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Software Engineering and Masters Degree

W

Wingy

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 18, 2000
Messages
1,294
Hello,
I'm about to graduate from Michigan State with my BS in computer science and computation mathematics.. This morning I got my acceptance letter into MSU's Masters Program in COmputer Science. Since it took so long, I've been doing the job hunt, and its going alright, but I'm not sure if its something I want to do now.

I've done some research and there seems to be a decent compensation increase for people with Master's degrees, and I wanted to hear from you all about what you thought of that.

One other contributing factor would be that I would get to spend two more years in college, and idea that i love.

Anybody have any thoughts on whether a masters is worth it?
 
I'm a software engineer with only a B.S.
I think in the long run it would be worth it.
However, a previous boss of mine spent alot of time, effort, and money to get his Master's degree. Not 2 years after he received his Masters, he quit and opened up a bakery. :p
 
Having a Masters will get you into a position were you don't have to program but make a ton of money just watching people do work. I would go for it because it will make climbing the corporate ladder much easier. Unless you don’t want to be rich and powerful then just stick with the BS.

A master won’t help me at the moment because I’m too young for people to take me serious when applying for the caliber or job that requires a masters.
 
I'd suggest getting the MS before you become 'established' in life, if you want to do it as a full-time student. Going back to school full-time after working for a few years at a 'real job' would be a pretty serious lifestyle hit.
 
You will get a lot more out of your masters if you get some work experience first. But that's assuming you have enough drive go back to school after getting out of it..
 
All of the companies I've worked at, and almost all of the companies I've interviewed at, don't look at degrees or GPAs when hiring. They'll set an expectation based on that stuff, just like any other experience or claim on a resume, but it doesn't really matter.

Why do you want to get master's degree? What do you expect to get out of it, personally? A better salary? That's absolutely the wrong reason to do it.
 
A friend of mine and I both recently got hired at the same place, doing website development. He has a masters in software development, I don't. We both have similiar previous experience. We both get paid the same salary.
 
ameoba said:
I'd suggest getting the MS before you become 'established' in life, if you want to do it as a full-time student. Going back to school full-time after working for a few years at a 'real job' would be a pretty serious lifestyle hit.
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QFT

I got my B.S. and was accepted for my M.S., did the Graduate Fellowship gig and taught for a few semesters. It paid for my Master's Degree and it only took me 15 months. I am still a code monkey, but my options shouldn't hit a plateau "further in life". Plus, if coding becomes an Indian/Chinese/Japanese sport and we are left job-less, I can always teach. :)

202276
 
from an IBM big whig (who happens to be a family friend):

they dont like hiring MA/MS's who dont have experience, because they dont want to pay more for a group that's not gonna be much more productive.

they LOVE applicants who've obtained their Master's while they were working. or more generally, people with a Master's and experience.

definetely, dont back away from a Master's if you're willing to go for it. dont delay it if you dont have to either. but make sure by the time you're graduated and looking for a serious position of reasonable compensation that you've already gotten some experience.

else you might find your job hunt pretty discouraging, or you'll end up settling for the same pay as any other BA/BS newhire. of course, either way itll open up new opportunities eventually.
 
I forgot to mention one additional item: you will be interested in the Master's Degree now, but in 2 years you'll probably start thinking about a Ph.D. Most University officials will be quick to remind you that you only have 5 years to begin pursuing a Ph.D. (after you finish your M.S.) before you have to start all over. :) Plan ahead!
 
Some schools degrees are accredited for 10 years mine so I have 8 more years to get my masters.
 
I have a BS in MIS. I have two friends, each have MS's in CIS/MBA.

We all have about 6yrs exp in IT/IS.

I make ~$30k more /yr then both of them (in equivalent fields).

They also went away to college, in fact, MSU, like you.

They still owe 30k+ in school debt.

I went to Oakland University, and I have no debt (stayed at home, paid my tuition off), and now I have a higher paying job.

I'll tell you one thing I learned, how much you get paid has NOTHING to do with a degree. It's experience, your skill set, your attitude, your drive, your communication skills, your willingness to work hard, and your ability to think outside of the box. My BS just got my foot in the door. And FYI, I'm approaching 100k/yr.

I'm only 28yrs old. My degree took 6yrs because I switched majors 1/2 way through, and then I started working at $9/hr full time in a bank and school full time.

Work hard, it will pay off in the end more than that MS.

-Steve
 
i think the most important thing here is to pursue your master's degree only if it is truly what you want to do, and not because you want to use it as your only "excuse" to be paid more than someone with a BS. if its money you're after, you'll get it all the same if you work hard at it, no matter where you start.

but for the record i have a BS and i've interviewed people with MS and dont find them any more prepared for the industry than someone with a BS.
 
All of the companies I've worked at, and almost all of the companies I've interviewed at, don't look at degrees or GPAs when hiring
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but this only applies to someone with experience in the industry, correct? I would imagine a recent graduate would have to supply a transcript.
 
santaliqueur said:
but this only applies to someone with experience in the industry, correct? I would imagine a recent graduate would have to supply a transcript.
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A recent graduate should have experience: personal projects, internships, volunteer work, and so on.

An academic transcript? Absolutely not.

Interviews, even for college hires, are about what the candidate knows, how they think, and what their fit is for the team. It's not about "Well, you've got good grades; we'll give you a shot!"
 
An academic transcript? Absolutely not.
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this surprises me. is this only common in software engineering? I'll have a degree in electrical engineering fairly soon, and I figured I would be sending transcripts to places I was being interviewed at. I knew it wasn't ONLY about grades, but it surprises me to learn that grades matter less than I thought.
 
I'd be a little leery about doing it. You're setting yourself up for a lot of academic technical experience, but not much workplace experience. Working gives you the soft skills that SOOOO many computer people gravely lack. Also, having some real world experience to tie into the theoretical would be ideal. Finally, a huge negative of doing it is that it could make your job hunt worse. You wouldn't have the work experience necessary to go along with jobs that you would be interviewing for with a Masters. Plus, people would not want to hire you for lower level jobs as they would think that you might move on. Personally, I'd grab a year or two of work experience before doing your masters.

"Work hard, it will pay off in the end more than that MS."

They aren't mutally exclusive. Do both and you'll eventually be better off.

"Interviews, even for college hires, are about what the candidate knows, how they think, and what their fit is for the team. It's not about "Well, you've got good grades; we'll give you a shot!""

Actually, not all of them are exactly like that.
 
santaliqueur said:
this surprises me. is this only common in software engineering?
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I couldn't tell you. I've been interviewed for about a dozen jobs, and interviewed probably a couple of hundred candidates, but always for positions as software developers.

general said:
Actually, not all of them are exactly like that.
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I'm sure "all" is too big of a generalization. Every interview I've been involved with has worked that way, just the same.
 
santaliqueur said:
this surprises me. is this only common in software engineering? I'll have a degree in electrical engineering fairly soon, and I figured I would be sending transcripts to places I was being interviewed at. I knew it wasn't ONLY about grades, but it surprises me to learn that grades matter less than I thought.
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Grades mean diddly to me as well. Show me you've done a project, and done it well. Show me application of knowledge. Any technical / science degree worth its money teaches you about the application of your endeavors.

Show me you've completed something other than taking and passing a 3 hour exam for each course. Back when I was in school (the first time), too many classes were weighted on the final, and your grades too often mean you're only good at memorizing and taking tests. If that's changed so be it, but I have a feeling most of them today are still ~50% of your grade rides on the final some on projects and the rest on quizzes.

A degree is very nice, it gets you in the door faster at a higher level, but when you get the interview expect it to be thrown out the window and what will land you at the job is more often your enthusiasm and the ability to think on your feet.

My biggest suggestion to every interviewee...ask a ton of thoughtful questions. Engage the interviewer's passion for his job / company.

But a 4.0 in your EE program...*shrugs*

As far as outsourcing....don't even get me started, holy hell. Not in public.
 
hofan41 said:
i think the most important thing here is to pursue your master's degree only if it is truly what you want to do, and not because you want to use it as your only "excuse" to be paid more than someone with a BS.
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Bingo. If you want to get into research, teach at the post-secondary level, or work in highly specialized fields where you need advanced theoretical knowledge, grad school is a big win. Doing it because you think you'll make more money or because you don't want to lose access to freshman girls, it's not a good idea.

Here's a simple test to see if you should go :

What do you want to research while you're in grad school? Why should a professor use his grant money to pay for you to do this research?


If you can't answer those questions, staying in academia is the wrong place. Getting a terminal masters (coursework only) or a professional degree (MS of Software Eng) might not be a bad idea, but that's best done after getting some experience - and at this point, there's no point in taking two years off of your burgeoning career to be a full-time student.

Just some advice from a grad-school drop-out. I spent two years aimlessly wandering through the PhD program, watching clueless Indian students that couldn't consistently find files where they saved them on the HDD, let alone actually -program- get better grades than me while asking for my help.

...and don't get me started on electrical engineering students that can't understand why naming files "core" on a Unix system is a piss-poor idea.
 
Grades mean diddly to me as well. Show me you've done a project, and done it well. Show me application of knowledge. Any technical / science degree worth its money teaches you about the application of your endeavors.

Show me you've completed something other than taking and passing a 3 hour exam for each course. Back when I was in school (the first time), too many classes were weighted on the final, and your grades too often mean you're only good at memorizing and taking tests. If that's changed so be it, but I have a feeling most of them today are still ~50% of your grade rides on the final some on projects and the rest on quizzes.
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that makes me feel a little better, I feel I am learning quite a bit, but my exam grades are lower than they used to be, working 40+ hours while being a full time student makes it hard to sit around in study groups with my classmates, having 1/2 a mortgage to pay for is tough :)
...and don't get me started on electrical engineering students that can't understand why naming files "core" on a Unix system is a piss-poor idea.
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you'd be sickened at the level of unix knowledge the EE and CE students have at my school, which is no slouch, it's a US News top 50 engineering undergrad program. i use linux on my laptop, and only one or two people in my class had even heard of it.
 
mcravenufo said:
I'm a software engineer with only a B.S.
I think in the long run it would be worth it.
However, a previous boss of mine spent alot of time, effort, and money to get his Master's degree. Not 2 years after he received his Masters, he quit and opened up a bakery. :p
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I'd give up my career to open a bakery. I love to bake, love to make pastries and doughnuts and breads... It's awesome. Pay isn't that good, and living in a small town, I doubt I could keep it running for long. I always said I was going to marry the Hostess girl... My wife burns water.
 
I appreciate all your replies everyone. Its giving me alot to think about, and alot of it I had not yet really considered... Call it ignorance on my part.

Also, I had some interviews with a huge company that asked me for copies of my transcripts. Everything else has been thinking on your feet type questions...
 
It was Lockheed Martin, I interviewed with them once in DC and once in Eagan, MN and each time they had me either hand them my transcript in person, or to have one sent to them.

And as to why, I'm not sure. I think it may have been because the job would have required me to go through some in house courses or something and they wanted to see whether or not i took my schooling seriously... Not real sure I guess.


Also, one thing to note, on all the job apps for companies have asked for GPA's.. Hell one company asked for my high school GPA. I couldn't remember it.
 
Are these new-graduate hiring programs?

Only place I've ever applied that wanted to know GPA was Sandia National Labs & that's because they have a policy of not hiring anyone with a GPA < 3.5 or more than 5yr after graduation (or something along those lines).
 
Having recently applied for a couple internship positions, I found that some people didn't care at all about grades, and others did (even asking me for an updated transcript after my interview).

Now, I'm only a 3rd year student (in a 4 year program), so there's probably a greater reliance on grades. Regardless of whether it's a good idea or not, some people do look at your GPA.

Interestingly enough, the position I accepted was one where I basically just chatted with the interviewers about some little projects I hard worked on in my own time. They didn't seem the least bit interested in my grades.

@santaliqueur, that's interesting about your school not having much unix awareness. At my school it is pretty much the primary development platform for software projects.
 
An internship is not a job. It would seem reasonable to ask someone about their grades for an internship to see if they're taking their academic career seriously or not. And, if not, to give the spot to someone who was.

For full-time employment in software engineering positions, I'm not sure I can see any relationship between good employees and grades or course selection. Many of the best engineers I know don't have degrees in the field, in fact. Many members of that set went to school before computer science degrees became widely available and have degrees in other engineering fields, or in completely unrelated areas.
 
Well, it is a job, in that I'll be getting paid to do work, but I agree with your point for the most part.

I'm sure you could find some correlation between employees and GPAs if you wanted. I'm guessing if you averaged the GPAs of all your good employees and compared it to those of your bad, then you would likely find it is higher.
 
jimmyb said:
Well, it is a job, in that I'll be getting paid to do work, but I agree with your point for the most part.

I'm sure you could find some correlation between employees and GPAs if you wanted. I'm guessing if you averaged the GPAs of all your good employees and compared it to those of your bad, then you would likely find it is higher.
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They're paying you to get some pretty crappy work done. :)

And I'll take that last bet.
 
Well I hope it won't be crappy, but I guess I'll find out.

Oh so you think it would be lower?
 
jimmyb said:
Oh so you think it would be lower?
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I'd bet that there's no correlation. It'll be hard to find one, since you can't quantitatively rank an employee's value as easily as you can compute a GPA.
 
jimmyb said:
Well I hope it won't be crappy, but I guess I'll find out.

Oh so you think it would be lower?
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It's usually work that nobody wants to do or doesn't have time to do because it's generally time consuming mind numbing work. It's nothing they would hire a contractor for, but to give somebody a grade and some "real experience"...you bet.


And I'm pretty sure in the software field you wouldn't find anything conclusive at all in regards to grades vs. employee performance. But then again I haven't asked everybody in my new group what their GPAs were. ;)
 
mikeblas said:
I'd bet that there's no correlation.
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So equal then? within some threshold of statistical significance of course.

I admit that GPA isn't a good indicator for judging a person's effectiveness at some particular job, but I find it really hard to believe it is completely uncorrelated.

I'm imagining now assembling a team from the top graded students in my program, and pitting them against the bottom graded in an employment setting. Again, I find it very hard to believe they would produce exactly the same results.

Also regarding my placement: I have reason to believe there will be some non-tedium work from talking with my manager-to-be. It's in asic design, and I'm told I should get to do some designing.
 
high gpa goes along with work ethic i think. as time goes on the correlation might become indiscernible in the work place, but i have a good idea of who around me takes their studies/future seriously, and their GPA's are almost always well above the average.
 
fluxion said:
high gpa goes along with work ethic i think.
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Not really, work ethich goes along with work ethic. I can point out at least 4 or 5 people in my org who flew through school with very high GPAs, but are pretty much useless on the job because school was too easy for them.
 
If you're specifically hiring new grads with minimal/no experience, you need some criteria to screen out candidates, their grades are the only consistently available thing to work with. If you get 100 applications for 5 positions, realisticallym you'll want something to narrow down the list of people to call. It might not be fair but, if it's the greatest injustice you face in your post-college life, you're doing better than most.
 
der_jackal said:
Not really, work ethich goes along with work ethic. I can point out at least 4 or 5 people in my org who flew through school with very high GPAs, but are pretty much useless on the job because school was too easy for them.
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i think with a decent cirriculum it's a matter of work just as much as it's a matter of smarts. you still have to put in the effort to get done your major projects, and even more effort to get it to a point of completion where it'll net you a higher grade than anyone else. that may differ here and there, but at the very least, i wouldnt attempt to suggest a correlation between good grades and shitty employees.

i'd say for those 4 or 5 people you speak of, there may very well be 10-15 others with crappy gpa's who are just as useless.

others factor may be involved, such as students with lower gpa's having to work through school and things of that nature. this may skew things a bit, but all things being equal...
 
jimmyb said:
@santaliqueur, that's interesting about your school not having much unix awareness. At my school it is pretty much the primary development platform for software projects.
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well, I only get to talk to EE and CE students, I don't know what the CS students use.
 
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