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The M.S. Degree vs. Everything Else?
salad_fingers writes "It has been said that the Bachelor's Degree is the new High School Diploma: everybody has one. It is taking a greater investment of time, money and effort on behalf of the individual to give oneself that needed edge in the professional world. I have noticed that in technical fields, specifically engineering, employees are flocking in droves to MBA programs to capitalize on the upcoming retirement of the Baby Boomers, and have largely considered pursuing a graduate degree in a technical field as a waste of time and effort. What does Slashdot see as the future of the M.S. degree versus other available and somewhat non-traditional degrees? What path should engineers pursue for maximum future employability?"
I ended up with a masters in biology education, with no intention of teaching high school science (my student teaching was that bad). Fortunately having a master's degree provides a nice foot in the door. Later on I got several Microsoft certifications, which helped me move from being a programmer to a SQL Server administrator.
There are some professions that are specific to a job, but any master's degree helps in a competitive field. Once you're in, of course, it's all about what you can do.
If everyone else has a business degree, then a technical degree will be worth more.
The answer entirely depends on deciding what you really want to do and where you want to do it. So many people bumble about thinking that getting just one more degree will bring them their dream job happiness. $50k later, they're working at Burgerville with a Masters in Fine Arts and wondering how they're going to make their student loan payment.
Do some soul searching and try to figure out what kind of job you really want to do and the kinds of industries and businesses you want to do it. If you can't get a good bead on that then you're just trusting your life to fate.
So, once you figure out what you want to do or where you want to do it, do everything you can to learn about it. Contact professionals in the field/business and arrange informational interviews. If you're still in school, try to get some kind of internship or "special project" with that business/industry - your profs are your friends here and probably know someone in industry who can help you.
For example, if you want to be a supply chain analyst for a sportswear company then you should see if any of your profs know someone at a sportswear company and see if you can do some kind of class-related project. Find out who they use for temp staff and get work there when you can.
Check to see if your school has an alumni program where you can find alumni out in the world and see if any of them are working in a field/company you're interested.
Once you get in, make contacts. Ask LOTS of questions. Find out what THEY look for when they are hiring. My current job at a place pretty much requires an MBA. The previous job I did as a temp employee didn't care what my degree was or if I even had one.
If you know you want to be a software developer for IBM, then find out what IBM looks for. They're the ones you need to impress. That answer is totally different than if you want to be a systems administrator at a university.
But, until you can answer "what do you want to do", there's not much point in going for a higher degree unless you feel like you'll be lucky.
What path should engineers pursue for maximum future employability?
Learn agriculture. Seriously, it is looking more and more likely that the post war paradise the baby boomers experienced is an anomaly in the course of human history. Better learn to survive in a post cheap oil world.
I tend to agree with you. Degrees are for learning, not making money. I'm in college now and many people that I've met couldn't care less if they learned anything; all they want is the piece of paper at the end. While higher education is certainly an investment with a hope for higher pay in the future, I'm inclined to think that college graduates would do poorly after college if they lack interest in any sort of learning in their field just as someone less educated would do poorly if he had no desire to succeed.
This is a little off topic and a bit of a rant, but I wanted to point out the common misconception held by the author. While an M.S. or Ph.D. generally involves a program specialized in a particular subfield, don't underestimate how much these programs can improve one's ability to do science and think critically. These are both general skills.
... these are like "people skills". ( Sorry, but I couldn't resist. :) That could be a serious point, though. What do you learn in business school? Accounting, management, marketing, ... but a critical part of good programs is networking and working with people. So, in some sense, b-school is building a more general set of people skills.
I'll put it in MBA terms
The same thing happens in M.S. and Ph.D. programs. You just learn to think better. It sounds silly, but it's real.
If you're in some little start up, neither an MS or MBA will make any difference (unless you're working AND getting the degree). As you move out into your thirties and forties, you'll probably find that the MS in what ever will provide more oportunity (than a BS) on the programmer, engineer, tech lead, scientist, senior scientist track, while the MBA will set you up for the section head, department head, site lead, etc track.
If you want to work on and create technology, go MS. If you want to manage it, go MBA.
If you wnat to know what program to do NOW, before your life responsibilities stack up, and you can hack the program, go MS. Frankly, the vast majority of MBA programs can easily be completed in your spare time, even if you've got a working spouse and a couple of kids, so you can safely put that off until you turn 30 or 35. Then, with both an MS and MBA, you'll be head and shoulders over many of your peers no matter what direction you decide to go (including doing your own thing).
Luke, help me take this mask off
What does Slashdot see as the future of the M.S. degree versus other available and somewhat non-traditional degrees? What path should engineers pursue for maximum future employability?
On an international scale, in order to stay competitive economically the US has to be the worlds largest consumer. In order to consume individuals must have enough education that their jobs aren't easily outsourced. So the US encourages higher education.
The generic "here's a spec, design it" engineering can be accomplished by a bachelor's degree holder, as well as most outsourcing companies. The research that is done at the master's and PhD levels is important for new technologies, but that has largely been watered down (fewer skunk works, menlo parks, etc)
If you want to stay competitive in today's industry, you'll have to settle for a bachelor's degree or higher, coupled with management experience. Many companies move engineers into a position to act as liasons to outsourced workers, and still keep a smaller engineering group around for fixing designs, quick proof of concept, and developing new technology.
But in the end you'll be fine and happy with a bachelors degree once you have experience. All a masters does for you is move you up the pay bracket 10-15%, and the reality is that after the two years of real world experience rather than going for a masters, most bachelors are at that level by the time you get your masters.
I did a lot of work while in school, developed a passion for my field, and graduated with a bachelors. I may want more schooling down the road. I'm not certain, however, that a masters of engineering will serve me as well as a masters in business, so I decided to work for a few years to get an idea of the industry and find out where the opportunities that look interesting lie.
What you should do to ensure maximum future employability is do what you love, and love what you do. That is what will shine through - too many people do engineering because they want money, but don't want to be doctors. They make OK engineers, but until they find the passion they end up being lukewarm for 1/3 of their life while at work, asleep 1/3, and bored the other 1/3. Don't do that.
-Adam
Back in the USSR, people talked about "getting your Party Card." It was a validation that showed you had jumped a particular barrier to entry into the elite - didn't matter what you knew, it showed you had the Right Stuff to be allowed entry into that small group that actually got to set the agenda.
Getting an M.B.A. in our culture is like "getting your Party Card." I know, I've got one. People who only have technical degrees are journeymen and tradesmen, they know how to do something but not why. Having your M.B.A. means you've got what it takes to understand The Business, and that trumps anything technical, any time. Having an M.B.A. means that after great effort - it ain't easy - you've learned the language, you've learned the secret handshake, so you can be counted on to understand The Business - be an operator at the level where money is created and decisions are made about investing in all those engineers, operators, plumbers, and carpenters below you.
First off - I don't think it's possible to effectively manage
tech people without having strong technical skills yourself.
Your knowledge will be too superficial to make informed decisions,
and in the end you just won't be respected.
In my experience it definitely pays off in the long run to get
a graduate degree in CS, and it's easier to do it the first time you
are at school. I'm in my early 30s and am working as a
development director in a startup. I find that most of the people
i deal with, other senior tech people, CTOs, senior architects,
generally have a very strong formal education, Honours in BSc,
M.S or Phd. There are some exceptions of course, there are
many IT middle managers out there with no technology skils - but
these are the people who tend to get ignored in meetings when
the real decisions are being made. There are also a lot of people
out there with little formal education but with the smarts to
make up for it.
I see an MBA as something that makes sense to do later perhaps in
your late 20s/early 30s when you have already have some management
experience and are ready to move into a executive level.
seriously
High prices for crude oil are going to stick around for a while. Oil companies litterally can not hire enough people to work. I'm not just talking about push hands and drill pigs. They need engineers, welders, geologists, software developers. Every company out here is starving for employees. If you have a pulse you're hired. Don't have a resume? No problem. Completed a University or Technical program. . . great you're hired. No education? Companies out here will pay for courses.
The economy here in Alberta is so hot that the word "booming" doesn't seem to describe it well enough. Of course there are downsides. Line ups everywhere are huge. If you walk into a coffe shop expect a minimum of 15 minutes to get your latte. Labour shortages have affected every industry.Of course every boom will have a bust. But I don't see that happening in the next couple years and I would hire somebody with two years good experience over somebody with two years more general education.
I struggled with the same questions, both when I was in school getting my Bachelor's and later while working (I'm 26 now, and still haven't come to a conclusion). I was doing my Bachelors in CS at Stanford, and having a great time of it. I didn't see a reason to stop, so I applied for the coterminal Masters program, in which you just keep right on taking classes. I started being a TA for CS classes, and enjoyed teaching. During the summers, I did internships all over the place, and had a good time doing it.
After a couple of years, though, I started thinking about what the goal was. I didn't actually have a reason to want the Masters: it was just a way to keep taking classes. So after five years I had my Bachelors and was partway to the Masters, but I'd had enough. I took a job at Microsoft as a developer, and have been having a great time at that, too.
But lately I've started to think again about what the goal is. Do I want to be a dev forever? I have friends here where that is absolutely their goal. Do I want to run the company? If so, I can either get an MBA, or try to start working my way up through the management chain (there are a bunch of VPs at Microsoft without MBAs). Do I want to do something completely different? I've thought about joining a start-up or working for a consulting house. Maybe I could swing working in another country for a while. The good news is that there's no deadline... I don't need to have this all decided by the time I'm 30.
So look around and figure out where you want to be in five years, and then figure out where that points you for twenty years out. If you're unhappy with that, start thinking with longer horizons in mind. I'll be honest: I've never missed my CS Masters. If I go back to school, it'll be for an MBA.
If your only goal is employability, you're barking up the wrong tree anyway: lawyers are basically always employed, and make more than I do as well. So start figuring out what's important to you besides being employed... I'm guessing it's a longer list than that.
You just come along with me and have a good time. The Galaxy's a fun place. You'll need to have this fish in your ear.
I work for a university engineering department and we have a real problem with grad students, particularly foriegn grads, doing that. They get in the masters program without any clear idea why. They aren't interested in research, they jsut want a master's degree. They see it as just another hoop to jump through to get more money. The upshit of this is that they tend to have very fragile knowledge. They are all book smarts. You ask them a question in terms of a formula they learned and you get an answer. You ask them the very same question in terms of the real world you get a blank stare. I mean there's a lab full of peopel that do networking that can't properly work out the subnet their computer is supposed to be in, when you give them the subnet (they kept putting it as a /16 since we are in the class B part of the IP space).
I think your advice is very good: Decide what you want to do, and see if a degree (I'm talking undergrad here) really matters. For some jobs, it's manditory and it has to be in the correct field. For others, it's highly beneficial, but doens't really mater what it is. Still otehrs it helps a little bit, but no more than a year of experience and a good refrence.
For master's, unless it's something that the place you want to work for really wants, you need a personal reason to get it. A master's degree SHOULD be because you enjoy learning about something, and want to work on some orignal research for it. A master's thesis is supposed to be you going out and exploring something. Unfortunately many places (like where I work) will instead let you take a comprehensive exam which is just a hoop to jump though. If that's all you want to do, you shoudln't be getting a master's.
While an undergrad is, for the most part, just a continued somewhat specialized education, a master's is supposed to be mroe research oriented. It should be the kind of thing you do out of personal love, not professional intrest. Because, when you get down to it, what employers REALLY care about is if you can do the job they want. Having a master's degree that is backed by no skills to apply it isn't useful and even if they don't know when interviewing you, they'll figure it out.
You'll get far more jobs through experience and personal references than with a peice of paper. I can't emphasize the personal reference thing enough. Find someone who knows someone who works where you want to. Meet that person, have them give you a reference. It goes a looooong way. Really, I've only ever gotten one job cold, all the rest were because I knew someone who knew someone. Sometimes, there was no interview at all just a "This the guy? Good, you're hired." People trust the opinions of those close to them more than the trust the paper from your alma matter usually.
I've interviewed a few technical people with Masters degrees in CS who couldn't even tell me the difference between an array, a hash table and a linked list.Go for the degree if it's what you want to do (You enjoy learning, you enjoy hitting on the cute freshman girls, or whatever) but don't count on it to be the distinguishing factor between you and someone else. Though a cool thesis paper would go a long way toward convincing me that I might want to hire you (Apparently neither of the folks I interviewed went through programs that required them.)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
... is that the education level is almost equivlent at some schools.
The high school basic/standard curriculum that we still use today in the USA is wholly inadequate for the job market in the country. It is entirely based around strict adherence to institutional instruction. We still spend too much time teaching basics that should have been taught in grade school (grammar school/middle school/junior high). Part of the problem is in passing students along up to the next level when they are not ready to move to the next level.
What is the purpose of teaching a curriculum that was designed to produce factor workers in a nation that has so little actual manufacturing infrastructure still operational? We continue to cut the arts in school more and more, but those skills are becomming more and more important in this nation due to the fact that they teach you "how to think outside the box" which leads directly to "innovation" and "invention". We are a country dependent on our creating of "intellectual property". Following directions will not create new technologys, becuase there are no directions for making improvements. Improvements are generated by analizing and creative thinking.
The high school diploma is very close to being a useless document other then its ability to let you start taking classes in a college to start learning the skills that will allow you to get a job. We no longer need 30 million factory workers, foundry workers, miners, metal workers, and carpenters in this nation (we still need some and need highly skilled ones at that). But now what we need are 30 million inventors, scientists, researchers, engineers, programmers, designers, artists (visual, musical, and performance), and story tellers. These are what we need to be prepairing our students to become.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Here are a few clues for you:
1. Many hiring managers are not very good at determining an applicant's technical skills. Especially if HR gets involved.
2. Networking is more about finding out about positions than anything. A large number of jobs are never posted. And it's better to have a several people looking for you, than looking just on your own.
3. A person vouching for a prospective hire's skills gives the hiring manager warm fuzzies. It adds another data point that the person has the right skills, and it also pushes some of the blame on the person recommending the hire, in case things goes wrong.
4. One very important part of hiring a new person is how they will fit in the culture or the group. If they're already friends with one employee, they're likely to fit in in a similar manner.
5. So-called "soft skills" are more important in most jobs than the hard technical skills. Soft skills are all about working with and communicating with others. This is another thing that a reference can show that you are good at. (This is even harder to discern during an interview.)
6. Networking works. I didn't believe it when I was younger, either.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
The reason the reason is that, if the hiring person is any good, they want to know if you have a certain unmeasurable quality. One of my friends calls it being a "bithead". Basically to me it's do you have both the ability and the drive to be able to learn about and solve novel problems in regards to technology. That's all I really want to know ability wise. If you've knowledge in the area we need you to work, great, if not that's fine, we can train you provided you have that unmeasurable quality. If you don't, I don't give a fuck what you know because it's not useful.
To put it another way I need to know if your knowledge and learning process are fragile or not. You may have a master's and certificates up the ass, that means only that you know how to pass tests. Sure you might have a shitload of facts stored in you, but if they can't be applied to the real world, I don't need you.
There's no good way to test for that, either, other than having someone do work. I can try and design tests to see but they don;t necessarily show me anything. If it happens to be something you read in a book, you can pass, even though you lack that so-called bithead quality.
The parent's point about fitting in is highly valid as well. Some people just don't work. I remember at one of my student jobs they hired a new guy that I just didn't like. Now at first I thought it was just my being an introvert, you know a new guy intruding on a familiar space. I told myself that I was being petty and needed to just wait and it'd change....
Never did. That guy creeped me out the whole time he was there until they let him go (incidentally he never did any fucking work). He just didn't fit. Later, we hired another guy who was a friend of one of the employees. I liked him almost immediately and he worked out really well.
So you really get to trust references not only because we are inclined to listen to personal anecdotes more than empirical evidence, even though they are less valid, but also because it does seem to work. Where I work now, we hire student workers pretty often. That's the problem with students: They keep graduating. Well if we can, we get them by having our current students refer them, or people we meet since some of us take classes. If not we go to ads on campus. Of the referrals, all that I can remember have worked out. They have had varying skill and knowledge levels, but they were all bitheads, and they all got along. Of the cold hires, I'd say it's less than 50%. Many are not bitheads, many simply don't get along well in the work environment, some both.
For example, we hired a grad student not too long ago. Nice enough guy, but didn't work out. For one his problem solving skills were abysmal. He could only do a task if it was very precisely defined, at which point the amount of time needed to explain it usually made it faster to just do yourself. He had no initiative to try and find things to do, he'd just sit at his computer fiddling with Linux unless given a task. He also fit in poorly, he didn't socialize almost at all with the rest of us, despite our efforts. To top it all off, he never intended to keep the job. He wanted a research assistant position. As soon as he got one, he skipped (1.5 months roughly).
That kind of thing doesn't happen with people referred to us. Maybe it's just luck, but I think it's more that you don't want to ruin your reputation. Sure maybe you talk a friend up a bit, but you aren't going to go and say he's a great reliable guy if you know he's going to bail at the first opportunity. If you give bad references, pretty soon your credibility is shot to hell and people won't listen to you.
The parent is also dead on about jobs that aren't posted. I mean you'll get situations as so:
A technical group is down a person, someone good just left. However they are a large group, he's one in twenty, so they don't go and open a posting right away. His work is absorbed by the team, nobody really wants to go through the trouble of a hiring process right now.