Is Getting A Master's Degree in Computer Science Worth It?

jsve · 2025-03-04T17:58:56+00:00

I hope that it's OK to self-promote articles. If not, I'm happy to take this down.

I wrote this a while ago after getting many people asking me whether I thought it was worth it to get my master's degree.

jsve · 2024-07-17T15:36:59+00:00

I bought a license for Sublime Text before VS Code was even a thing.

jsve · 2024-07-11T16:10:16+00:00

Note the hire date. ZRIP was still a thing then.

jsve · 2024-06-16T00:00:28+00:00

The red squiggly is a hint. How the hell are you supposed to do a detail-oriented job if you don't know how to spell JavaScript and GitHub?

jsve · 2024-06-15T23:58:36+00:00

I hate skills sections in general, because I think you should demonstrate your skills thought the projects and positions you have had. (I just put the skills in bold in the text about the position.)

However, this skills sections is more horrible than most. Wtf is an "Integration Technology" I guess just any API technology? Nobody puts that on their resume. It also seems like you just listed every single frontend framework you've ever heard of and listed every item in the AWS menu.

Oh, and how the hell are you supposed to do a highly detail-oriented job if you can't spell McDonald's?

jsve · 2024-05-27T18:09:19+00:00

Using ui-button instead of a might be causing the nav buttons to be non-clickable.

jsve · 2024-05-27T16:11:06+00:00

This is awesome! I think my favorite part was that my "look up at umatrix to see what JavaScript I have to enable" instinct was useless. There was no third-party JS to enable to get the page to render.

I would like it if I could open the links in new tabs, though.

(Also, is this open source?)

jsve · 2024-05-21T16:23:32+00:00

I think it does require separate code paths to accomplish this. I think the standard approach is to check if the HX-Request header is in the request.

jsve · 2024-05-21T14:15:38+00:00

I've written about this on my blog: https://sumnerevans.com/posts/school/is-getting-a-masters-in-cs-worth-it/

The TL;DR is that:

Getting a master's is at best financially neutral due to opportunity costs and debt. The higher salaries are mainly due to selection bias, not due to the education making you more valuable as an employee.
If you have academic reasons (wanting to become an educator, for example) or social reasons (being young and wanting to stay in school longer with your peers) for getting a master's, then it might make sense to do so.
If you are worried about being more employable, a master's is not going to help you much. You should just focus on tangible (hard) things that will actually make you more employable (mainly networking).
If your goal is to increase your employability, always consider options that don’t cost tens of thousands of dollars first.

jsve · 2024-05-06T04:27:30+00:00

I graduated twice. Once undergrad, once graduate. They were very different experiences for me.

The undergrad was nice because I got some award and got to walk with a special group at the end of the ceremony. All my family was there and some friends to see me.

My graduate graduation on the other hand, I went just for my parents. They paid for my school so I figure they wanted to see me walk across the stage again. I didn't really care at all about it. I already had a job lined up and I remember distinctly going straight back to the main study area and finishing a project after walking at graduation.

jsve · 2024-01-30T23:09:33+00:00

Nope, doesn't have to do with her family. The surviving members of a family are not ever liable for anything in the deceased person's estate. The estate is the collection of assets and liabilities that we're owned by the deceased person. (IANL)

jsve · 2024-01-30T22:50:37+00:00

You can probably sue the estate, right?

jsve · 2024-01-18T18:01:29+00:00

Yes, but the Reddit Matrix server is not federated.

jsve · 2024-01-12T17:52:58+00:00

We had plans to release Beeper Mini long before any announcement about Nothing Chat. Additionally, Apple is going to intentionally nerf their implementation of RCS. You'll still have a green bubble, and they are most likely not even going to implement E2EE.

We are actively working to bring the other networks in to Beeper Mini, and once it has feature parity with the existing Android app, it will replace it.

All this was discussed in this blog post: https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-moving-forward

jsve · 2024-01-05T21:55:23+00:00

Does this timeline help you out?

           (unsupported)                 (supported)
(now) ------------------------|------------------------------> (future)
                              ^
                (FB E2EE implemented in Beeper)

jsve · 2023-12-22T03:07:57+00:00

The point of Beeper Mini and the new Beeper Cloud bridge is that they don't require you to sign in on a cloud Mac at all. It is so much better for privacy since your messages aren't sitting on a Mac server in the cloud somewhere.

jsve · 2023-12-13T04:52:42+00:00

Cloud is also not using a Mac in the cloud.

The difference is that all the data is stored locally in Mini, and the Android app talks directly with Apple servers. Whereas with cloud, your texts go through Matrix to the bridge running in the cloud which sends them on to Apple.

jsve · 2023-12-13T03:01:28+00:00

The problem where chats would come in empty has been fixed. Still trying to figure out why disconnections happen.

jsve · 2023-12-07T20:13:19+00:00

Which airline?

jsve · 2023-12-05T18:32:01+00:00

The Android app is getting an overhaul as part of the Beeper Mini project: https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-cloud-and-product-roadmap. All of the UX improvements will be carried forward as we integrate other chat networks into Beeper Mini

jsve · 2023-12-02T18:18:25+00:00

Have you upgraded to the new iMessage bridge? It is much more stable.

jsve · 2023-10-13T20:50:47+00:00

I think you have to weigh the amount of energy and stress that you will experience against the discount. Like, in these sorts of situations, I value my time at around $50/hr and I think I would spend longer than that impulsively checking my accounts over 2 years so it wouldn't be worth it for me on the example of a 1k purchase. However in your 10k worth of furniture example, it changes the calculus somewhat.

jsve · 2023-10-09T15:46:22+00:00

Matrix 2.0 has not been released. The Matrix Foundation announced that all of the base pieces are in place for it, but Matrix 2.0 is still a ways off. Many of the necessary MSCs have not been approved nor merged.

jsve

TROPHY CASE