So I am starting a masters in Software Engineering at the University of Maryland University College Harvard University Extension School. I ended up checking out numerous programs and it was kind of interesting some of items that became important to me.

1. Online: I kind of knew that I would probably need a program that is at least partly online. This is mainly due to the fact that my work often requires me to travel often for up to two weeks at a time.
2. Program Type: I am in kind of a weird place academically. I graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Information Technology even though I considered myself to be in the Computer Science program. I actually took all the required classes for the Comp Sci degree with the exception of all the math. This is now a bit of a detriment because I could have used about two more math classes that most masters programs require. It really leaves me at looking at Software Engineering or Business Intelligence DB programs.
3. Computer Science Programs: Interestingly enough there are many aspects to Computer Science that I am not interested in: namely many programs have you focus in a particular area (i.e. graphics). The only focus area that really interests me is Machine Learning and often this gets put under AI – which often is not really the same.
4. DC – Area: The DC area is kind of a strange place to look for schools. There are only a couple of programs that are actually convenient for me to travel to: George Washington, American, Georgetown, Howard and the University of the District of Columbia. But, truth be told I am actually not really interested in any of these schools for various reasons.

[Update] It’s been a while since I wrote this post but, I found out that Harvard actually has a great software engineering program and so I switched. There are some awesome classes, with some amazing people… and a couple that scare the crap out of me.