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Advice for Returning to School After Long Break?
arohann asks: "A few months ago, I quit my secure, well-paying (but boring) job as a software engineer in India and have been applying to graduate schools in the US, Canada and the UK. My aim is to get back to computer engineering studies (my undergrad major) as a grad student. However, after a 5 year break from academics I'm not sure about my decision and could do with some advice from Slashdot users."
"Here are some of the things that I'd like to know:
1) Typically, how do graduate admissions officials view work experience? Note that I haven't been working as a Computer Engineer but as a Software Engineer.
2) What are the differences between graduate studies at the Masters level in the US, Canada and the UK? I already know a bit from what is available on the websites, so I'm looking for some deeper insights.
3) I'd like to hear from people who've done this, i.e. quit their jobs and gone back to get a higher engineering degree. What problems did you face and what advice do you have?
4) People who've studied in the UK at the MSc, MPhil, MEngg level - how did you fund your education? Were you able to get things like teaching or research assistantships and how much of your costs did these cover?"
1) Typically, how do graduate admissions officials view work experience? Note that I haven't been working as a Computer Engineer but as a Software Engineer.
2) What are the differences between graduate studies at the Masters level in the US, Canada and the UK? I already know a bit from what is available on the websites, so I'm looking for some deeper insights.
3) I'd like to hear from people who've done this, i.e. quit their jobs and gone back to get a higher engineering degree. What problems did you face and what advice do you have?
4) People who've studied in the UK at the MSc, MPhil, MEngg level - how did you fund your education? Were you able to get things like teaching or research assistantships and how much of your costs did these cover?"
Mature students have pretty good track records. What they may lack or have forgotten in skills, they make up for in attitude and general savvy.
So don't be intimidated. Sure, you'll have some catching up to do, but it won't be that onerous.
However, I have to say as a piece of advice, that you are wasting your time going to grad school in CS unless your intent is to be a professor or a heavy researcher. I think the best graduate degree for a CS undergrad is probably an MBA, at least as far as earning potential. If your interests are purely theoretical and money is not something you ultimately desire out of your career, then by all means continue.
step 1: create a global free market economy
step 2: get fat off the work of foreign workers paid much less that you
step 3: complain when your boss discovers that the free market apllies to your job too.....
step 4: post on slashdot about it, instead of looking at why it happened.
Step 1: Demand a policy of inflationary government fiscal programs and a welfare state. Step 2: Watch as your wages go up, but ability to compete in an international labor market plummets. Step 3: Complain when companies do the rational thing and opt for cheaper labor. Step 4: Mock someone for trying to better themselves because you're bitter and unable to compete for wage rates.
I recently returned to get a pair of Masters degrees five years after my Bachelors.
1) Typically, how do graduate admissions officials view work experience? Note that I haven't been working as a Computer Engineer but as a Software Engineer.
They tend to view it quite favorably. Some programs insist upon it, though I doubt that would be the case for Comp Sci. Work experience is a big plus to admission committees in my experience.
2) What are the differences between graduate studies at the Masters level in the US, Canada and the UK? I already know a bit from what is available on the websites, so I'm looking for some deeper insights.
Can't answer this one.
3) I'd like to hear from people who've done this, i.e. quit their jobs and gone back to get a higher engineering degree. What problems did you face and what advice do you have?
The biggest adjustment is getting used to not having a paycheck anymore. It's hard to adjust your standard of living. Otherwise, I found school to be much more enjoyable once I was older. I was a better student, cared more about the material, knew what questions to ask, and could more easily work with the professors.
4) People who've studied in the UK at the MSc, MPhil, MEngg level - how did you fund your education? Were you able to get things like teaching or research assistantships and how much of your costs did these cover?"
I just took out student loans to cover the whole thing. Interest rates are so low right now it's almost free money. I have some student loans as low as 1.5% interest, and in the US the interest is tax deductible up to a certain amount. My only regret is that I didn't take more money out because the cost of capital is so low. (If you don't know what cost of capital means, learn! It's one of the most valuable things to know about) If you get some sort of working stipend or grant, that is great and you should take it but I'd still recommend getting student loans. Throw the extra into an investment/savings account and whatever's left over is cheap money you can build savings upon. (Yes I realize this is borderline with regard to the terms of the loan but no one will check unless you default)
and not "insightful" (as it is currently modded), but I, too, left a well paying job to go back to grad school. In my case, the job wasn't even boring, and my employer was great (gave me a laptop computer as a going away present), but I wanted to expand my horizons.
There are far more important things in life then money, and the sooner one figures that out, the closer one will come to having a fulfulling life. Of course, this goes back to the maturity equation someone else has already alluded to.
As to some of the original questions - most US schools will look kindly on relevant work experience (even - or perhaps especially - if that work experience is only tangentially relevant). Diversity is still the watchword here, and that includes diversity of experience. Since most grad students (at my school - UVA) have little to no work experience and are in their early to mid 20's upon entering grad school, the older, more experienced applicant has the benefit of bringing diversity. Additionally, as others have pointed out you likely have additional maturity (e.g., well-defined work ethic) that will give you more of an advantage in the course work than the disadvantage of being away from it awhile.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Unfortunately I can't post as AC (and I'm too lazy to find a working proxy), but I always feel the need to point out when somebody says something based on ignorant and biased views. First of all, I have not yet dropped out of school. I will continue my education until I feel I have done enough. That probably includes at least a Masters degree.
I was pointing out an obvious perspective. No mocking was done. In no part of my Guide to Success post did I say anything about the asker being a bad person, simply that there are many biased people here who would hesitate to help him out.
Obviously, due to this comment, and my other comments, due to several moderator's lack of perspective on the English language, today will not be a good day for my karma.
I did grad school after several years in the working world. My advice: take some good solid math classes on the side before beginning grad school. I had forgotten alot of Diff Eq, and my linear algebra was weak. The math courses also helped my confidence. You can amaze your new colleagues by explaining the difference between eigenvalues, eigenvectors, and eigenfunctions!!
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
This is a great Ask Slashdot...
I returned to grad school in music technology after 2 years off. For what it's worth, having been in a "real" work environment (at least in my line of work, at a university) really helped me understand how the whole "school beaurocracy" works.
I think going back to school after working gives you an upper hand on your classmates, especially if you're like me and have a teaching assistantship -- "real world" work gives you a lot of experience managing time and planning on how to get things done. It's very easy in grad school to wait until the last minute just like you did in undergrad, but I've found that since I worked before coming here I'm getting things done early and the quality is higher.
My only advice would be, if you go back to school, treat it like it's a job. Be serious, do your work well, and take time to relax too. If you're doing something you love, it's totally worth it.
While most consultants just specilize in a job and leave when they are done.
No offense, but you're clearly speaking of consultants in companies I've never heard of. While it's true that what you describe is what consultants are *supposed* to be, in reality the vast majority of the consultants I know are long-term workers with no specified end date. Many of them have worked in a single consulting position (same desk, same type of work) for 3-4 years.
This is birthed from the myth held by many upper management that cutting "head count" will reduce overall costs. While this may be true in some individual departments here and there, what usually happens is that when the policy is originally initiated, some people lose their jobs, and their former coworkers start busting butt to get all the work done. This manifests itself in the form of exhausted, disgruntled workers who produce lower quality but higher quantity. Eventually, despite having no additional head count, the individual departments decide they need more bodies to get the work done, and so hire consultants to help out with some particularly large project.
Once this large project nears an end, other tasks are offloaded to the consultant, and the consultant finds themselves a standard part of the rest of the team. With only one exception: as a consultant, all the employees tend to look down on you a little bit. They don't necessarily think you're a lesser worker, they just feel you don't have the same entitlements. The consultants don't get invited to the company Christmas party even though they might have worked more hours than anyone else on the team, or having been with the company for more years. They don't get access to company discounts, they are not elligible for company training, they may not be permitted to perform certain security actions (such as VPN), and finally, their opinion really isn't given quite as much weight in the decision making processes.
Anyhow, I've digressed. I've spent time both as a consultant and as an employee, and I have a unique insight in that the company for which I'm currently consulting, I am a former laid-off employee of. Now they pay me more (compared to industry standards) than they did when I was an employee. I spent 4 years as an employee, and have now consulted with them for 4 years. It's distinctly interesting how some people who've been with the company for six months to a year look down on me some times, despite the fact that I'm clearly the veteran here. I don't think I behaved that way when I was an employee; I sure hope I didn't.
These guys have no intention of letting it end: they need someone to do the work I'm doing, and they don't have time to do it. Work only promises to get more intense, not less, and they may hire another consultant to help me with the work I have on my plate already. Of my developer buddies, from college, and from 'net acquaintences (a web of friends as it were), I know at least 14 people, myself included (having just now counted in my head, myself included) who are in long term consulting positions with no end in sight. I can think of only 2 that really are in short term consulting positions. Maybe my web of friends is nonrepresentative of current market conditions, but I find it unlikely.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
Actually, I'd prefer to live in a society where success and even survival is determined on individual merit. And while it is a bit off-topic, I'd also point out that education and healthcare are not rights, as excercising "rights" does not require coerced participation by a third party. When you attempt to create a "right" to healthcare and education, you are in fact creating an "entitlement". Entitlements come at the expense of rights. So tell you what: you and everyone else who wants socialized healthcare and education, get together and for a nice pretty socialist society for yourselves. The rest of us will participate in a free-market capitalist society. See which crumbles first.
There is no such society anywhere and there won't ever be. Imagine a society with no advantages of class, inheritance, or accident of history. Without zeroing everyone out, your perfect society is really just a noble class that will seek to perpetuate itself and keep down those talented impoverished who threaten it.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White