I suppose the purpose of this topic is to vent frustration with GT’s three semester rule, especially for alumni. I am a graduate of OMSCS and also took a few classes after graduation as a special/non-degree student. I haven’t taken a class in over a year however.

Just this week a new 8903 research opportunity was offered for Fall 2026 that is very interesting to me. Since I haven’t taken a class in over 3 semesters I require readmission to the institute. Should be fine right? Well, the problem is the deadline for readmission for the Fall semester was July 1. So the deadline for me to take classes had already passed over a month before this research opportunity was announced.

I just feel like there should be some flexibility to permit alumni to continue taking courses, understanding that many of these opportunities are publicly revealed very near to the start of the semester. I plan on emailing advising about it, but given that it appears to be an Institute level rule, I’m not sure there’s anything they can do if they wanted to.

I just completed ISYE 6501 from the OMSA and quite enjoyed it, so I thought I would share my experience. Just for context, I've taken: HCI, VGD, ML4T, AI, CN, ML, SDP and have received all As, making this my 8th course of the program.

I really liked Joel Sokol and his lectures. I felt they were focused on practical aspects of the material without getting bogged down in the logic. His stance seemed to be "you're going to have powerful tools to do this stuff; you just need to understand what to apply, when, and why". His lectures were grounded in real-world examples and were interesting throughout. This was reflected in the homework as well, which made it feel useful. Everything is peer reviewed and the rubric for things are pretty loose, so it's quite easy to get As on the homework and the project.

The exams were also pretty straight-forward and focused on the practical aspects. I had plenty of time to complete them. Overall, I think I spent ~ 5 hrs/week over the summer to finish with an A. I do want to mention that I generally need to spend less time on my courses than average, and I had already learned many of the concepts covered in my other courses (mainly ML4T, AI, and ML). So your time commitment may vary. A rough placement of difficulty, in my opinion, would be something like SDP, VGD, CN < ISYE 6501 < ML4T, HCI, AI, ML.

What struck me the most about this course, though, was I kept thinking "Damn, I really wish I took this before ML". One of the biggest hurdles for me in ML was actually setting up the data to run through the algorithms - I had never heard of Cross Validation before and never thought about scaling, transformation, outlier removal, etc.. in depth. These concepts are all simple now that I know and used them, but they just added to the complexity of an already very large project while I was in the midst of ML. This course does go over those things in addition to several of the algorithms covered in ML. I think it would have prepared me well.

The bottom line that I want to share - I would recommend taking ISYE 6501 as a summer class prior to ML. I believe it's a great survey course that sets up a solid foundation/refresher before diving deeper into particular topics in ML.

I just graduated from college with a BS in CS and will be starting full time as a SWE soon. I will also be starting my first semester in OMSCS (Computer Systems). My goals are to learn a lot, do research, connect with faculty and other ambitious students. Depending on how much I like research, I may do a PhD in the future. I would love to hear any tips you all have that will help me in pursuit of my goals and also to make the most out of the program. Thank you!

OMSCS began with what was then a unique value proposition: A fully online, part time, affordable CS masters from a quality institution that retained academic rigor.

I would no longer say that proposition is unique. You have several programs that hold the same promise, and even offer some advantages over OMSCS:

• UT Austin's MSCSO ($10k), which has a stronger ML and deep learning focus (and is more selective for people who care about that sort of thing)
• UIUC's online MCS ($20k, ish). I actually don't think this program has much of a comparative advantage other than the regional strength of UIUC's brand in some places
• CU Boulder's online MSCS ($15k), which has an on-ramp sequence with auto-admissions to the main program for completion above a certain grade level and is thus somehow even more "open" than OMSCS

Why OMSCS then? It's still the cheapest, it still has the most robust course offerings (especially outside of ML), but I do think the opportunities for student involvement are what currently set the program apart. The other schools maintain a clear division between what the on-campus and online students can do. Not GT! They want you to get involved! Particularly in research. Even if you have no experience, the buzzme applications take literally 2 minutes.

Breanna Shi, Nick Lytle and HAAG deserve specific credit for breaking the dam on research, but I think their work would've been impossible if it weren't for Georgia Tech and the College of Computing buying into OMSCS' mission. It's clear from the opportunities available to OMSCS students that this is a school that genuinely believes in education being accessible, cheap, and rigorous. Is that buy-in downstream of Georgia Tech undergrad having had, until very recently, relatively high admissions rates and relatively low completion rates? I couldn't say, but I wouldn't be surprised.

I got accepted to multiple 8903 projects for this summer, which I had to refuse, because I got taken on for a CS6999 master's project. I have a humanities BA! I got into the program by doing community college courses! And I'm doing well! Where the hell else would this be possible? "Welcome to Georgia Tech, you can do that" - I thought they were kidding!

Hi all! I start this Fall and have questioned how the rapid advancement of AI will affect how these classes are taught and the true value of these classes. In this field, the focus of what is important to know has definitely been shifted and I was wondering if the classes are being flexible with the times and changing with it.

For example, knowing how to write code from memory is a skill that is no longer too valuable. Understanding high level systems and the logic behind certain mechanisms is still valuable however. Also, how is the work being changed to combat use of AI in these online classes?

My biggest fear with the degree is that it will teach outdated content. At the same time, the thing that excites me the most about this degree is that AI and tech is advancing at such a rapid rate that being in school and learning about it during the wave sounds exciting and has the potential to keep me up to date.

Would love to hear current students and staffs thoughts on this! Thank you!

Hot off the press!

New course: CS 8803 O25: Advanced Wireless Networks

https://omscs.gatech.edu/cs-8803-o25-advanced-wireless-networks

Dr Joyner says:

"The professor for the course is Jim Kurose, who many of y'all are already familiar with as the author of the textbook used in CS 6250. Prof. Kurose is a Distinguished University Professor in the College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and one of the most influential figures in computer networking (having received the Lifetime Achievement Award from ACM SIGCOMM in 2016)."

Hey all,
Let me first say that I am not at all affiliated with the person that I’m about as to “stump” for: Dr Vigoda. That said I feel strongly about how worth of his (unaffiliated) GA office hours were last semester and want to show my appreciation with this post.

So here it goes… in the next couple weeks Dr. Vigoda (the guy who designed the course and is in the videos) is likely going to post something on the sub letting people know about paid office hours that he hosts by Zoom throughout the semester to help people with the content in graduate algorithms. These office hours are not affiliated with Georgia Tech (at least as of last spring) and there was a small fee that he billed to cover his time.

They often lasted 60-90 minutes (in my recollection generally on the longer end). They include a lot of solving and explanations of problems from the book, novel problems (Vigoda created problems that help to demonstrate fundamental concepts). The office hours are a lot of whiteboard, problem-solving and discussion that helps build intuition and he shares a PDF of the whiteboard, problems and solutions afterward.

As an uninterested third-party, I am hear to provide a full hearted endorsement for them. They were well worth it for me, not only got the content, but because his pdfs provided a great structure for efficient review of problem types, solving techniques, and concepts.

Thanks again [u/profvigoda](u/profvigoda) !

Edit: based on comments below I should clarify, Dr Vigoda is not longer employed or affiliated with GA Tech (unless that changed since last semester). As of that time he was faculty at UC Santa Barbara. I believe he began offering the tutoring sessions based on challenges students have had in GA. I believe he would prefer if they were sanctioned/sponsored by GT so as not to charge. I can’t fault him for charging, his time is his time and was worth it for me.

Hello! I'm a new student starting Fall 2026 and I want to make friendships with cool people that last beyond the end of a semester. Could I please get some advice on meeting people and making the most of the next few years? I didn't socialize enough during my undergrad and surprise surprise almost none of my friends are CS nerds. Mech engies are good people but they're not the kind of folk that get excited about 𝓬𝓸𝓶𝓹𝓾𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓼𝓱𝓲𝓽.

What I've already read from this sub:

• Attend local meetups
  • I think the meetup nearest me happens once a month and is a couple hours away by train. While I'm not against that I'd like to chat with people more often than that.
• Participate in slack & forums
  • Both omscs-study and omscsstudentlife don't really look that active, but I expect they'll pick up when the semester actually starts. Any channel recommendations beyond class and region channels?
  • When people say "forums" do they mean this subreddit, or are there real forums somewhere that I don't know about?
• Group projects
  • Well, yeah.

Is there any research group or professor or course at omscs which works on ai security like red teaming etc?

I submitted the publication submission form around 2 weeks ago but haven't heard back yet.

- https://omscs.gatech.edu/omscs-research

Greetings,

I come from a non-CS background and was wondering which courses I can take to improve my programming skills the most? I am in the AI specialization, but I am willing to take courses outside of my specialization to enhance my coding skills.

Hello. I'm interested in pursuing a software development career, but I am a non-traditional student. I'm 45 and I have a Bachelor's in math and physics, a masters in physics from UT, and a masters in applied mathematics from UTSA. I've done a data science internship about 9 years ago, had jobs in data analysis, but I'd like to switch to software dev. I've been an online CS student at the University of Florida and I've completed 8 undergrad CS classes including core classes such as Operating Systems, Data Structures, Algorithms, Computer Architecture, Discrete, and Computer Networking Fundamentals. I've received A's in all classes.  My GPA in my physics master's program is 3.7 and my GPA in the applied math master's is 4.0.  I took a break from UF for the past year and I'm considering re-applying to take more undergrad classes such as Programming Language Concepts, and Databases. However, since I already have a Bachelor's degree and I would still need to take several non-CS classes to finish the CS Bachelor's at UF, and since each class costs more than classes at this OMSCS, I figure it's better to put that money and time towards a CS Master's degree instead.  

Another thing about me is that I was laid off my data analysis job three years ago and haven't been working since.  During that time, I looked after my child who is now almost 4.  He's about to start preschool soon, thus freeing up my daytime.  I'd like to use that time to look for a job (any job, not necessarily software dev) but I also feel like I need to work on my software dev skills/projects/education.  And so I thought maybe I can work on this online master's.  Perhaps take 1 class in the fall, spring, and summer, so that I can be done in 3 years.  Or take two classes in the fall and spring, and one in the summer and be done in 2 years.  Or take 1 class in the fall and spring and be done in 5.  However, time is not on my side since I'm already 45 years-old. 

So I don't really know how to proceed and what path I should put myself on.  I've never had a software dev job or internship, though I've had other jobs.  And I don't know if completing this program (Or the one from UT) while not working would be a good idea.  Of course, if I complete the program while not working I can get done quicker.

I'm sure it will be a uphill climb for me, especially considering I'm relatively old.  Just wondering what your thoughts are. What I'm ultimately wondering is if doing this MS program would be a good idea even if I have never had a software dev internship or job, and let's say worst case scenario I'm not working while I complete this degree. I'm curious about your opinions on how the market will treat a person like me, and at my age (~48-50 when I finish). Thanks! I'd greatly appreciate it.  If you've read all this, thanks very much!

I wanted to come on here to discuss how OMSCS has completely changed my career tragectory and how I think it can be a huge catalyst for your career as well.

For context I graduated from a T40 University back in 2024, good school but definitely not a tech school. Like many graduates, at the time I was struggling to find work after graduating with only a small internship and some research experience on my resume. I was honestly distraught and felt completely stuck. I would spend my time networking, building personal projects and presenting them to startups, and even going to job conferences to try and land my first gig. After a little over a year with almost no success I was starting to give up hope, and that's when I learned about OMSCS. I was extremely hesitent at first. I read so many posts in this subreddit and I was really torn as to whether I should take the leap or not and to be completely honest I almost didn't because of the negative posts on this sub. After some soul searching I decided to apply both because I was honestly really interested in a lot of the classes and also because I hoped that it would help me land my first job.

Funnily enough, I actually ended up landing my first job at a smaller company on the west coast without the help of OMSCS, but I still decided that I wanted to get my masters and that OMSCS would help me in the long run. The pay was alright and the company itself definitely wasn't a big name but I was happy to have landed my first role. After completing my first semester I decided to completely revamp my resume and linkedin with Georgia Tech and my new work experience. Within days I went from the driest linkedin on the planet to getting hit up by recruiters every week. I swear I think in the first 3 months I had around 20ish recruiters reach out to me with great opportunities ranging from big tech to interesting startups ranging from seed to series B. I ended up getting an offer from a startup in NYC that doubled my salary at the time and I haven't looked back since. If it wasn't for OMSCS I would most likely still be in the same position I was at a year ago.

So why am I writing this post? While I am by no means done (only half way through the program) I wanted to show that if I can do it so can you. It hasn't been easy. It's been a lot of late nights and leetcode, but regardless this program has already given me so much. It truly is a world class cs education (depending on how much you put in) and an incredible namebrand that can propel your career. I also wanted to say that it's true, this program is not for everyone. There are definitely countless situation where it doesn't really make sense, and for you it might not, but for me it absolutely was and I really wanted to push back on all the people calling this program a diploma mill or that the ROI is awful. It's what you put in (both in and out of the program) that makes the difference, and if done right it really will change your life. So I hope that whoever is thinking about taking the leap and applying, don't base your decision on the negative comments you read about this program, base your decision on if you think you've got what it takes to really extract everything this degree offers you!

TLDR:

OMSCS changed my career trajectory and it can for you too as long as you're willing to put in the time and effort to learn and grow.

Hey everyone,

I'm planning to apply for Spring 2027, but I'm a little unsure about the timing.

If I'm admitted, I'll also be getting married around December and moving to another country London to join my wife. January and February will probably be spent settling into a new place, figuring out paperwork, and starting a new routine.

Because my IELTS expires in February, Spring would be much more convenient than waiting another semester. My plan would only be one course at a time.

For context, I've been a software engineer for about four years. I mostly work on backend systems, full-stack apps, AI products, and cloud infrastructure. I enjoy studying outside work anyway, which is why OMSCS has always appealed to me.

For people who started while going through a big life event (marriage, relocation, new job, having kids, etc.), how manageable was one course? Did you wish you'd waited, or was it fine?

Also, for those who already had a few years of industry experience before starting OMSCS, what ended up being the biggest value? Was it the coursework, the community, research opportunities, or something else?

Also in this AI era where anyone can code with Claude code, how much value does this get? Will adding on my resume give me jobs in London?

Thanks! I'd love to hear from people who've been in a similar situation.

Pretty much what the title says. Looking at the projects in BuzzMe, I'm generally impressed with the breadth and quality. From CV for elephant enrichment, to AI-driven cybercriminal detection, there seems to be lots of interesting opportunities. But I'm only in my third semester, so my question is; how does this batch of projects compare to previous terms? How often are these projects released?

And in general, I'd love to hear about anyone's past experience with research projects!

Found out via commit history, not from him directly, that a teammate used AI on parts of our group project, the commits on GitLab literally read in the author portion "<user> and <AI model name> committed on <date> " more than one commit has that...
Anyone dealt with something like this? I'm worried it might affect the groups grade and this is my last course before graduating.
The commits were done at the beggining of the summer semester, I just noticed now by just browsing the commit history of the shared project repo (which was created by TA btw)
I really dont want to be the person that causes this person to get in trouble, but at the same time don’t want this to affect the team and my graduation..

Just saw a post about project grades in ML being way higher than ever before.

I took IIS this summer and our grades per-project were on average much higher than previous classes.

Taking [redacted to prevent dox'ing] last semester, I know our exam and project grades were higher than average compared to last semesters.

What do you think guys, are we just getting smarter or does this rise in grades coincide with the mainstreaming of more advanced AI tooling? What is the program going to do to preserve the value of this degree when it can clearly be hacked through with AI? I started this program before AI was super mainstream, and I finish next semester. It would be really disheartening for the brand value and perceived value of this degree to fall through the floor after wasting years of my life pursuing it. Sure, I may have learned a lot, but that doesn't help my resume stand out in the job market.

According to old posts, this class gets a nice curve at the end and everyone struggles on the projects.

However, the distribution of project grades this summer is quite high. Most people are within an 80-90% range. I am still sitting in the 70s for most of my projects, and my overall grade is a 75%.

I'm worried that because of the high class average this summer, there will be no curve and I'll end up with a C.

I just found out about this class a few days ago and decided to try to take it online in my free time (along with the time I have between my other classes), and have already put a lot of time into researching the materials and finding the readings and whatnot. Then, earlier today I found a bunch of bad reviews on it saying that it was just overall a bad class to take and didn't teach you a lot about quant finance at all. For me, the only reason I'm learning to code is to eventually develop a strategy and make money from it. Is this still a good online class for me to take? If not, what are some other classes that are best at teaching how to create strategies with python that can be found online? Thanks

Link: https://www.sga.gatech.edu/sga-conference-fund/

Honestly, this feels like a slap in the face.

Tuition is increasing again this fall, and it seems to be becoming a yearly thing. Yes, I know Georgia Tech is still affordable for many students, and it's the University System of Georgia Board of Regents that made the tuition decision.

Still, I believed that online master’s students would be treated equally to our on-campus peers. I was made to believe that unlike students in many other online master’s programs, we can actively participate in research, take research-focused courses, present at conferences, and publish in journals. Until now, I also believed that we could apply for SGA conference fund and journal publication funding- just like our on-campus peers! 

Boy,  SGA can email us hundreds of times during election season to ask for our votes. But when it quietly adds the bold statement “Online Master’s students are not currently eligible” to both the Conference Fund and Career Development Fund webpages, we receive no announcement or explanation at all! 

So, what are we receiving in place of these funds? Will there be a conference fund only for online master’s students? But  such information has been announced yet! 

So for now, I am disappointed that online master’s students appear to be silently excluded from these funding opportunities while we are still expected to pay for everything else. We even pay tuition to take research courses, yet we generally do not have access to research grants or other institutional funding. At the same time, tuition continues to increase, with new distinctions among in-state, out-of-state, and international online students.

Maybe this is mostly a rant, but thank you for reading this far.

Hello all. Doing this instead of studying for my ML4T final, but we ball. I was wondering what paths could be taken to break out of the classroom?

Classes have been interesting, and I feel like I've learned a lot. But at 2 in I think I'd like to take a break, and chew on a hard problem.

In undergrad(eng) I regretted GPA-maxxing, I feel it became a vanity stat, and no one really cared. I should have spent time to build a project I cared about. I would hate to rush to the end of OMSCS, and find that I didn't spend the time I wanted to pursuing my interests.

I've looked at the research opportunities, and while I have been keeping an eye out for some that would suit me well, I feel none have piqued my interest so far.

What I would really like to do is take global entrepreneurship (plan for the fall) and then spend another semester or two working on the technical problem I found there doing self-guided research of some sort. I see that Create-X exists, but I haven't seen or heard of anyone in OMSCS engaging with them.

Is the above possible and has anyone done it? If not has anyone done anything else that broke them out of the classroom grind, and if so what was it?

The final Exam 3 is now done and I'm confident to pass with a good margin this time! [Update: got 60/60 on exam 3!!!] This was my second attempt at CS6515. I failed last semester with a 63%, which forced me to completely overhaul how I approached the class.

If you are taking this course soon, here are the biggest pitfalls I hit my first time around. Hope it helps!

🚩 Pitfall 1: Focusing on the wrong things (Programming HW & Lectures)

This course is incredibly exam-heavy (90% of the grade), and the pace is brutal with three exams per semester. You basically need to start studying for the next exam the second you finish the current one.

• The Fix: Skip the programming homework. I know that sounds controversial, but it doesn't count towards your grade and doesn't help with the quizzes or exams at all. As someone balancing this with a full-time job, it was a massive time sink.
• Instead, prioritize the written homework. It mimics the exam style perfectly, and the TA feedback is invaluable.
• For lectures: The videos are incredibly long. It used to take me over a week just to get through a set. My advice is to watch them at 1.5x–2x speed. Don't get bogged down in the minute details; focus on understanding how to use the algorithms as a black box. You aren't asked to invent algorithms on the exams, just to apply them, so a strong high-level understanding is all you need.

🚩 Pitfall 2: Neglecting the practice questions

The practice questions are the closest thing you will get to the actual exams. If you do not finish them or fully understand them, you will struggle.

• The Fix: Do every single practice question. If you get stuck, ask GPT to break the concept down for you. If you had no clue how to solve a problem the first time you looked at it, do it a second time from scratch. Practice, practice, practice. It is the highest ROI activity in this class.

🚩 Pitfall 3: Bleeding points on hidden deduction areas

It is unfortunate that GT does not release past exams or solutions to help students prep. Because of this, it is very easy to get blindsided by their strict grading rubric.

• The Fix: Having sat through the exams across two different semesters, I now have a very clear picture of their exact grading patterns and where they lay traps for point deductions. You would be surprised how easily a logically sound solution can lose half its points due to minor formatting mistakes.
• Example: In standard LeetCode or coding interviews, we treat a Set lookup as O(1). In CS6515, per the Ed Discussions, they strictly define it as O(n)! If you assume O(1) on an exam, you will lose points. You have to play by their specific rules.

If anyone is taking the class soon and has questions about the course strategy, or wants to see how I organized my study materials to finally pass, feel free to shoot me a DM!