CS masters degree

I am more than a little biased since I am in a combined MS/PhD program right now, but I enrolled in it for two reasons.

I get paid ~$25k for 9 months of school/research each year with almost all tuition and fees waived.

I enjoy research and focus on it. I happen to spend a lot of time with an oscilloscope and embedded C for my research, which I would claim is pretty marketable, but that is the nature of systems/security research.
 
Like Bryophyte I am currently in a PhD program and have recently received a MS. Just to test the waters I've applied several places to see what is out there, and even in this bad economy there are opportunities out there in our field; fortunately I'm in a tech-oriented area of the country. Because I've been going through the interview process I can hopefully offer you some guidance here.

I would disagree with the people that say an MS is worthless in that you still enter at the bottom and work up. That's ignoring a lot. First is the MS gives you an opportunity to focus your skills that a BS does not, and that can definitely give you a leg up for jobs that center on that area. Academic experience and work experience are two different things and I feel like the academic arena is more open and cutting edge. If you want to write your research in Boo and then later switch to Groovy what's stopping you? At a job you'll most likely be pigeon-holed into one or a small set of languages like Java or C#. Depending on your eventual job it may be your last chance to really flex your creativity and try whatever you want. There's other factors to consider too. In grad school your course load will drop considerably because most schools consider 9 hours full-time and at some point research will take up some of those hours. This will give you a lot of freedom to set your own schedule and work how you wish, which a job isn't going to give you. Enjoy your youth while you can.

Now, there is definitely something to be said for having work experience too if you intend to go into most industry jobs. My cv/resume only has one "real" job that I had the last couple years of my undergrad career, since then it has been all teaching and research. Most employers pretty much ignore this experience and only care about that undergrad job and maybe ask about my publications. So, if you do want to do the industry thing, definitely try doing some internships/co-ops/whatever in the summers. However, an unpaid internship, while acceptable in other fields, is not something that is common in computer science. You should definitely be able to find better opportunities if you have a decent GPA (and dependent on your geographic location). If you have to relocate for the summer, it's a great way to experience a new place anyway.

That being said, in most of the sciences, paying for a graduate degree is silly as a student. If your school will offer you a teaching or research assistantship then I would say stay in school and get the MS. If not, find a job and work on your MS part-time (hopefully they will pay in part or full). The job market is thinner than normal so hopefully you have funding opportunities from the school.

Obviously I recommend getting the MS. The Masters should make up a little salary-wise for missed promotion opportunities you could have gotten working that whole time--if you're not getting a little more than someone coming in with a BS you need better negotiation skills. Salary isn't everything either, and like I pointed out the MS may let you grab a job at a company that you would like better due to a specialty.
 
An addition: if you screwed around in BioChem as much as you led-on, then your grades are probably not good enough to get you into a full-time grad school. If you don't have a 3.5+, I don't think you stand a chance.

I graduated with a 2.9 with a BS ECE, and although I was able to get a job, the only only way to get into grad school was to join a part-time program. They have less-stringent standards for entry (mine typically requires provisional students to get an A or A/B on their first two classes). I recently finished my MS, and now I have seven years experience plus the degree, and I didn't pay a dime (employer paid).
 
CefiroZ said:
Like Bryophyte I am currently in a PhD program and have recently received a MS. Just to test the waters I've applied several places to see what is out there, and even in this bad economy there are opportunities out there in our field; fortunately I'm in a tech-oriented area of the country. Because I've been going through the interview process I can hopefully offer you some guidance here.

I would disagree with the people that say an MS is worthless in that you still enter at the bottom and work up. That's ignoring a lot. First is the MS gives you an opportunity to focus your skills that a BS does not, and that can definitely give you a leg up for jobs that center on that area. Academic experience and work experience are two different things and I feel like the academic arena is more open and cutting edge. If you want to write your research in Boo and then later switch to Groovy what's stopping you? At a job you'll most likely be pigeon-holed into one or a small set of languages like Java or C#. Depending on your eventual job it may be your last chance to really flex your creativity and try whatever you want. There's other factors to consider too. In grad school your course load will drop considerably because most schools consider 9 hours full-time and at some point research will take up some of those hours. This will give you a lot of freedom to set your own schedule and work how you wish, which a job isn't going to give you. Enjoy your youth while you can.

Now, there is definitely something to be said for having work experience too if you intend to go into most industry jobs. My cv/resume only has one "real" job that I had the last couple years of my undergrad career, since then it has been all teaching and research. Most employers pretty much ignore this experience and only care about that undergrad job and maybe ask about my publications. So, if you do want to do the industry thing, definitely try doing some internships/co-ops/whatever in the summers. However, an unpaid internship, while acceptable in other fields, is not something that is common in computer science. You should definitely be able to find better opportunities if you have a decent GPA (and dependent on your geographic location). If you have to relocate for the summer, it's a great way to experience a new place anyway.

That being said, in most of the sciences, paying for a graduate degree is silly as a student. If your school will offer you a teaching or research assistantship then I would say stay in school and get the MS. If not, find a job and work on your MS part-time (hopefully they will pay in part or full). The job market is thinner than normal so hopefully you have funding opportunities from the school.

Obviously I recommend getting the MS. The Masters should make up a little salary-wise for missed promotion opportunities you could have gotten working that whole time--if you're not getting a little more than someone coming in with a BS you need better negotiation skills. Salary isn't everything either, and like I pointed out the MS may let you grab a job at a company that you would like better due to a specialty.
Click to expand...


Maybe I just live in middle of nowhere... but I've been trying to find a new job for about 2 months now. I have a couple years experience but still looking at entry level jobs because most mid level jobs need 3-5+ years experience.

I submitted my resume CV to about 120 positions... 3 replied and I went through to final interviews. I was qualified/overqualified for all of them and about good 95% did not even respond. Others were ruled out for not being local or being 3 month contract shit, etc.

Honestly those 3 jobs were the only direct hire jobs in good companies. Hopefully one of them extends me an offer, I'm sick of my current job :(

It's been a pain to find work. M.S. has certainly not helped me in my job search so far. Hell most people don't even look at my "education" section.. they just assume I have B.S. and they look all surprised when I bring up my MS in interview...

Bleh maybe I'm just applying for wrong jobs :eek: I specialized in mobile devices and GPS/GIS development. All those jobs require 5+ years experience and I've yet to see a job dealing with that specialization with 2-3 years exp required.
 
your error is in not applying anyway to the positions that "require" just a year or two worth of experience more than you currently have. if you believe you are qualified from both a technical standpoint and an engineering standpoint, just apply and let the employer decide. the worst that you lose is about 3 minutes to actually send the resume and they get cheesed off and throw your resume away because you dared to apply to a position that needed 1 more year experience than you had.
 
Khanmots said:
You know... if you find the right occupation... you won't mind going to work.

Well, with the caveat that you aren't working with jerks.
Click to expand...

Work usually means doing something 40 hours a week. There is absolutely NOTHING I can think of besides sleeping that I would want to do 40 hours a week, not even sitting around playing video games.
 
eon said:
Work usually means doing something 40 hours a week. There is absolutely NOTHING I can think of besides sleeping that I would want to do 40 hours a week, not even sitting around playing video games.
Click to expand...

What makes you think that you do the same thing all 40 hours?

I've been out of school about 3.5 years. I work as a software engineer.

This past year alone I've developed sequence diagrams for interface definition. I've done requirements analysis. I've helped develop conops. I've done gap analysis on various systems level deliverables. I've helped define software and systems architectures.

And yes, while a lot of it is spent at a computer or at a meeting... it all isn't. I spent a week this year on an Army base putting in 12-14 hours a day out in the desert. Hell, it was only a few months ago that I was coming home covered in jet fuel due to helping diagnose fuel system problems.

Oh yeah... I did do a little bit of coding in there.

I don't think that I'd be really happy at a job where I'd be doing the exact same thing for months and years on end. Some people would love to have a job where they know that every day will be exactly like the one before it.

No, I don't like every minute of every day that I'm at work. Yes, I'm usually happy to head home. But if you have the right job, then well, sometimes you get into what you do, look up, and realize that you've accidently put in a 14 hour day.

I got lucky as hell and managed to find soemthing that I liked early in my life. But it took me 7 years to get my bachelors due to trying different things. I almost wound up a Chemical Engineer, I bailed on that after 3 years spent working on a degree as I discovered that it wasn't going to be work that I enjoyed doing.
 
I agree with Khanmots:

I love my job. I'm not a CS major (ECE), but I work in embedded software engineering, specifically for a large military contractor. My current work is software to run the Electronic Warfare system on the EA-18 fighter, and I've worked on similar systems on a C-130 and an F-16. If EW doesn't flip your pancakes, there's plenty of other software that keeps an aircraft moving, and it's all unique!

I don't travel much, but that is by-choice: if I wanted to, I could have been hired-on as a Field Engineer, and gone to all sorts of cool locations. Instead, I spend time at my desk, at meetings, in our labs working on hardware, and (very rarely) on-site. I write software, architect systems, debug problems discovered in-flight, and manage our test software - you have to do a little bit of everything, because the teams are small, and knowledge is precious.

I get the impression that you think all software engineering jobs are some isisot sitting in a cubicle all day hacking Visual Basic - that's just not how the world works. Only the half-assed coders get stuck in those jobs - Software Engineers do so much more.
 
A masters will help you a bit, but getting a job is as much about selling yourself as it is your qualifications, experience helps a lot too.

In regards to the internship bit, going into an interview and being able to say I did this, this, and this versus I studied these things makes a huuuuuuuuuge difference. Some people are just good students but not as good in the workforce, a good recommendation and some experience will take you place.

As for the Office Space stereotype. If you sit back and let your career happen, chances are you will be miserable with your job. If you keep actively working towards what you want then you'll probably be happy with your life.
 
This is a message to any potential employers out there.

I was thinking about graduate school, but where I was going to go is having a hard time financially. I could still get 1K/month from the school, but work experience seems to be what counts.

I will be willing to internship for free for 2 years working part-time. I would do it full time, but I have to survive so I will need a second job. I am willing to relocate to do this, but I will have to have some time to find a job and an affordable apartment in a new city first.

I can also work full-time for 18K/year.

A little bit about myself: I am a math major, but I have realized I want to be a programmer. I took the Putnam Exam and ranked in the 300-400 range as a junior and senior. About 3,500 people take the exam every year. My junior year I decided to go to a computer programming contest called The Midsouth CCSC. The year I went my school got a trophy (about 15 schools compete). The year before I went, my school bombed, and the year after I went they bombed.

I learned to program on a TI-83 graphing calculator. Despite the fact that numerous kids were programming it before me, I was the first to think of a way to get almost the whole screen to scroll at 7FPS in the slow interpreted BASIC that came on the calculator.

I wrote a number of neat programs before entering college. For example, I wrote programs that solved the Rubik's Cube and 15 Puzzle with animated solutions. The user could set up the virtual puzzles to resemble their real life counter parts and follow the steps in the animated solution. The Rubik's Cube was in 3D as well. I wrote a computer program to play Connect 4 and pitted it against other programs I found on the internet. I tweaked it till it was faster and at least as smart as the other programs I found. I also entered an internet contest to make a game that used only 1 button. I made a multilayer internet game, and while I didn't win the contest, I still had the highest fun factor and the only internet game entered. There was other stuff, but all of this was before college, and I no longer have any of it.

In college I sped up a Ph.D. students program by a factor of 72 using good algorithms and data structures, making it multi-threaded, and by using cache aware programming technique. I could have made it distributed, but an 8-core computer he had access to was good enough. Because I made good use of cache, the limited memory bandwidth didn't choke the system and the software scaled almost linearly. My strong math background makes me good at software optimization, but I am capable of a variety of computer programming tasks.

Technology skills include: Java, C/C++, Basic PL/SQL, Linux, and LaTeX.

Please PM me if you have internship opportunities, or if you would consider hiring me full-time for 18K/year. I will quickly learn whatever I need to and run with it. When it comes to technical things, I am very creative. If your company is struggling during this difficult economic time and it is impossible to employ more paid staff, then I am definitely your man.

While looking for computer related jobs\internships, I plan on studying open source programs, contributing to them, and writing my own software to build up a portfolio. Plus, as an occasional hobby, I try to come up with unique solutions to math contest problems. I have come up with some nice solutions to Putnam problems that aren't in any of the books.

I hope you consider me. And good luck to everyone, especially those looking for jobs this winter.
 
i believe you're an intelligent person, i really do...

but your letter showed lack of focus and any knowledge at all about the industry. additionally, saying "i will work for peanut dust" doesn't really speak much about your abilities. You can make a lot more money than 18K if you are in good health and don't mind doing physical labor.

That being said, I don't know you at all. As such, I am willing to believe everything you've posted if even just for argument's sake. However, you've got to present yourself better. When you say "i made good algorithms and data structures" nobody knows what this means until you qualify it. Many undergraduate sophomore programmers would say the same thing, and their skills are worthless to a project in need of experienced problem solvers. Rather than point out every similar error, I'll just say that you need to avoid buzzwords until you learn how to use them appropriately to explain why you are a good fit for a company.

Additionally, I'll be bluntly honest... do you REALLY think you are the FIRST person to do ANYTHING on the TI calculators? As an employer, I would laugh at you if you suggested this, unless it was something highly interesting like implementing part of the TCP/IP stack on it so it could communicate with a server to send some data samples and calculations "real-time."

I don't want to tear you apart anymore. Your letter needs a lot of work. You can't beg; you can't talk about every trivial thing you've done. You need to mention a few specific things that put you above and beyond. A good place to start is to recognize what you are --a beginner. Talk about yourself as such and explain why your skills would make you a better candidate for an entry-level position than another entry-level candidate would.

A hint --in all of the interviews I've done in the past couple years, an employer is much less interested in your technical knowledge than your ability to break problems down into manageable pieces and solve them (divide-and-conquer). After you sufficiently demonstrate this, they will be interested in your technical knowledge (of course it is not a binary "all of this and then all of that." you need both. you need to be polished on both.).
 
Negative_3 said:
This is a message to any potential employers out there.

I was thinking about graduate school, but where I was going to go is having a hard time financially. I could still get 1K/month from the school, but work experience seems to be what counts.

I will be willing to internship for free for 2 years working part-time. I would do it full time, but I have to survive so I will need a second job. I am willing to relocate to do this, but I will have to have some time to find a job and an affordable apartment in a new city first.

I can also work full-time for 18K/year.

A little bit about myself: I am a math major, but I have realized I want to be a programmer. I took the Putnam Exam and ranked in the 300-400 range as a junior and senior. About 3,500 people take the exam every year. My junior year I decided to go to a computer programming contest called The Midsouth CCSC. The year I went my school got a trophy (about 15 schools compete). The year before I went, my school bombed, and the year after I went they bombed.

I learned to program on a TI-83 graphing calculator. Despite the fact that numerous kids were programming it before me, I was the first to think of a way to get almost the whole screen to scroll at 7FPS in the slow interpreted BASIC that came on the calculator.

I wrote a number of neat programs before entering college. For example, I wrote programs that solved the Rubik's Cube and 15 Puzzle with animated solutions. The user could set up the virtual puzzles to resemble their real life counter parts and follow the steps in the animated solution. The Rubik's Cube was in 3D as well. I wrote a computer program to play Connect 4 and pitted it against other programs I found on the internet. I tweaked it till it was faster and at least as smart as the other programs I found. I also entered an internet contest to make a game that used only 1 button. I made a multilayer internet game, and while I didn't win the contest, I still had the highest fun factor and the only internet game entered. There was other stuff, but all of this was before college, and I no longer have any of it.

In college I sped up a Ph.D. students program by a factor of 72 using good algorithms and data structures, making it multi-threaded, and by using cache aware programming technique. I could have made it distributed, but an 8-core computer he had access to was good enough. Because I made good use of cache, the limited memory bandwidth didn't choke the system and the software scaled almost linearly. My strong math background makes me good at software optimization, but I am capable of a variety of computer programming tasks.

Technology skills include: Java, C/C++, Basic PL/SQL, Linux, and LaTeX.

Please PM me if you have internship opportunities, or if you would consider hiring me full-time for 18K/year. I will quickly learn whatever I need to and run with it. When it comes to technical things, I am very creative. If your company is struggling during this difficult economic time and it is impossible to employ more paid staff, then I am definitely your man.

While looking for computer related jobs\internships, I plan on studying open source programs, contributing to them, and writing my own software to build up a portfolio. Plus, as an occasional hobby, I try to come up with unique solutions to math contest problems. I have come up with some nice solutions to Putnam problems that aren't in any of the books.

I hope you consider me. And good luck to everyone, especially those looking for jobs this winter.
Click to expand...

Math majors with an eye for programming are just the kind of folks my company needs. We have all sorts of math nerds who work wonders in Matlab, and push the company forward.

My company hires a lot of new college grads, and they have a nice program for recent graduates called the PDP. If you're still set on the idea of going to grad school, the company also has paid internships. If you want to go back to school after working a few years, the company will pay %100 of tuition.

http://www.es.northropgrumman.com/employment/pdp.htm

Let me know if you actually apply. Oh, and don't ask for 18K a year...my company will pay a qualified new graduate between 45-60k.
 
defaultluser said:
Math majors with an eye for programming are just the kind of folks my company needs. We have all sorts of math nerds who work wonders in Matlab, and push the company forward.

My company hires a lot of new college grads, and they have a nice program for recent graduates called the PDP. If you're still set on the idea of going to grad school, the company also has paid internships. If you want to go back to school after working a few years, the company will pay %100 of tuition.

http://www.es.northropgrumman.com/employment/pdp.htm

Let me know if you actually apply. Oh, and don't ask for 18K a year...my company will pay a qualified new graduate between 45-60k.
Click to expand...

Sorry for a little thread derailment thats happening, but i have been following this thread for awhile in deciding if i should switch from ECE to CS. anyway i have a question for ya defaultluser.

I'm looking for something like this for an internship. since the economy went to shit i lost 3 interviews and no one will get back to me now (sad face). One question though, for interns do they look for higher level students (Junior-> Seniors) or could i possibly get one going into my junior year?


edit: the jobs sections is horribly slow (no offense, but it is) just like IBM/HP/Bloomberg/everything else.. amazing how these great companies can have such slow online job applications :mad:
 
defaultluser said:
Math majors with an eye for programming are just the kind of folks my company needs. We have all sorts of math nerds who work wonders in Matlab, and push the company forward.

My company hires a lot of new college grads, and they have a nice program for recent graduates called the PDP. If you're still set on the idea of going to grad school, the company also has paid internships. If you want to go back to school after working a few years, the company will pay %100 of tuition.

http://www.es.northropgrumman.com/employment/pdp.htm

Let me know if you actually apply. Oh, and don't ask for 18K a year...my company will pay a qualified new graduate between 45-60k.
Click to expand...

Great company, I am actually seeing bunch of jobs opening up with them... one minor issue though, you need to be a US citizen :(
 
Imprez04 said:
Sorry for a little thread derailment thats happening, but i have been following this thread for awhile in deciding if i should switch from ECE to CS. anyway i have a question for ya defaultluser.

I'm looking for something like this for an internship. since the economy went to shit i lost 3 interviews and no one will get back to me now (sad face). One question though, for interns do they look for higher level students (Junior-> Seniors) or could i possibly get one going into my junior year?
Click to expand...

We typically went for people who'd completed thier junior year, although we did have some that were going into thier junior year (and one who'd only completed his freshman year. Vast majority of our interns are full-time summer hires. We've tried a few during the school-year, but they generally don't work out well.

On a side note, while I can't speak for all defense contractors, I know that the one I work for is actively looking for college hires.

Imprez04 said:
edit: the jobs sections is horribly slow (no offense, but it is) just like IBM/HP/Bloomberg/everything else.. amazing how these great companies can have such slow online job applications :mad:
Click to expand...

Larger the company the slower the HR department seems to be... XD
 
Khanmots said:
We typically went for people who'd completed thier junior year, although we did have some that were going into thier junior year (and one who'd only completed his freshman year. Vast majority of our interns are full-time summer hires. We've tried a few during the school-year, but they generally don't work out well.

On a side note, while I can't speak for all defense contractors, I know that the one I work for is actively looking for college hires.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick response, i applied to a couple but i figured like you said, they really want junior year students, oh well.. maybe i'll get lucky. ^^


Khanmots said:
Larger the company the slower the HR department seems to be... XD
Click to expand...

too true.
 
Imprez04 said:
Thanks for the quick response, i applied to a couple but i figured like you said, they really want junior year students, oh well.. maybe i'll get lucky. ^^
Click to expand...

You'd be surprised at the horrible quality of the applicants that we've gotten in the past. Don't discount your chances too much... ;)
 
Imprez04 said:
Sorry for a little thread derailment thats happening, but i have been following this thread for awhile in deciding if i should switch from ECE to CS. anyway i have a question for ya defaultluser.

I'm looking for something like this for an internship. since the economy went to shit i lost 3 interviews and no one will get back to me now (sad face). One question though, for interns do they look for higher level students (Junior-> Seniors) or could i possibly get one going into my junior year?
Click to expand...

You could definitely get hired for your Junior year. Give it a shot.

Great company, I am actually seeing bunch of jobs opening up with them... one minor issue though, you need to be a US citizen
Click to expand...

And you generally have to be able to quality for a DOD Secret clearance. This requires that you report your last seven years residence/education/employment/acquaintances, and submit to a background investigation. So long as you're not a total crazy, and don't hang around suspected terrorists on your time off, you should have no trouble.
 
they will also check your financial records to see that you live within your means. when i applied for my secret clearance, i'm not sure they even called any of my references. i think they mainly checked all of the schools and companies i listed for verification of enrollment and employment, as well as my legal and financial records... but otherwise, the only people i talked to about the whole process was the company's security personnel.

my TS/SCI clearance is a completely different story. man, it seems they check everything you put on those papers and ask for more.
 
Honestly, If I was you i'd do both. If time doesnt permit, put off your masters for a semester. You will be 10 times better off.
 
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