a few more online BSCS programs, but the price/quality ratio is poor. FSU-Panama City has an online CS degree for transfer students. Total program cost is ~$9000 for out of state students. UI-Springfield and CSU-Monterrey Bay have programs, but they're much more expensive. Afaict they're all pretty ****ty, but if you need a degree they'll get the job done I guess.

Boston University has a Master in Software Development program. It's a new program that they rolled out last year. It only requires 8 classes and is geared towards people that don't have a tech background.

http://www.bu.edu/online/programs/gr...nt/#curriculum

These are the required courses:

Core Courses

(Six courses/24 credits)

METCS521 Information Structures with Python
METCS526 Data Structures and Algorithms
METCS622 Advanced Java Programming
METCS634 Agile Software Development
METCS665 Software Design and Patterns
METCS682 Information Systems Analysis and Design

Electives
(Two courses/8 credits)

Choose two from the following courses:
METCS602 Server-Side Web Development
METCS633 Software Quality, Testing, and Security Management
METCS669 Database Design and Implementation for Business
METCS683 Mobile Application Development
METCS701 Rich Internet Application Development


One reservation that I have about it is the title of the degree conferred will be Master in Software Development. I don't think I've seen any other programs in the country that offers a Master in Software Development. Most programs have MSCS or MS Software Engineering. Not sure how this will be perceived by many companies or recruiters. Boston University is not top tier school but it is ranked in the top 50 nationwide so it's recognizable.

The program will cost about 29K. It seems like a faster and cheaper alternative to Depaul's MSCS program. Looking at the required classes, do you guys think this program will provide enough knowledge to get an entry level software development job ?

With only 8 classes, I'll have more time to work on side projects or contribute to open source projects.

Calling it a Masters in Software Development as opposed to CS seems entirely appropriate given those classes. It looks like lower level courses in a 4 year CS degree. It's probably enough to get hired but then so is a bootcamp. It doesn't seem worth the money.

Current developer here looking for a good masters program. Specifically, I am interested in blockchains. Does anyone know of a good program with a speciality (or at least some offering) related to blockchains?

Hi,

Just like the others, I've made the decision to change my career to CS as well. Currently a mech engineer with under two years experience and had only python and VB for CS background. I'll be attending a community college starting this summer to get my Associates degree. It should take me less than two years to get the degree as I've completed nearly half of the program, only missing linear algebra, discreet math and the CS courses.

My plan is to stay employed as a mech. engineer full time while completing my AS degree. Once I've completed my AS degree and have fully immersed on CS, hopefully I could get at least an entry level software engineer or similar and enroll for the masters. I still haven't decided on my graduate school, but DePaul sounds promising though a bit expensive (+50k). Georgia tech's program is also appealing with only 7k tuition but will definitely be harder to get in.

This thread has been phenomenal as it cleared some of my doubts and fear on jumping to CS. much thanks to OP and the others. I'll try to post some of my progress here as well