Online Engineering Master Degree, Distance Learning Masters
Q: I am thinking of getting a masters degree online or by some other distance
learning method. Other than NTU, are there any other good distance learning
universities? I am hoping to study etiher Software Engineering, Computer
Science or Computer Engineering.
A:One master's that looked interesting to me was from Columbus State in
Georgia, totally online.
those are some very useful links. Just two questions,
do you or anyone you know have any experience with any of these
universities? and what is the difference between computer science and
software engineering? on the college I got my bachellors at we only had
computer science and computer engineering, I studied the latter one.
I don't know where you received your bachelor's degree; however, in general
a Computer Engineering degree passes muster for admission purposes. Know
this -- many Masters programs specify that you must have completed courses
in certain topics (like data structures, analysis of algorithms, etc.);
however, each program varies. If you don't meet the requirement you may have
to somehow makeup the deficiency. BTW, some of these programs also offer
masters in Computer Engineering. So, if you are more interested VLSI design
and Computer Architecture then you might want to stay on your current track.
As to Software Engineering, there is not one definition; however, I make the
following analogy. Software Engineering is to Computer Science what Chemical
Engineering is to Chemistry. Software Engineering is the study of methods
and organizations used to build a dependable, repeatable process for
constructing high quality software. There is a lot of overlap between
Computer Science and Software Engineering but in general, Computer Science
is more theoretical and Software Engineering is more practical. However, if
you ever want to get a Ph.D. you will be better off sticking to Computer
Science or Computer Engineering. Ph.D. programs in Software Engineering are
few and far between.
No, I don't have direct experience with any of the schools I listed
previously; however, I will say this -- all of them are regionally
accredited. But, what might be even more important, all of them are
immediately recognizable by Human Resource managers. You won't have anyone
questioning your degree. By all accounts, Nova Southeastern is a good
school; however, in comparison, very few people know anything about it.
Often times if the HR Manager knows nothing about the school, instead of
researching it, he will just consider your education of the degree mill
variety.
In addition to the above (especially UIUC), from the info I have
looked at so far, University of Southern California looks good :
http://den.usc.edu/index.asp?lf=/prospectives/prospectives_toc.asp&hf...
There is this one from CMU :
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/Web/education/masters_distance...
That one is in Software engineering, and I happen to know some folks
who (if I got the course right) did the first year of that course from
India, and came to the US (Mountain View, California, CMU Extension)
for the remainder of the course. They said they were very impressed
with the course. If you would like to discuss specifics with them, I
should be able to get you in touch with them. (email me directly in
that case.)
If you have not looked on the net already, this should save you a lot
of time - here are some other links that I found (needless to say,
there is a lot of overlap in terms of schools