<p>What's the advantage of going for one or the other? I'm thinking a PhD is much better because for 2 more years, you get a lot more job opportunities. Is this true?</p>
<p>It depends on what your field/major career goals are. If you're looking for a research or academia career, go for a phd. If not, then a masters or even a bachelors may be sufficient.</p>
<p>What if I'm not sure whether I want to go into academia or not. Would it be a better idea to hedge my bets by going for the PhD program? Its not like people won't hire you for a job that doesn't require a PhD just because you have a PhD right?</p>
<p>edit: my field is mathematics, if that matters.</p>
<p>False. Only pursue a PhD if you want a research career in academia, government or corporate research firms (pharmaceuticals, etc.). Humanities (non-science related) PhDs outside academia tend to be worthless. If you don't want to do research, a professional Master's degree is the better option. If you love math, you can pursue a PhD in it.</p>
<p>The exception to your statement about PhDs being useless outside of academia is certainly in biotech/pharmaceuticals.</p>
<p>@tenisghs, most of the top schools in my field doesn't have a professional masters program. I think Stanford offers a financial mathematics masters degree, but there's no financial aid.</p>
<p>I said if you love math very much that you can see yourself pursuing research in it, by all means go for the PhD. If you don't want to do research, there are plenty of other career options for math majors.</p>
<p>But the think is, I love math;I just don't know if I want to do research. And I feel like I must do something. I'm already going into my junior year.</p>
<p>If you're applying to masters programs, is it better to have research or work-force related experience? I want to pursue a masters but I have all research and no work-related internship experience.</p>
<p>I'm sure there would be several consulting and banking companies knocking at your door if you had a PhD if math. They might still be knocking if you only had a masters but a PhD will bolster your resume a good deal with some of these industries. </p>
<p>You are by no means limited to a career in research (academia, govt, industry) if you obtain a PhD.</p>
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But the think is, I love math;I just don't know if I want to do research. And I feel like I must do something. I'm already going into my junior year.
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<p>Talk to someone on the math faculty at your school. They can provide better guidance than any of us can.</p>
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You are by no means limited to a career in research (academia, govt, industry) if you obtain a PhD.
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<p>This is very true. A number of PhD candidates (maybe 10-20%) each year from the top graduate schools go on to jobs with financial firms. I can only imagine the money that they make.</p>
<p>However, I think the bigger issue is if you could survive a PhD program. PhD programs aren't like undergrad programs -- being admitted to a program doesn't necessarily mean you'll receive your PhD. At a handful of schools, less than 50% of entering PhD students go on to get their PhDs. Getting a PhD is difficult: you will have to produce quality, publishable, original research. It isn't for the weak of heart, and if you're not dedicated to academia, you will die.</p>
<p>Also, I might as well point out that getting into a top graduate school, especially in math, is extremely difficult. If you haven't done any research (as in REU programs and the like) or work with professors, it may be very hard to get into a top 50 program.</p>
<p>I'm only going into my junior year so I have at least next summer to get some REU research done. And I have a 3.9gpa so if I can keep this up in upper division courses, I'll be an above average applicant. Trust me. I'm not weak of heart. I may not be dedicated to a certain path, but I try to be the best at everything I do and I'm a very very competitive person. </p>
<p>Hmmm.. Well, I've heard that many top programs confer a masters for going halfway so I'll still benefit if I can show some competence.</p>
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I'm only going into my junior year so I have at least next summer to get some REU research done. And I have a 3.9gpa so if I can keep this up in upper division courses, I'll be an above average applicant. Trust me. I'm not weak of heart. I may not be dedicated to a certain path, but I try to be the best at everything I do and I'm a very very competitive person.
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<p>Well, it's good that you're dedicated, so I will give no further warnings. I will give you a piece of advice, though. PhD admissions at top schools don't give GPA/GRE scores very much weight. They want to see very good recommendations from professors who have worked closely with you and seen your potential. More on this here:</p>
<p>(Even though this is for CS admission, most of what he says holds true for mathematics as well.)</p>
<p>I would like to echo what phuriku has said, along with any advice he gives in general, it is quite good.</p>
<p>I would like to throw another alternative into consideration. From you mentioning Stanford's financial math program, I will guess that you might be interested in pursuing that kind of applied math. If this is so, why not get a phd in financial mathematics (more than likely it will be in probability, stochastic analysis or PDEs)? In this way you still get a PhD, you have tons of job prospects with an open door to Wall Street and other financial firms.</p>
<p>Now that being said, many top financial math schools (schools that are strong in financial math, probability, stochastic analysis, credit derivatives, etc) are top schools. NYU is godly for this and given their proximity and connection to Wall Street, this is a great situation. However NYU has a terrible policy of giving only 10-12 students aid, but also offering PhD unfunded and masters admissions. Columbia is good, not as good as NYU. Other schools have some financial math guys on the faculty and the possibility of doing a financial math phd is very much real.</p>
<p>Other schools have some interdisciplinary guys on their faculty, UCSD has a quantum computing guy, NYU has a few computer science professors, UPENN has a guy who does topological robotics. </p>
<p>One key is that you go to UCLA and you have access to a top notch faculty. Express some interest and see if they will take you on for an independent study or something like that. Going to an REU helps as well.</p>
<p>Personally I would go for a PhD, even if I didn't want to go into academia. Masters degrees are generally unfunded, and a PhD is 2-3 years more with funding. Plus the "research" phase of the PhD isn't too bad compared to the first 2 years when you are taking 3-4 grad courses a semester, worrying about qualifying exams and all that. Every professor has told me this. They said after you pass the quals, you just take overview courses and work on your research. Which is essentially, once you get your masters, you enter the research phase, which isn't as much overwhelming work, plus you are taking survey and overview courses in advanced topics that you are presumably interested in.</p>
<p>"PhD admissions at top schools don't give GPA/GRE scores very much weight. They want to see very good recommendations from professors who have worked closely with you and seen your potential."</p>
<p>So I don't think this is particularly true- quite a few people get into top grad schools in math with no "research experience", after just getting good grades in a bunch of graduate classes and getting recommendations from professors in whose classes they got A+'s (despite never previously speaking to the professor, and in many cases never actually attending said class).
Conversely, people with published papers who got lower grades or took fewer classes had more trouble getting into top programs...
I don't think two of my three recommenders knew anything about my prospective research interests; when I asked them for a reference letter they just asked me to give them a copy of my transcript and a CV (didn't even ask to meet me).
In CS the situation is probably different, since incoming grad students have much more diverse backgrounds.</p>
<p>"Plus the "research" phase of the PhD isn't too bad compared to the first 2 years when you are taking 3-4 grad courses a semester, worrying about qualifying exams and all that. Every professor has told me this. They said after you pass the quals, you just take overview courses and work on your research. Which is essentially, once you get your masters, you enter the research phase, which isn't as much overwhelming work"
Depends on the school. In some places most incoming grad students pass quals in the fall of their first year and don't have to take any classes, some programs have NO quals at all. TEACHING classes is a much bigger time sink than taking them.
And given how crappy the job market is, if you want a research job you better do "overwhelming work" for quite a while after passing your quals.
Most people who drop out of math grad school do so out of frustration with research--the experiences of people who go on to become profs at Stony Brook are atypical, since they were probably quite a bit more successful in this than the average grad student even a top program.</p>
<p>Yeah some Stony Brook professors were like that, most of them went to top programs for their PhD.</p>
<p>I will also agree with you on the GPA/GRE argument. I was working with one of my professors on an open problem in his field. He is very well known in his field, and by December 2007 (when I was applying to grad programs), he wrote me a letter of rec saying that I was working on an open problem, etc. and that I was making good progress. I also went to an REU, I performed well there as well. And I didn't get in to any PhD programs, I think because my GRE Math scores were poor (I mean the subject exam). My GPA is high, I've taken a broad range of math courses, so I believe my GRE Math score held me back. </p>
<p>I graduated in May, got a masters admit and was waitlisted at 2 good phd programs. I have been doing 3 research projects over this summer and into the Fall and I have been reviewing for the GRE Math again. However, I don't think I am going to get a 90% or 95% score, I'm aiming for an 80%. I will have 3 or 4 good to great letters of recommendation, and everyone says that is the key to getting in, so we'll see what the truth is in February or March 2009.</p>
<p>Overall, I don't want to play a guessing game of what these admissions councils want. Frankly, if they don't like me as a student, I can't change their mind anyway. However, if I don't get in this 2nd time, I don't know what the hell I'm going to do. I can't afford to go to a Masters program. I bet it all on math PhD.</p>
<p>I got rejected from Princeton and MIT, accepted at Chicago, Stanford, Berkeley, NYU, Columbia, Michigan, UCLA, going to Chicago.
So I did pretty well, despite my interactions with professors being limited, and my research not exactly producing groundbreaking results (or really results at all).
I did take lots of graduate classes and did well in them and scored well on the GRE.</p>
<p>Wow, that is impressive man. Did you go to a good undergrad? I see you listed Pasadena as your location, so am I wrong to assume Caltech as your Alma matter?</p>
<p>Edit: Nevermind, I saw your post on Caltech math.</p>
<p>I think it helps that you were taking grad courses from Caltech faculty. They have a small faculty I think, less than 20 tenured? So I'm sure even if you didn't go to their office hours, they knew who you were considering how small the school is. So while I do agree with you that research experience is not the be all end all of grad admissions, let's be fair, you did very well at Caltech math. I think it is a different story for students coming out of schools like mine or comparably ranked.</p>
<p>Also remember that research experience is a better predictor of success in graduate school than GPA or GREs alone. If you are set on going for a phd go for it, however I do suggest that you do research programs that will grant a masters degree on the way. That can serve as a back up in case you feel that you want to leave the program early.... at least you'll have your masters as a consolation "gift"... lol</p>