<p>Hey everyone,</p>
<p>I am currently completing my senior year with a BS in Mechanical Engineering. I want to go to grad school so that I have that competitive edge in the work force and a chance to move up in the company. My question is thesis or non thesis? Do employers care if it was thesis based or not? I am not looking to get my PhD....</p>
<p>Thanks for your help</p>
<p>It largely depends on what type of job you are hoping to land.</p>
<p>Personally, I pretty much always say to go with a thesis. Unless you are a part-time student getting an M.S. through your company (which you aren’t) then I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t go the thesis route. It opens up more doors for you in positions that are slightly more research oriented without closing any doors form a non-thesis degree. If you want to work in a research oriented position, then do the thesis option for sure. If you don’t, personally I would still suggest the thesis, but doing non-thesis won’t hurt as much.</p>
<p>If you are not looking for PhD, then M.S. or M.Eng is same</p>
<p>Do employers care if M.S. or M.Eng? Depends on the employer, so again same </p>
<p>If your going to enroll full time as a grad student, M.S. will give you a tuition waver plus funding vs. paying for everything for a M.Eng, so M.S. wins here obviously</p>
<p>If your looking to enroll part-time (M.eng) and work full time in industry your employer will most likely cover the costs, so M.Eng wins here</p>
<p>Conclusion</p>
<p>M.Eng = either your paying outta pocket or you employer is paying for it while you work via night classes or Distance Eduaction</p>
<p>M.Sci = you want to go to grad school full time and your an engineer so you don’t have to pay for it…note funding opportunities for M.Sci are competitive to come by at any school nevertheless a top ten school. I have also been advised that professors are more willing to fund the ones that are going to continue on to phd. sense it’s a better investment for them; but again all my friends that were funded for M.S did what you are looking for, get some research, advanced classes, and then left to land the real nice job they wanted.I’ve also been told a lot that if your not funded off the bat, it’s much more likely to obtain funding after enrolling for a semester.</p>
<p>So if you decide to go to graduate school and get a masters, you’re more likely to land a job in designing and things of that nature? I know there’s lots of different engineering jobs, so if I want to design contraptions, would I want to get a masters, or should I shoot for a PhD, and would it matter too much?</p>
<p>That entirely depends on what part of the design process you wish to be involved with.</p>
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<p>A non-thesis MS can often be done in one year vs. two years for a thesis-based degree. A non-thesis degree also usually has many electives built into the program to allow you to take classes other than engineering (for example business courses). Some specialized MS programs aren’t available to thesis-based MS students.</p>
<p>Also, keep in mind that although a researched-based MS is frequently free, you have to work to earn that tuition waiver. That usually means grading and RA work beyond your thesis work.</p>
<p>Could you give some specific examples boneh3ad, in your current field (since I’m interested in aerospace)? I wasn’t aware that there was that degree of specialization.</p>
<p>In a normal 30-credit M.S. + thesis program, the thesis takes up 6 credits with 24 in coursework. Like someone else said, if don’t know if you whether you want to go the research route or straight to the workforce or PHD, it would be better to go the thesis route because it would cover all 3 scenarios.</p>
<p>If going to the workforce is your only goal then, either a non-thesis MS or MEng can be your choice. Even with an non-thesis MS or MEng, you still may have to complete an 3-credit project.</p>
<p>I would recommend the thesis option. You will gain research experience which for some positions will carry some weight. Also, for my MS, the thesis counted for a third of my degree while courses made up two thirds. This was at a major research institution but I guess it will vary by school.</p>
<p>You will most likely only get funding for the thesis option. The nice thing about a research assistantship is that you are getting paid to do research and most of your research will go towards your thesis. I would suggest trying to attend a research institution as opposed to a regional school unless you find a very specific thing you want to research. The flagship research universities and engineering schools will offer a much wider range of research opportunities to choose from and will likely have better facilities and equipment due to a higher amount of funding. I’m not trying to bash smaller schools because there are some good ones but a department that gets 50 million in funding annually will provide more research choices than a program that gets 5 million.</p>
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<p>Well the design process is a HUGE process. With just a little experience with CAD and no degree you could work as part of the design team by modeling, say, a jet engine blade.</p>
<p>With a B.S. you could actually do the part of design where you start tweaking the design and working to optimize it.</p>
<p>With an M.S. you may be able to look at the fundamentals of why a design does what it does and how to improve that.</p>
<p>With a Ph.D. you may lead work on groundbreaking designs and new, experimental projects to help pave the way for the next generation of whatever product you work on.</p>
<p>Of course these aren’t precise and don’t necessarily represent jobs perfectly, but there are tons of parts of the design process, from CAD jockey all the way up to head of R&D, and they all would require a different set of skills and level of education. What degree is better for a particular situation is highly individual. You can’t just say “I wan’t to be a part of the design process” because that was way too vague. You would need to have an idea of how high up you want to be in the design process and how fundamental you want your part to be. Generally, the higher up and the more fundamental you get, the more education is required. If you want to work on parts of design that do with all the physical phenomena that allow a new product to work then you would probably want a research based degree, as a lot of that work is done via research.</p>
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<p>Presumably, the work you do for your waiver and stipend will be able to be applied towards your thesis/dissertation or at least set you up with experience you need for your research. As long as you are being funded as part of a research group that is related to your research (or ideally THE group that you will do your finally research with) then the extra time to earn that stipend as an RA is absolutely no big deal. In fact, its may be the funnest part of grad school.</p>
<p>Then you’ve had some better experiences than me. On one of my MS degrees, I dropped off stipend because of the non-research work that was required.</p>
<p>I could have just gotten lucky to an extent too. The work I do now is relevant to my eventual dissertation and the group I got into has nearly unlimited, MIT-esque funding, which I didn’t know the true extent of until I got on board. I freely admit that there was some luck involved. However, most of my peers here are in the same boat as me except for the nearly unlimited funding part.</p>
<p>Hey ME76 what did you mean a research institution as opposed to a regional school? Are you talking about starting off with your grad work at a regional school to complete your courses then transfering to a research institution for your thesis work? My plan for me is undergrad work in EE at U of H which is ABET accredited and a thesis based MS in BME. What Im starting to notice is each university MS programs mainly focus on one or two options. Is that true? My interest is BioMEMS, biosignal processing or bioelectrical. So would have to start researching different universities BME programs now just to make sure it covers my specific interests?</p>
<p>‘note funding opportunities for M.Sci are competitive to come by at any school nevertheless a top ten school.’
'Also, keep in mind that although a researched-based MS is frequently free, you have to work to earn that tuition waiver. That usually means grading and RA work beyond your thesis work. '</p>
<p>I dont get it. So is it easy or not to pay for your research-based MS?</p>
<p>‘The nice thing about a research assistantship is that you are getting paid to do research and most of your research will go towards your thesis.’</p>
<p>how does an RA work? are you only able to get your MS for free if you get an RA? how hard is it to get an RA? do you have to apply for it or do you just get it if you are in a research group?</p>
<p>USUALLY you just get it when you are in a research group. The problem is, you have to talk to professors and get one to take you on as a student in their research group. That is the tough part. The process varies greatly by professor.</p>
<p>'USUALLY you just get it when you are in a research group. The problem is, you have to talk to professors and get one to take you on as a student in their research group. That is the tough part. The process varies greatly by professor. '</p>
<p>So when one gets admitted to a MS program, is he automatically placed in a research group? I was recently admitted to my school’s phD program with an assigned faculty advisor, but asked the student affairs officer to change it to the MS program. Does that mean I know have to talk to professors to see who will let me into their research group? Or am i already automatically in that assigned advisor’s group?</p>
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<p>First of all, an MS is not free. Get that out of your head right now. No matter what anyone says, it’s not free.</p>
<p>Now that we have that out of the way, to get a tuition waver for a school, you have to work for the school. If you add value, they pay your tuition (and often give you a salary on top of the tuition). You can add value by TA work (grading, recitations, etc.) or by RA work (research). </p>
<p>How common it is to get those things depends on the school. Some schools guarantee a tuition waver (in which case you’re assigned as a TA unless you can find RA work on your own), at some schools you are on your own (you need to ask professors to find RA or TA work). Getting into a research group also varies by the group. Sometimes you just ask to join, sometimes there’s a formal application/interview. Is your RA work part of your thesis? That depends on how nice your faculty adviser is. </p>
<p>These are the sorts of things you ask before accepting an offer to attend a school. A slightly lower ranked school with guaranteed funding might be more attractive than a higher ranked school without it.</p>
<p>Once you become part of a research group, what is the time commitment? What are examples of the kind of work involved in research in Mechanical Engineer? Any different from just basic Mechanical Engineering Laboratory?</p>
<p>The kind of work varies greatly. You would have to ask your specific group that question. It depends on research area and specific professor. Basic ME Labs that you do in classes (which is what I am assuming you are talking about) are having you do experiments that are simple and the solutions to which are already well known. If you are getting an M.S., the experiments are more complex and the results are completely unknown, which is the whole point of doing the research.</p>
<p>Time commitment varies, but it seems to me that most RA positions stipulate that the student give a 20 hr/week commitment while they still have classes, give or take.</p>