I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I am wondering how important it is for an engineer to go to graduate school to be successful in the industry. I am a high school senior. In addition, should I choose a highly selective but costly university for undergrad if I plan on going to grad school? Or am I better off going to a public school/less costly private school and saving for grad school and the future?
For engineering, as long as you go to an ABET-accredited school, you’ll be fine. I think grad school is important for a lot of engineers. Keep in mind that you have a good chance of getting funds from universities to go to grad school, too.
My advice would be to go to a good public university, work hard, and keep up a high GPA. You can worry about grad school later.
@MaineLonghorn What do you mean by Universities will give funds for grad school? Do you mean like financial aid?
More like research assistantships or teaching assistantships. So you have to work for the money, but it’s worth it. In my case, tuition was covered plus I got an annual stipend that was enough to cover living expenses. I conducted research on epoxy polymer concrete.
@MaineLonghorn Ok thanks for your response
You might not strictly need to go to grad school (it’s perfectly possible to get reasonably well paid engineering jobs without a grad degree), but I strongly recommend that you keep the option open.
A graduate degree opens up research oriented positions that are very difficult or impossible to get with just a BS. My personal opinion is that these kinds of positions tend to be more stimulating and rewarding (and quite possibly better for your career in the long term).
I second the suggestion of going to a good public university if that’s significantly cheaper (make sure the degree is ABET accredited, as also said above). Keep up your grades - the higher the better, though there are diminishing returns past about 3.7-3.8. At a minimum, you’ll want above a 3.5, since that’s effectively a cutoff for many grad programs.
If you do figure out that you want to go to grad school, you’ll also have the choice between a MS and a PhD. A MS is generally enough for industry, though the most research intensive jobs generally want a PhD. If you want to keep the PhD option open, then you’ll also want to do research during undergrad (by emailing professors whose research work you find interesting or by applying to research internships). PhD admissions definitely care about your grades, but it’s more of a checkbox for them. They care even more about demonstrated research potential and good letters of recommendation.
My recommendation is to try and get an internship working in industry after your sophomore year to see what industry is like (and so you have a more “practical” internship on your resume if you decide to go straight into industry after graduation). Then consider spending your junior year / summer after junior year / senior year doing research work with a professor to keep graduate school options open.
@Luminouzz Thank you for the great advice!
Some things I forgot to add in my post above…
There are a significant number of employers who will pay for most or all of your MS degree. Almost all the large defense contractors (Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, etc) have tuition reimbursement programs that are quite generous.
Graduate school in engineering should generally be mostly free - if it’s not, that’s a sign that you actually don’t belong in the program. So if you decide to go the MS route, I’d consider either
-
Getting employed at a large company that will pay for most (70%+) of your MS degree. This isn’t too hard to do, you’ll have a good chance at getting hired at one of the companies above if you keep a 3.5+ and have a practical internship or two (I recommend interning at a company that you’d be interested in working for in the future). Note that a 3.5+ isn’t really necessary to get hired in industry - these large companies generally have soft cutoffs in the 3.1-3.3 range, but a 3.5+ is a good idea for grad school as said earlier.
-
You can also decide to focus on the MS full time - in that case, most grad programs in engineering should cover almost all of the tuition by providing you with TA or research assistant responsibilities.
PhDs generally offer you a stipend of 30-40k a year, so you won’t be paying anything for a PhD (and might even be able to save some money). PhDs generally take 5 years though and they’re not realistic to do part time. They also tend to be more stressful and demanding, but one benefit is that you can usually drop out after 2 years and get a MS degree (since the first two years of a PhD is essentially the coursework that’s required in a MS program). A PhD is a more serious commitment…it’ll also close off some jobs in industry because employers perceive you as overqualified. What essentially happens is that a PhD closes a significant number of doors, but also opens some others (the research intensive positions). Before you consider a PhD, you should spend a serious amount of time considering what kind of jobs you’re aiming for, and be very aware of the fact that once you have the PhD, a lot of “regular engineering” positions might no longer want to hire you.
And while research positions can be more exciting, they also tend to be more stressful - you can be expected to come up with something fairly innovative, and you might have no idea how long it will take or whether it’s even possible at all. Demands like this can impact work-life balance negatively.
So the MS path is arguably the safest - it’s just two years and you can almost definitely get it for free. Only do the PhD if you’re very, very sure (as several people have said to me, you should only do a PhD if you wouldn’t be satisfied with anything else).
For funding, there are many top universities that guarantee their PhD students funding, contingent upon satisfactory progress towards the degree. These can come in the form of teaching or research assistantships (where you have to work for it), or fellowships (where you don’t have to work). For masters students, it is often a dice roll - you are lucky if funding is available for you.