[zulban]

I currently have a full time job in government as a computer scientist. I'm also taking an online master's at georgia tech and it's fairly good so far - no other way I could study supercomputing. Why would I leave an AI job where I'm learning practical AI skills to study CS? Async with evening exams was my only option.

If you don't have a broad perspective on all life circumstances and types of education, don't just dismiss what you don't know.

[mnky9800n]

I had to go to community college while having a job and paying for everything and doing it around my schedule. This was before most places had online options and those that did were like, university of phoenix where it seemed like it would limit you because it wasn't considered the same as a non-profit university. I don't really buy this argument that people need some kind of online experience or otherwise they would be cut out (excluding people with some kind of disability that prevents them from going places). Plenty of people were able to complete college educations by showing up to night classes prior to online classes being a thing.

After that, I worked at GaTech where one of my responsibilities was helping to build the physics portion of the masters program that you are currently in (i don't think the physics portion ever turned into a master program like OSMCS, i left around the time OSMCS started offering degrees). When building these courses we tried to implement the best information from cognitive science and education, we tried to build the best exercises, we had super active involvement in course forums, etc. We did everything right, and we still felt that something was missing from the experience from the teaching side and we did not find that students in the online side participated in the same ways, or learned the same information, as those on-campus. I still believe that most people would benefit more from in person educational experiences. I think your experience in the gatech program is a valuable one and I have heard many positive things about this program since I left to go and do other stuff. However, I still believe that there is something valuable from most educational programs being offered in person only.

[zulban]

I have three choices:

1) full-time in-person education, quitting my CS job

2) full-time online education, quitting my CS job

3) full-time CS job and doing a part-time master's online

Option #3 is the best for my CS education and growth. Period. Don't pretend the only choices are #1 and #2 because you're arguing in favour of #1.

Plus, it's not like I can (or want to) move to the USA just for studies. I have family in Montreal. Montreal has great universities for CS and AI but they have almost nothing for supercomputing or quantum computing.

I was a teacher for 4 years. I get it. There's magic to in-person education. But millions of people think online is the better choice for them and they're not all wrong.