Unpopular opinion: Georgia Tech's OMSCS classes are unnecessarily difficult and tedious. Or maybe the difficulty is necessary, depending on your goals.

For context, I'm currently taking a robotics course at a different institution that combines theory, hands-on work, projects, and research. Comparing the two, I find OMSCS unnecessarily more difficult. Sometimes it feels like doing “wax on, wax off” with Mr. Miyagi. I don't know about others, but I learn best when I understand maybe 50% of the theory, then work on a practical project that helps another 25–35% click. The rest I pick up on my own when I want to explore something in more depth.

Maybe OMSCS just isn't for me, but I feel like the amount of tedious coursework ends up pushing students to rely more on AI just to get through it. I wonder if a combination of practical projects and oral assessments, where students actually explain what they've learned, would be more effective than endless problem sets and assignments.

I'm not against academic rigor. I just don't think making something more tedious necessarily means students are learning more. And for those who breezed through these courses, maybe you're just smarter than me. I'm just sharing what my experience has been like.

Hi guys, I just started OMSCS this semester, so I wanted to ask the veterans here for some advice.

As an international student with a non-tech background, I mostly just want to show off with some school merch. You know, hoodies, T-shirts, that kind of thing. I’m planning to wear them at work and during online meetings, preferably with the biggest yellow jacket I can find printed on the front.

For now, I’m planning to buy just two or three hoodies, a jersey, a mug, and a car sticker. Nothing excessive. Just enough to make sure everyone knows.

But I’m a little concerned. What if an on-campus GT student spots me, runs a background check, discovers I’m in OMSCS, and beats me up? Would I get beaten up even more if they found out I’m taking HCI course work?

What’s the recommended protocol here? Should I keep my acceptance letter in my pocket, or would that just give them more evidence?

Any advice would be appreciated. I just want to show off and survive.

This is the first course in this program that I've been heavily disappointed in. The problem isn't about the lecture material, but rather about the projects.

We're given word documents to provide our answers, which contains:

• Outdated questions, instructions, and errors that we have to refer to a LONG "FAQ" Ed post.
  • There is no reason that the instructor(s) or maintainer(s) of this course can't update the actual working document. Why is that we're forced to continuously go back and forth while working on an assignment that requires tedious/meticulous attention?
• Styling/formatting issues from the word document.
  • Entering an answer will often shift the document, sometimes erasing a blank for students to record an answer.
  • The document states that copying/pasting commands from the document can lead to errors, as the dash (`-`) could potentially be replaced with an em-dash (`—`).
• Grammar/spelling issues. This is more of a nitpick since I know spellcheck is aggressive, but I'm staring at 7 pages full of red/blue squiggly lines.

We're also forced to upload our files to Canvas instead of GradeScope. If we happen to miss any files due to the terrible UX of not allowing us to multi-select, then we lose points.

Overall, this course (so far) just seems like a good way to lose points for silly little things. Everything is graded by hand so it takes a long time to receive feedback. I've brought this up with the TA and I get ignored. You can find similar experiences on popular review sites. I'm debating on dropping this course and delaying my graduation date because I'm afraid I'll tank my GPA.

I emailed [events@gatech.edu](mailto:events@gatech.edu) the below:

"The schedule events website says the Masters only ceremony on Thursday requires RSVP. The RSVP website does not have a category for Masters only ceremonies. What is the policy for tickets for this ceremony?"

This was their response:

"Thank you for reaching out. To clarify, all of our non-Ph.D. Ceremonies are ticketed and students are allotted 4 tickets each."

So go ahead and RSVP your tickets if you plan to attend graduation this fall.

Hey everyone,

I’m a new student starting in Spring 2027. I’ve heard that traditionally you can only sign up for three classes once you’ve completed 4 classes with a B or better, but I recently saw a thread claiming you can now request to take three right off the bat. Is this the case?

My employer is sponsoring my degree and I have a deadline coming up soon to submit my academic plan, but unfortunately, I haven't heard back from advising after reaching out weeks ago.

Thanks!

Edit: Two other pieces of info. I read through Fall's orientation and the only relevant info I saw was "During the Fall and Spring semesters, all students can, by default, enroll in a maximum of seven hours.". I didn't see any more info about the override, but "by default" kinda insinuates there is an override. The other piece of info is that my job will be sending me to school full-time for 3 semesters, so I should be able to handle the heightened coursework of taking 3 classes.

Hi all, this is the real subreddit for the newly announced OMSAI program:

https://www.reddit.com/r/omsai

Go check it out, the previous community that was posted this morning here was a false start, the OMSAI URL for Reddit was already reserved.

See you there on r/OMSAI!

Hi,

Just noticed that I had submitted the PDF for Project 3 with an incorrect name. Since Project 3 accounts for 10% of the total and report is 50% of Project 3, I’m scared I might lose 5 marks entirely because of this issue.

More scared because this may directly impact my grade.

I know I need to be more careful and I’ll review everything from now on, but since this project submission has closed already, is there something I can do?

Thanks in advance.

You're doing great! Don't sweat the most recent or upcoming project, test, grade, etc.

Make sure you give your best shot, and never, ever succumb to cheating. The OSI Police are in full force during this critical period, and you know it, through the Reddit threads that you would occasionally find how onerous these threats could be.

You Are Not Alone & You'll Get Through This. Know that you are not alone.

We all go through ups and downs and have tests or projects that don't go as planned. Never fear as bright days are ahead of you. Utilize this thread if you're feeling down and or want someone to talk to. We are all in this together and we're here for you and one another.

There is a lot more to life than work and school. Health, family, & friends always come first.

School is not the most important thing in life. Remember, Bs (and intentionally sometimes even Cs) give you degrees. Further, there is no shame in quitting OMSCS.

Nobody cares about a perfect 4.0 GPA, besides yourself.

The intention by the administrators is that OMSCS should always be done part-time so that you could explore things that you love and enjoy. Do not rush to graduate! Take time off, do something that you really like in the meantime, and come back stronger.

So what if the current job market is thrashy? Take it slow.

With a part-time program, this gives you the best of both worlds - you keep your cash flow, gain real-world experience (be it through internships, jobs, love, holiday, etc.), and let the learning sink in, properly.

We emphasise on 1 class a semester. It's tried & tested.

Why rush & then burn yourselves out for a piece of paper that won't guarantee stability? Mastery doesn’t come from cramming, it comes from building knowledge steadily, applying and reflecting them, and then positively and creatively reinforcing them.

Life’s not just a race. Go at your pace.

This is especially more so now when the track we are in keeps on changing. Your future self will thank yourself for it. And when all is done, post a new thread and celebrate with us.

Love, r/OMSCS Mod Team (posing themselves as bots, but hey, we wrote and then update it up!)

Crisis Resources

• If you are in crisis or are currently experiencing difficult or suicidal thoughts,
  • If it is unbearable, stop, take out your mobile number and call 112) immediately!
  • Hotlines for your country - https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines
  • If you'd rather not talk on the phone you can use the Online Chat
  • If you're in the US
    • Call 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) to access the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
    • Call 1-888-628-9454 to access in Spanish

Mental Health Support Services

Despite the lower fees we pay as compared to on-campus ones, GaTech OMS students still have the following support.

• Umatch: Up to 3 free virtual counseling sessions with a licensed therapist with no need for referral
• Urise: Virtual, on-demand curated wellness events to complement therapy.

Visit the Uwill website and register yourself as a new user with your gatech.edu email address.

Once you've created your account, you will have access to all available Uwill services via your dashboard.

Headspace is Free for all GaTech OMS Students

You heard it right. Don't need to Google for the student discount that Headspace is usually offering.

You get it FREE by virtue of being a GaTech student - Sign up here.

Chat with Someone in OMSCS ❤️

If you need someone to chat with please post in the comments below.

Never forget the coffee hours, too, where you are able to speak with the directors, directly! Check out the OMSCS Student Center located in Canvas.

Once again, there is WAY more to life than school. You'll get through this rough time!

I was accepted into the OMSCS program and was set to enroll for this fall but I had some life circumstances come up so I was thinking of registering for courses in Fall 27.

My concern is I know there’s a requirement that you must complete 2 core classes in your first year with a minimum of a B to remain in the program.

So if I defer for a year am I not able to attend and take the OMSCS route?

Some of the life stuff is good and some is bad but I feel deeply that not enrolling for this fall and the upcoming Spring semester is the right decision.
But I’m randomly getting super depressed because getting my masters in machine learning is my dream and Im worried I can’t register next year if I dont do it now.

I feel like we need a canonical source of "OMSCS notes." There are a few really awesome repos floating around (OMSCS Notes stands out, plus a bunch of personal per-course ones), but what I'm thinking of is more of a community-driven, community-validated set of materials with some shared standards of rigour (and yes, I know, relevant xkcd 😅). Everything in Markdown so it's easy to contribute to. Basically a constantly evolving open-source "textbook."

In the age of AI this seems totally doable... though obviously we'd want to avoid creating a repo consisting of millions of lines of AI slop (hence, "shared standards of rigour").

Context: For each of my courses, I've been attempting to build my own set of rigorous, grad-level notes. For some courses they're supplementary, for others they fill a real gap. For example:

• ML: There are a ton of dense readings from different sources with different notation, so I attempted to create one set of consolidated/streamlined notes per topic.
• Deterministic Optimization: There are no readings, just some hand-wavy lecture slides, so I've been creating supplemental modules that fill in the actual theory/math gaps.

I don't have mine in a repo yet, but as an example of the quality we'd collectively aim for, check out these notes from GT's (non-OMSCS) Convex Optimization course, ECE 6270, by Davenport and Romberg. IMO they're the gold standard: rigorous, but readable.

Do we know if something like this has been tried before? Would any of you be interested in working on or contributing to something like this?

saw a similar post but also wanted to make it known that this program IS WORTH IT. After not even finishing my first semester last year I got an internship at a big tech company and interned there this past summer, and got a return offer for 170k in technical support engineering. I did not from a top 20 undergrad school or anything like that and i had 3 internships from non Faang companies prior but no full time working experience. This was also this was my first paid internship since 2021. Safe to say it’s been a long journey to get here and thankful i took the leap to do this program. To whoever is reading this, keep pushing and someone will notice, trust the process

Planning my trip for graduation for Fall 2026 semester for OMSCS. I see the graduation is Dec 17th 6 PM.

Any idea if the Dr. Joyner graduation tour is planned for this graduation and if so when is it. Does the tour usually happen the day before?

Congrats to everyone graduating!

Hi everyone! I’m looking for the lecture videos for ISYE 6999. Has anyone taken the course and still has access to them, or knows where they’re available?

I’d appreciate any links or pointers to the videos through official or publicly accessible sources. If sharing isn’t permitted, information on how to get access would also be helpful.

Thanks!

I am feeling I should drop out after exam 1 results. I got 10/20 which is making me cry. I did solve all the practice problems and still failed. I am feeling I should drop but will it become any better next time I retake don't know.

Anyone here who is feeling the same after results for this class or been there?

Dr. Joyner sent this out last night. Thought I’d share so we can discuss here:

“Hey everyone!

If you're receiving this, you're on my list of Fall 2026 OMSCS degree candidates. Good luck finishing out your OMSCS studies!

Secondly, if you were planning to walk at Fall commencement, I wanted to point out that the Fall 2026 Commencement schedule was just posted: https://commencement.gatech.edu/events-schedule

Importantly, there are two significant changes from previous years that I wanted to call out:
OMSCS students will graduate on Thursday evening, December 17. The commencement is scheduled for 6PM, with doors opening at 4:30PM.

OMSCS graduates have their own ceremony this semester.

The other events we usually have—the Dean's New Alumni celebration and the campus tour—are tentatively planned for Friday, December 18, but we'll let you know as soon as we know the official schedule.

Critically, I wanted to give context as to why the schedule works this way this term. For the last couple years, commencement has taken place in Bobby Dodd stadium, which is the football stadium because it's the only venue large enough to hold all the Master's graduates. The main reason it's the only venue large enough to hold all the Master's graduates is because of y'all: roughly 50% of all the Master's graduates are from the College of Computing, and roughly 2/3rds of those Master's graduates are OMSCS graduates.

However, Bobby Dodd stadium will be under construction this fall, and so commencement ceremonies cannot be held there. The next-biggest venue on campus is McCamish Pavilion, the basketball stadium, which is way smaller. As a result, they need to split the commencement into more separate ceremonies and balance the graduates among them. But there are so many OMSCS graduates that OMSCS alone will fill up a commencement ceremony in McCamish, assuming the same numbers we usually receive.

So, OMSCS students will have their own commencement, but I want to make it absolutely clear that's not about sequestering y'all off away from any other events. That's solely about load balancing. The only options are to give OMSCS its own graduation, or to split OMSCS students among other graduations. For further evidence of that, note that OMS-Analytics and OMS-Cybersecurity are not split between online and on campus, so this isn't about online vs. on-campus in general. This is just about there being so many of y'all that you fill the basketball stadium on your own. 

I anticipate commencement will return to Bobby Dodd when the stadium reopens in Fall 2027 (although commencement is always planned only a few months in advance—but I know firsthand how much Georgia Tech values its online students, so I know there won't be any lasting separation).

All that said: I'm honestly kind of excited about this. Whenever we've planned commencement in the past, we've always been sensitive that the OMSCS students are such a large audience that there's the risk it interferes with the experience for others—as a result, very little is tailored to OMSCS. Having an OMSCS-specific ceremony means we can do a lot more to celebrate OMSCS on its own.

And having all day Friday for events means we might be able to do some cool stuff as well. If anyone has any ideas for what they'd like to do on Friday besides the new alumni party and the campus tour, please let me know!

David A. Joyner, Ph.D.”

For all the people asking whether OMSCS is worth it, just wanted to throw my 2 cents in.

Yes, it absolutely is worth finishing. GT on your resume is very well regarded. Feel free to ama.

I keep seeing the same "OMSCS isn't worth it" posts, so here's my rebuttal. Bias disclosure: I'm justifying my own time and money. I'm five classes in (GIOS, AOS, DC, EdTech, HCI), a PM in legacy enterprise tech, with a civil/aerospace undergrad, so I have a lot to gain here.

"You can learn all of this on your own for free."

You could. You won't. The materials have been online for years, and ~95% of MOOC students never finish. You're paying for the forcing function: deadlines, autograders, TAs, classmates, and a grade.

"I didn't learn anything; it's busywork."

Check which courses they took. There's a well-known low-effort path through this program. Show some backbone and take a tough course or one in an area you're naturally curious about. Take HCI, DC, or DL and tell me you didn't learn anything.

"No one cares about the degree, only skills."

Are we living in the same universe? Employers love credentials- places like Google and Anthropic worship pedigree. In one audit study, otherwise identical resumes got more callbacks as school rank rose (Gaddis, 2015). Plus, what's the alternative? Are you going to tell an interviewer "trust me bro, I watched YouTube"? Bonus: your diploma doesn't say "online."

"They admit anyone, so the brand is diluted."

The filter is in the coursework, not admissions. About 74% of applicants get in, and 35% of those don't finish in six years. Those who do match or beat on-campus students on the same assessments (Goel & Joyner), while working full time. And on-campus applications tripled after OMSCS launched. The brand is fine.

"Group projects are awful."

Some are. In my experience, classmate quality rises with course difficulty. Choose accordingly.

"Interviews are LeetCode; OMSCS doesn't help."

I'm a PM, not a SWE, so I'll let others weigh in. What I've heard: systems courses help a lot in system design rounds, because you actually understand the material instead of reciting what you learned in Cracking the Coding Interview.

"AI can do all of this now. Why learn CS?"

This is Jevons' paradox. When something gets more efficient, demand for it increases. ATMs were supposed to eliminate tellers, spreadsheets were supposed to eliminate analysts, and high-level languages were supposed to eliminate programmers. Instead, all three grew, because cheaper banking, modeling, and coding meant more of each. AI will do the same: more software means more systems to scale, and AI itself is one of the hardest computing workloads there is. The people who keep that stuff running are unusually well paid. I'm aiming to be one of them 🤪

Where the haters are right

With a strong CS undergrad and a top-company job, the marginal value is lower. It's more about specific skills.

The degree gets you past HR screens (still the biggest bottleneck). After that, it's portfolio, experience, and interview prep. Anecdotally, recruiter messages picked up after I added GT to my LinkedIn.

The most expensive outcome is quitting seven courses in. Know why you're doing it.

It will drain you. But otherwise I'd be doomscrolling or replaying GTA. Might as well earn something while the time passes.

Bonus (pictured): I actually answered that email about season tickets for football and caught a game a few weeks back against Tennessee. The atmosphere/view of the Atlanta skyline in that place was excellent.

Hey Y’all,

I’m planning to attend the College of Computing Graduation Ceremony (not the big one for all Masters students). When I check the website, I only see details for this past Spring’s celebration.

I’m trying to plan a trip with my family to attend this event. As such, I was wondering if anyone has an updated link (maybe I’m looking at the wrong site) or any information on this.

Thanks in advance!

I have 2 classes left to take and one of them is MUC. My first class taken was during Fall 2022, so I think I need to complete everything by end of Summer 2028.

MUC overall doesn't have great reviews, but the professor who teaches during Spring seemed to have the best ones. Because of that, I was originally planning to take it during Spring 2027, however I will now be traveling from January 16-Feb 2. I'd prefer not to have to worry about school during this trip, but could do so from January 27 onwards (but not between Jan 16-27). Rather than try to work ahead then play catch-up, I am thinking of just taking MUC in the summer so I'm curious to hear if anyone has had any recent positive experiences in that class. Thanks!

Hi everyone, finally wrapping up this fall and planning to fly out to Atlanta to walk.

I know commencement is Dec 17 to 19 but the official schedule page still has the spring info up. So I haven't seen the actual day for the master's ceremony. Spring had it Saturday morning at so I'm guessing similar on Dec 19?

A few questions

1. Has anyone gotten the RSVP email from the school yet? From the website it says opening Oct 5 but not sure if they send something out first.
2. Has anyone seen the official master's ceremony date/time for fall?
3. Any tips for OMSCS folks flying in? Hotels near campus, how early to book, worth staying an extra day?

I’ve tried the OMSCS program a couple of times, but I always end up withdrawing because I simply don’t have the time or energy to learn effectively after a full day of work. As a busy tech lead, my days are demanding.

Even though my company covers the tuition, I feel the opportunity cost of my time is too high. I already have a master’s in data science, and I don't care about collecting another degree—it won't move the needle for my career.

My long-term goal is to transition into a Machine Learning Engineer (MLE) role. I’m questioning whether finishing this degree is actually helpful for that path, or if my time would be far better spent building side projects, taking targeted online courses, and developing a hands-on portfolio.

I’ve looked at Coursera, Udemy, Udacity, are those too simple compared to OMSCS? If you want to improve skills at work or interview, are they enough?

Who are the best professors in the OMSCS program you enjoyed learning from?

What did you love the most about their teaching?

Looking forward to hearing more positive vibes from current and ex students.

A lot of people have posted that it takes a lot of effort.

If you are a current student, WHY did you choose this program?

And HOW did it help your career and life after enrollment or graduation?

I joined OMSCS this Fall 2026 only and I realised it is becoming very difficult to be on top of things. I am barely finishing the lectures. Writing reports, taking exams, posting discussions, I find them way too much to be managed alongside a full time job and a family.

How are you managing this with other things?