Masters or a few Coursera courses?
Hi all, I wanted to get some formal education in distributed systems and was thinking of taking this specialization in distributed systems. I noticed it was part of a masters program by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Think it'd be worth it in the long run to go for the whole degree, or just take this specialization that I want the info from? Do Masters degrees still make you stand out? https://www.coursera.org/specializations/cloud-computing TC 180, 6yoe Important note, I do not hold a BS and did not major in CS (but have a BA with a non-science major)
Coursera
Having the degree is definitely great. But it’s probably a better idea to do the degree that focuses on that area instead of a more general one that has one module in it.
Yeah, I 100% only want to do this if I can find a program that focuses on distributed systems. The UIUC program is "Master's of Computer Science" in Data Science? And you can focus on distributed systems or machine learning. I'd rather do distributed systems because there is much more demand there. I think ML will fade into novelty, OR you better have a PhD to do it.
It was a bachelor in arts, so no science focus.
Don't do it just because of TC or because the company cares.
Honestly, I want to find a masters in distributed systems. There's so much depth there and I want to understand it throughly. I want this to be something that I can become an expert in. I can get through interviews with cramming a book and grokking system design interviews, but I want to really know it inside and out. I can move TC by jumping companies every 4 years, but I want to be an authority on *something* in my career.
You don't do any deep distributed systems work in companies. So, why go for a degree in systems ?
Depends on the company, if this is to move internally or applying outside your current company, and your longer term career goals. My experience is if you can demonstrate the knowledge and have a track record of delivering impact, education is less important the further away in time you are from college. Might be useful to have a Master's degree when job hunting.
My goal is to move to Microsoft or Google next year (I want to live on the Eastside), and then start the school work then. I had a good interview for a Sr. engineer position at MS, but was passed up for someone with ML experience. Next time I'll just avoid ML teams. Hoping to make this relevant for my career 5 years from now. Hopefully by then, I'll have been at MS for about 5 years. But also really just want to become an authority on distributed systems.
Why MS when AWS can provide you better opportunities in the distributed systems area