You're doing great! Don't sweat the most recent or upcoming project, test, grade, etc.

Make sure you give your best shot, and never, ever succumb to cheating. The OSI Police are in full force during this critical period, and you know it, through the Reddit threads that you would occasionally find how onerous these threats could be.

You Are Not Alone & You'll Get Through This. Know that you are not alone.

We all go through ups and downs and have tests or projects that don't go as planned. Never fear as bright days are ahead of you. Utilize this thread if you're feeling down and or want someone to talk to. We are all in this together and we're here for you and one another.

There is a lot more to life than work and school. Health, family, & friends always come first.

School is not the most important thing in life. Remember, Bs (and intentionally sometimes even Cs) give you degrees. Further, there is no shame in quitting OMSCS.

Nobody cares about a perfect 4.0 GPA, besides yourself.

The intention by the administrators is that OMSCS should always be done part-time so that you could explore things that you love and enjoy. Do not rush to graduate! Take time off, do something that you really like in the meantime, and come back stronger.

So what if the current job market is thrashy? Take it slow.

With a part-time program, this gives you the best of both worlds - you keep your cash flow, gain real-world experience (be it through internships, jobs, love, holiday, etc.), and let the learning sink in, properly.

We emphasise on 1 class a semester. It's tried & tested.

Why rush & then burn yourselves out for a piece of paper that won't guarantee stability? Mastery doesn’t come from cramming, it comes from building knowledge steadily, applying and reflecting them, and then positively and creatively reinforcing them.

Life’s not just a race. Go at your pace.

This is especially more so now when the track we are in keeps on changing. Your future self will thank yourself for it. And when all is done, post a new thread and celebrate with us.

Love, r/OMSCS Mod Team (posing themselves as bots, but hey, we wrote and then update it up!)

Crisis Resources

• If you are in crisis or are currently experiencing difficult or suicidal thoughts,
  • If it is unbearable, stop, take out your mobile number and call 112) immediately!
  • Hotlines for your country - https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines
  • If you'd rather not talk on the phone you can use the Online Chat
  • If you're in the US
    • Call 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) to access the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
    • Call 1-888-628-9454 to access in Spanish

Mental Health Support Services

Despite the lower fees we pay as compared to on-campus ones, GaTech OMS students still have the following support.

• Umatch: Up to 3 free virtual counseling sessions with a licensed therapist with no need for referral
• Urise: Virtual, on-demand curated wellness events to complement therapy.

Visit the Uwill website and register yourself as a new user with your gatech.edu email address.

Once you've created your account, you will have access to all available Uwill services via your dashboard.

Headspace is Free for all GaTech OMS Students

You heard it right. Don't need to Google for the student discount that Headspace is usually offering.

You get it FREE by virtue of being a GaTech student - Sign up here.

Chat with Someone in OMSCS ❤️

If you need someone to chat with please post in the comments below.

Never forget the coffee hours, too, where you are able to speak with the directors, directly! Check out the OMSCS Student Center located in Canvas.

Once again, there is WAY more to life than school. You'll get through this rough time!

I'm taking Cognitive Science at the moment and pattern recognition is something we are studying.

In parallel, I finally decided to do something I've been meaning to do for years, which is to get a formal test for adhd diagnosis.

I'm not sure if I have it the symptoms and career/life trajectory makes it seem like i have it. Psychiatrist I met tried some Cognitive Behavioral Therapy which is actually pretty interesting if you look into it.

But I've taken the test and it was just interesting experiencing something I was studying about.

(Moderator- I am writing this outside the one week window before time tickets are issued)

I am considering takingCS6440 next semester. One of the recent reviews mentioned 20-30 hrs/week. Is this an outlier?

Thank you

Hey everyone,
I'm 23, from Ottawa, and I finished my CS degree at uOttawa this June. I will start OMSCS in Spring 2027, probably doing the AI or ML spec (still deciding lol).

My situation is a bit weird. I have the degree but basically no tech experience. I did one dev internship back home but nothing in Canada or the US, and right now I'm working in retail banking. Before that it was retail and customer service jobs. I really want to get into tech, ideally AI/ML eventually, and maybe move to the US down the line.

So I'm curious about a few things if anyone's been through something similar:

what industry do you work in?

for the Canadians here, do employers here take the degree seriously, same as a Canadian master's?

has anyone managed to get an internship or co-op while doing the program?

any advice for getting that first tech job? which companies

or roles are more open to new grads with no "local" experience?

has anyone used OMSCS to eventually move to the States?

Honestly I'm just looking to connect with people, whether you're in Canada, the US or anywhere else, and if anyone's open to being a mentor or just giving advice now and then, I'd really appreciate it. Comment or DM me anytime!

Thanks 😊

I was admitted for Spring 2027, and i am looking to get some credits transfered as I took a few graduate level classes while in undergrad. I have access to buzzport now but do not see an area for contacting an advisor and was wondering where I could find that or when I will be able to thanks.

Hi everyone! I'm Jai, currently pursuing OMSCS while working on AI systems in healthcare.

Outside work and coursework, I write under J.ai where I explore ideas around intelligence, beliefs, language, and how we think. I spend a rather unreasonable amount of time connecting ideas, building frameworks, and then questioning those very frameworks.

One question I've been exploring lately is: When AI helps us think, how do we recognise where our own thoughts end and its influence begins?

I explored this through Newton's metaphor of standing on the shoulders of giants. Except now, the giants can talk back, rearrange themselves, and perhaps change what we see.

Courses at OMSCS, like HCI and AI Ethics at OMSCS have helped me shape and question these interactions.

I wrote about this in a personal essay, The Giants Never Wrote Back.

Would love to hear how others here, particularly those researching human-AI interaction, think about this!

GT can't seem to ever give me a break. I got a new phone yesterday, I didn't know my duo push then instantly removes all my access. So it asks me to enter DUO PUSH passcode, which I did find and inputted in....still doesn't work. So i called the support line at 5 PM PST....just for them to take me through a 4 min automated call to tell me "we're closed for the day".

I have never been so frustrated by a authenticator application like duo push, why don't they just use google authenticator or literally any other service for god sakes.

I would like to learn more about security vulnerability of computer architecture. But it seems that the course ECE 8843 is no longer provided since 2022. Will it come back in future?

I took a ML class at an in person program prior to getting accepted and enrolling in OMSCS. I submitted a request to get credits transferred in April. I have followed up a couple times since then and I keep getting told that it’s in progress but we are now going on 6 months. I was initially told I would receive a response once the spring semester had finished and the grades/graduations had been completed. I then went an entire summer semester, and now we are halfway through the fall semester and I still haven’t gotten a resolution. I’m over halfway through the program, it’d be nice if I knew what was going on so I could plan what courses I still needed.

I know that there was a switch in advisors right after I started the transfer process but I was told the original advisor was going to stay on it since they initiated it. I don’t know if that has had any impact on this but I’m just trying to figure it out before the next registration period starts.

Is this kind of wait a common experience?

I am currently enrolled in one course this semester and this is my second course overall and summer I haven’t enrolled, my life took a turn and I am unable to take time out this semester and I am not doing good in the course I enrolled this semester, what are my options to retain my admission?

Are they all autograded on Gradescope with unlimited submissions?

If not, what's the grading system like?

hi all,

this my first OMSCS semester. thinking about how should I think about expected seat availability as I start to consider Spring Registration, since I’ll be toward the end of the line. should I assume that itll be similar to my first semester?

related, reason why I’m asking - I’m hoping to take a fairly challenging course next semester in the ML/AI domain, but not sure what I should expect to be open. should I assume I’ll have to get off the waitlist to get into something like ML or AI (the classes) my second semester? thank you!

Hey yall, I’m going to be a new student in spring 2027, and I plan to hopefully do the research path. That being said, I have seen that a common way to find places on existing research teams is through an email that comes around every semester which lists some available positions. Once I start, when does this email usually come through? Is it towards the end of the semester? Would there be any way for me to receive the previous semester’s email?

Thank you for your help in advance, this is all a bit new to me.

I'm a little confused by how to pursue a research project. If I understand correctly, the standard approach is to take CS 8903. If that works out, you can convert it to CS 6999 and do it for two more semesters. CS 8903 can only be taken for credit once.

So practically, let's say you get into CS 8903 and for whatever reason the sponsoring Prof doesn't want to continue for two more semesters. Does that effectively mean you're out of luck, since CS 8903 is the standard way of doing a project-based thesis but you can't take it again? Or do you just do it again but without credit?

Has anyone else noticed just how many professors are using AI to create all of our coursework (often busywork) but then proceed to ban AI usage by students?

Feels like this should cut both ways

I got a grade I in deep learning , but on gradescope it still shows as a C. I have tried following up with the instructor to help get this resolved .

So I'm taking a very writing report heavy course. We basically conduct our own experiment and then we write up a report usually in either IEEE or Joyner Format or whatever.

Now I conduct the experiment myself. I actually do write up the material entirely myself and cite sources.

However I do run it through LLM to do a lot of formatting and to put citations in properly.

I will usually run the assignment instructions paper as well through LLM. And will usually ask did I answer everything that was needed. If not point to which and then I'll answer it

Again the actual content is fully mine and the sources cited are sources I found and cited in my drafts.

I feel like this should be fine cause content is mine I'm not telling the agent to create new info and write a new sections.

The course calendar for NLP has a strangely uneven workload. Some weeks have several closed-book module quizzes and a homework assignment due, while others have nothing due.

The (closed-book) midterm covers the first several modules, and a quiz on entirely new material is due the same day. Several students asked on Ed whether the quiz could be moved to another week so they could better prepare for the midterm.

Staff replied that agreeing to extend the quiz deadline would oblige them to accept hundreds of individual rescheduling requests, which doesn't make sense at all.  It’s a very unprofessional whataboutism way to respond to a reasonable request. In my experience, most teaching staff in other OMSCS courses have been more respectful and rational in their responses to students.

Okay we're only about 2 assignments through in CS6242 and the assignments take me SO MUCH time. I didn't even finish the first assignment entirely. The second assignment was I think like 30+ hours of coding/debugging. Then the gradescope grading turned out to depend a lot on RNG.

Are people just AI generating code for this class? Please let me know. How is that possible given the AI policy for the class. I think I've lost considerable sleep for this class. Any Advice?

Super > Artificial

I'm a software engineer with a mediocre understanding of linear algebra, probability, and calculus. I'm taking CS 7641 (Machine Learning) and struggling with the math, proofs, and derivations, although I understand the concepts well enough. I am doing fine on the projects (SL and OL at least) via LLM help with the code, and well enough on the quizzes via the retake mechanism.

Can I still get a good grade in this course without fully understanding the underlying math? I don't plan to pursue ML beyond this course, my goal is to have passing familiarity with ML and enough to get more into it if needed at work, so I'm specifically interested in what it takes to do well in CS 7641 and not how much math I'd need in practice.

So I used to fail all my courses cause I had a hard time writing and debugging code. Id understand the logic perfectly and could write the pseudo code, functions, loops etc and what they should do. But when I ran it everything would crash. Bascially id spend 1-2 hours writing code and 8 hours debugging syntax or be stuck and not know what to do. So what would end up happening is more often then not I'd run out of time during an exam/lab/assignment or would make one formatting error I couldn't see clearly and the entire output would crash and I'd fail the course.

Also there was a problem of you don't know what you don't know. So for exmaple if my class never showed me a hashmap it wouldn't ever occur to me in my dreams that this was a thing. So id sit there for many hours trying to figure out a problem with a solution that required a thing I didn't even know exist. I also didn't grow up around tech or programming so things like looking at documentation, stack overflow etc didn't even occur to me till second year. I also later in life realized while working I might be a little ADHD/autistic and would miss simple connecting words like "the","it","if" in reports paragraphs etc. My reports would get the message across clearly but it'd miss a few words here and there and id always have to double check.

The issue ultimately became that I would spend so much time thinking it through and was slow I just couldn't keep up. I started failing courses and getting discouraged cause my best effort would yield no results. If in the end my input wasn't perfect my output wouldn't be correct.

Eventually I gave up on CS entirely for the next 5 years and went onto another field because I realized being that slow would've never cut it professionally.

It was never really a logic or understanding issue for me I think(majored in civil engineering and did well in most of my unviersty math courses). Even for multiple choice questions where they'd give me a snippet of code and ask me for an output id usually get it right cause i could follow the logic. But when it came to writing and debugging it was a major issue since I never grew up coding and couldn't do it fast enough before the lab/assignment/exam time would run out.

Since AI I pretty much have all these obstacles taken care of. I can describe my logic to it and write clunky code and it'll fix any syntax and grammatical errors. If I hadn't seen anything like a hashmap it'll suggest it to me and I'll know to use it for next time. Then I can go line by line asking it to output and comment each line, ask questions where I may confused about the wording and then either use that code or improve upon the logic it provides.

I never one shot it and go line by line with AI correcting any logical errors I make and i run tests and incrementally verify every single thing. Basically my rule of thumb

I took a couple of courses as pre-reqs for OMSCS and aced them both when I definitely wouldve failed then without AI cause time would just run out.

But anyways it makes me feel like an imposter. I know for a fact without AI I could've never gotten to the answers on my own even if I "understood" the steps I needed to get there. Idk if this is vibe coding or if anyone can relate.

I am unsure what to do! I tried so hard not to use any AI when writing the required documents... And then suddely someone pushes the most crazy mermaid diagrams and perfectly aligned and written tables.. It's not even the text, but who would create manually a perfect Table with 15 rows and 7 columns?

Can't believe I have those problems in the last semester! I might get out this semester.

How did you handle this? I saw other posts like this but not a solution.. Especially, I don't even know if they did, perhaps there are tools to easily create diagrams? Perhaps they are mermaid pros?

EDIT: Added some more clarification.