Stumbled upon this thread 3 years ago. Just graduated from DePaul's MSCS program last month. Working as a developer now. I can attest that the program was an overall good experience and investment.

Shout out to Google for helping me find this thread, OP, Fantaz, and all the great people I met throughout the program. Life-changing stuff in here!

I miss the old school days

congrats shoo, that's awesome! Always great to hear success stories

so, what is your favorite sorting algorithm?

Hey all,

Read through this entire thread and it's inspiring what you guys have done at DePaul. I will be attending DePaul this fall and just wanted some pointers and advice from the graduates on here. I"m in the Software Engineering program concentrating in Software Development.

My prior experience is that I've taken all the pre-req courses at Northeastern Illinois University and surprisingly all the classes have been waived and I'm going straight into Object Oriented Deisgn and OO Programming.

I only have experience in Java, HTML and a little bit of SQL. Should I familiarize myself with C++ for this program? I have no experience in C++.

Should I join the CS clubs at DePaul out the gate? Should I be involved in anything else outside of the program?

Any general advice for the program?

Thanks guys!

saw a guy giving answers at blizzcon who mentioned he had gone to a masters program in chicago

linkedin stalked him and sure enough, it was depaul

hey everyone,

I'm also contemplating about majoring in CS even though undergrad is completely unrelated. I read a lot of positive experiences coming out of DePaul, and this has peaked my interest in applying at Depaul. However, the university is not within close proximity of my area and therefore taking it online is the only viable option. Has anyone faced difficulty taking the classes entirely online? Having no access to TAs, study group or university tutor is making me hesitant to go to this route. Would really appreciate it if someone with similar experience can answer this just to get a better idea what I'm dealing with.

Thanks,

Late reply, but I took the last 1.5 years of my masters completely online and had no issues at all. I prefer self-learning, watching the lectures at my own pace, and being able to rewind lectures if I miss anything. It also helps that DePaul significantly improved the media player during my last year.

If you learn better in a more traditional classroom/collaborative environment, the online classes might take time to get used to, but I don't think you're at a disadvantage compared to the in-class students. All of the professors I took were very mindful of online students and were accessible via e-mail.

Also, my favorite sorting algorithm is probably merge sort

Thanks for the reply. I actually prefer self-learning as well and could see its merits especially with having a full time job. Reading through some of the old posts though, it seems that there are a few professors whose teaching methods leaves a lot to be desired--but this is true for any universities. This is what I'm a little worried about and being online makes it a little tricky. I know there are a lot of of outside resources like Youtube vids, udacity, sololearn and etc to fill in the missing pieces. Just wondering how often has anyone referred to these outside resources, other than the books and vids provided in the class, and were they sufficient enough?

Bump for small chance of op giving another update

2019 bump

Having just graduated from Georgia Tech's online MS CS program (http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/), let me suggest it's worth looking into for anyone who's considering a comp sci masters. It is (as far as I know) the most economical online program (~$10K for the entire degree) while still having the same rigor as the on campus program.

I beleive that even with masters you will be hired as intern because usually company prefers experience with web design and programming, salary will be below you expectation but after a year it will be worth it, so good luck.