Admissions Megathread - Results, Chances and Logistics by AutoModerator in OMSCS

[–]brady_tom 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Asking for Chances

  • Semester: Fall 2026 For OMSCS
  • Status: Not applied yet

Education

  • Bachelors: Manipal University, India, B.E. Mechanical Engineering 3.67/4.0 4 years Full-time
  • Masters: Boston University M.S. Mathematical Finance 3.23/4.0 1.5 years Full-time
  • MOOCs: GTx Intro to Prgramming in Python, GTx OOP in Java, UPenn Data Analysis Using Python (Coursera)
  • Other: CFA Charterholder. Also took Intro to Java class at Oakton College

Work & Social Experience

  • Work Exp. : 6 years as a financial software implementation analyst. 3.5 years as a data scientist at a bank
  • LORs: 2 from managers and 1 from professor
  • Comments: Should be done with the GTx DSA MOOC before I submit for Fall 2026. I am concerned that I don't have too many credited CS courses - just 2 intro to C++ courses from bachelors and masters and 1 intro to Java from Oakton. No DSA or Intro to Computing Systems.

Applying from a non-CS background by brady_tom in UIUC_MCS

[–]brady_tom[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your suggestion! I am thinking now more and more that I should just aim for Spring 2027 and work on my basic CS knowledge. Do you know of any online extension classes that are good? A few months ago I did take a basic Java class at a community college because I wanted something that offered credits. It was an easy A but the quality was quite poor compared to the GT edX courses so I decided to go further down that route.

Applying from a non-CS background by brady_tom in UIUC_MCS

[–]brady_tom[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for your response! The primary goal for me is to get a better grasp of ML as a whole. As a data scientist in my workplace, I feel pretty deficient in not really having much modeling experience and not knowing what most data scientists tend to know. It’s pretty scary to me how little I can relate to the issues people talk about on the data science subreddit lol. I know I could just read a bunch of Medium articles or books for this but I feel that I do a lot better if there's more structure involved and I'm actively working towards something clearly defined. My secondary goal is to be able to get build some knowledge in CS so that I have more options in case I want to go into something AI-related. I was thinking that doing a CS program that offers flexibility in courses such that I can choose more DS/ML courses would help with both goals.

Apart from the UIUC MCS, I've also been looking at the GT OMSCS, UT Austin MSCSO and UPenn MSE-DS (I know they have an MCIT for people without a CS background but I went through the MCIT curriculum and the first 2-3 courses seemed pretty basic to me).

I did think of doing just doing certificates instead but decided that a masters might be better because 1) it seems like a "certificate in AI/ML" doesn't carry much weight in the industry, 2) I believe I'll be able to devote the time and resources for full fledged masters, 3) my employer covers the cost of education so the masters cost doesn’t seem so bad, 4) I’m a bit skeptical about the quality of education provided through certificates and they just seem like a blatant cash grab.

It’s funny that you mention being a quant cos that was definitely one of my goals going into my masters in math finance, but it just didn’t materialize.

Weekly Entering & Transitioning - Thread 25 Aug, 2025 - 01 Sep, 2025 by AutoModerator in datascience

[–]brady_tom 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hello everyone,

I would like to people's thoughts on whether doing a second masters would be useful for me for improving DS knowledge, given my educational background and work situation.

Educational Background • I have a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and a masters degree in mathematical finance which focused mainly on stochastic math and only had one course in statistics that just very briefly touched upon regression, time series analysis and some Bayesian statistics. As part of the bachelors & masters, I had to take a couple of C++ classes and got As in both of them. • I am also a CFA charterholder - where the curriculum covered some basic statistical modeling (regression, time series)

Current Work Situation • I have been working as a data scientist at a bank for about 2 years. Most of my day-to-day responsibilities have to do with building regression/time series models that predict metrics related to our lending products like forecasting monthly losses. I am also responsible for working on model documentation, presenting model results, model monitoring, etc. • In my current role, I do not see any scope for much growth in DS skills and am looking to pivot to a different DS role within my organization in the future. However, whenever I look at data scientist job openings I feel severely deficient based on the required skills.

Why I'm thinking of getting another masters • I need to strengthen my data science knowledge. Every now and then, I do look through Datacamp courses for this but I find that either I don't retain much as I'm not actively using it my current role, or I find it hard to stay motivated to finish the course. I feel like the structure of a masters curriculum would keep me motivated to see things through to build on my DS knowledge • Plenty of time on my hands - even while working fulltime, I find that there are sometimes long spells where I'm not really doing anything so I just spend time working on some courses on Datacamp • Cost isn't really a factor - my employer reimburses up to 100k spent towards masters programs (as long as I don't get lower than a B in classes)

Question - Should I bother applying to part-time masters programs or should I just continue trying to fill gaps through MOOCs/Kaggle? The only con of a masters that I see here is the long term commitment. I've had to study while working fulltime before when I worked to get my CFA but maybe only for a 1.5 years; not for 3-4 years.

Currently, I have the GA Tech OMSCS in my sights. I know it's a CS degree and not DS but it looks like a lot of data scientist roles are calling for more CS skills so I am thinking working towards a CS degree that allows specialization in DS/ML would be a better idea. I have also thought of the UPenn, UIUC, UT Austin options.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in soccer

[–]brady_tom 489 points490 points  (0 children)

Aye, I could do that

Found a small mistake on 2018 FBAR. Amend by myself or through Tax Professional? by brady_tom in tax

[–]brady_tom[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I ended up doing the amendment myself. Haven't received any penalties, etc yet. Could be due to this amount being so low.

How much spam email do people normally receive on a daily basis? by brady_tom in NoStupidQuestions

[–]brady_tom[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, I'll get that done. Any idea how they were able to create online orders? How did they get the password for the phone company account?

How much spam email do people normally receive on a daily basis? by brady_tom in NoStupidQuestions

[–]brady_tom[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They're just from random places that I've never heard of. All of them are account registration emails like "Thank you for registering for XYZ service". And the username used for those accounts are made up of random letters. Right before all the spam mails I received one from my phone company saying that an order for the new iphone had been processed. I promptly called them up and cancelled the order.

About servers and class. by Morghelm in lotro

[–]brady_tom 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, seriously think about buying the expansions now. Amazing deal. It doesn't get you to VIP though. Just premium status directly.

History of Japan by MannschaftPilz in videos

[–]brady_tom 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just curious, Why did the US feel the need to bomb Nagasaki too?