Georgia Tech OMSCS
Hacker ApprovedOnline master's degree in Learning
Low-cost online computer science master's that people call rigorous and comparable to on-campus study, though the main caveat is the heavy time commitment and busywork.
Low-cost online computer science master's that people call rigorous and comparable to on-campus study, though the main caveat is the heavy time commitment and busywork.
17 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 15
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 88%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 15 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 7.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Low cost compared to alternatives
“GATech and UT Austin is highly respected and they only costs $6k and $10k respectively for their OMSCS.”
Comment from 6 Jul 2026 in “Completing a Computer Science Degree on Coursera” “highly recommend GT's OMSCS because it's cheap and lets you transfer to on-campus if you so wish”
Comment from 21 Dec 2025 in “Brown/MIT shooting suspect found dead, officials say” “upskilling as cheaply as possible (OMSCS@GT or UT Austin)”
Comment from 6 Mar 2026 in “CBP says it can't comply with refund order” Rigorous, graduate-level courses
“most courses are of much higher quality and definitely not undergrad level”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “OMSCS Open Courseware” “OMSCS is not any less than a "real" graduate school program experience.”
Comment from 7 Dec 2025 in “OMSCS Open Courseware” “given the rigor of the assignments”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “OMSCS Open Courseware” Flexible schedule for working adults
“The awesome thing about the program is its flexibility.”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “OMSCS Open Courseware” “feels tailor made for late 20s and 30s”
Comment from 22 Aug 2026 in “A formal degree and algorithmic problem-solving is the answer. Always has been” Respected school with strong ranking
“GATech and UT Austin is highly respected and they only costs $6k and $10k respectively for their OMSCS.”
Comment from 6 Jul 2026 in “Completing a Computer Science Degree on Coursera” “It's a masters degree from the currently 8th ranked computer science school in the U.S.”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “OMSCS Open Courseware”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Heavy time commitment and weekend work
“Mostly lack of sleep and having to sacrifice a lot of weekends to work on the assignments.”
Comment from 7 Dec 2025 in “OMSCS Open Courseware” “The real commitment is not financial, it is time.”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “OMSCS Open Courseware”
What people recommend instead
The same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Georgia Tech OMSCSThis page | 15 | 2 | 88% | 4 | — | Approved |
| Georgia Tech Online Master of Science in Computer Science | 10 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
19 of the 21 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“feels tailor made for late 20s and 30s”
“GATech and UT Austin is highly respected and they only costs $6k and $10k respectively for their OMSCS.”
“upskilling as cheaply as possible (OMSCS@GT or UT Austin)”
“highly recommend GT's OMSCS because it's cheap and lets you transfer to on-campus if you so wish”
“Talk about a OMSCS success story”
“I don't think any of that would've happened without OMSCS.”
“Mostly lack of sleep and having to sacrifice a lot of weekends to work on the assignments.”
“I was not given a comprehensive education”
“relentless pace of busywork making even easy classes draining”
“OMSCS is not any less than a "real" graduate school program experience.”
“most courses are of much higher quality and definitely not undergrad level”
“The real commitment is not financial, it is time.”
“It's a masters degree from the currently 8th ranked computer science school in the U.S.”
“given the rigor of the assignments”
“The awesome thing about the program is its flexibility.”
“The ability of OMSCS to scale paper writing, review, and grading with real human TAs is nothing short of astounding.”
“the dedication to making higher education in CS more accessible is something that really sticks out to me”
“I really can't imagine that these online degrees have any real value in the modern world of LLM-assited coding”
“That course was great, though, and I definitely learned some things I'm glad to have learned!”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.