I don't know. If you want to pay-to-play, it's not a terrible deal, especially considering that it can be just one year and you don't need to leave your job to do it. Opportunity cost is the largest outlay when it comes to masters and doctoral degrees, and this format essentially eliminates that. But yes, networking beyond your cohort would be difficult. It would be really nice if they had a good placement program, but I can't speak to that.
The real kicker here though is that these classes aren't open to other Berkeley students. There are general equivalents in the Stats department, in CS, and in the iSchool, but not tailored to generalists looking to add some kind of "Data Science" specialization. The curriculum is really walled off from the rest of the students, which is annoying because I want to take some of these classes.
Anyway, I think the real question here is how much opportunity cost you can avoid in the online format and the placement/salary you should expect coming out of it.
The real kicker here though is that these classes aren't open to other Berkeley students. There are general equivalents in the Stats department, in CS, and in the iSchool, but not tailored to generalists looking to add some kind of "Data Science" specialization. The curriculum is really walled off from the rest of the students, which is annoying because I want to take some of these classes.
Anyway, I think the real question here is how much opportunity cost you can avoid in the online format and the placement/salary you should expect coming out of it.