Clever Geek Handbook

Distance Master's Degree Abroad: Notes Before the Thesis

Prologue



There are several articles, for example, How I enrolled in distance education at a Walden magistracy (USA) , How to enroll in a magistracy in England or Distance Learning at Stanford University . All of them have one drawback: the authors shared their early learning experience or training experience. This is certainly useful, but leaves room for imagination.



I’ll talk about how you get a master's degree in Software Engineering at the University of Liverpool (UoL), how useful it is and whether it is worth studying when you are 30 and it seems that everything is not bad in a professional sense.



This article can be useful both to young children who are just starting their journey in the industry, and to seasoned developers who for some reason have missed a degree or have a degree in an educational institution that is not well-rated in the world.



Distance learning



University selection



Rating



Rating is of course a very manipulative concept, but tsiferki say that the university is not so bad ( 181st in the world and 27th in Europe ). Also, this university is quoted in the UAE, and these guys can be picky about diplomas. If you are thinking of relocation to one of the countries where your experience does not translate into the necessary points for obtaining a residence permit, UoL may be a good option.



Price



Price is a subjective thing, but for me, Stanford's prices are unbearable. UoL allows you to get a degree for ~ 20 thousand euros, divided by three payments: before training, in the first third and before the dissertation. You may be able to bring down the price.



Language



This may not be relevant for you, but I have a soft spot for British English. Most likely this is due to fond memories of the Fry and Laurie Show .



Time



Based on the reviews, I still could not understand how much time I would need for training. Some people said that they lost contact with their family and studied from morning to night, some announced a sane load. As a result, I believed the information on the university website. At the time of writing, I could not find that landing page, but it was said about 12-20 hours a week.



Admission



The admission process was surprisingly simple. I phoned a representative of UoL, we discussed my interest and agreed to continue communicating in an email.



The university did not ask for confirmation of language proficiency, the commission was completely satisfied with my level of spoken and written English. This was pleasant because it saved time on courses that I had already started and did not confirm the obvious 6.5-7 IELTS points.



Then I was asked for a description of all my work experience and a letter of recommendation from the head. There were no problems with this either - I have been doing software for more than ten years.



An important factor was that I have a degree in management, which the board recognized as BSc, so my experience and my undergraduate education allowed me to qualify for MSc.



Training



Items



Everything is quite logical: eight modules, a dissertation, a diploma and the throwing of a hat.

Information on modules and training materials can be found here . In my case, this is:





As you can see, nothing supernatural or not related to software development. Since the last five years I have been organizing development more than writing code (although not without it), for me each of the modules was relevant. If you feel that you have not given up Managing, then Advanced Computer Science can become an alternative to Software Engineering.



Training



Physical books do not need to be purchased. I have had a Kindle Paperwite since the time the ruble was in order. If necessary, I drop articles or books downloaded from SD or another hub there. The benefit of student status allows authentication in most foreign portals related to scientific articles.



In fact, it pampers, because I no longer want to read subjective experience on the Internet about, for example, the usefulness of certain XP practices, but I want a full-fledged study conducted using the described methodology.



Process



On the day the module starts, its structure becomes available. UoL training consists of the following cycle:





You get an instructor, doctor of sciences, ready to answer any questions, materials for training (videos, articles, chapters from books), requirements for individual work and posts.

The discussions are actually extremely interesting and academic requirements for them are the same as for the work: the use of citation, critical analysis and respectful communication. In general, the principles of academic integrity are respected.



If you transform this into words, it turns out like this: 750-1000 for individual work, 500 for a post and 350 for each answer. Total at least a week you will write about two thousand words. At first it was difficult to generate such volumes, but with the second module I got used to it. Water will not work, the evaluation criteria are quite strict and in some tasks it can be difficult not to gain volume, but to fit into it.



The following Sunday, ratings according to the British system become available.



Load



I spend about 10-12 hours a week on training. This is a disastrously low number, because I know for sure that many of my classmates, the same guys with a lot of experience, take much more time. I think this is very subjective. Perhaps you will spend more time and less tired, and maybe much less time and not get tired at all. By nature, I quickly think, but I need a significant amount of time to relax.



Assistants



I use a spellchecker , which is free for students, and also pay for a service for managing quotes and proofreaders . Quotation management can be done in RefWorks, but it seemed to me too complicated and inconvenient. I use inertia to perform trufridding; it helps less and less. I'm not sure that the guys are the cheapest on the market, but I did not find it better in terms of price / speed / quality ratio.



Relevance



I can say for sure that even though I try to follow industry trends, UoL gave me a great kick in the ass. Firstly, I was forced to remember / learn the basic things needed to manage development and the development itself. Requirements for individual work do not allow obsolete materials and welcome the latest confirmed research, and instructors love to ask an insidious question in discussions.

So in terms of whether knowledge is given from the forefront - yes, it is.



Interesting



It is unlikely that I would be happy to study at UoL if it looked like a typical course at Coursera, where you are essentially alone with yourself. Group work, uniting students from different parts of the world in front of a common goal, really coolly revive the process. Like discussions. Needless to say, with one classmate from Canada, working in the banking sector, we got a big argument over the concept of anti-patterns and about where Singleton should be attributed.



It was extremely interesting to write 1000 words on the topic “Analysis of benefits and limitations of distributed systems”, as well as to do with my partners in the group project “Enterprise Database System Architecture” in the previous module on databases. In it, we played a little with Hadoop and even analyzed something. Of course, at work I have Clickhouse, but I changed my attitude towards Hadoop after I was forced to defend it and analyze it from all sides.

Some tasks included, for example, a week about “Transaction analysis, evaluation and comparison” included simple tasks using the 2PL protocol.



Is it worth it



Yes! I don’t think that I would become so deeply immersed in IEEE standards or modern approaches to working with risks in IT. Now I have a system of control points and I know where I can go, in which case, and that such and such exists.



Definitely, the program, as well as the need for knowledge outside it (taken into account in the assessment) makes the boundaries expand and throws out the area of ​​comfort.



Indirect plus



The need to write and read a lot of text in English ultimately allows you to:



  1. Write in English
  2. Think english
  3. To write and speak almost without mistakes


Of course, there are many English courses cheaper than 20 thousand euros, but you are unlikely to refuse this as a lingualeo at a discount.



Epilogue



I am sure that investing in knowledge always brings the greatest income. I saw many times at an interview with developers who once braked at their point of comfort and became useless to anyone.



When you are 30 and you have been helping the business to develop technological projects for many years, there is a big risk of stopping in development. I am sure that there is some kind of law or paradox to describe this.



I try to complement my studies with Coursera and the literature that I read as needed at work, but still feel that I would like to do more. Hope my experience helps someone. Ask questions - I will answer with joy.


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