<p>I've been accepted to a top engineering school for undergrad. I'm not even sure exactly what type of engineering will be my major yet. I'm trying to decide if it is worth going to a top school if it means paying a lot of money. I am not even sure what happens typically when you graduate after 4 years.</p>
<p>What are the advantages/disadvantages in stopping education at an undergrad degree?</p>
<p>Well an advantage is if you can get a job, then you get out into the workforce quicker and make money sooner and maybe retiring 2 years earlier? I dont know. But a disadvantage is that you may not get as many opportunities as if you had a masters or PHd</p>
<p>That’s what I was thinking, but does anyone know specifically how much harder it is for engineers to get a job without a graduate degree? Is it expected? Do certain types of engineers have this expectation? Or is it almost always better to get experience first?</p>
<p>Erm As an undergraduate going to graduate next year…I can confidently say that if I didn’t already have a job lined up, I would have no problem finding one despite the economic downturn we are currently in ;). The great thing about engineering is…you don’t have to do just engineering per-say.</p>
<p>How do salaries/job outlook fare in the short term and long term at this fork in the road?</p>
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<p>PhD’s have far fewer job opportunities and fewer career options. You’ll do research in one minute aspect of engineering, then pray that there’s a college or company looking for an expert in exactly what you’re doing. </p>
<p>The BS and MS are basically treated the same for traditional engineering roles and have nominal pay differences. The MS does open up some research positions, though. There are some consulting firms that target engineering MS graduates specifically (McKinsey comes to mind), but those are fairly rare.</p>
<p>Edit: but that assumes the BS/MS come from the same school. If you can do something like University of Florida BS to MIT MS, that MS will have a lot of value.</p>
<p>Well, someone said that it’s not worth paying a lot for undergrad because grad is what matters. But if I got into a good undergrad school, is it worth it? Or is that ONLY if I don’t bother with grad? How much does it help you get into a good grad school, if you choose?</p>
<p>Never assume you will go to grad school four years from now. Too much can change.</p>
<p>G.P.B. is correct, a MS in engineering isn’t worth that much more than a B.S. Pertinent experience is what industry values most. And most newly minted Phd engineers find themselves under experienced and thus under employed.</p>
<p>Our company pays for college courses taken part-time so if you get in with an undergrad degree, you can get your masters on the corporate wallet. One guy I know got his MBA and then went off to work at a consulting company (we do software engineering).</p>
<p>We hire Phds because we do research and development. The ideal candidate is good at turning theory into products. A Phd that’s all theory isn’t very useful. Phds tend to come in with good management skills, maturity, ability to get things done on time and the ability to mentor. Does it mean that they make more money? Money depends on what you produce.</p>
<p>If you have a BS and MS in the engineering field, then you’re more likely to have taken more specialty courses which may mean that your breadth and depth are better than that of someone with only a BS.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this is standard by any means, but I just saw a company presentation where they said it was company policy to only promote those with a graduate degree once you hit a certain point. In fact, the guy really stressed the issue - apparently once you’ve had a few promotions you hit a ceiling, and the only way to prevent that is to have some sort of graduate degree. He claimed the specific kind of degree didn’t matter as much as the fact that you just have one. An MBA, MS, whatever - just make sure that you get something. He recommended just doing an MS right after undergrad because a lot can change once you go into the workforce and that it’s better to just get something under your belt while you’re still in the ‘student’ mode. He said that he has seen marriage, children, and financial problems hinder a lot of people who had planned on going back to graduate school after they had some experience. Anyway, I’m sure it varies quite a bit from company to company and industry to industry - but I’m just passing on what he said.</p>
<p>I worked at a company like this. A coworker went to a local school with a very easy graduate program (courses were like undergraduate) and got his MSCS as part of his strategy to go for consulting engineer - he did get it.</p>
<p>Is there anything bad about getting an expensive degree from a top engineering school for undergrad, and then getting a grad degree at an easy school?</p>
<p>I don’t really think so. If you graduate from MIT, you’re an MIT graduate, regardless of where your other degrees are from. </p>
<p>And night school (as mentioned above) is extremely common these days in engineering because employers will foot the bill. The top schools usually don’t have night programs for engineering (unlike MBAs) so you frequently don’t have a choice. For example, in Houston, there are two engineering programs: Rice and UH. Rice doesn’t have an MS engineering program that can be completed part-time, so it’s very common to see engineers working in Houston with: BS MIT/Stanford/Berkeley and MS UH.</p>
<p>In aerospace, for new-hires with no real experience (perhaps internships) a masters will bump you up a labor grade relative to a bachelors. A PhD will bump you up one labor grade more. There are significant salary differences, despite what some posters are suggesting above. For those with experience, it is more difficult to quantify. But for R&D positions, advanced degrees are expected…so you simply won’t have the job at all with just an undergraduate degree.</p>
<p>^I agree with rogracer. Posters from academia don’t necessarily know how the real world works. Look at job ads: “Wanted x require BS and 3-5 years experience or MS with no experience.” Obviously an MS gives you a several year permanent edge over a BS.<br>
Re common these days for employers to foot the bill for night school: yeah, until tax laws change again like in the late 1980s and early 1990s employers did not get the tax deduction so they did not foot the bill. And night school isn’t so easy when they’ll only pay for one or two certain colleges which are impossible to get to on time through rush hour traffic after work assuming you don’t have to work overtime (unpaid).</p>
<p>“yeah, until tax laws change again like in the late 1980s and early 1990s employers did not get the tax deduction so they did not foot the bill.”</p>
<p>Send your cards, letters, emails and phone calls to your legislators to remind them that this is an important benefit.</p>
<p>“And night school isn’t so easy when they’ll only pay for one or two certain colleges which are impossible to get to on time through rush hour traffic after work assuming you don’t have to work overtime (unpaid).”</p>
<p>I never had the problem with companies restricting where I could take courses.</p>
<p>A lot of life isn’t easy but if an employer is going to foot the bill for you, why not? We go through parts of life that are hard so that we can have the parts that are easier down the road.</p>
<p>I don’t think I got much of a salary advantage with an MS in structural engineering, but it did help me get my first job in 1986. The job market wasn’t very good, so I was glad to find work!</p>
<p>I also thought that an MS was important in structures, because there is SO much to learn in this field that it’s hard to do in 4 years. During grad school, we learned a lot of the reasoning and theory behind the building codes, so we weren’t just plugging numbers into equations. If my husband and I ever hire an employee to help with the work load, we would definitely prefer an engineer with an MS degree.</p>
<p>Yes, we’ve been discussing money and benefits but one of the benefits of an MS is that you simply know more material and that extra knowledge can help you out in many extra ways. Chance favors the prepared mind.</p>
<p>^^^ I like that quote, BCEagle. It cracks me up when people think that successful people are “lucky.” A lot of hard work goes into creating that “luck.”</p>