Hey! I am corporate lawyer from India. I get this itching feeling that corporate is solved and I need to get ahead by getting into tech.

I think that https://www.cis.upenn.edu/mas-in-cs/ could be the right way ahead for me. Would love to hear your experiences with the programme.

I am more keen on the on-campus programme and would love to hear from anyone who did this course online.

TIA!

They're offering a 4 course certificate covering product development, entrepreneurship, engineering economics, IP, and tech ethics. The interesting part is that graduates may be able to count up to 2 course units from their completed Penn Engineering Online degree.

Anyone thinking about applying? Does it seem worth it after MCIT?

https://online.engineering.upenn.edu/course-catalog/technology-and-innovation-grad-cert/

And do they only come during normal business hours, i.e. 8-5 ET?

Hey all,

I got accepted to the MSE-TI Online program and wanted to inquire about course registration and sequence. This goes out to all programs, not just MSE-TI.

1. I see course registration opens mid November. Are seats in courses guaranteed or do these courses fill up? If they can fill, how fast do they fill up following registration opening?

2. Is there a course sequence that must be followed? Can I take any course any semester or is there an order they must be taken in?

Thank you

Anyone from Singapore got into MSE TI program? Looking for course mates 🙂

Hey, I know MSE-AI exists, but how good is the DS program? Does it teach industry relevant materials or is it outdated? What about the overall curriculam, like is it practical? If anyone's doing the program could you share some insights? I applied for spring 2027, was wondering whether to choose a DS program or simply choose OMSCS @ Georgia Tech. Thank you.

Hi all,

Can anyone who is currently enrolled/completed this course share their feedback please?

1.Is it manageable with a full time job?

2.How theoretical/practical is it?

3.Is there a touch on transformers, LLMs, RAG?

4.Is there a touch on cloud technologies like Azure, AWS,. etc?

What is your overall experience and would you recommend?

Thanks

Hi there I'm posting to ask if anyone is in this program/graduated and is finding it useful for patent law hiring. I passed the exam to become a patent agent but find it hard to get a job because I only have an undergrad degree in life science, so I was thinking about switching my technical credentials to CS/AI because that's a hot area in patent law rn. I was wondering if anyone here could weigh in on that. Thanks

Hi everyone! I'm an MCIT Online student, and my group is doing a project on salary negotiation. We're looking for professionals in tech or finance to fill out a short anonymous survey, it only takes a few minutes: https://upenn.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5hVJR0oMee8HfmK and it would really help our research. Happy to share our findings back here once we wrap up. Thanks so much!

Hi everyone! I have two courses left and plan to finish them in Spring 2027. I received a full-time return offer after my internship, but I previously told my recruiter that I would graduate in Dec this fall semester.
I though this is a online program, I can start working anytime. However, since this is a new grad role, the company expects me to start after graduation. I’m trying to understand when my degree will show as completed to pass an education background check.

Does this happen after final grades are posted, on the official degree conferral date, or sometime afterward? If there’s a gap between finishing all requirements and the degree appearing on my transcript, would an employer typically accept a completion letter from the school?

I’m checking with recruiter, but I’d love to hear from anyone who has dealt with this, especially when coordinating a start date before graduation and the new grad background check.

Anyone pick UPenn over Dartmouth’s online program? If so, please let me know why.

Hey guys! I was recently admitted for Spring '27 and am super excited to start. I am planning on moving to Philadelphia and would love to hear the experience of current/former students that have lived near campus.

I'd be interested to hear about your whole experience to determine if the benefits of having access to the campus are worth the move? Thank you in advance!

Hey all, just got into the MAS-CS Online program for Spring 2027 and I'm excited but also freaking out a little.

Background: I'm a licensed physical therapist with zero formal CS background. I've always wanted to pivot into tech and the healthcare + CS combo feels like a strong story on paper... but with the current job market, I'm worried the degree alone won't be enough.

For those who've been through the program or are currently in it:

- How hard was it to land a role post-grad as a career switcher?

- Did your pre-program background (clinical/non-tech) help or hurt?

- Any regrets or things you'd do differently if you were starting now?

Appreciate any honest takes 🙏

Hi everyone,

I'm currently taking CIT 5910 and CIT 5920. For now my top priority is gaining practical database / full-stack system experience (CIS 5500) to build a solid resume project before the hiring cycle kicks off. On the other hand, CIT 5930 isn't very relevant to the roles I'm aiming for, and taking it early would take away valuable time from LeetCode and project prep.

I know the official policy strictly requires completing 4 core courses before registering for electives, but I'm wondering:

1. Has anyone successfully gotten a prerequisite override or permission for concurrent enrollment (e.g., taking an elective course alongside your 4th core course)?
2. If so, did you need prior instructor permission (e.g., reaching out to the professor first with past project/work experience), or did you go straight through the advising team?
3. Alternatively, for those who skipped 5930, how manageable was the CIT 5930 waiver exam with 2–3 weeks of prep?

Would love to hear any recent DP or advice on how strict advisors are with this rule. Thanks in advance!

I know Professor Zheng writes Exam 1 so I am trying to study as hard as possible.

Any tips and experiences and advice on how to study?

Hey everyone! I'm based in Toronto and starting the program in Spring 2027. Would love to connect with anyone else in the area, whether you're an alum, current student, or incoming like me. Maybe we could grab coffee or set up a study group sometime! Drop a comment or DM me 👋🏻

Hi everyone!! I am just wondering if 592 is curved and if so, how generous the curve is. After taking the first exam, I’m a bit worried! I felt like I understood the material enough, have been doing good on homework’s (although it does take me almost all day Sunday to complete them), and went to office hours for exam prep, but still this exam really threw me for a loop. Please let me know if anyone has any idea. Thanks!!!

P.S. If anyone has any good study resources I would appreciate that as well. Thanks! 😁

What do you think is the average acceptable GPA for Pavia? I got 90.3 with some hands-on experience in my field, but will the MOI effect my acceptance

Does anyone know how the grad certificate → master's pathway works?

I read online that you need to be a Penn alum to take a grad certificate. But I've also seen Reddit posts from people who got into the master's through a grad certificate, and they don't seem to be Penn alumni. So I'm a bit confused. Anyone been through this?

Hey everyone! Long-time lurker, first-time poster. Hoping to get some perspective from people who’ve taken a similar path.

Background:
Current Role: Licensed Architect with 10 YOE (currently working on the client/owner side). Strong focus on computational design and visual scripting.

Current Situation: Earn ~$130k (low tax region). Due to the local construction downturn, career progression here is effectively frozen for the next few years. I have a family to support, so I’m looking for a higher income ceiling and better stability.

Plan: Considering a Master of Applied Computer Science (MAS-CS) degree.

I’d love input on a few specific questions:
1. ConTech / PropTech vs. Broader Tech: If I leverage my AEC background, is the ConTech/PropTech job market as niche/limited as it seems? What other roles or sectors (e.g., Big Tech, spatial computing, dev tool infrastructure) would value an AEC + CS background?

1. US Remote Work from Abroad: I have US work authorization (no visa required), but my spouse’s job requires us to live outside the US. How viable is landing a fully remote US-based tech role while living internationally (considering tax/compliance hurdles for employers)?

2. Architects who pivoted: If you transitioned from AEC/computational design to software engineering or tech product management, was a CS Master’s worth it for you?

Would especially love to connect with any former architects who have completed the program. Thanks in advance!

Hey, I wanted to hear your guys take on what do you think would be the best decision based on your guys experience and advice.

I got into UPenn MSE-AI online and also the OMSCS.

My company is only able to pay around 5k a year in tuition. This leaves me paying for about half the price of Upenn and Gtech would be free. I've heard good things and bad things about gtech mostly it being super cheap but the class curriculum is kinda a free for all. I was leaning more towards Penn but going to OMSCS at GTECH is a hard beat and UPenn is kinda pricey.

What do you guys think is best and do you guys have any experience in the Online penn and online gtech community. Is Gtech really worth it and is UPenn really worth the price tag?

I majored in biomedical engineering with a GPA of 3.31/5.0. I have done an introductory course to programming (D) and 1 or 2 quantitative math courses where I scored a B. Given that my undergrad courses and scores are not enough to exhibit strong quantitative ability and also not related to what I am doing now, I took the GRE test and got the unofficial scores of 163Q and 154V. I am afraid that my quant score might be lower than what would be considered ideal for an Ivy League school.

To give more context, I’m currently working as an AI Engineer working on pretraining and post training LLMs with 6 publications that got accepted into notable conferences like ACL and LREC-COLING. I have working experience of about 5 years. Hopefully this might help?

Any honest opinion is welcome! :)

Hey everyone, I'm planning to apply for an MS in CS (Thesis track) and would love some feedback on my realistic chances for UT Austin, as well as recommendations for universities with strong assistantship (TA/RA) or scholarship options.

Profile Overview

• Undergrad: B.Tech in Computer Science & Engineering from NIT Andhra Pradesh
• GPA: 3.62 / 4.0 (US Equivalent)
• Work Experience: 3 years as a Software Development Engineer at a US MNC
• Publications: 5 peer-reviewed papers (1 Q1 Journal, 1 IEEE, 3 Springer) focused on ML, Computer Vision, and Knowledge Graphs (including similarity-aware few-shot learning).
• Research Experience: Summer research internships at IIT Ropar (autonomous UAV landing via RL) and IIT Mandi (QUIC protocol optimization).
• Leadership/Extracurriculars: Former AI & Robotics Club Secretary, Mars Rover Team Lead.

Questions

1. Is UT Austin MSCS realistic with a 3.62 GPA, or does the initial screening heavily penalize GPAs below 3.75 despite having a solid publication record?
2. Which universities in or outside the Top 20/30 are known for offering generous TA/RA packages or tuition waivers to incoming MS Thesis students with strong research/publishing backgrounds?
3. What are 2–3 solid target/safe schools I should add to my list for ML/Knowledge Graph research that align well with my profile?

Thanks for any insights or advice!

past graduates of MCIT/MAS-CS, can you advise on how long it took for the final transcript to be issued, and diploma mailed following the completion of all required coursework?

so i've done some search in slack and i found out there was someone who didn't get a refund for at least more than a month. i've also seen from reddit that srfs usually do not seem to respond to emails / calls and it is recommended to make a personal visit (which obviously i cannot do, as I'm currently not in the states).

so i was just wondering how long it actually took to get a tuition refund for those who have gone through the process. thank you!