Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
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
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.