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 / courses, between the various links) : For general info about distance learning - http://www.degree.net (and http://www.degree.net/links/general.html) (Earlier today, I also ordered a used copy of http://www.degree.net/books/computer_degrees.html on Amazon. I can let you know in a few days if it's worth the ~$12. :) http://www.gnacademy.org/mason/catalog/browse/topic/Computers http://www.geteducated.com/eddies/downloadtech.htm http://www.petersons.com/distancelearning/default.asp (http://www.petersons.com/dlwy/code/prompt.asp?sponsor=1&FROM=www%2Epe... looks really tempting. ;) http://www.telecampus.utsystem.edu/programs/Csee/csee.html

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