My daughter is in an MS program for Engineering. In her field there is really no such thing as fully funded. She did get offered some really good scholarhips at some schools when she was admitted but she was told that full funding was not a thing for master’s students. Sounds like CS might be a little different. Irvine might have a program where they offer money/streamlined admission for current students - so he might want to look into that.
One thing he might want to do is reach out to a few industry folks to get their opinion. My D did a lot of informational type interviews with people in the programs she was most interested in and also some grads from her college in the field to get their thoughts. Maybe talking to some people who have gotten masters and some who have not might be helpful. She found people on Linkedin.
One final comment - remember that there is no common app for grad school. My daughter found the application process pretty time consuming to manage with her regular studies. Then, many programs required interviews which took up even more time. I’m not sure interviews are as much of a thing in CS. It’s just something to keep in mind when making a list. More schools mean more time!
Fully funded master’s program are becoming very rare. MS/MA degrees are big money makers for colleges. Admission is not as highly selective as PhD programs are. If a department offers a PhD program, that’s where their funding goes. Domestic PhD students are almost always fully funded. I’m sure there are exceptions, but I think these are good general rules.
My son is currently getting an MS in computer science. The advantage he had by working for three years first is that his employer is paying his tuition and fees, as well as allowing him to continue earning a salary, get benefits, and maintain retirement savings. The other advantage is he knew what he wanted from a program.
Your son has an excellent resume and would almost certainly be accepted into a grad program if that’s what he wants to do. He also has a good resume to get a job.
I think for many college seniors the idea of job hunting is overwhelming. I know mine felt that way. School is their comfort zone because it’s what they have done for 16 years.
Doing an internship is completely different than being an employee who will be putting in the hours and the work within teams and contracts. He needs to see if he likes what he does, and if the company will be sponsoring his MS.
Our daughter (EECS) while working in her first corporate/government sponsored job, was offered full funding to attend USC or Johns Hopkins for her MS in CS or EE, whichever she wanted to complete.
She started at Hopkins, but then looked at the salary scale and the pay offered wasn’t significantly different. She was swamped with work and she was beginning management training, so she didn’t have the time. Basically, she stopped the program.
She said that her current employers have offered to sponsor her MS, but she’s not interested at this time, and she likes what she’s doing now, and has reached management levels without the MS or Ph.D.
That’s where my husband got his Masters, but in EE. (Sponsored by his employer after 3 months on the job, in the summer, after his BS graduation). They were desperate for employees, at the time, who were eligible for security clearances. He had interned for them. I don’t know how competitive the acceptance rate is for CS.
Ask him to think about which “end” he wants to work in - the back end (developing code, etc) or the front end (using AI to make strategic decisions) to help identify the right program. Beyond the “usual suspects” (e.g., MIT, CalTech) would recommend looking at Penn, Northeastern, Syracuse, and UT Austin - all have decent programs, and most offer online.
He has planned to apply only in the colleges I had mentioned in my first thread plus stanford and UCSD.
UT Austin he is applying anyway. BTW he got admission to UT Austin and UIUC for undergrad CS. But we chose UCI because of Instate tuition and he both Honors and Scholarship of almost two years tuition.
I will run by all of your opinions today with him. Again thanks to all. Any advise/advice to me as a parent I whole heatedly accept it. Especially because we don’t intend to take loan. Either from us parents pocket or his internship salary (or both together). Hence so much thought.
If his plan is to go to grad school directly after undergrad wouldn’t he be in the midst of applying for programs admitting to Fall 2024 right now? If he isn’t, then that renders the question rather moot as he will at least need to take a gap year.
The other thing you should be aware of is that master’s programs in CS or DS for ML/AI are being absolutely flooded by international applicants primarily (though not exclusively) from India. They are in high demand making them highly competitive for admission (though your son’s credentials look very strong). With regards to funding if he would be open to applying outside of the US, thesis master’s programs in Canada very often come with some degree of funding (though course based programs usually don’t), even for international applicants, though it probably will not cover the total cost of attendance especially if the university is located in a high COL area.
If your S is interested in pursuing AI/ML development, having a a MS certainly helps for several reasons.
First, it will give more depth in actual AL/ML academics. Depending on his undergrad school, he may or may not have had the opportunity to dive into AI/ML coursework, and many times students that are also pursuing a minor have even less time to do so. Our S started off in CS with a minor in math, but soon became so focused on AI/ML he focused solely on those courses. In the end he came up a few classes short for a math minor, but had all the depth he needed for his AL/ML work.
Second, MS degrees are increasingly important to employers for AI/ML teams. My wife (BSEE, MSEE, MBA) and I (BSCS, MSCS) worked in times when having an MS was not that important, and having a PhD was virtually unheard of (primarily reserved for people who wanted to teach). Now, however, things are different especially in AI/ML. Many AI/ML job postings require an MS or even a PhD.
Our S was fortunate in being able to take many graduate level AI/ML classes at Stanford as an undergrad. He was also a member of one of the several AI labs at Stanford where he was credited on three published papers. After his BS he stayed on for an additional year to finish some research and earn his MSCS specializing in ML. So, going on to grad school, for him, has been very valuable.
He is now 2 years into his first job as a ML researcher at a unicorn startup located just a few miles away from Stanford. He loves his work, uses math every day, and he still gets the chance to publish research. This December he will be presenting a paper at a well known computer vision conference.
As another personal anecdote, DS24 wrapped up his MIT CS undergrad in 2.5 years a year ago, having taken a few graduate-level classes, published several papers, and presented at international conferences, to return full-time to a top Wall Street firm where he interned the summer after his sophomore year.
It was an easy decision for him to make because he felt that he would be able to most effectively continue to learn the subject area that interests him by engaging with it full-time at that specific company, and, frankly, the opportunity cost was such that even shaving a semester off of his initial 3-year graduation plan was worth significantly more than the entire price of his degree.
So, a Masters in itself offered no value to him, but he applied and deferred for two years his admission to MEng (MIT program exclusive to their own EECS graduates) in case he decided to onramp back into academia to work towards a PhD - something that he is now certain he is no longer interested in.
Which is all to say, the answer to OP’s question is: it really depends. For a highly-competitive BS in CS graduate, spending additional time to gain a Masters, in my opinion, needs to be motivated by specific learning goals, like @Rivet2000 describes, and carefully weighed against other opportunities available upon graduation.
MIT’s MEng comes with no guarantees, but is fully funded in most cases, on a semester basis, either through TA’ship (frequently) or RA’ship (less frequently, and more sought-after).
I personally would definitely not suggest to any CS graduate worth their salt to take time off work and pay their own money for a Masters, unless it is done in an effort to “scrub” a less prestigious undergraduate degree by enrolling into an elite-level graduate program.
I wouldn’t expect UCI’s CS degree to be in need of such scrubbing.