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   Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 07:36:34 JST Evan Prodromou

   I register for classes for my master's degree in computer science at Georgia Tech tomorrow. And my classes start on Monday.

   My time slot for registration is at 6:45AM PST, so I'm reading over the courses offered, figuring out what I want to get started with, and trying to balance excitement and anxiety.

   I am primarily interested in software engineering topics, so the classes I'm looking at have a lot of writing and coding, not as much math and proofs.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 08:00:57 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • Kirk Kittell

     @kittell The program I'm in is mostly for working software professionals, but I'll take that under advisement.

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     Kirk Kittell (kittell@universeodon.com)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 08:00:58 JST Kirk Kittell

     in reply to

     @evan Good luck and have fun. Occasionally I'll take some online CS courses from University of Illinois, where I studied engineering half my life ago (while managing to avoid all but the intro to CS course). On one hand I'm a much better student now because I have some feeling for the application of the lessons and I can focus. On the other hand, damn, taking actual CS courses with actual grad students with just my self-taught CS skills was like taking a baseball bat to the groin.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 08:02:15 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • Blain Smith

     @blainsmith I started off with Computing Systems, although I can't say I understand what that means. I'm steering towards software engineering classes like the development process, analysis and testing, architecture and design.

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     Blain Smith (blainsmith@fosstodon.org)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 08:02:16 JST Blain Smith

     in reply to

     @evan Welcome to class! What specialization? I started Fall '22 in Computing Systems.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 09:13:09 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • Nick Yates

     @nyates314 yes, it's already full! Hopefully I can get in on wait list.

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     Nick Yates (nyates314@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 09:13:10 JST Nick Yates

     in reply to

     @evan Good luck! I did my OMSCS at Georgia Tech 2015-19; I expect you're much better prepared then I was. SDP seems like a great class to start with based on your interests, although it is popular and might fill up before you can enroll so it's good to have a few backups in mind.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 10:59:32 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • Blain Smith

     @blainsmith oh nice.

   • Embed this notice
     Blain Smith (blainsmith@fosstodon.org)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 10:59:33 JST Blain Smith

     in reply to

     @evan Sounds like you'll stick with Computing Systems then based on the classes you're interested in. https://omscs.gatech.edu/program-info/specializations

     The Slack group we have is helpful for figuring out courses once you get your GT email. There's also a fairly active subreddit too.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 11:52:08 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • Blain Smith

     @blainsmith I just haven't seen a paragraph defining the point of each of the specializations. Just the lists of requirements! Most of the names are self-explanatory but "Computer Systems" is kind of generic.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 12:48:06 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • McNeely

     @McNeely I wrote a little about it here:

     https://evanp.me/2022/05/04/masters-degree-in-computer-science/

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     McNeely (mcneely@indieweb.social)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 12:48:07 JST McNeely

     in reply to

     @evan what made you decide to go back for a master's degree now?

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 12:53:39 JST Evan Prodromou

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     • McNeely

     @McNeely tl;dr I've never had a graduate degree, and it's been one of my life's regrets. The availability of online programs from top-10 universities is changing the game. Finally, I work in climate change, so a lot of the organizations I work with are non-profits, governments, or international organizations. Higher degrees mean a lot in that environment.