<p>I know most undergrad kids who want to do PhDs do it right after their undergrad, but I was wondering if it's possible to get into a PhD program after working for while. Like if I went into industry (I'm EECS btw) right after my bachelors or got a Masters and then went into industry, would I be at a disadvantage when applying to PhD schools in the future?</p>
<p>Yes. I know someone who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in EECS, went to work for a while, then went to a PhD program in CS at a well known university in the field.</p>
<p>I was always under the impression that Ph.D. programs wanted to see that you’ve made some sort of contribution to the field between before you applied. But I could be wrong.</p>
<p>I don’t know how Engineering PhDs work, but Social Science PhDs come back at all ages. Many in their 30s after doing other work.</p>
<p>The main problem if you graduate and work, will be going back to school and giving up a paycheck. If you are an EECS grad, you guys are recruited pretty heavily out of Berkeley with great starting salaries. As for me, after living on such a small budget for so long in school, if I get a job after I graduate making $40-50k a year, it will be very hard to give that up and return to $14k a year as a graduate student and putting my career on hold again. </p>
<p>Maybe you can get a job that will pay for you to go back. Age or time away will never be an obstacle for admissions, only yourself.</p>
<p>Engineering graduate school is unlikely to pay off purely in monetary terms, unless you do it during an industry downturn when you would otherwise be unemployed (e.g. if you graduated in CS in 2001-2003 or civil engineering in 2009-2011). It can be worth applying to graduate schools in your senior year as a hedge against an industry downturn.</p>
<p>This is what I’m exactly planning to do…in fact it’s an excellent idea to work for a couple of years in order to gain an understanding of applications of EE (or CS) in industry before applying to graduate school. I know an EECS graduate who worked for Intel for 2 years before he went to a PhD program in EE at Stanford.</p>
<p>^That was exactly my mindset too. I feel like I’d contribute more to an engineering PhD program if I actually had some industry experience creating solutions to real-world problems. </p>
<p>Thanks for all the responses everyone! I appreciate it!</p>