Top all-time · #8128
Oz Nova
Personal blog · ozwrites.comcareerprogramming
Oz Nova's personal blog at ozwrites.com covers career and programming. Since 2020, 9 different Hacker News readers have linked it 11 times, most often “The case against CS master’s degrees”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Oz Nova's /masters essay to argue that CS master's degrees are a weak signal and a cash cow. One commenter recommends it as the quick answer to whether a CS master's is worth it.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- The case against CS master’s degrees7 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2020-04-21
What Hacker News says?
For the opposite perspective: "The case against CS master’s degrees" [1] [1] https://ozwrites.com/masters/
Comment linking /masters/
on “Master’s Degree in Computer Science”Submitted The case against CS master’s degrees as a story · 109 points
HN discussion> from masters CS grads towards more talented coders with no degree A CS masters isn't necessarily signaling the right things [0] [1]. Especially if it's a "terminal" master (and not someone dropping out of a PhD). > I've also seen this get pretty ugly in the ML/deep learning community between the credentialed academics and the practitioners. Lots of institutions embarked on the ML bandwagon, but unless the credenti…
Comment linking /masters/
on “A theory that “elite overproduction” leads to political instability (2020)”Submitted The case against CS master's degrees as a story · 25 points
HN discussion> My total cost for 2 years was $117,889. That's to be expected. These programs are "cash cows". And they send a pretty bad signal [0] [1]. > BU did not have scholarships or aid for international students, because saying you need aid is admitting that you lied on the visa application. That's also a red flag. Serious programs (that are research focused) are typically need blind when applying; if the lab wants a certa…
Comment linking /masters/
on “Completing a part-time Master's in computer science while working”Submitted The case against CS Master's degrees as a story · 6 points
HN discussion> Anyway the school I went to absorbed a smaller technical school with a Masters in Software engineering that I’m debating on getting. One prereq I’d have to take is Algorithms and Data structures and that’s a gap I’d like to fill. Seeing some unrelated degree or a "weak" version of a CS/Engineering one (now at a business school) and a cash cow masters[0] is a red flag on a resume. [0] https://ozwrites.com/masters/
Comment linking /masters/
on “My Journey as a Self-Taught Programmer”Submitted Our Homeschool Plans as a story · 2 points
HN discussionTLDR - Read this https://ozwrites.com/masters/ Longer answer... Have you seen https://teachyourselfcs.com/ which is literally a tailor made resource for teaching engineers to be better programmers rather than a language. It's easily a year worth of material but followed along will put you ahead of the average joe bootcamp grad trying to land the same job.
Comment linking /masters/
on “Ask HN: Is a Master's in CS worth it?”Submitted Cutting Through to What Matters as a story · 1 points
HN discussionProbably this https://ozwrites.com/masters/ (author of teachyourselfcs.com)
Comment linking /masters/
on “The case against CS master's degrees”
