Hi, I am currently a high school senior, so this is way down the line. I am having trouble sifting through all of the posts and tons of information flying towards me right now, and this is probably because I have no idea what exactly I intend to do (besides a general math/cs/econ leaning), and also because I do not know what graduate school really entails.
Would someone mind clarifying the process for me a little? It is not because I am trying to plan out the next 15 years of my life, but because I am genuinely interested in education and want to learn as much as I can, not even considering finances at this point.
So, after undergraduate, I know that you can either go for a 5 years MS in some cases. Would you advise against this or for this? What would make a MS more desirable? Or should it be completed from another university?
And PhDs. They normally go after MS, correct? Is MS a requirement? Are PhD programs sometimes paid for??
Is it odd to do an MS in CS, and then go to work, and then go do your MBA? Do people frown upon that?
Is it also odd to get two masters degrees, like if I study at a university and do a 5yr MS in CS, and then apply for another MS program elsewhere for MS in math?
To answer your questions: Some universities do have a 5-year BS/MS program; whether or not it is beneficial depends on the field and the university. A 5-year BS/MSPH at Emory in biostatistics, for example, could be really great because they are a top 10 school of public health and public health is a field that often recommends but does not require work experience directly after college. A 5-year BS/MBA at Podunk State is not necessarily a good idea, because employers like their MBAs to have some work experience and MBAs are really best coming from well-reputed schools. I think it’s fine to an MS at your undergrad university if they have a strong department in that field.
You don’t have to have an MS before getting a PhD. I didn’t. There are a few fields that require it (like epidemiology) and a few fields that don’t require it, but that it’s a significant advantage (like English). But for other fields it either doesn’t matter or undergrads get admitted all the time. CS, economics, and math are all fields like that. PhD programs are almost always paid for - you get your tuition and health insurance covered, and then a stipend that’s usually between $25-35K a year. It’s usually on the higher end in STEM fields.
No, it’s not odd at all to do an MS in CS and then get an MBA - in fact, it’s increasingly common. A couple of weeks ago I checked the class profile of MBA students at Yale and Harvard for someone and discovered that a significant proportion of them had earned a graduate degree in something else before getting the MBA. This would be especially lucrative if you wanted a tech career.
But I would say that you need to weigh whether you really need to spend the time and money on two master’s degrees. For example, I don’t see any advantage to getting a master’s in both math and computer science - they’re so heavily interrelated that you could probably find an applied math degree with heavy computer science in it, or a computer science degree that was flexible enough to add some applied math, or maybe even a joint degree program. Master’s degree work is often very expensive and usually doesn’t come with the kind of financial aid that you get for undergrad. (Of course, it’s a different calculus if you did a 5-year BS/MS program in computer science, which was fully covered by undergraduate financial aid, and then decided to do an MS in math later. I still don’t see the point of it, but you wouldn’t be spending as much money at least.)
@julliet Wow, good sir, thanks for all of the clarifying advice. I am very impressed. Whenever I think about the possibilities for the future, I get very excited about all the different programs I may be interested in, and all the professional and career choices available, but then I realize I know quite little about what each of these paths entails, so it is nice to have such a thorough answer.
A warning about the dilemmas and garden paths this will entail, from my perspective:
Like Juillet said, masters’ and PhDs are generally an either-or, not a both-and. A master’s is an expensive and, sadly, increasingly necessary credential enhancer aimed at getting you a business, industry, or academic staff (research technician, etc) job ASAP. PhD programs can in theory be used for different purposes, but are generally designed to train you to be an academic researcher.
There are few PhD programs that aren’t ‘fully funded’, meaning that you pay no tuition and are paid 25-35k a year. No one should go to a PhD program that is not funded, for any reason. Being in a PhD program is 1/3 like being a student and 2/3 like having a job. Opinions vary, but the general consensus is that it’s a tough job with long hours, and the pay is not exactly a good deal for the amount of work you do.
There is a monstrous glut of PhDs in all fields, some fields appalling (English, history, psychology), and others merely tense (CS, Chemistry, Engineering). The likelihood of getting the kind of job most PhD programs train you to hold in high esteem, that of research professor, is at an all time low and (almost unbelievably) getting lower every year. Having been gainfully employed and decently paid for 5 years and then ending up with a PhD and no professor job is hardly a disaster, but most people find it highly unpleasant to have reached an advanced level of experise in a subject, only to find no one values them for it and they have to take a nondescript job they could have gotten with their bachelor’s degree, five plus years older than their co-new hires.
Another hidden dark side to PhD programs is their very high washout rate. About 50% of students who start American PhD programs don’t finish them for one reason or another. The classic reason is a mixture of disillusionment and despair leading to non-progress on the dissertation, resulting either in the program inviting the student to leave or the student snagging an opportunity to drop out and get a job.
Also, protip, juillet is a lady, not a sir, and the resident guardian angel of the grad school forum, so you are indeed lucky she condescended to help you
All of the above is true! Especially take into account the glut in the field (especially if you want to be a professor - those jobs are tough to get and funding is disappearing) and the high washout rate. That last part is a hidden secret of the PhD program, and varies from program to program. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to drop out, because sometimes your priorities change. But that’s time that you could’ve spent developing a career elsewhere - so it’s good to consider really, really, really hard whether you want to a PhD not before you enter. Personally, I don’t think it’s something to try to see whether you like it or not.
aw, thank you 