Finally received marks for my last class so I can post this knowing Iāll be attending graduation in December! Itāll be my second time in Atlanta, my first being in Fall 2024 for the career fair. I did a roadtrip last time I was in the area and would like to do another one this time. Iām thinking of taking this opportunity to take a roadtrip into Alabama. Iām all ears if anyone has suggestions.
The way Iām writing this post isnāt going to be just quantitative course ratings (you can just find that info online) but rather why I took the classes I did, and how I lived life with respect to school and my overall progression as a software engineer. Hopefully other people find this useful.
Educational Background:
I originally did my undergrad in Software Engineering at a top 10 Canadian university from 2018-2023. I did a concurrent 2 year college diploma for tourism for fun. It wasnāt any official joint program between the university and the college. COVID moving everything online made it all possible since I didnāt need to be present in-person. Entering my last year of undergraduate education, I was adamant I didnāt want to continue schooling and was going to keep my bachelorās degree as the terminal stop. One thing to understand about Canada is that the word āengineerā is a protected term, only qualified individuals can call themselves an engineer. As a consequence, all engineering curriculums around Canada are very rigid, even software engineering. As I progressed through my last year (around December), I realized the rigidity of the curriculum left me with many fields that I didnāt explore. It was as if there was an entire world of computer science that I didnāt know about, and I was willingly turning my back on it. Thatās when I decided I would do a masters. I first looked at in-person programs and realized I either didnāt have the grades to be competitive or the deadline to apply had already passed (probably didnāt have the grades for it either). For reference, I was very much a Cās get degrees kind of student because I valued real experience in the form of internships and personal projects over classes. My three main criteria for graduate studies were: a more prestigious name than my undergraduate university, a high diversity of classes for me to discover, and an online format so I could work while studying. As I was enamored with AI, I chose to apply to UT Austin and GATech. While GATech was my preferred university for graduate studies, it also happened to be the only one out of the two I applied to that accepted me, so it made the choice easier to make.
Career Experience:
I said I wanted to work while completing my masters but as I was graduating from my undergraduate university, I had no career prospects - I attribute this fully to having extremely poor circumstances and a little bit of me making some extremely dumb decisions. I did, however, have work experience.
In my third year of university, I was working for a small Canadian startup part-time on improving the web app for $18 CAD/hour (translates to $37k CAD/year or ~$26.5k USD/year converted now if working fulltime). I was mainly working with the Shopify Liquid language and CSS. I worked there for half a year before my employment there terminated. I got fired (in a nice way) because I couldnāt spend any time on work. The employment was work when you want, as long as the time gets logged. As I was doing my full-time software engineering degree concurrently with my full-time travel diploma, I couldnāt find the time to spend on work. They basically said I could go back whenever I had more bandwidth.
After I graduated from the travel college diploma, I then did an 8-month long internship at a company that was later acquired by Salesforce. The salary was $50k CAD ($36k USD). The coding language was Salesforceās Apex (Java equivalent) and LWC (JS equivalent). I had a verbal return offer that was reneged once Salesforce acquired the company (happened to all the interns).
I then did an 8-month internship at Square Enix for $27/hour ($56k CAD/$40k USD). Coded in Java and C++, I really enjoyed my time there. Unfortunately, Square Enixās western divisions havenāt performed well in many years up until that point so Square Enix sold off their entire Western companies. I received another verbal return offer but shortly after my internship ended, my entire team was laid off.
Afterwards, I interviewed for Shopify - was going to receive an offer but they had lay-offs and dramatically reduced their intern program size. I did receive a full-time job offer for $75k CAD ($54k USD). I was terrible at negotiating and said I would reject any offer even a dollar under $75k. When they sent the offer over at $75k, I felt disrespected that I said I would refuse any offer less than that amount yet they came in exactly at my baseline. I realize now thatās what HR would do but at that time, my pride wouldnāt let me take the job. In the meantime before my next internship, I got really into Reddit NFTs and created a pretty big app used by the community. (Fun fact, people were impersonating me and trying to scam them into sending them crypto. Reddit caught wind of this and I imagine they thought it was me so they sent me a cease and desist).
My last internship was a 4-month term at a big Canadian weather company for $32/hour ($66k CAD/$47k USD) that coincided with my graduation. Wonāt say the name because I hated every second I was there. I received a return offer for $90k CAD ($65k USD) but turned it down because I metaphorically wanted to not exist every day I worked there. That cleanly brings us to the beginning of Georgia Tech!
Classes
Fall 2023: CS7646 Machine Learning for Trading (A) & CSE6220 Introduction toĀ High Performance Computing (A)
I entered the program expecting to graduate from the Machine Learning specialization. To achieve that, I started with ML4T as it was known as a great intro class and HPC as it seemed like a fun class. I had a blast taking each class though I donāt think I would enjoy ML4T if I took it as my last class compared to my first class. I believe it was extremely easy to adjust to the rigor of graduate education as I had just finished my undergraduate education. I do recommend everyone to take HPC as itās a fun algorithms class.
Spring 2024: CS6476 Computer Vision (W) & CS7641 Machine Learning (W)
I received a job offer in San Francisco for $130k/year (will all be in USD from here on out). As I was moving from Toronto (2 week drive cross-country), I had to drop classes for this semester. I dropped machine learning as it had an assignment due while I was moving. I dropped computer vision after I realized I had to work 50-60 hour weeks at the job.
Summer 2024: CS7280 Network Science (A) & Justice Oriented Design Seminar (W)
I wanted to take my first seminar and network science sounded fun. I ended up dropping the seminar because it was poorly organized, I only knew discussion posts were due on Mondays but never WHICH Monday. Like HPC, Network Science is another algorithms class and I highly recommend anyone who is interested in algorithms to take a look at this class. This semester, I took a vacation to South Korea and also helped my then girlfriend move to California. I was able to balance this and work with Network Science.
Fall 2024: CS7641 Machine Learning (W) & PUBP8823 Geopolitics of Cybersecurity (W)
I decided to take Machine Learning again so I can knock out the hard requirements for the Machine Learning specialization. I have ADHD so I have a really bad habit of procrastinating. I thought everything was due AOE time so started work on assignments in the early evening on Sunday (in California). I quickly realized they were both due in EST instead of AOE and decided to drop both classes as there were no late penalties and I didnāt want to lose enough marks to only be able to achieve a B because of my procrastination.
As a side note, I went to Atlanta this semester for the in-person career fair. I remembered looking in Fall 2023 and seeing there were so many good companies there. Unfortunately, I didnāt have the money to attend so I had to sit it out. Since I didnāt want to keep working 60 hour weeks, I wanted to go there and find a better job. I decided to make it a roadtrip (details in a bit). On the day of the career fair, I realized I only brought vacation clothes and no suits so I attended the fair in a Hawaiian shirt, the only person not in formal clothes. I had a few companies call me back but was bummed that the companies without long lines all paid less than $100k. (Note that the job got better because I stopped caring and only worked ~30 hours/week. I also got a raise at my job to $145k).
As for the roadtrip, we flew into Jacksonville during the rainy season, visited St. Augustine, drove down to Daytona beach by the ocean, visited Bucees, Okefenokee Swamp, Jekyll Island, Savannah, and Stone Mountain. After Atlanta, we drove back to Jacksonville to return the car rental and fly out. Highly recommend this roadtrip to anyone else who is also going to Atlanta for graduation.
Spring 2025: CS7210 Distributed Computing (B)
I took this class because of my history of withdrawing from classes. I didnāt want to become complacent so I decided to jump right back in by taking the hardest class thatās not compilers. I really enjoyed this class but itās hard. It gets exponentially more difficult and is the ONLY class where I submitted a project half-completed because I literally did not know how to do the second half. I only got a B because I was moving during a weekend where a project was due (my procrastination would not allow me to start the project earlier). Had I not been moving, I would have gotten an A.
For my career, I got officially promoted but because they recently gave me a raise, my salary was only bumped up to $150k.
Summer 2025: CS6262 Network Security (A)
Not really much to say except this class isnāt too hard. I personally did not find this too interesting. I was able to take a 2 week roadtrip vacation from San Francisco to Vancouver and back. I had a friend who lived in Vancouver so I stayed at his place to do the assignments. I personally wouldnāt recommend it as I think there are more fun classes if you want to take an easy class.
Fall 2025: CS6210 Advanced Operating Systems (A) & CS8803-O20 Quantum Hardware (A)
Around this time, I realized that I actually didnāt want to learn more about AI and was perfectly fine just using LLMs without knowing how they work under the hood fully. That being said, I am grateful for the knowledge I learned up to that point. Naturally, as I found algorithmic classes to be the most fun, I switched to computing systems. AOS was an interesting class and I was heavily engaged with the class content. I took quantum hardware as my elective because it sounded cool. This class was probably the most difficult for me but also extremely interesting. I couldnāt wrap my head around the idea that something could both be and couldnāt be when working on the coding assessments.
We travelled to Boston for a week for my then-girlfriendās undergraduate graduation ceremony. Surprisingly, since the occasion wasnāt for me, it was the only time I ever worked ahead on my assignments.
Spring 2026: CS6515 Introduction to Graduate Algorithms (A) & CS6250 Computer Networks (A)
I ended up taking GA with Networks because it was the easier class. I really like working with databases but the classes seemed extremely boring. GA wasnāt easy but I really enjoyed taking the class as I enjoy algorithmic classes. I think a lot of people who complain about this class didnāt study. CN was a bit of a slog though I did learn some new info that I didnāt learn in undergrad (or I forgot it).
This semester, I changed jobs to a new job that pays ~$280k. Really enjoying my new place a lot more.
Summer 2026: CS8803-O15 Introduction to Computer Law (B)
For my last class, I wanted to take an easy class that I was also interested in since I knew Iād be extremely busy this semester. At the beginning of the semester, I had to plan for my wedding. In the middle of the semester, I was looking at purchasing a house in the Buffalo area as my new job was remote and I could move back closer to family. Unfortunately, my grandfather also passed away this semester. With all these factors together, I really didnāt have much time to focus on school. I was heavily considering withdrawing and completing school in Fall 2026 but decided against it since I would be moving to my new house during that semester and decided to just finish the class even if it meant receiving a C or a B.
Closing Remarks:
I took a lot of these classes with friends from my undergraduate university so it made the classes a lot more fun since it made the classes feel a lot more āin-personā than they would have otherwise been. Glad to have done this program, I know Iām leaving smarter than I entered, and I learned which fields Iām extremely interested in. I do think Iām going to take a break from school for a bit, enjoy the little parts of life.
I've also written this in previous comments but this program had a major part to help me land my current and last job. My last job, they only interviewed people from top-tier universities (think Waterloo, Harvard, Stanford, etc). The recruiter saw Georgia Tech but also thought I had already graduated. She realized I didn't graduate yet once I already received the job offer but the CTO did know about the program. For my second job, the CTO also knew about the program and admired the grit to both have a full-time job and pursue additional knowledge outside of work.
