> And everyone who's been exposed to both says it's the same courses and rigor as the on-campus version.
I am curious: who in the world would do both?
A more serious question, since you're going through it now: is there a thesis component to the online MS, or is it just coursework? If there's a thesis (either required or as an option for more research-oriented students), how does the thesis mentoring at a distance work?
It's something I haven't looked into for many years but I find it interesting that Masters engineering programs seem to span the range from coursework-only one year programs to two year plus programs with a thesis. With relatively little correlation between that and the overall reputation of the school/degree.
In my experience, the thesis is a huge part of the degree when it's present so I find it at least somewhat curious that some (many?) programs that are generally considered quite good don't have one.
Oh, I certainly understand that. I just find it interesting that there often doesn't seem to be a big distinction drawn between Masters degrees with a thesis component and those without--even though that's a pretty big difference. It's hardly unique to Georgia Tech. My understanding is that many Stanford Masters degrees don't require a thesis either.
It definitely is interesting. I did most of a Master's in CS at a state school ~2013 that offered both thesis and non-thesis options. The non-thesis was newer and more popular for part-time.
Another thing one professor explained to me is that the standards for a Master's thesis are actively changing. You can either do a glorified undergrad senior project (but with you doing all of the work that a small team might do in undergrad) or intense publication-worthy research. The latter was mostly people going forward with a PhD to follow. I definitely went in to the degree with the impression that all Master's students were doing a thesis in the second category, but I think this is a case of the times are changing.
I did a resident MS CSE around the time they started the online program. While for the classes that were also available online they seemed equivalent (usually just recorded versions of the same class), there is one big caveat: most of the courses I took during my MS, or at least most of the most valuable courses I took, were not offered online.
My BS CS was also from GT (several years before), so much of the core course list available online were slightly more rigorous retreads of distributed algorithms, simulation architectures, etc. already covered late in undergrad. The most valuable courses in my MS were special topics courses that, at least at the time, weren't available online, many of which were in other departments as part of the computation + application domain interdisciplinary approach of the program.
That said, the core courses that were also offered online were generally quite good, and a few were exceptionally great. Rich Vuduc's HPC applications course comes to mind.
My wife and I have done some of the same coursework (for different degrees), me on campus and hers online. I actually would have preferred online. Rigor seemed equivalent, but I find the ability to pause and rewind lectures invaluable.
And everyone who's been exposed to both says it's the same courses and rigor as the on-campus version.
(Source: 2 classes from finishing)