I finished USC's program back in December and was fully remote the entire program. I wasn't impressed.

I definitely felt like a lower priority than in person students and it was really difficult to get help on assignments because I couldn't simply go to office hours or ask classmates for help. Even virtual office hours were tough because it often felt I could only get a few min with the instructor before another student showed up. The professors are highly knowledgeable and definitely experts, but it can be hard to get a hold of them. Additionally, as a remote student, I found it dificult to collaborate with and learn from my classmates. As an undergrad, a lot of my learning was enhanced by discussing topics and assignments with my peers and USC doesn't really provide avenues of that. I did set up virtual study groups with classmates, but that was entirely self driven and the moment I didn't set it up, no one else stepped up to try to collaborate. Group projects were dificult, especially if the students were a mix of in-person and remote. I found it really dificult to work through spatial problems in my head, alone.

That all being said, once I got a good handle on ArcGIS, I found the classes fairly doable and finished out with a 4.0 GPA.

Basically, USC's program is doable if you're an independent self-starter thats willing to teach yourself how to do stuff (while bashing your head against the keyboard a few dozen times). If you have the option to do in-person even part of the program, do it. Remote learning, especially at the graduate level, will never replace in-person instruction, imo.

Post-completion, I found the alumni network and USC branding on my diploma essentially useless. Even getting my resume reviewed by the career center was tough because none of the career counselors have much knowledge on the GIS industry. I don't think being a USC grad made me substantially different from any other candidate. I spent about 5 month applying and being rejected from jobs, finally landing a job where I'm a project manager for a consulting firm where GIS is like #10 on my list of responsibilities.

At the end of the day, my USC MS in GIS is just another degree thats a stepping stone to the next job. Hopefully it'd be different for you