<p>What are the advantages of a MS vs. PHD in an environmental engineering?<br>
Here's some questions:
Is there less funding for MS's or PHD's?<br>
Do PHD's make you overqualified for all jobs except academia?</p>
<p>A little background about myself:
Undergraduate Environmental Science Degree
M.B.A.</p>
<p>M.B.A. has made me overqualified for a lot of jobs. I wish I would have waited to get it until later in my career. Want to go back to school to either go into engineering and eventually environmental consulting or go into academia. </p>
<p>Which degree is better for me?</p>
<p>Thanks for all your help!</p>
<p>A few comments:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>As a former hiring manager, I would be very wary about a PHD applicant with no work experience outside of any work at his/her college program. I would be concerned whether you could do the work without wanting to turn it into a research program since that has been your experience to date (and I had several PHDs in my group that would do just that). </p></li>
<li><p>Your statement “Is there less funding for MS’s or PHD’s” leads me to believe that #1 is a real concern. Funding is by the project to be done, not by who gets assigned to it. It would be assumed that the higher educated / more experienced person would get the job done faster and /or be able to handle more complex assignments.</p></li>
<li><p>An MBA is also a BIG red flag to me. Do you want to do engineering or business? My biggest hiring disasters were people who had dual engineering and business degrees. They seemed to think the engineering work was beneath them and they should be promoted to management right away. Problem was it was an high tech engineering company and without demonstrating that you knew the engineering side first, you weren’t going anywhere as far as engineering management went.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So what would I do? I’d stop at the MS level and really downplay the MBA if you truely want to go into engineering. Consulting would be an option once you had several years of experience. At that point, you might consider a PHD but also at that point your experience would probably be more valuable.</p>