> The degree is exactly the same as offered to the residential program and the credits acquired are all legit and transferable to other universities.
This is not entirely true. The online masters does not have all courses available. The on-campus masters has a much larger breadth of courses one can choose from.
All things considered, for $7000, the value is phenomenal.
Isn't the availability of classes an orthogonal question?
When OP says it's "exactly the same degree" I read that to mean that the school gives you exactly the same piece of paper at the end, as opposed to giving you a piece of paper that has the word "online" on it. In other words, I read it as meaning that there's no way for an employer to know whether you completed the degree in person or online short of asking you directly.
How will this degree appear on my diploma and/or transcript?
The name "Online Master of Science" is an informal designation to help both Georgia Tech and prospective students distinguish the delivery method of the OMS program from our on-campus degree. The degree name in both cases is Master of Science in Computer Science.
That's tremendous, thank you. Perhaps I was thinking of UIUC which makes a distinction between an MCS and an MSCS (of which only the former is available online).
I am 7/10 through the program right now. I joined the program to get a specialization in Robotics. There is only currently one robotics course(AI for Robotics by Prof Thrun) and supposedly the various robotics professors have been resistant to putting their classes online. I was able to do a Special Projects class this summer with a Professor from GT Lorraine in France. He helped me design and build a outdoor robot, it was pretty awesome. But it is only 3 credit toward the degree.
I think GT is just understanding all the potential they have in this program. There are a lot entrepreneurial resources that are only catering to on campus students and they realizing that the OMSCS students want to take these electives and be apart of these programs.
Correct, the availability of courses is limited and there are four specializations available but its still early days in online education space and as I understand, maintaining, editing and publishing a course is a huge effort for a public university such as GaTech. They are adding courses every semester as of now and there are enough general purpose courses in core computer science like Operating systems, compiler theory, algorithms etc and current ones such as Machine Learning and various AI related topics.
Course availability is different, just as course availability varies from semester to semester in the residential program. Not every class is taught every semester. However, the coursework has the same rigor and the degree awarded is the exact same one as the residential one.
This is not entirely true. The online masters does not have all courses available. The on-campus masters has a much larger breadth of courses one can choose from.
All things considered, for $7000, the value is phenomenal.