Must engineers go to grad school?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>A few questions..</p>

<p>What are the benefits of going to grad school for engineering? Do most engineers go? Why go?</p>

<p>More specific of a question- should I get my undergrad degree at a prestigious university and not go to grad school( because I probably won't be able to afford to with my debt) or save my money by going to a less prestigious undergrad institution, and try to go to a more prestigious grad school?</p>

<p>Does prestige even matter much in engineering? </p>

<p>I think I wanna be an enviro engineer.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance!!</p>

2

<p>For better career advancement, you will probably have to get an advanced degree. However, you can start your career with a BS. In fact many do. Some are at the end of their (student and parent) financial resources or just don’t want to spend that kind of money. Most companies will pay for your tuition and usually books for your grad degree. You can go back taking night classes while working full time, work part time and school part time, or go back full time once you have saved enough to pay your living expenses.</p>

<p>Another big reason to wait until you have worked for a while is that you may have a better or revised career goal. By waiting, you will be able to get your advanced degree in the area you really want for your career. Nothing worse than getting an advanced degree and then finding out you don’t like the career path it leads to.</p>

<p>The reasons for going straight thru are that you really know what you want to do and, while your still in school, it may be easier to apply and get accepted as you are known by the profs in the department.</p>

3

<p>Most engineering students get funding from their university to get their master’s degrees. My dad, an engineering prof, advises that students go to grad school directly after they get their bachelor’s, because he has seen SO many people who intend to go back and don’t, once they start earning a salary.</p>

4

<p>A Must?..No…but…</p>

<p>There are certain senior engineering positions…and all I can speak on is software engineering…where an employer prefers someone with a M.S./M.Eng degree. Yes, you can still obtain those senior positions with just a B.S. degree but this is how the job posting will usually read…</p>

<p>B.S. degree with 12-15 years experience…or
M.S. degree with 8 years experience.</p>

<p>Well, when you throw in that just doing a part-time (or online) M.S./M.Eng program is 2 years, why not go for the M.S./M.Eng and reduce the number of years of experience needed?</p>

<p>Here is another thing about going for a masters degree…very few companies will care WHEN you received your M.S. degree, so in many cases:</p>

<p>M.S. THEN 8 years of experience is the SAME as----> 8 years of experience THEN an M.S</p>

5

<p>

The primary benefits are to provide a highly-trained specialty and to allow access to certain professions (like academia). </p>

<p>On the first point, an undergraduate engineering degree trains you to be a generalist with perhaps a bit of extra training in some area - you are not going to be “ready to go” for any but the simplest of engineering positions, and will have to learn a lot on the job. A masters degree gives you a lot of extra training in a narrow specialty as well as (for research degrees at least) a lot of important experience. This makes you more attractive to employers (who will spend less time and money training you) and the expanded education makes it easier to get promoted down the line.</p>

<p>On the second point, there are some professions and specialties that flat-out require a graduate degree. You are not going into academia without at least a masters, a doctorate if you want a tenured gig. Even outside of academia, there are specialties that are too complex to get more than a nod at the undergraduate level - at my company, the antenna design group will not even look at applicants with just the BS.</p>

<p>

This is not an either/or situation. In engineering, if you cannot get someone else to pay for your graduate degree then you probably should not be getting one, so it is reasonable to expect that if you to graduate degree that you will pay no tuition and will draw some type of salary. While you are in grad school, your loans will be deferred just as they were during your undergrad, so you will not be financially stressed by that undergraduate debt. So pick the undergrad institution that is best for you, that gives you a manageable debt (or none at all), and grad school will resolve itself. </p>

<p>

Yes and no. The prestige of the university will matter only to non-engineers - law schools and venture capitalists may be impressed by a Harvard engineering degree, but engineers will generally not be. But some departments do seem to do a consistently better job of educating and preparing engineers, and that is reflected both in rankings and in hiring practices… but not by a tremendous degree. The impact of department on prestige is roughly logarithmic, important for the top few schools but dropping rapidly afterwards.</p>

<p>So I would consider ranking very roughly, and would suggest that (for example) departments ranked 20th and 25th are about the same, but the 5th department will correlate with more opportunity and salary than either, and the 50th department will correlate with less.</p>

<p>And it is very important to compare that to your debt load - the financial advantage of even the best engineering schools quickly fades if they require a substantial amount of loans.</p>

6

<p>“B.S. degree with 12-15 years experience…or
M.S. degree with 8 years experience.”</p>

<p>The company I worked for would give you credit for the equivalent of 2 years experience for a masters. Also, once you worked in the field for a while, it was your experience, competence and level of responsibility that determined your position and salary for both employees and hiring decisions.</p>

<p>So the above job listing would run more like:
B.S. degree with 2 years experience…or M.S. degree</p>

7

<p>Out of curiousity I occasionally peek at engineering job announcements (anticipating the day that Lake Jr. will contribute to my “extravagant” lifestyle in my golden years, LOL) and I am a bit surprised to see the frequency of graduate degrees in the statement of required qualifications, at least in Ch-E.</p>

8

<p>

</p>

<p>That sure doesn’t seem to be the case in California. Most engineering graduate programs I’ve seen here are ones where students or their companies pay for it.</p>

9

<p>Graduate degree’s are becoming more common. In 2011-2012, the University of Florida awarded, 1,062 BS/E in Engineering, but also 965 MS/E and 210 PhDs. In 1998, it was 746; 387; 100 (BS increased 30%, MS/E increased by 250% and PhD’s by 210%). UF awarded more advance degree’s in EE, Comp E and IE than BS/E degrees. </p>

<p>A lot of this is being facilitated by “distance learning” and accelerated 5 year programs (BS/MS in 5 years). It simply easier to earn an advance degree, than it was 20 years ago.</p>

<p>UF is just one data point, so lets check a few other schools…</p>

<p>Purdue: 1,391 BS/E; 579 ME/S; 220 PhD
UT-Austin: 1,065; 414; 210
TAMU: 1,324; 553; 205
Georgia Tech: 1,663; 973; 308 </p>

<p>and a few smaller schools</p>

<p>Auburn: 699; 204; 67
UCF: 664; 328; 53
MUST(Rolla): 753; 316; 42</p>

10

<p>Any concerns about MS limiting the job options?</p>

11

<p>I have a different experience! The number of students for the Graduate Degree, esp. in Engineering, is growing due to a large influx of international students, from Asia. A significant percentage of the students in MS and ME, had their undergraduate degree from their country of origin, and use this as a route for getting into the technology driven job market in the USA. Also, most often, in engineering colleges with high brand value, their is hardly any scholarship if you are not in the research path leading to Doctoral degrees.</p>

<p>In brief, the chance of getting scholarship is not as easy as one has mentioned earlier in this thread. Yes, in the job market, a graduate degree in EE/CS will give you a distinct edge, though it may not be a huge one to start with!</p>

<p>In terms of entry level salary, yes as a graduate degree holder, you are most likely to get about 20 to 25% more than one with the undergraduate degree without experience:)</p>

12

<p>My husband and I are both registered as Environmental Engineers. </p>

<p>When he graduated from our state U (with a BS in Chem E), the company he ended up at paid to send him to Cornell for his masters degree in Enviro. He’d worked there for a few years by then. Because we live on the west coast, he clearly had to go to Cornell for the year. In lieu of salary, they paid his tuition and books cost for the year in exchange for a promise from him to work there at least five years (he’s been there for 26 years now). </p>

<p>The same company now does not really hire engineering grads without a masters. They start their new hires at a decently high salary - pretty much what I make in my job.</p>

<p>I have a BS in civil. My college funded my (limited) masters work, but hubby and I were married by then and I became pregnant. Not finishing my masters doesn’t affect my job, as I’m in the public and not private sector. Having a masters will not give me more salary. It may or may not make me more attractive in the private sector if I choose to make the leap. But the coworkers that do make the leap do so in the basis of their years of experience and knowledge of the field and not a masters.</p>

13

<p>maybe if you want more pay.
i heard grad school will increase your salary anywhere from 10-20k</p>

14

<p>

Yes, but employment and promotions can do about the same in the time it takes you to get the degree. The financial benefit of the masters comes years later, not immediately.</p>

15

<p>MaineLonghorn- Sorry to say I agree with simba9. Most schools DO NOT pay for masters. I applied to GA Tech and got in, but they wanted me to pay $30k/yr with full loans. I was in the same boat, wanted to go to grad school but found it to be costly and not exactly what I wanted at the moment. Why pay for it out of my own pocket when my company will pay for it?</p>

16

<p>Many of my friends started working as engineers even during their studies, and even tho they don’t really need grad school now, they enroll and study there, so they are better prepared to work on more advanced projects, and to get promoted.</p>

17

<p>This is purely anecdotal, but my s’s are both engineers (MechE and ChemE). S#1 was going to go to grad school, but as HPuck said above, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to narrow his interest/specialize in something and potentially then want to go in a different direction. So he worked for several years and then considered getting an MBA, based on where his interests and job experience were taking him. He took the GMAT and applied to 2 schools near where he is living, but then ended up landing his dream job in the company he’d hoped eventually to work for after getting his MBA. So for now he is not pursuing a graduate degree.</p>

<p>Younger s wanted to work. Was tired of school. So he’s been doing consulting for a year and a half and is pretty content for now. Stay tuned. Don’t know if he’ll find he wants/needs the grad degree.</p>

18

<p>After Ph.D. you will have more career opportunities. However, it takes approximately 5 years to get Ph.D. Is it worth? You can decide for yourself.</p>

<p>Ph.D. is free. In fact, you are getting paid for being a Ph.D. student. In my time, you get approximately $17,000 per year + subsidized housing + medical benefits. Its not much, but you can survive on this money. I remember that I had a very pleasant time. </p>

<p>IF you worry about money, you can apply for military sponsorship. I don’t know how it is called, but they waive your tuition debt and sponsor you for Ph.D. In return, you will have to work for military (for several years, as an engineer) after your Ph.D. Don’t remember the name of the program.</p>

<p>For Ph.D. you are looking for a famous lab, famous name of PI. The name of the University is not important. Often most famous scientists work at known universities. Lab atmosphere is very different. Some labs are like assembly lines, everyone has a given project. In other labs, students have freedom to work on the project that they invent. Please, choose the lab that fits your personality, it is really important.</p>

19

<p>

</p>

<p>Quite the contrary. After getting a Ph.D., you will generally have fewer career opportunities. They are an entirely different subset of career opportunities than those for BS engineers and a largely different set of opportunities from those for MS engineers. If you are looking to maximize the number and variety of career opportunities, stopping at a masters degree is the way to go.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I believe you are referring to the SMART Fellowship, where you work for armed forces laboratories for at least the number of years they sponsored you for your degree. They give you (relatively speaking) a boatload of cash and a guaranteed job. The downside is that you are required to do that job and can’t go do something else until your debt is paid.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I absolutely cannot agree with this statement more, and people really need to know this before choosing a graduate program.</p>

20

<p>boneh3ad,</p>

<p>What opportunities BS in EE, for example, has? Seriously. Technician, under the supervision of a project leader? MBA and JD opportunities?</p>

<p>I would agree with you regarding software. One can get a perfect job in Google or Microsoft with BS in CS.</p>