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?"

Comments

What do you want to be doing?

[hazem]

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.

Re:What do you want to be doing?

[tverbeek]

If you're going back to school, get a second degree (bachelor, master, associate, doctor... science, arts, fine arts... whatever) in whatever field you wish you'd gotten the first one in. If you're asking the question, you probably have some dissatisfaction with whatever you spent those first four years studying and where its gotten you. Now that you're not a drunken adolescent, you have a better sense of what you'd really like to be doing. Apply for whatever program of study you qualify for, in that field.

Several years ago when I was at a crossroads in my career, my parents suggested I go back to school. They were thinking I'd follow my BS in CS with an MS in CS. Instead I went for a BFA in Digital Media/Illustration. It hasn't been the road to riches, but I sure am happier with what I'm doing now than what I would have been doing if I'd just stayed in the job market or if I'd returned to the same educational track.

Assumptions

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Supply and demand.

[timeOday]

I don't know. There are a lot fewer people in US manufacturing these days, and it doesn't mean those who remain are making more money. What happened when programmers became too scarce, higher salaries? Nah, the H1-B visa was created specifically to depress wages in that field, i.e. "ensure a supply" of workers. What happened when farm labor grew scarce, higher salaries? Nah, the Man just looks the other way allowing a flood of illegal immigrants in order to keep wages low. If you start to make more money than social conventions dictate, something or other will prevent it. Techies will never make more than business types, period. They set the salaries.

Re:My impression

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

I'll put it in MBA terms ... 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.

The same thing happens in M.S. and Ph.D. programs. You just learn to think better. It sounds silly, but it's real.

MS==Tech Track, MBA==Line Management

[cmholm]

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).

Do a M.S. early - leave the MBA to your 30s

[akuzi]

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.

What is worse even...

[Fallen Kell]

... 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.