Is it worth it to go to a very well known school (like MIT or an Ivy) for a Master’s program? Or, finances aside, is it better to get a Master’s degree from your own okay school and pursue a job in a company like Microsoft, Apple or Google right away? Meritorically, it might not be worth it, in my opinion. However, what about different aspects of this?
Cost vs. personal objectives.
- What are your objectives?
- Do you need a master's degree to achieve that?
- What is the cost of the degree?
- Will your desired job pay for those loans?
- Some top schools will accept you tuition-free for some master's degrees, but those are fewer and further between than Ph.D. positions with no tuition. (or I should say with tuition benefits or tuition waivers). Master's degree programs CAN be money makers even for prestigious schools, without advancing you on your desired career path all that far.
Well, where I live Master’s degree is a must. I’m not American. But it doesn’t matter where you got this degree.
My aim would be meeting more than 5 individuals a year who are willing and able to nerd out about statistics and stuff like that. Who are passionate about intellectual topics. I’m wondering whether… if all those people end up in companies like those I mentioned, why take the longer and harder way? But if it makes a difference? I simply don’t know if it does.
So… a PhD is for free? Oh my. PhDs are quite tough, though. Well… I’ve still got some time when it comes to PhD, so no rush. It’s just the Master’s application that would be next year. However, it’s nice to have a plan.
As for PhDs, I’ve heard first hand that it’s not like the university where you got the previous degrees matters, profided that you have the grades, test scores, achievements, and so forth. Of course, some universities offer better opportunities than others, but it’s up to the individual what use of them they make.
On one hand, I’ve heard stories of people who got a Master’s degree in Oxbridge after attending a local university and enjoyed the Oxbridge experience a lot, and stayed in academia. On the other hand, I’ve heard stories of failure to both cherish those moments and make use of the resources available.
What field do you want to get your degree in? The reputation of the graduate school in that field will be what’s important, not the university’s overall reputation. For example, in most engineering disciplines, MIT and Stanford are strong along public universities like Michigan, Georgia Tech, Cal-Berkeley, Illinois, Purdue, Texas, and Texas A&M. The Ivies are generally not particularly highly rated.
Also to add to @Dustyfeathers - In the US, most students who are interested in PhDs are admitted directly from college without getting a masters’ degree.
I have a master’s degree from regional state school and I haven’t had problems getting interviews. The idea of a masters degree is to squash the job candidates with the bachelors. Unless you plan to go into academics for a career, a prestigious school for a master’s degree would probably be overkill. If you’re looking at computers, your experience is going to be what matters. A masters degree is worth 2-3 additional years of experience, no more, no less. Prestige won’t give you any more than that. Getting into a big name company is not as hard as you think, and you don’t need an ivy league degree to get in. I’ve done it.
Well, it depends - it all depends on the career field and your competition and goals.
For example, if you are a software developer who wants to work at Apple, Google, or Microsoft, assuming that you have a CS (or related) degree from a decent undergrad college you’d probably be better off trying to start at one of those companies or at another company to work your way into one of those companies. No master’s degree required, and they’ll probably pay for you to get one later if you really want (but you don’t need a master’s to work as a software developer at any of those places).
But let’s say that you wanted to go into legal at one of those companies. Now getting a JD from a top law school is important. I know a couple people in legal at Microsoft and they all got their JDs from top places. Or let’s say that you want to be a finance manager or something…having a prestigious MBA will greatly help your chances of getting those kinds of jobs. First of all, there’s just a lot more competition for something like finance or HR at places like Apple or Google or Microsoft; second of all, it’s more of a standard accepted degree to hold in those fields. In my role, we say where you get your PhD from doesn’t matter, but I’ve noted that most of the people on my team who were hired in with PhDs and no industry experience come from top programs.
In some fields, the prestige of your master’s degree matters; in other fields not so much. It depends on the field. What field do you want to go into?
All those people don’t end up in companies like those - lots of them work in lots of different companies, like nonprofits, government agencies, smaller companies, less well-known companies, etc. There are a lot of those kinds of people at companies like Apple/Google/Microsoft, though. However, you don’t have to work at one of those companies to have these kinds of interactions. You can go to university lectures about statistics, audit classes, join a professional org, etc.
You should want to work at one of those places because of the career opportunities they offer you, and because you are interested in the kind of work that they do.
Exactly, people from local colleges over here get into the “big name” companies. Of course not everyone, you have to be good at what you do. It’s not rare. The overkill… yeah.
Mhm. Universities have different strong sides, some are better at law and finance, some at STEM…
PhD without a Master’s degree? 
I would also like to ask… how many years does a PhD last? Of course, unless you have trouble finishing it, which people do. I’ve checked on one university’s website and they say 3-4 years full time and 5-6 years part-time.
I’m talking about computing.
The Master’s program in my colege looks fun and lasts just 3 semesters. Too bad I’m stuck in the beginner classes because of switching majors. So boring. At least. Transferred to a better college and they have databases, operating systems and networks a bit eariler.
It’s cool that the kind of people I’m looking for are in the places you mentioned, Julliet. It makes sense.
I’ve heard that undergraduate studies are the worst for us geeks 
>> So… a PhD is for free?
Yes and no.
Yes. The PhD program pays for tuition, health/dental insurance, and a stipend (US$ 20K - 25K) per school year (9 months).
No. One (at least the ones with CS degree and working in Silicon Valley) can instead work in the industry and earn US$ 100K - 150K a year.
>> PhD without a Master’s degree?
Why not? My D was admitted to a CS PhD program without an MS. When she asked her advisor about getting an MS on the way, he replied, “Unless you want to get out (of the PhD program), I don’t see any reason for an MS. That just creates additional work for no benefit.”
>> I would also like to ask… how many years does a PhD last? Of course, unless you have trouble finishing it, which people do.
At my D’s school, the average time is 6.5 years (they don’t distinguish students starting from MS or from BS).
>> I’ve checked on one university’s website and they say 3-4 years full time and 5-6 years part-time.
Part-time PhD program? What school is that?
Oh my. My backstory is: I changed majors, transferred between schools, so I’m stuck with beginner courses. My college education is a mess now and I’m super bored with repeating the same material over and over again. I ended up in the wrong colege, got bad grades I don’t think I deserve, dropped out of one college before the term ended, because the atmosphere was -10 in a scale from 0 to 10 (on the plus). I also tried to do too much at once all the way, (workload of two or three undergrad courses at the same time, an interdisciplinary course) which resulted in severe health problems. This is how the mess happened and why I’m still taking the beginner classes.
I really regret my overall college experience and want to have at least a bit of fun times, as it’s supposed to be. So far, it’s been mostly miserable for me. I’m not enjoying myself, I don’t feel the growth and development. I feel like I’m spinning in circles. I used to be a straight As student in high school, and even more, I was very involved in ECs and won competitions and was generally very enthusiastic about academics. The regret of college experience is why I’m looking for a way to get at least a bit of the fun side.
So… I wanted to speed my studies up, and not take only the same beginner courses over and over again, so I talked to individual profs who are responsible for classes I’d like to take “extra”, but this is how ping pong began. I ended up in the vice-headmaster’s office, and… he said it’s really hard logistically to graduate early, but I could begin doing some reasearch work that could count for PhD and he also suggested I could do a PhD without a Master’s degree So… this is the story That was just yesterday. Funny I didn’t hear about it until a couple of days ago and then I hear I could do it myself.
I always thought you have to pay tuition for a PhD. Good to know you don’t have to.
6.5 years. That’s long! Really long.
2-4 in my contry, I just checked. 2 years is short imo. 4 is still within reasonable boundaries. 6 is much.
It looked at Oxford and Cambridge.
I consider either really world class degrees or local ones so that it’s convenient. Moreover, less known schools often parrot the more known ones, and the more known ones have beter websites.
So… that was the last thing I expected to start a PhD right now. It turns my plans upside down. It would be stupid to turn down such an opportunity. I would get the PhD in the same time as I would get a Master’s or not much longer. Two for the price of one, so to say. Lol, so here my story ends, because I prefer a PhD from a local uni whose areas of research match my interests with a supervisor who is standing by my side over any Stanford/MIT/Oxbridge degree. Life is funny sometimes. Then a happy life of endless research awaits, be it in academia or industrial. That’s what I wanted. And that solves everything My dreams came true I thought life is much more linear… by linear, I mean that things are ordered in a certain… chronological order. But it’s maybe just me being “wierd”.
In STEM fields, a Master’s often makes a lot more sense if one plans to work in industry. Admissions are less competitive generally. Some are funded some are not, but if you did a PhD instead and wanted to work in industry you would have an opportunity cost to factor in.
In countries on the European model (not only countries in Europe), doctoral programs are typically a bit shorter - can often be finished in 2-4 years - because they almost always require you to have a master’s degree first. Usually, you take the coursework in your master’s program (which is 1-2 years) and the doctoral program is all research. So while the PhD part is shorter, the total time of graduate work is about equivalent to American universities.
American universities don’t usually require a master’s first, and in computing fields it’s common to go straight to a PhD program. But that’s because you usually do the master’s work along the way - you take ~2 years of coursework and exams, and then you work on the research. That’s why generally an American PhD takes about 5-6 years to complete. Four years would be quick.