Go For a Masters, Or Not?

mx12 writes "I'm currently an undergrad in computer engineering and have been thinking about getting my masters. I have a year left in school. Most of my professors seem to think that getting a masters is a great idea, but I wanted to hear from people out in the working world. Is a masters in computer engineering better than two years of experience at a company?"

Comments

How many times are we going to hear this question?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, we haven't heard this question verbatim before, but the:

I want to go to college and get my BS in IS - what should I do?

or

I want to get out of IS and pursue basket weaving - what should I do?

or

Do I need a degree to be a Tape Monkey?

type questions are pretty much the same.

Though the questions aren't the same the answers will be.

Richer Vein of Knowledge than a Master's

[CaptainOfSpray]

Read the Daily What-the-Frel http://thedailywtf.com/ This will teach you more in a day's reading about the real world of computing than you will learn in a year on a Master's. And you will enjoy it or be horrified, either way you'll have more fun thn writing a Master's thesis.

Re:Do Both

[BiggerIsBetter]

Just don't count on much of a social life.

Two words: Coeds. Tutoring.

Re:Lots of bad advice

[AutopsyReport]

Money is not the most important thing in life.

True. Sleeping on top of a pile of money surrounded by beautiful ladies is.

Re:Do Both

[Morphine007]

Two words: Coeds. Tutoring.

mods: +50billionty, insightful as hell

do it up...

Re:This is a dead parrot. It's dead.

[Cro Magnon]

Similarly, when money is tight and a company needs to decide what to cut, they get rid of what they deem to be the least important to their survival. From upper management's point of view, they see what the impact of laying off staff in their core business will be, and will be less likely to view management as just support. However, it is harder for them to see why they can't just halve their IT staff or janitorial staff. Maybe the floors will get vacuumed less often or it will take slightly longer to deploy Windows 7, but the company will still do what it does roughly as well as it currently does, right? (That is not to say that IT isn't crucial to a company's success, just that it is much harder for upper management to appreciate the relative worth of IT staff).

I understand that POV, but companies still need to be careful what they cut. They can get along without floor sweepers, but if they fire too many plumbers, they could be in deep shit.

Re:Work Experience

[pwfffff]

Anecdote vs Anecdote WHO WILL WIN?!!?!11

Re:Work Experience

[Fulcrum of Evil]

In my experience (approx 8 years in the field), only very average coders ever had Masters Degree's[sic]

I take exception to that - I'm at least above average, and I'm in a master's program. I've got the shelf full of books, am working through ruby and python, as well as their related stacks, and I've got a backlog of heavy math to get to when I get time: you really need to ignore the actual degree, or at least look at motivation.