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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?"
I ended up getting employed full time right out of college. I accumulated 4 years of good experience, at which point I decided to go back to school part time.
The great thing about this is that if you can find an employer to help you pay for your higher education, that sweetens the deal. The downside is that your work obligations always come first, no matter what, especially if the company is paying. This is especially true if the job requires travel.
I can tell you working full-time and going to school part-time is not easy, especially if you have a family like I do. But it's definitely doable if you are dedicated and have a wife who is willing to put up with it for the next 2-3 years. Just don't count on much of a social life.
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
If you can get a job do so, if you can't (because of the "current economic climate") get a masters. But whilst you are doing your masters, keep looking for a job.
Given the choice between two candidates for a job: candidate A has 2 years experience doing the job they are going for, candidate B has zero experience of the job they are going for but has a piece of paper that says they have a masters, which would you choose? The guy that can do the job from day 1 and has a proven track record, or the guy that will need hand holding for 6 months to get him up to speed?
Most young professionals work on a masters part-time. A good employer will pay the fees.
While it might not be a consideration now, your formal education can have a big bearing on your future immigration opportunities. For example the UK now requires anyone applying for a High Skilled Visa to have an equivilant of a UK Master's degree, irrespective of your field.
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
The OP should be getting relevant work experience while working on a masters.
A 25 yr old colleague will be expected to have about 4 years of work experience in the field. Whether they will be expected also to have a masters depends on the position. A programmer probably doesn't need a masters, but for a more responsible job, you'll need a lot of work experience to compensate for the lack of one.
Masters isn't going to increase your starting pay grade or get you a job easier, work experience is going to do that. You need work experience now.
BUT here's the thing. When you're 10+ years into your job, suddenly that masters means *everything*. Expect to start hitting some barriers, like maximum pay-grade. You really need to do both, and you need to make sure you get work experience before you graduate AND make sure you get your Masters while you still can manage it.
My father is a really talented guy. But he's 50 now with a Bachelor's and is passed up on every promotion and pay raise. He's already at the top of the metrics for pay and title, he literally can't go any higher because of corporate policy.
Nope, it's really not.
I'm afraid that the GP is right. Whilst a degree is a foot in the door, you should only do a masters if you want to. It's not going to get you more money or the ability to skip past others.
Being intelligent, personable and demonstrating knowledge will win out every time, and in general the employment reflects that much better.
He's not an IT grad. He's a Comp.E.
for the love of god, slashdot, stop confusing engineers with sysadmins.
If you have to fund it yourself, how do you know anybody wants the result?
If someone will fund you to do it, a third party outside the University thinks it is a good idea and worth something to them.
It's like MBAs: if you have to pay for it yourself, you're probably not MBA material. If your company wants you to do it, somebody thinks you are.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
And the way to do this is look for co-op or internship work while doing your undergrad and Master's. Then you end up with work experience and academic credentials on your resume.
Alternatively, after you get your bachelor's and get a job see if your company will pay for your master's. Many companies will do "tuition reimbursement" as long as its a relevant degree field and you make good grades. Its a lot of work but trust me, its worth it, and you should get it done now before you get married and have kids.
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
In how many companies does HR choose the IT staff?
Not choose, but as I understand it, in the company I work with the resumes would be filtered through HR first and then be passed on to the IT department.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Your area needs to modernise it's teaching requirements.
Where I am, in a effort to get "highly qualified"* teachers the state allows them to get an MA in education while teaching simply by taking 5 classes, 2-3 of which are free, and the the rest very affordable in-state. The program is not too widely publicised, as the idea is that qualified individuals thinking about teaching will find it, but the people who simply "can't do" are not constantly having it advertised to them.
If someone values time off teaching is a job with fantastic pay (try getting anything reasonable at a traditional job with a 190 day work year. With 4 weeks of vacation mine is still over 230).
As a competent person
* term used by the state, it is defined as 30+ credits in a subject area.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I am pondering the same question lately. I have a B.S. and I have 10+ years experience. My salary is ~10-15% above the norm for a senior level Linux engineer in the area where I work. What I have found is that many companies use a table to calculate what your salary/hourly rate should be. In my case, because I don't have a Master's, I have maybe 10-15% more room for salary increases before I reach a proverbial "cap" on how much I "should" make, according to the table. My options are simple: 1 - get a Master's and "qualify" for higher salary 2 - branch out on my own and go into full-time consulting 3 - accept my fate and wallow in mediocrity I am leaning towards option 2 above, but I have done some casual inquiries with regards to number one recently. Number 3 is out of the question. In conclusion, if I were you, I would get 3-5 years experience and make a plan NOW for going back in that time. Stick to the plan and by the time you have the Master's, you will have some experience to back up what your resume says you know. Hope this helps.
I'm 34. I've been in IT for 14 years. I have not yet hit my pay grade ceiling, though I'm getting close.
I'm not worried. At my current pay grade in 4 more years my wife and I will have no more debt except our house. I'll have pleanty of cash to go back to school and get that masters at that point. Based on my collection of certifications, many of the courses i'll need I can automatically exempt out of, many more I can take 1 test and pass the class, and several others my nearly 20 years of business expereince will expempt me out of. This assumes I'll actually take some classes...
Universities are typically more interested in simply getting your tuition, and if you qualify, and are above 30 years old, they'll typically be more than willing to take your money and still sell your seat in the class to another applicant. Universities generally don;t like putting highly expereinced business people in classrooms where their woried the student actually trumps the professor in knowledge. Many professors who recognize this where the university doesn't will simply give you the 4.0 for the promise you don't show up to class... Some universities will simply give you a masters in BA simply for having worked in management that long (and for a generous donation to the university of $30-50K).
Get your masters later, get the money now. Keep in mind, it;s not just the pay level now, it;s also that much more interest you won't be paying down later...
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
My background is actually in social sciences (undergrad degree in anthropology, grad degree in law), and I definitely do not have a pro-science/tech bias.
And from what I understand about the Ed.D. degree, is that it has less rigorous requirements than a PhD; for example, many don't even have a foreign language requirement.
And undergraduate education majors seem to perform very poorly in standardized tests (you would think majoring in education would make you especially effective at testing.) For example, here are GRE results by intended major. There is no excuse for someone who spent their undergraduate career presumably reading and writing to be outperformed significantly by chemists and engineers in verbal reasoning. I'm not saying a 437 verbal on the GRE means you're a bad person, but it certainly does mean that you are not ready for graduate education in a social science.
Additionally, the research done in education is notorious for its lack of rigor, especially it's reluctance to use control groups.