Not the person you asked, but I've done the same. The answer: you have to choose the classes well. If you go with some easy classes for credit, you will be disappointed. If you decide to really do the program, then there are at least 15-20 classes worth taking. Some are really theoretical (ML), others are practical (Big Data for Health, lots of Spark and Scala), and some in between. To be the best class was AI, which deals with classical AI algorithms (minimax, tree search, etc.) - well designed class with some lessons by Peter Norvig.
All in all, I know it's not the exact same program taught live (although they say it is), but the classes are available online are good quality, I learned a lot, and at $841 per class, the price is unbeatable.
Downsides: I have a job and a kid. The workload for some of these classes is massive, so weekends (at least full Saturday) is gone for the duration of the semester, if you study at night every day - then Sundays are yours. Except for the ML class; that was pretty fucking insane and incidentally, the class where I feel I learned the least so far.
Short answer = Yes. Learned a lot and some more. (but of course depends on
what courses you end up taking).
In fact, its quite common to see alumni taking courses after they have graduated (case in point: many folks from my batch
enrolled in the newly started DL class, just for the sake of learning).
It did yes. I was more interested in the system level courses and my undergrad wasn’t great (Indian low tier) so for me it was very rewarding and helped me for sure.
