Online Master of Science in Cybersecurity - Student Resources

Students enrolled in Georgia Tech online courses have free access to Microsoft Office 365, a collection of services that allow you to collaborate and share your schoolwork. The service includes Office Online (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote), unlimited personal cloud storage, and SharePoint sites. To see what’s included, visit the Office 365 Education product page, and then sign up with your Georgia Tech email address. 

You may use Microsoft Teams, an application within the Office 365 online suite, to communicate with other students within the program. Teams is a hub for teamwork, a chat-based workspace that enables teams to be more productive by giving them a single and secure location that brings together everything a team needs: chats, meetings, calls, files, and tools. You can manage and monitor all features in one centralized portal in a digital workspace.

Teams is available on Desktop, Tablet, Browsers, Windows/OS X, iPhone, Droid, Edge, Chrome, Safari.

Learn more on how to access your account here.

Zoom is the interactive, online meeting tool you will use to join live sessions and collaborate with your colleagues. All Georgia Tech students have free Zoom accounts. 

For more details, visit https://gatech.zoom.us/. At the bottom of that webpage are links to help you get started, download the Zoom client, and access support if you need it.

Canvas is Georgia Tech’s learning management platform. This is where students access syllabi, course materials, course schedules, and collaborate with other students. For additional information, review the support articles and videos here.

BuzzPort is Georgia Tech’s primary student portal designed to help you interact with Georgia Tech services and campus colleagues. You can use this portal to track your financial aid application, transfer credit evaluations, and to stay in touch with offices on campus.  

DegreeWorks provides a comprehensive set of web-based academic advising, degree audit, and transfer articulation tools to help you and advisors negotiate curriculum requirements. 

Students use the OSCAR portal to access their schedule of classes and other content in the Student Information System (SIS). 

All online master’s students are given access to a Georgia Tech email address. Visit Passport to set up or change your Georgia Tech email address. Once your email is activated, you can access your email online at mail.gatech.edu and will use the same username and password for all Georgia Tech accounts. 

Each May and December, Georgia Tech holds commencement ceremonies for graduate students. You must complete an Online Application for Graduation prior to commencement. Graduation application deadlines can be found on Georgia Tech's Academic Calendar. 

Graduation is the act of completing your degree and commencement is the ceremony to celebrate your upcoming graduation. You can graduate without participating in the commencement ceremonies. All online master’s students are invited to participate in commencement, but it is not a requirement.  

To participate in commencement, students must RSVP. Georgia Tech sends RSVP emails to all students who have applied to graduate.

Visit Georgia Tech’s commencement website for all the details you need to prepare for your ceremony including graduation requirements, deadlines, day of logistics, and information regarding academic regalia.  

How to Apply  
In order to graduate from Georgia Tech, a student must first submit an application for graduation. This walkthrough guide shows how to use the OAG, and ensure your application is successfully submitted. 

After Applying 
After your application is submitted, Degree Certificate will conduct two audits on your application, while working and communicating with your advisor. A breakdown of the timing of the two audits can be found on the Registrar’s website. 

To view your degree status, login to Degree Works. Near the top of your audit, under a section titled “Student View,” you will see a field “Graduation Status.” The text that appears in that field is your current degree status. 

In order to graduate from Georgia Tech, students must first submit an Online Application for Graduation (OAG).  

It is the student’s responsibility to apply for graduation and to ensure that the correct name and address is on file with the Office of the Registrar. Diplomas are typically mailed within eight weeks after the graduation date. Students will receive email confirmation with tracking when the diploma is mailed. Additional information about diplomas can be found on the Registrar’s website. 

Students who have petitioned for a degree for the term may request a Letter of Completion from the Registrar’s office stating they have a pending degree, and the degree will be awarded when all requirements for degree are completed. This is not for students who have already been awarded a degree. The Letter of Completion form and instructions can be found on the Georgia Tech Registrar’s website. 

All students are required to comply with the Academic Honor Code and are strongly encouraged to seek a full understanding of their instructors’ expectations regarding academic honor. 

Anyone who is qualified is welcome to seek admission to Georgia Tech, and anyone who applies for and accepts admission can be confident that the policy and regular practice of the Institute will not discriminate against him or her on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin. The criteria used in determining each applicant’s eligibility for consideration can be found in the admission requirements. 

A student may not apply for transfer credit until after matriculation at Georgia Tech. The courses to be transferred would typically be those appearing on the approved program of study form for the master’s degree. A doctoral student normally does not request transfer credit. The rules relative to and the process for obtaining transfer of credit for graduate-level courses can be found on the Registrar’s website. 

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protects the privacy of student education records. All rights can be found on the Registrar’s website. 

Students are assigned a specific time slot during which they may register. This time slot is referred to as a “time ticket.” Students may view their assigned time ticket on the Web Student Access System. Students may access the “Add/Drop Classes” option only during their time ticket. For procedures regarding registration, please review the Registration Information on registrar’s website. 

We know students face various challenges and demands on their time during the academic semester. If a student needs to step away from their studies at any time, they can do so by dropping or withdrawing from current courses. Students considering stepping away will need to coordinate this with their academic advisor.

Students who are enrolled at Georgia Tech may not receive credit for courses completed at another institution during the same academic term, unless prior permission has been obtained for cross-registration or concurrent registration. Additional explanation on cross-registration can be found on the Registrar’s website. 

All payments of tuition and fees are handled by the Bursar’s office. For instructions on how to pay, please visit the student payment portal.   

The Georgia Tech Bursar’s Office processes refunds via EFT, also known as Direct Deposit, Monday through Friday. Refunds and overpayments are electronically disbursed to the student’s checking or savings account and should be in the students account on the following day or sooner. You are not always eligible for a refund when dropping a course, so please read over the refund policy. 

All students should own a computer with these minimum requirements: 

Form Factor:  Notebook or desktop computer (a netbook or tablet should not be used as the primary computing device*.) A minimum of 6 hours of battery life is recommended. 

Processor:  64-bit multi-core (quad-core or higher) Intel or AMD processor or better. 

Memory:  16 GB or more.  For best performance, install as much memory as affordable at the time of purchase. 

Operating System:  The newest version of Windows (10 or better) or MacOS (10.15 or better). As you progress through the degree program, continue updating to the newest version for better protection against cyber security risks; turning on automatic update can help with this. Before applying software and hardware updates, back up your computer (see below) and ensure the updates will work with your existing applications. 

Browser:  The newest version of Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome. 

Primary Hard Drive:  256 GB minimum. You may work with large datasets, so the larger, the better. Solid-state drives (SSDs) are ideal because they’re much faster than hard-disk drives (HDDs). 

Backup Device or Service:  Having a quality backup of your important files is vital to your success as a student. Windows and MacOS have an optional built-in backup support (e.g., via Time Machine on MacOS). For students who would like to take advantage of it, we’ve negotiated a student discount for Crashplan (details at crashplan.com/gtstudent). OneDrive, provided by GT at no charge, is a great solution as well.   

Free GitHub Repositories: Git is an industry-standard way for collaborative coding and version control; many companies now expect git familiarity from employees.  As a Georgia Tech student, you can create unlimited repositories, which are great for group projects. Always set up repositories to be private (instead of public), and never put any sensitive information (e.g., passwords, AWS keys) in them. Criminals scan public repositories for such information and when they find it, it can lead to huge financial loss for victims. Therefore, use your credentials to run AWS jobs. 

Networking:  Wired connection via Ethernet NIC (1Gbe RJ45/Cat5e or better) or a Dual-Band (2.4 GHz/5 GHz) Wireless 802.11 ac-enabled computer and a reliable, fast network connection (recommended minimum 10Mbps down/4Mbps up).  

Accessories:  A laptop or desktop with a webcam and microphone (built-in or external). Also, although you aren’t required to use a headset with a microphone, they often help students communicate more clearly during video-conference sessions. 

*Most netbooks and tablets (e.g., Apple iPad, Galaxy Tab, and others that run on an operating system designed specifically for the device) do NOT meet the minimum hardware requirements above. They tend to provide sufficient performance for basic tasks, such as web browsing or simple word processing; however, using courses’ technical software may not be possible. 

Office of Information Technology (OIT) strives to offer the necessary tools for students to accomplish collaboration, research, scholarship, and innovation.  

IT Resources for online master’s students 

For generation information visits oit.gatech.edu or contact them at: 

Office of Information Technology 
Phone: 404-894-7173 
Email: support@oit.gatech.edu