Co-op and Grad School Question (Civil Engineering)

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In a typical economy, there is always an expansion and contraction. So you do believe that this is not a typical economy as in we’re in something far worse than a regular recession… Thanks aibar, you just made my day!.. </p>

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I’d like to think it’s a bull$ht that companies like to say because there are more people than the job opening.
Some projects I am working on, or have worked on, include the gold line extension (design/cm), la reservoir upgrades (design/pm), water transmission lines (design/pm), 11’ semi-elliptical interceptor sewers (fea/design), not to mention my other projects at hyperion (largest ww treatment in the world). All without a masters.
The older engineers that work in the group who’ve worked on a much cooler projects do not have masters. YOu know why? Because the number of civil engineering graduates does not keep up with the opening. That’s why!</p>

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Totally agree. Masters is never worth it financially unless your company pays for it.</p>

<p>Another structural engineer here who agrees 100% with aibarr. And remember, there are a lot of research assistantships out that will pay you to go to school. I didn’t pay a dime for my masters degree. They paid me enough to live on, with some to spare.</p>

<p>I cannot imagine how hard it must be to practice structural engineering without a masters degree. My MS experience wasn’t quite as bad as aibarr’s, but it was no picnic. Freezing and thawing polymer concrete for hundreds of cycles was horrible! I would do it all over again, though.</p>

<p>I’m guessing people on here claiming that a MS is not worth it do not have a MS themselves. Graduate students in engineering should not have to pay for their degree. Typically, full time graduate students will get a stipend and tuition waiver to do research and or be a TA. I actually think that financially it will pay off throughout a career because it will open doors and will be benificial in terms of career advancement.</p>

<p>Also, there is always the argument that if you start working with a BS you will have a 10 percent higher salary in 2 years. This will not always be the case, especially right now. I agree with aibarr that the masters will give you more opportunity for interesting work. Many companies also put a strong emphasis on advanced education. Moreover, based on my experience anyway, I think that a MS in engineering will be beneficial both financially and career wise.</p>

<p>any one of you engineers feel like doing a benefit/cost analysis between getting a master’s and working right away? how long for it to be a breakeven decision?</p>

<p>It’s not for gaining more money. It’s for gaining the opportunities to do the type of work that you want to do. This is kind of like saying, “Where’s the breakeven point for becoming a nurse in a two-year RN program versus going to law school after four years of college?” One costs more, and on the other, you start earning money earlier. Both will keep you in clean socks and out of the ramen aisle. </p>

<p>The deal is, none of that really matters because the main difference is whether or not you want to go into healthcare or law.</p>

<p>If you want to be a structural engineer you’re going to need to get your MS. In fact, they’re starting to go forwards with the legislation to make it a requirement to get your MS in order to attain licensure as a structural engineer. Hydraulics and Hydrology require similar academic credentials.</p>

<p>Apples/oranges.</p>

<p>aibarr, that’s good to hear about the legislation. At our old job, our boss asked me to write up my job description and requirements. I included getting an MS, but he took that part out. That always bugged me.</p>

<p>if you are going into structural, please do yourself a favor and get a MS. it will prepare you so much more for the real job. i think it’s a must have in structural and it would hurt your career development if you don’t have one (especially in some bigger firm).</p>

<p>At my compay, they don’t give pay increases for a masters degree.</p>

<p>Will it help me land positions after I complete mine? I’ll let you know, but I feel the answer will be no (unfortunately).</p>

<p>My personal belief is that the masters degree may help land a job, but once you are in a job, experience and performance counts much more than the degree.</p>

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<p>1) Your company is not a civil engineering company.
2) If yours WAS a civil engineering company, you wouldn’t even HAVE the job you wanted if you wanted to be a structural or H&H engineer, so I don’t know why we’re still debating this…
3) I got a job at Boeing once, too, to do manned spacecraft structural design and dynamic analysis. I wouldn’t have gotten that job with a bachelors degree in civil engineering. I got that job offer because I had a masters in structural engineering. Guaranteed. (They offered about 15K less than my current gig offered.)</p>

<p>Even in mechanical, many companies do indeed offer higher starting salaries to MS holders (10 to 20 percent from what I’ve seen). Not to mention that a MS is preferred or necessary for some jobs that are design/research oriented or technical management. I find it very hard to believe that a company like Boeing does not offer higher salaries for advanced degrees as I’m sure there are many engineers there with MS and PhDs.</p>

<p>Here’s the link to my source on salary. See page 3 of the file for the pay differential among BS and MS majors. The average salary differental among the 8000 BS/4000 MS degree holders is 5.5%.</p>

<p>It was a joint survey sponsored by ASME/NSPE/ASCE.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nspe.org/resources/pdfs/blog/Item6-4Attach-NSPELQ266EconomicImpactofRequiringAMasters.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nspe.org/resources/pdfs/blog/Item6-4Attach-NSPELQ266EconomicImpactofRequiringAMasters.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>At most companies, starting salaries are higher for masters degree holders because employers count the MS degree as one or two years experience. But most companies don’t give pay increases if you earn your masters degree while employed.</p>

<p>That hardly proves anything, bigtrees. That survey represents multiple engineering fields, while this particular thread is about civil engineering. While that survey may include some civils, it does not specify separate statistics and does not specify anything specifically about structural engineering, which the debate is about. I am no civil engineer, but I would argue that the civil engineers (specifically structural engineers) in this debate know more about it than either of us. The survey does not reflect that most newer practicing structural engineers need an MS to even get their job.</p>

<p>Aibarr is debating structural engineering. The OP never said that he wanted to study structural engineering.</p>

<p>The ASCE participated in the survey, and represents civil engineering.</p>

<p>The survey represents a large portion of civil engineering, not JUST civil engineering. For all we know, every civil engineer surveyed has a masters or started work before that was an unwritten rule. That is the problem. It is too general to really apply specifically to civil engineers. It only applies to engineering as a whole. I am not saying it is likely that every civil engineer polled in there has an MS, but it doesn’t give the distribution of how many do or when they started. You might expect that 20 years ago, it was much less common than today, while today, it has been claimed that it is almost ubiquitous.</p>

<p>And if you want to argue that the OP didn’t specify structural, he also didn’t ask about whether an MS was worth it, he asked about whether a co-op looked good for grad school and how it compared to research experience when applying to grad school.</p>

<p>I said H&H, which is hydraulics and hydrology, which is what the OP said he wanted to study. </p>

<p>I can throw a rock right now and hit three H&H guys. I have both rocks <em>and</em> the arm-throwing range, and we talk to each other about this stuff a lot. We have found that our experiences in terms of necessary education are very similar, specifically within the comparison of H&H and structural engineering, and that it’s very different from conventional civil engineering, which is the department that we both work in.</p>

<p>Edit: It’s kind of silly to take a general engineering salary survey, extrapolate it to civil engineering, and extrapolate it further to a niche field in civil engineering, and <em>also</em> claim that I’m wrong because in your opinion, my niche field in civil engineering has nothing to do with another niche field in civil engineering… Believe what y’all want; I’m just trying to tell about what I’ve heard from people in that field and what I’ve experienced in my similar field.</p>

<p>Somebody wrote in this thread, “Graduate students in engineering should not have to pay for their degree. Typically, full time graduate students will get a stipend and tuition waiver to do research and or be a TA.”</p>

<p>Sadly, it appears there will be a LOT of engineering grad students paying for their degrees this year. For example, structural candidates at the University of Texas are being told that there will only be 3 or 4 students funded this year, compared to four times that many in a more normal economy. Same story at the other top structural programs, i.e., Cal Berkeley, Illinois, etc. Thankfully, my kid (who has absolutely STELLAR credentials…3.99 gpa, research, TA, already has taken grad level classes, top GRE scores, etc.) has a fellowship offer at one of those schools I listed, but no offers so far from anywhere else.</p>

<p>It came down to money for me, too… It’s particularly bad if you’re just going for your masters degree, and it has been that bad for several years. I had a 100% program acceptance rate and a 0% funding rate for the seven programs I applied to. I negotiated, got partial funding for one, out-of-state waiver for Texas (where I’d lived for every single one of my 22 years of life… didn’t they even read my app…!?), and full funding for Illinois. Ended up going to Illinois.</p>

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<p>At least it worked out that you went to a great school though. I mean, the feeling of being enveloped by 150 miles of corn on all sides kind of sucks, but you can’t beat the program, especially in civil.</p>

<p>/homerism</p>

<p>In other news, money is what did it for me when narrowing down grad schools as well. I could have probably gotten some at UIUC because of familiarity with the professors, but I wanted to branch out, so I narrowed it down to Purdue, Ga Tech and TAMU and ended up getting the best funding package from TAMU along with one hell of a research opportunity.</p>

<p>Wow, gnusasaurus, that’s surprising about UT. I’ll have to ask my dad about that! He’s a UT prof in structural engineering (wonder how I ended up in structures, huh?). Last week when I was visiting down there, he did mention that he expects there won’t be paid homework graders much longer. That’s a shame, because it’s helpful to have your calculations graded carefully.</p>

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<p>does it matter where u go for grad school in H&H (hydraulics and hydrology)? i figure it’s not a competitive field, so any state school would do, especially if u end up working for a water agency</p>