And even IF your first job out of Duke doesn’t get you to the salary you want, you will have made the change you want to make. Think about that too!
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There is no downside to attending Duke, imo.
You are getting a master’s degree in a field that you want, which you cannot get to without this degree.
The program is accredited and affordable (loans are not excessive).
If you work hard, establish connections and relationships etc, you will get a job. It might not be your dream job, but you will gain valuable experience and move on from there.
Yes, you will be giving up 18-24 months of earnings at your current job. You will also be spending your savings and taking a relatively small loan. My family member (who attended Duke engineering for his masters) did the same thing. Lots of people do this. It is possible that this plan does not always make sense (depending on the situation), but in your case I think it definitely does.
I would attend Duke and not look back.
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Are you sure you can complete the degree in 3 semesters? Since you’re coming from a different field, you need to make sure you’ve taken the necessary prerequisite courses and other preparations the program assumes, or it may take you longer to obtain the degree. According to this page,
https://meng.pratt.duke.edu/apply/tuition-financial-aid
the cost per semester, excluding room & board, is just under $40k.
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Great point as the Duke website stated “at least 3 semesters”.
OP: Have you received any indication as to whether or not 3 semesters will be enough time for you to complete all degree requirements ?
Since you are making about $95,000 per year at your current position and would like to be at $120,000 upon completion of the Duke ME masters degree, you now have specifics to discuss with advisors at Duke’s ME masters program.
P.S. Found the “Total Annual Average Salary Of Recent Graduates” on Duke’s ME masters degree website = $82,460.
OP: Expect to take out student loans of closer to $60,000–rather than $40,000–because you underestimated the program costs by only considering tuition of $95,000. The additional costs are NOT room & board, but include fees, books, and health insurance and other costs.
Folks, this OP has already said that he can assume the costs to attend this Duke program.
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OP you can also ask about scholarships. My family member received a small award and was able to negotiate for more money. All he did was ask! It wasn’t a lot, but it was something, which is better than nothing. It is possible that your $40,000 loan (which is very reasonable in this case) can be lowered by a few thousand.
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Yes I can I already talked to my academic advisor about it, my field is not so different that it would take longer it’s still engineering. I already laid out my schedule for 3 semesters if I choose to take the program.
Also living in NC where I am already a resident and have little rent to pay is taking care of a lot of the costs
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@true_boysenberry it sounds like you have the time and finances all worked out. Please let us know when you accept the Duke offer, if you do.
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I am on family plan for health insurance and other fees I took care of since I’ll be working but to assume worst case ok, 50-60K.
Again though I feel like the average is that low because most people go directly from Ugrad to Grad and so it’s their starting job out of college altogether. I have 3 years of experience to leverage right?
So correct me if I’m wrong but since this wouldn’t be my first job I should be able to get a higher salary.
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I’m not sure we can predict your job salary a couple of years out. But you will have your new degree, plus your past job experience when you apply for jobs.
As mentioned. You might not get a really high salary immediately, but you are setting yourself up for a career change that you want…and that’s important too…and will get you where you want to be in time.
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I just scheduled a meeting with my academic advisor for Monday…will find out then I guess
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I cannot state with certainty whether or not your prior work experience will result in an increased salary, but I suspect that it will because your current position involves “automation” and that might relate to robotics.
I have read that engineering salaries top out early. Not sure if that will occur in the fields of robotics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence as all 3 are in-demand skills.
I have about 12 relatives who are engineers, but almost all are electrical engineers (Georgia Tech degrees) who did not make serious money until after completing MBA degrees. Like you, most did not enjoy their roles as electrical engineers and used the MBA degree to move on.
Since you have housing & meals covered, your investment over three semesters is greatly reduced.
Having reread your initial post, I would like to share that Stanford is clearly not an option that you should FOMO due to an average 3.9 GPA and very high GRE Quant scores. Stanford’s ME masters degree admit rate was 8% last year and 6% the prior year. Also, CMU was not accepting GRE scores during 2023.
When you meet with your academic advisor, you might want to ask about any available scholarship money or financial aid since you will be taking out federal student loans. Duke’s ME masters degree website stated that only 10% receive financial aid.
If you enter the program, you will be moving into an exciting area. I hope that you enjoy it & I hope that you do well.
If you would like to communicate further now or in the future, feel free to PM on this site. While I have not posted much over the past year or so, I do check the recent postings for topics of interest.
This…enjoy your program and do well. Success will then follow. Best of luck to you.
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Yes. You are a different candidate for a position than one who has only academic experience and internships.
And you will not need a visa when applying or when an OPT runs out.
Comparing salaries is always tricky because of the details behind them - major, geography, industry. It becomes more so for graduate programs because the applicants have different experience.
I think, OP, what you need to focus on is what YOU want from this program. If you need to add skills and knowledge (and possibly a credential) to get you from where you are to where you want to be and this program provides that, you’re set.
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I would like to add that Duke being close to home is an important feature to consider. When I attended graduate school, being close to home ended up being even a bigger plus than I had anticipated. Little things that I hadn’t even considered included:
- Money saved in travel
- Time and hassle in travel prevented (going home for holidays didn’t require a stressful day of air travel on each end.)
- Having a social network in place. Graduate school is time-consuming. It was nice to have a social network of friends and family already set up. Yes, I made new friends in school, but having a base of friends already was so nice.
- Avoiding little annoyances (no need to get new drivers license, health insurance, register to vote, car insurance etc etc.) That crap adds up.
5)No need to rent an apartment and find roommates from across the country.
I dunno, seems to me you have an acceptance in hand at a strong program, with a national name, in a great location, at a price you can afford, that will help you make the pivot you want. What’s not to love?
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Update:
Just had a discussion with my academic advisor, so he said what I assumed, that most people coming into the program come straight from Ugrad so that’s why the entry level salaries are ~80K, they reflect the first job.
He said he had two people he could think of that came in with 2 years industry experience, one went to work at a startup making 120K a year and the other one took management classes and went to MIT for MBA. But that’s pretty much all the data for that since it’s so uncommon, he said now we’re trying to bring more people in from industry. He said he can’t ‘promise’ me a salary just due to the economy conditions and everything but he said he can work with me to fill in my knowledge gaps so I can get the job I want.
He also said he can discuss giving me a departmental scholarship (not much though but still!) and/or opportunities to learn with research to mitigate tuition costs.
How does this sound? I’m feeling good about it, albeit it sucks there’s not much salary data for people with industry experience
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Go for it!
And I wouldn’t stress a ton about your first job out of grad school. Focus on developing the skills that will propel you towards your desired career.
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It is a slight gamble if you are set on earning $120,000 upon completon of the 3 semester program.
Ask for a scholarship of $17,000 per semester so that you will not have to take out student loans.
Almost a quarter (about 22%) of each cohort continue on with higher education–often as a PhD student.
In addition to time, your investment will be about $250,000 (NOT including room & board) for the 3 semester program (COA and opportunity cost/loss of income/loss of possible promotion at current job/ loss of vesting for benefits). Don’t forget–as I did–to include employer matching funded retirement benefits.
Can you transfer to a different job function at your current employer ?
What if your current employer offered you a sizable salary increase to stay ?
Not trying to suggest any particular course of action; just suggesting that you make the move as a fully informed consumer.
The thing about “experience” is that it needs to be “ relevant experience” to make any real difference. Most MS graduates have both internship experience and research experience in their field of expertise.
I don’t think they’d give me 51K in scholarship, it’s a professional masters which is normally unfunded unless I’m some sort of minority.
So I don’t want to stay with my current employer as
- It is in the middle of nowhere and commuting has become an increasingly awful hurdle. I tried living in the area the site is in for a year and just couldn’t do it, there’s really nothing there. So it’s an hour long commute back and forth.
- The job provides me no satisfaction whatsoever, I’m basically just doing paperwork all day. It’s also in the pharma field so now I feel like I’m pretty much locked in the pharma field which is why I wanted to go to grad school as well
- They work on a “time” promotion system so basically since I was last promoted a year ago, I’d have to wait two years from now anyway to receive another promotion. Other than that they bump up salary by 4.5% per year.
- Many many other reasons including the work environment being sort of toxic…
I’ll already be vested by the time grad school starts but the other stuff I would be missing out on.
I could try applying to other automation jobs in the area but then it goes back to why I wanted to do grad again because they would ask technical questions and knowledge that I don’t feel like I personally have as my current employer doesn’t really give me a lot of the technical info.
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