Would it be better for me to enter the 5-year masters program for my undergraduate and graduate degree for computer Science? Or should I enter the workforce and then have the company I work for pay for me to get my masters?
Does your question have anything to do with MIT?
Yes. MIT has a program in computer science where you can get both your undergrad and master’s degrees in 5 years. i was just wondering if it’d be smarter to partake in this program, or to just get my undergrad in 4 years and then have a company pay for me to get my Master’s degree.
At MIT, this is not something you decide when you enter the undergraduate program. You don’t even enter with a declared major. If you go to MIT you will have plenty of time to decide what is best, and plenty of people doing the program to ask advice from.
It depends on how much it costs. If you’re graduating with 150k in student loans, it’s probably not worth it. Software developers can make a decent living, but they’re not lawyers. Even if you come from MIT, 100k a year entry level jobs aren’t high paying when you factor in the cost of living. I would just go for the bachelors and have your company pay for the master’s.
Agree with @UglyMom. Based on other threads, the OP is a HS senior currently applying to MIT, so thinking about whether to do the 5 year CS program is way too premature.
I think OP is asking about MEng in Course 6. Note that most students don’t even apply for it until junior year-ish.
@Wiseguy is right. This is not something you enter into MIT deciding. This is something that if you choose is worth pursuing, you need to first apply for it and get excepted. And that doesn’t happen until you are already a student at MIT and typically a junior.
I think its good to know about the MIT co op and not too early to think about it. MIT’s program works like this: you get payed to work in summers and also for your masters degree, if you can get into grad school, which if you have a co op assignment lined up, used to be automatic, but may not be anymore. If you want a masters degree in CS, from MIT, its the only way to get a masters degree. MIT does not offer a terminal masters in CS anymore to those students who are not enrolled undergrad at MIT, although there are some Sloan School /College of Engineering combined masters degrees. Things can change, but this is the only way I know of to get a plain Jane MS in computer science, at MIT, do it through the Course 6 Co op plan. (MIT does offer a PhD degree to students from other colleges, in CS). Ditto on EE. There is no terminal masters degree at MIT anymore.
The OP may have other offers from GaTech, say where their co op and five year masters degree work a little differently. It totally pays off to look into co op plans at a variety of schools including MIT. MIT’s is not necessarily the best co op plan for everyone. Not all majors offer co op at every school. It pays to look into this now, if co op is the way you want to go. I did the Course 3 coop masters degree years ago.
@hbbivteen Look at General Electric’s Edison program for your masters degree as well as other co op plans at a variety of schools, including MIT. There is no right answer for you, but it pays to think ahead, good job!
Sorry I meant there is no one size fits all answer to your question, it depends on you.
Not all employers pay for MS. MIT doesn’t limit number of classes you can take past freshman year so some students can complete undergrad by the end of the junior year. MEng has a minimum GPA requirement and it’s not very easy to maintain a good GPA at MIT. Many course 6 students get highly paying internships from the IAP freshman year and forward and can pay towards MEng themselves.
@Ballerina016 I am not talking about the MEng, I was referring to the 6A co op masters degree, which
may have a somewhat lower GPA requirement as its depending on a company to agree to hire the student
for the masters degree, but students do need to get accepted to MIT’s masters program, but it used to be automatic,
IF the student found a co op assignment for six months. Then the student may return to finish off masters classes
or some, accelerate and finish it all in four years, plus this off campus thesis requirement.
Whats nice is, the student makes very good salary for several summers and the six month masters program
and typically gets a job offer at the end too.
Its a fantastic program but for some reason, less mIT students do this than when I was at MIT.
Its much better, in my opinion, than all the summer “traveling around” that many MIT students choose, which does
not really get them to understand much about engineering.
This program is similar to GaTech’s but does not have a three semester requirement.
If a student needs to make more money, GaTech’s co op programs pay more
because they are three semesters or one summer and two semesters.
The MIT program has
shorter working periods.
Here is the MIT 6a degree. Its been around for 40 years now. I know a girl who did this program at NetApp in Boulder.
https://6a.mit.edu
I’ll also point out that many students in the Course 6 MEng program get funding through TA or RAship (teaching assistant or research assistant, respectively). In this case, it isn’t necessary to work for a company specifically to fund tuition (though this is an option through the 6A program), as some others have mentioned.