Slashdot Mirror
Ph.Ds in IT - Good or Bad for a Career?
LordNimon asks: "I'm thinking about getting my Ph.D. (I currently have a Master's) in computer engineering. I've heard all sorts of stories about Ph.Ds being less likely to find a job than their less-educated counterparts, but not a lot of credible evidence. So, I was hoping to hear from Slashdot readers on their experience. Do you think getting a Ph.D. in CompSci or CompEng will improve or worsen my career outlook in the industry? Has anyone witnessed someone being turned down for a job because he had too much education? If you're a hiring manager, what is your opinion on someone who has a Ph.D. and is otherwise already qualified for the position?"
"Carl and I have our Master's, but Homer just showed up when the plant opened."
Let me guess. Homer is now your boss?
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
IT workers are the grease monkeys of the industry. You guys make sure my machine doesn't get WinBlast while i get some REAL work done designing the next generation of hardware for you morons to forget to patch once you've installed another one of your shitty M$ OSes on it. ("but i'm MCSE certified! it's all i know" "shut it, monkey")
I want a slashdot poll... of the dozen or so actual engineers that read slashdot, how many of you hate your IT department because they're completely incompetant? How many of you hate them because they're dickheads? Both?
Thanks for participating!
I have a Ph. D in multiple fields of study, and am currently working in the video game industry doing long-term fundamental Research and Development. I used to be in academia for a few years, but left when I realized that it was just a mad rat-race for tenure and name recognition.
A Ph.D indicates to employers that you have the persistence and discipline to see a long-term project and goal (5+ years) to completion, and also mostly guarantees that you have a knowledge of the academic and research forefront of whatever specialty you choose to pursue. Even though there may be a long gap between the academic cutting edge, and commercial reality, these days, especially in technology, the gap is shrinking.
Finally and most important, it shows you have initative and creativity to pursue independent research and come up with something new.
Many companies these days do have basic research labs which employ as many Ph.Ds and churn out as much research as any university, like AT&T, Microsoft, IBM, Nintendo, etc. and there are obviously opportunities for them that REQUIRE a Ph.D, so no, you are not definitely overqualified with one!
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
you can't get a job with either phd cause those phd's are pointless.
"The stuff schools are teaching in quickly changing fields like IT is already dated anyhow." ... that statement should actually be more like
"All the morons that post on slashdot are mostly uneducated wankers, don't have a clue - but they think they know everything - and are completely overstated drama queens".