These type of “life choices” are always hard because whenever you choose one path you have to close down other avenues.
In your case things (at least to me) seem fairly clear cut. By choosing to attend Duke you will leave a job you don’t love, study what you are interested in (without too much debt) at a great university, and be done with the GRE (which seems important for your stress level and mental health). This opportunity may not be available to you next year. All I see you giving up is a chance (certainly not a sure thing) of being accepted to a marginally more prestigious program.
Perhaps instead of thinking Duke is an “easy answer”, consider if Duke was just “meant to be”.
Please come back and let us know when you make a decision.
Yes. You aren’t giving yourself credit for the hard work you already did. You got your undergrad degree and worked a real job. You don’t like the job, but don’t doubt for a moment that your job helped you get accepted. Relevant work experience is highly valued in postgrads. It wasn’t luck that got you in. It was a lot of hard work that you had already done before you applied.
Again, focus on the positive things you have achieved and will achieve. Good luck!
I understand your concern about your GRE scores and I do understand that Duke is a middle of the pack engineering school regarding the masters program. But, middle of the pack can still be more than enough to accomplish your objectives. To state what appears to be the obvious, it is unlikely that you will be admitted to the top engineering programs without a higher GRE math score.
Are you a foreign or international student ?
I am a bit cautious with masters programs at Duke as some are designed to attract full pay foreign/international students by offering a prestigious name with easy admissions requirements. Accordingly, you need to check & verify employment placement for prior masters degree earners in your specialty. (In the past, Duke has been a bit cagey about this, but I called them out on this publicly several years ago & that particular program responded with more accurate stats.) Many elite universities use masters degree programs as a source of cash in exchange for a prestigious university name on one’s resume.
Nevertheless, robotics and machine learning/artificial intelligence is a hot field about to get even hotter regarding employment opportunities.
In short, just check & verify post masters degree employment placement regarding your specific program at Duke.
Hello! to give context, I am not a foreign student, Ive lived in NC for a while. I went to NCSU for engineering undergrad so I guess I have some ground there as its also a “middle” engineering school. I heard online that the GRE will probably not be required in the coming years so thats another reason why I am confused.
The “easy admissions requirements” is why i am concerned. My peers who also chose the program also got into Stanford, Columbia, CMU etc. so I thought if they chose Duke engineering it must not be too bad.
I saw their placement statistics online and they seem to place in the large top companies, although there were so few data points (~30 total) so I am still confused. I work at a pretty large company now and I am planning to work as hard as I can to network and take advantage of the alumni resources, but I still feel like I have barely any data to go off of.
Furthermore; if employers see Duke as a “middle of the pack” engineering school then will they really give me a chance? sorry if I am not making much sense, I am just very confused at the moment.
Going to Duke to study what you want is a great opportunity. As I said upthread WHAT you learn and accomplish will be the most important thing for your career trajectory.
Additionally, it seems that you are stuck at a certain level for the GREs (some people just don’t excel at standardized tests) so the likelihood of getting into a tippy top program is not huge.
I really don’t understand your hesitation with Duke. The program is accredited and it is a wonderful university.
you’re right. People outside of this discussion are saying the same thing too, I think I will go ahead and commit to be honest and just work as hard as I can come fall.
When I was in HS back in the dark ages) I read something that stuck with me and may be good for you to hear. It was basically a short story about a person driving a car who was struggling to pass a car in front of him on a highway because he just wanted to get ahead. Then of course once he passed the car, he found there were many more cars still ahead, but also noticed many cars behind him. The driver finally realized that it didn’t matter that cars were ahead or behind him but the important thing was to get to his destination. It wasn’t a particularly good story but the message resonated with me (and my kids have heard it ad nauseum LOL).
And that is true of Duke….yes, there are some “bigger name programs” but Duke is incredibly well respected, accredited, and offered you a place for what you want to study. There will be many more “cars behind you” than in front of you — and most importantly, you will be moving towards your desired destination.
I am glad you will commit to Duke and wish you all the best there and beyond.
Any engineering employer would be thrilled to hire someone who got an advanced degree at Duke. You’re overthinking everything. I’m speaking as a professional engineer.
Duke is not MIT but then again it’s way ahead of most programs in the South and it’s very well-regarded on the East Coast. (If you use the most widely used rankings, Duke ranks at the same level as Harvard, Penn, and Princeton.)
As is said above, figure out what you’ll need to do to maximize your time there.
thanks! yeah I know its not MIT but I just wanted something that could allow me to move out of NC as well if need be for future jobs so thats why I didnt want to just go back to NC State for masters. Duke is known outside of NC (not sure about west coast) from what you and other people said so I’m feeling much better about it.
Yes. It’s one of the most selective universities in the nation and it holds enormous prestige in all fields.
Also, remember that part of grad studies is to specialize but also to network, learn from others, make friends/work as a team in addition to working on your own. And finally, use Career Services at Duke (and don’t wait - make it a point to go, look, make an appointment during your first 2 weeks there). They’re amazing
As other engineers and I have pointed out repeatedly on this site, engineers aren’t caught up in the prestige game. We don’t look at the rankings and insist on getting someone at # X. We just don’t. I have also shared that the one engineer let go at my first job was an MIT graduate. He just wasn’t a good engineer.
Duke is good. They have good Career Services. Duke will not hurt you and will in fact help you get into a field you’re interested in AND is in-demand.
However ultimately it’s up to you: what YOU do, how you use the opportunities offered to you, what you show yourself able to learn&achieve - which, I’m told, is ultimately the most important for engineers.
As I wrote above, you’re moving toward the growing fields of robotics/machine learning/artificial intelligence. You just need to either have contacts in a related field otherwise you will be relying, in large part, on the placement relations and support of your specialized program at Duke.
Since you have peers who have also selected to attend (or have attended ?) the same program at Duke, you should have ample resources to make a sound decision.
Do I understand correctly that your peers turned down opportunities to attend Stanford or Carnegie Mellon masters degree programs in order to enroll in the same masters degree program at Duke ? If yes, then you should discuss this matter with them as they would likely have researched the job placement for graduates of all of these masters degree programs including Duke.
Hello. Yes they have chosen Duke MechE over the other programs (MS MechE at Stanford etc.). They said they loved the welcoming and friendly faculty here and the smaller class sizes.
I will say though it was a very small sample size (<5 people) that I have to go off of but yeah. Also it might have been different for them since they are doing other concentrations within MechE and I am doing Robotics/ML. But I understand your point and I did try to do my own research, I just felt like I had a very small sample size to work with which is why I went online too.
