Georgia Tech Creates Cybersecurity Master’s Degree Online for Less Than $10k

This is a complete waste of time and money with the usual bullshit material taught by people who don't really have a clue and completely-out-of-touch-with-reality academic focus (write a buffer overflow!).

If you really want to learn invaluable cybersecurity skills, start playing wargames. I suggest (1) which is one of the best. If you manage to reach level 25 on your own, then you are elite and the knowledge you gained doing so is not only extremely valuable but something you can be proud of.

(Sidenote: I would hire anyone who reached vortex level 25 on the spot and pay him a six figure salary, without looking at any of his other qualifications/degrees/past experience)

Additionally, read every single phrack (2) magazine from the past 20 years and try to understand most of the material within.

(1) http://overthewire.org/wargames/vortex/

(2) http://phrack.com

Is it a "Master's Degree" or is it an "Online Master's Degree" because they keep saying online, and OMS instead of MS, etc.

I suspect that will be stigmatic, or is already.

If that is the case, then why waste $10K on a degree that is no more valuable than "self taught"?

Is an OMS from Georgia Tech more convincing than "I read some books and here's a good portfolio of personal projects" ? It's a hard sell.

While these degrees are interesting, they still have the same entrance requirements as on-campus programs (transcripts, references, undergrad degree). This is a shame bc there are many people, especially in software engineering, who have the skills yet lack adequate proof of those skills.

I'd love if there were a CS masters that either let you apply directly or complete a specification to get automatic admission. Perhaps after completing foundational courses with a B average. That would greatly increase access and should be sufficient to weed out unprepared candidates.

I'm currently in an online MS Information Assurance program offered by Iowa State University. It's both more expensive than this offering (although not by a lot) and from a university with a lot less name recognition. I mean, besides that it's probably in Iowa.

So on the surface the GATech offering looks superior. However, I can't help but wonder how the "at-scale" model changes that. At IA State I'm "in" rather small classes and have very ready access to the instructor by email and phone. My work is also almost all graded by the instructor directly, most courses aren't big enough for a TA to have been hired. So I feel like it's a fairly personal experience, despite my physically being several states away and watching lectures recorded. I'm working on forming a committee for my thesis this semester so I'll be conversing directly with the faculty even more.

I wonder how an "at-scale" program like this, which seems to get built more on a MOOC model, will compare. Will it feel nearly as much like receiving direct instruction from an expert, which is what I would want a graduate program to be, or will it feel more like an off-the-shelf mass produced training package? That's a big concern to me.

Edit: I also feel like it's worth noting that my program confers an MS, with either thesis or creative component at student choice. I suspect this will be viewed more favorably by employers and others than an "OMS," even with a big name on it.

Is that supposed to be cheap or affordable? As far as I knew online courses are up to a few hundred to get an official certificate. And I just graduated last week from a similar master's for €2k in a brick and mortar school. What's special about "under 10k" for an online study?

Edit: from elsewhere in the thread, I understand that a degree is more usually more expensive than 10k in the USA? I guess a lot more, since this is making headlines? Is that also the typical case for online degrees?

Hopefully they will have something more advanced in the future, possibly calling it Masters of Science in Cyber Engineering with course work similar to the following:

  [*]Introduction to Graph Design and Theory
  [*]Secure Network Design, Theory and Implementation
  Introduction to Analog and Digital Signal Processing
  [*]Assembly for IA-32 and x86_64
  Assembly for PowerPC, MIPS and ARM
  [*]C/C++ Programming for Windows, Linux and MacOS
  C/C++ Programming for Android, iOS and Embedded Systems
  [*]Python Programming
  [*]Advanced Python Programming
  [*]Automated Testing Theory and Implementation
  Advanced Graph Theory
  Introduction to Game Theory
  Advanced Game Theory
  Building Secure Scaleable Systems and Networks
  Building Big Data Analytics Systems
  [*]Automated Defense and Offensive Systems Theory and Implementation
  [*]Information Assurance Policy
  [*]Reverse Engineering Windows, Linux and MacOS
  Reverse Engineering Mobile Devices and Embedded Devices
  Reverse Engineering SCADA Systems
  Advanced Analog and Digital Signals Processing
  Cryptography for Engineers
  [*]Vulnerability Research Theory and Methods

Updated - [*] Core courses.

If the individual could make it through the above, they would be very knowledgable, experienced and ready for many of the hard problems in the realm of cyber that employers are wanting in extremely high demand.

I'd really like to see them do this for an undergrad. I never finished mine, which hasn't really held me back in my career except for wanting to pursue a masters. I've looked around, and I've never really found what I consider to be a respectable online undergrad for less than about 50k worth of tuition.

Enrollment only available to those who can SQL inject themselves into the class registries

This is positive. More quality online degrees please.

This is a phenomenal field choice for an online degree. I'm a little surprised that they didn't have a professional institution co-sponsoring it (like AT&T did for another GT program). One of the big players like Splunk or Symantec seems like an ideal fit for this.