Advice on UWashington's Online Masters in Applied Math

[devined12]

I've been accepted to a few schools in Math/Applied Math (bolded are my serious considerations)

1. Montana State (Masters Math, funded w/ $14k per year TA)

2. Wyoming (PhD Math, funded w/ $16k per year TA)

3. ASU (PhD Math, funded w/ $16k per year TA)

4. CU Boulder (Masters Math, unfunded)

5. UWasington (UW) (Masters Applied Math [on-campus OR online ], unfunded)

I'm living and teaching math in Vietnam right now and I'm tempted to stay here for another year, work part-time, and study via UW's online program. UW advertises it as completely equivalent to the on-campus degree - no where on the diploma does it indicate 'online'. I'm looking for more of your perspectives on the online option and career/academic opportunities thereafter.

Some thoughts:

• Not sure if I will go on to do a full PhD, but I want to keep the option open and improve my chances of acceptance later on.

• Wyoming's program is small and not highly ranked; but they have a DDDAS group that I'm very excited about and have already spoken with the lead professor about being a future research assistant.

• UW's masters is top tier program and it's only one year; but, it's course based (no thesis option for online students) and costs $30k.

Some questions:

1. Would UW's Masters degree offer me significantly better job (industry) opportunities than a Master's degree from Wyoming? [Note that I wouldn't be in Seattle next year to network with other students/profs]

2. How would a non-thesis master's from UW affect my chances of admission to PhD programs in future years? [Note that I'm already satisfied with my acceptances this year]

3. What would be the biggest sacrifices in doing UW's degree online versus on-campus in Seattle?

[ozborne]

I am currently an on-campus student at UW. For me personally, a disadvantage of the online degree would be that quite a few courses are not offered online. However, for the ones that are, I have been impressed by the quality/clarity of the video streaming/recordings, and online communication with professors/TAs. In fact, I have ended up watching lectures online in the courses I have taken that are offered online since I think it's more convenient.

As for your second question, I think very few of the on-campus UW master's students write a thesis; I'm not doing one and I don't anyone who is. I don't know about the online students, but I think the on-campus students generally do quite well when applying to PhD programs after graduating.

Feel free to PM me if you have any additional questions!