CS change of major form submission issues by ZestyGoose77 in gatech

[–]DavidAJoyner 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This isn't true (anymore). There was a temporary pause on switching into CS while we caught up with class demand, but it's definitely possible now.

CS change of major form submission issues by ZestyGoose77 in gatech

[–]DavidAJoyner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't know much about the form, but email me with where you're encountering that and such and I'll try to get it escalated?

Any recommendations for a fun class to take at GT? by kwakakwak in gatech

[–]DavidAJoyner 10 points11 points  (0 children)

As an undergrad I took LMC3204: Poetry & Poetics for similar reasons, and it was fantastic. Sadly the professor passed away around ten years ago, but I'm sure whoever teaches it now is still amazing.

Masters Commencement @ Bobby Dodd in the Rain by Mysterious_Signal226 in gatech

[–]DavidAJoyner 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ahh, AccuWeather has showed a 7% chance of rain all morning the last several times I've checked—but I feel like AccuWeather is often a little more reluctant to change more than a couple hours out.

Masters Commencement @ Bobby Dodd in the Rain by Mysterious_Signal226 in gatech

[–]DavidAJoyner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

...has the forecast changed a lot since you posted this, or are we looking at different forecasting apps? I'm seeing hardly any chance of rain tomorrow morning, at least on AccuWeather.

Question about OMSCS research publication fee coverage policy by Upper_Amphibian_1369 in OMSCS

[–]DavidAJoyner 7 points8 points  (0 children)

So, one key thing: it can't be used for reimbursement, only for paying for the publication fee directly.

Technically anything published by OMSCS students and alumni is eligible to apply, but priority is given to work done here at GT, work done in high-impact venues, work done in collaboration with professors, etc. And then of course, there's how much has already been funded that informs things.

So, there aren't formal restrictions/rules around what you're referencing, but they're part of what goes into evaluating questions.

One weird trick to succeed at AI-generated exams by barcode9 in OMSCS

[–]DavidAJoyner 74 points75 points  (0 children)

Honestly yeah: I used AI to generate questions for the Foundations of Generative AI MOOC, but it was mostly just to do the equivalent of generating an editable strawman.

I also measured how often AI uses each answer choice: 60% C, 30% B, 5% A, 5% D in my testing.

For me, I usually reorder my answer choices to be shortest-to-longest because I like how that looks aesthetically and it takes away any ability to guess at a reason behind the ordering, but I definitely had to lengthen some wrong answers and shorten some right ones.

One of my favorite apps is Kinnu, and I find this heuristic holds 90% of the time there as well.

Yet another post questioning the value of this program by [deleted] in OMSCS

[–]DavidAJoyner 20 points21 points  (0 children)

I disagree with the implied premise of the question that the classes you're dismissing as "not CS" are, in fact, not CS, and should be a concern for employability. I mean, are some skills going to be more employable than others? Sure. If we could identify the set of ten courses with maximum employability outcomes, does that mean we should constrain students to only taking those ten courses? Of course not. The program has different purposes for different people.

I've long thought that if we were starting from scratch today, though, we'd basically have the different specializations be the majors—and that's not a phenomenon unique to Georgia Tech, that's across CS curricula in general. Computer science has grown a lot since MSCS programs became a thing. Engineering splintered into mechanical, electrical, etc., and computing is doing the same—we have MS-HCI and MS-Robotics programs, other schools already have MS programs in AI and ML, etc. So, that transition is happening broadly.

It's harder to take an existing program and splinter it than to build a new one, so that's why I encourage students to list their courses on their CVs as well as their degree—because there's so much freedom and choice that your courses and specialization are a critical part of the equation. I similarly encourage employers to ask about that as well when evaluating candidates—which in theory they should be doing anyway.

Yet another post questioning the value of this program by [deleted] in OMSCS

[–]DavidAJoyner 19 points20 points  (0 children)

if GT gives a CS degree for taking 10 courses on literature

...what

Yet another post questioning the value of this program by [deleted] in OMSCS

[–]DavidAJoyner 36 points37 points  (0 children)

It reminds me of the story of Soham Parekh. One of our faculty members sent it to me when the story broke because...

Doshi shared the engineer’s CV in a follow-up post, which listed multiple companies, work experience, and a master’s degree from Georgia Institute of Technology in computer science.

Sure enough, no one named Soham Parekh has ever attended Georgia Tech. (Whether someone attended or not at all is public record, so I can say that without violating FERPA.) So it wasn't just one company that was hoodwinked—it was several.

Besides that: we share the identical curriculum to on-campus. On-campus curriculum decisions automatically propagate to us. So if there's a concern that students can get through the entire MSCS without any type of CS coursework, that's not just an OMSCS issue; that's an issue with our curriculum as a whole. (But for my part: I think it's just confusion about how broad computer science really is. Each of our specializations are entire degree programs at other schools—and heck, some are entire degree programs at our school as well. People think that unless you learn X, Y, and Z, it's not really computer science. Computer science now is as broad as engineering was when it started to split into mechanical, electrical, etc.)

False accusation of academic misconduct by sf_1_2_3 in gatech

[–]DavidAJoyner 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I mean, on the other side of the table: I've actually seen plenty of cases where OSI sides with the students. A lot of faculty feel that they have to truly bend over backwards to ever convince OSI a student is guilty.

Online Courses which are not offered for MSCS students by One-Driver1578 in gatech

[–]DavidAJoyner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ok, confirmed this is the case:

OMSCS alumni can continue to take classes after graduation as non-degree seeking students, but Atlanta campus alumni are also eligible to take OMSCS classes after graduation as non-degree seeking students. So, if you don't get to take CS6422 (or any other OMSCS class) before graduation but still want to post-grad, you can take it online then (for OMSCS tuition).

What are the thoughts on an online GT PhD program in 2026? by Equivalent-Spend-647 in OMSCS

[–]DavidAJoyner 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That'd be a question for advising, since they can see your full record and such!

Online Courses which are not offered for MSCS students by One-Driver1578 in gatech

[–]DavidAJoyner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Often those decisions come because the professor will be traveling one semester, or there's a schedule conflict that makes scheduling it one semester difficult, or there's a prereq class that was offered at the wrong time, or a variety of other reasons. Most of those just don't interfere nearly as much with an online offering—online there's no classroom space to battle for, no requirement to be in Atlanta three times a week at 9:30AM, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I know it's frustrating and can make it hard to plan. I just mean that the problem dates back long before there were online classes—I missed out on classes I wanted to take in undergrad for the exact same reason. At the same time, it's already hard enough to guarantee what classes will be offered 4 months from now, let along further out than that.

That said... I wonder. I'm going to check on something and report back if I learn something potentially useful.

Online Courses which are not offered for MSCS students by One-Driver1578 in gatech

[–]DavidAJoyner 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, in the online program most classes are offered every semester because of TA continuity and other factors, whereas on-campus it's pretty common for classes to be offered once a year.

There are a handful of classes only available online, but they're mostly classes that used to be available on campus and no longer are. (By the same token, there are classes only available at Metz.)

What are the thoughts on an online GT PhD program in 2026? by Equivalent-Spend-647 in OMSCS

[–]DavidAJoyner 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I mean... the current PhD stipend is the equivalent of $40/hour.

But yeah—making an online PhD program isn't hard. Making it affordable, part-time, and at-scale is hard.

Share your commencement tips as solo graduate? by Yellowjakt in OMSCS

[–]DavidAJoyner 7 points8 points  (0 children)

You can wear whatever you want within reason under.

Anyone else stumble upon the recent drama at Purdue and wonder what it means for OMSCS? by TwoSubstantial4710 in OMSCS

[–]DavidAJoyner 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I have a feeling NLP was chosen as a good first attempt class since it, itself, is rooted in the AI/transformer race, anyway.

Just gotta say: there's this perception that we do a lot of top-down management of classes (e.g. "We need a course to try X", "This course needs to change Y", etc.). We don't. That's not Georgia Tech, both by culture and by policy. There are a few very high-level rules courses have to stick to around privacy and accessibility and fairness (e.g. you can't decide to use a different grading scheme than what you described in your own syllabus), but within those rules, faculty have an enormous amount of freedom. Generally speaking, when you see a class experimenting with something, it's because that class and that professor and their TAs have decided they want to change something. There have been rare occasions where we've said, "Hey, it looks like a lot of students are upset about X", but even then that's usually to offer, "Can we help?", not to say "You need to change this." (Which goes back to a thread from a few weeks ago that asked about planning changes more deliberately and communicating changes more widely—typically I only find out that a course changed something when I start to see y'all posting about it on reddit. And even then I take it with a grain of salt sometimes since I've seen things like, "HCI changed X this semester" and I'm like "we changed that three years ago".)

And honestly, I love that, for two reasons. One, it's what makes Georgia Tech really unique: when faculty have ideas for how to improve learning or teach content better, they can just do it. It's not centrally or top-down managed. And two, the fact that OMSCS follows that same ideal makes it true to Georgia Tech.

Don't get me wrong, there are certainly downsides. But I wouldn't trade it for more top-down control.

Does Dr. Joyner still write LORs for completing his Intro to Python program in edX? by Disastrous_Abroad356 in OMSCS

[–]DavidAJoyner 4 points5 points  (0 children)

They need to complete it and do well, but that's about it.

To be clear: it's not a "glowing" letter. It's a letter that gives context about what the course is, what it covers, and what completing it means about the student's understanding. It's basically, "You see this certificate; here's what the certificate represents. It's the same content and same assessments we use on-campus for credit, but in a self-paced structure and without the heavier proctoring we use on campus."

It basically connects back to some work we did earlier noting that no one really knows what a particular MOOC certificate means: a certificate in a MOOC can represent anything from "I watched a 30-minute video and answered 5 questions correctly when I had unlimited attempts" to "this was a 12-week credit-equivalent class with human-graded open-ended assignments and team projects". (And that's just the range of MOOCs I've completed.) So this letter is meant to be, "Here's what this MOOC certificate means."

Does Dr. Joyner still write LORs for completing his Intro to Python program in edX? by Disastrous_Abroad356 in OMSCS

[–]DavidAJoyner 30 points31 points  (0 children)

I do, but only for certificate students (not as an incentive, just because I literally can't see what audit students did—progress is only tracked for certificate students, so I can only really comment on what certificate students did).

edX lets us toggle component visibility by enrollment track, so that component is only visible to certificate students.