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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?"
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.
A lot of Indians like to get graduate degrees simply because it offers us security professionally, which is by far the most important thing for us.
For almost any Indian parent, a steady professional job (medicine, business, law, engineering, etc.) is far more attractive than a riskier yet potentially more lucrative job (artist, musician, comedian, etc.)
For most Indians, we are told from a young age to study hard in order not to fail in life. Chinese parents, from my own experience, are quite similar too, in many respects.
Mature means 45+ years old. Teen means ~20 years old with ponytails.
I'm going back for a bachelor's degree, so it's a little different, but so far (after 3 semesters back), my experience has been pretty positive.
First, I kept my full time software engineering job while I went to school. It makes it so I have less time at home, but I'm still able to maintain a "full time" (12 credit hours) schedule at school and maintain a good GPA (3.75 so far).
I think you're dead on about mature students. My first time in college, I went in with a full scholarship, and lost it after the first semester because of poor grades. I ended up with a 2.1 GPA and dropped out after 3 semesters suffering from pretty severe depression. I think a lot of this is due to immaturity, and the fact that I just wasn't ready. After 13 years of school in a highly structured environment, I think the sudden shift to the freedoms and unstructured environment of college were just too much for me. I had a lot of trouble motivating myself, I partied too much, and I got poor grades as a result. The whole thing was a downward spiral.
Anyway, I took 7 years, got into the workforce, rode the dot-com bubble up and back down again, and decided to give it another go. It is MUCH easier this time around. The workload is much easier to handle now that I've been in the workforce so long, and I have experience juggling things on tight timelines. Trust me, with my work experience to this point, deadlines in college are a cakewalk in comparison. The only thing I found difficult is I would forget really basic stuff in math classes, but after taking 10 seconds to look it up, the rust was shaken from my memory, and it all came back to me.
Going back to school is a great decision, and I encourage anyone, especially those who have not yet gotten a 4-year degree, to do it. As competition in fields like programming becomes more intense, 4-year degrees are quickly becoming the baseline qualification that you must have to be considered for any job.