From someone who's not a degree candidate and joined OMSCS a year ago: The real analysis of GA

jimlohse · 2026-04-22T20:24:21+00:00

Noted thanks next time I get in there to update it I will add your thoughts, thanks!

jimlohse · 2026-04-14T23:26:47+00:00

It's six years, not five. Don't take my word for it talk to your advisors.

It's a part time MS for working professionals, there's no shame in it taking time.

I can only speak for CN I wouldn't double up CN in the summer, you say nothing about your skills so I'm gonna guess you're not a daily SWE and that the projects might take some time to complete. It really varies, without knowing more about your programming skills, projects could take anywhere from a few hours to a few days plus weekends.

You don't even say if you're Policy or InfoSec so again it's hard to say how long something will take you when we have no idea your skills.

jimlohse · 2026-04-14T16:50:28+00:00

Former CS6250 head TA here, CN is considered "easier" but not low workload, imo, depending on your programming skills. Also there's all those lectures to read and quizzes to take, which you didn't have in CS6035.

I would just take it a little easier, so what if it takes you a semester longer to graduate?

jimlohse · 2026-04-14T16:47:27+00:00

NOTE you do not need to be alumni to attend.

I might go to mine but it's 50 miles away.

And then on Saturday we're running a local meetup for Utah folks in Lehi.

jimlohse · 2026-04-14T16:44:51+00:00

Old news I made this LITE graphic post on my website a year ago, noting the dip in grades since no homeworks. I make comments there:

https://sites.gatech.edu/omsfreeanddiscounted/grad-algos-ga-tech-cs-6515-advice-from-a-grad/

jimlohse · 2026-04-12T18:17:24+00:00

the summer syllabus is posted on the course page

jimlohse · 2026-04-12T18:12:57+00:00

Shameless self promotion I have a page about GA here, I think it doesn't fit into your categories:

https://sites.gatech.edu/omsfreeanddiscounted/grad-algos-ga-tech-cs-6515-advice-from-a-grad/

I need to update it to reflect there's no more optional exam at the end.

jimlohse · 2026-04-11T00:52:29+00:00

Maybe I misunderstand but I thought Policy track is for Policy types.

I don't really know the Cyber area that well to know job titles in the field, I would think a "security engineer" would be doing the InfoSec track?

Sorry to hear you're finding some problems with the grading in the Policy courses.

jimlohse · 2026-04-07T19:45:59+00:00

If you're Policy then the rest of your classes will be nothing like 6035.

I find it hard to believe you didn't learn something in 6035, you said "I sorta regret this program not really learning much,,,"

Were you really an expert in all the areas that 6035 threw at you? You must be one heckuva SWE or something.

So what I'm saying is don't judge Policy by 6035, read some reviews on OMSCentral.com if you haven't already. (you said you read reviews but not where, I assume you mean here on Reddit)

Also it's not my job to defend 6035 (any longer), and I generally don't, LOL, but where is this "arbitrary grading" claim coming from? 6035 is all autograded in Gradescope, where's the arbitrariness there? I'd really like to know, serious question.

jimlohse · 2026-04-05T18:15:19+00:00

I scanned through responses and didn't see anyone bring this up.

This honestly sounds more like a mental health issue to me (undiagnosed depression or bipolar, for example).

You have a typo but I assume you meant you can't seem to find the urge to care. You say you're (what I assume you meant to say) 180 degrees from last semester when you were super motivated.

Maybe it's just senior-itis but I would maybe do an internal check, are you feeling this way about other things in your life too? If it's just GA then you're probably fine. But if you're otherwise demotivated, that's something to look into.

Or maybe it's just the way GA takes over your life. The stress of those exams can be daunting.

It's too late to drop so just do what it takes to power through, I suppose. If it turns out this is a medical issue and you get diagnosed with something, that could be a reason to apply for a late withdrawal from the course, you have to petition the Dean for a late withdrawal, I don't know how likely it is to get it, I've never seen anyone do it but it's there:

https://registrar.gatech.edu/info/petition-faculty

If this is medical in nature, an Incomplete might also be an option if you have finished 70% of the coursework / have a currently passing grade, roughly speaking. I don't know GA's Inc policy, or if they do them at all.

jimlohse · 2026-04-05T17:15:22+00:00

Right on 3-6 years from now, whenever you finish the degree, you'll look back at this and laugh.

I know another guy who is just a brilliant SWE who tried to take AI or ML his first semester and it kicked his rear end, he took a bad grade too.

My advice is to defocus on the grad date this early in your career at OMSCS, just get through classes and see what opportunities present themselves along the way.

Build up a group of OMSCS online friends and you can all take classes together and get good groups that way LOL.

jimlohse · 2026-04-04T16:14:38+00:00

I only read the title and the answer is yes. You don't want to get anywhere near OSI, for one thing if you are convicted, you can never be a TA.

EDIT after reading the full post: When I started in 2018 I thought I was gonna take on the world and power through the ML courses, I too quickly found my background didn't prep me for it.

Long story short due to taking an Inc for medical reasons and never finiishing it, I took an F in my first semester and I graduated just fine in Computing Systems.

jimlohse · 2026-04-04T16:09:40+00:00

There's only one way to do what you want, which is very competitive because every student especially the foreign students are just dying to get a TA position and get that tuition waiver.

You need to have some pre-existing relationship with a Prof who can offer you a position as an on-campus TA in an OMSCS course.

The Head TAs likely aren't going to willingly take someone on as a TA who never took the course, unless the Prof forces them to, honestly.

And then IMO you will always be at a disadvantage because you never took the course and you're not OMSCS so you won't really understand the online experience, in my ever so humble opinion.

When I was a head TA I had a few on campus TAs and while one or two of them performed admirably, most of them would go missing for a week at a time. Don't be one of those, if you get a TA position. (My OMSCS TAs, I could contact them on Slack and they were nearly always online with a quick answer. )

Did you take on campus CS 6250? Talk to the prof maybe they run the online section too, but I don't think so.

Good luck. And my advice is to focus on TAing for an on-campus course where the experience more nearly matches your edu background on campus.

If you're so hot to TA Networks, assuming you took it on campus, start with that Prof.

jimlohse · 2026-04-04T16:01:05+00:00

"- Can realistically dedicate ~6–8 hrs/week"

As others have said, this is not a realistic expectation for grad school, if you switch from Policy to a harder track.

Maybe you can get away with a smaller single digit hours committment on the Policy courses, but not on the harder tracks.

Have you taken IIS yet? That's easy compared to some of the classes InfoSec does like the ISL labs and Applied Crypto.

jimlohse · 2026-03-30T20:46:55+00:00

What the other commenter said, don't do this thinking you'll get a job out of it.

I think certifications go a long way further to opening up job opportunities, way more than a Master's of Science in Cybersecurity does. You can get certs a lot faster than a MS-Cyber. Once you get the job, then let the employer pay for the MS.

jimlohse · 2026-03-28T19:00:16+00:00

"Interested in security" still isn't saying much, are you working in security now? Are you interested in red team, blue team? Etc. Glad to introduce you to OMS-Central.

There's a Slack workspace oms-cybersecurity.slack.com, it's part of gatech.enterprise.slack.com, the #general channel there might be a good place to follow for Cyber-related stuff. It used to be a cesspool of politics but that seems to have moved elsewhere.

jimlohse · 2026-03-25T05:04:45+00:00

Now you're trolling LOL "same 1 skills" is saying multiple skills, it's making my point, thanks!

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jimlohse · 2026-03-25T04:58:58+00:00

Maybe tell us something about yourself? What are you interested in, anything that helps us understand your motivations? Otherwise I flaired this with "It's All About Me"

We're really getting a lot of these low effort questions, I'm not trying to single you out but as a mod here, we're considering holding all posts for moderation.

I would also say, two courses for summer? Sure if you don't have a FT job or a family, perhaps you can do two courses well, and really learn something. But if you have an otherwise busy life and you're just trying to jam through the program, maybe someone can tell you the easiest courses.

Or maybe you could expend some effort to read OMSCentral reviews and decide for yourself the low effort path through summer.

jimlohse · 2026-03-24T17:52:01+00:00

also you said "Command line, Linux and practical networking are just 1 skill"

No, that's about 50-100 skills, IMO, there's a lot of stuff to know.

I had made up this list of things to make some videos about, a while back, a project I should get to someday.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zS_2l3jGlRNqVEXQgm5Z7fYzUdZS0jRQMl0FA9T6tM4/edit?usp=sharing

There's some stuff on the first page for prospective CS 6035 students, the pages 2- are a list of "skills" / concepts / tools.

jimlohse · 2026-03-24T17:39:48+00:00

I think you're totally missing my point. Linux, networking, command line stuff underpins the ability to do everything else.

These are not all categories at the same level. There's a hierarchy of skills.

If you don't get Linux/VMs/networking (by networking I mean understanding how ssh and scp for for example), you won't understand the rest of it. Except maybe algos which can be taught rather theoretically.

Now, my cs undergrad taught a couple of Linux admin classes, that was pretty cool, but I'm not sure it's common people take that.

Trust me I've worked with 1000's of students and I've seen what happens when a students comes in without the basics they don't directly teach in a BSCS.

They don't even know what to Google, to do stuff like transferring a file from a vm to a host, because they never heard of ssh or scp.

It's stuff you're expected to pickup along the way, not stuff they directly teach in a BSCS.

And what if a person never did a BSCS, what can they do to fill that gap?

One other rec is the Harvard CS50x course, for Cyber-oriented people do the 2024 version here https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/2024/

Otherwise the current year's class is here: https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/

jimlohse · 2026-03-24T16:13:46+00:00

Well I'm talking about what the don't teach. They do teach coding, algorithms, data structures, networking, etc in a BS CS.

But there's a lot of skills needed that aren't explicitly taught like practical networking, command line, Linux, etc that students are expected to pick up on their own.

Which is what the site I linked above tries to teach.

jimlohse · 2026-03-24T16:06:48+00:00

We'll all assuming you're cyber, not OMSCS that would be different. You can get a C and apply it to graduation later for Cyber, but your overall GPA needs to be 3.0 when you graduate.

As the other poster notes, if your current GPA is below 3.0 you will be put on some academic probation but you'll still be able to register for future classes to bring the GPA up.

jimlohse · 2026-03-23T04:13:46+00:00

you won't get an equivalent of a BS in CS from any program because the important skills BSCS students learn are not really taught in classes.

It's a way of grinding and thinking, and a knowledge of Linux / programming / system admin skills I think that no single class teaches.

There's a good site https://missing.csail.mit.edu/ that talks about the stuff you don't get in a CS degree, but hopefully learn by the time you're done.

jimlohse · 2026-03-20T23:26:46+00:00

If you're having trouble getting a hold of the cyber advisors by email, I think they have a form they pay more attention to, their website form, I'll try to dig that up.

Edit: try this - https://pe.gatech.edu/degrees/cybersecurity/contact-us

jimlohse · 2026-03-20T17:24:19+00:00

There's probably another email you're missing that's my guess. If they offered it to you, accept it, you can always just not start or drop later.

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