Hello everyone,
I am a bit clueless when it comes to college planning. I never had anyone counsel me or give me substantial advice in this matter so I am turning to these forums for advice.
My present situation is that I am about to graduate with a master’s degree in electrical engineering. I plan on pursuing Ph.D. in my field. The current college that I graduated from for a B.S. and soon to be my M.S. is offering me a full ride plus a stipend through an assistantship if I continue. I have been planning to accept this offer early in advance; however, my fellow classmates and friends have been pushing and encouraging me to transfer elsewhere or simply look for a job instead. My question to those who have already been through the system is: Do you think I should accept the offer, attempt to transfer, or seek a job?
Just a little about me: My college is at the very bottom of the barrel in terms of rankings. I initially enrolled because this local university was the only place I could afford to attend through scholarships and a job as an on-campus English tutor. I graduated with a 3.69 undergraduate GPA with a university honor’s scholar designation, which required me to undertake a very large research project. That project won a regional engineering competition. As a result, I was able to land a job as a graduate research assistant for my master’s degree, which paid for everything plus a stipend. During that time I applied for a patent, have a single publication currently under submission, and kept a 4.0 graduate GPA. Because of my research experience, my faculty advisor wants me to continue and pursue a doctorate degree.
I took the GRE for the admission’s requirements and have already been accepted. I received a 89th math, 81st verbal, and 93rd writing (5/6) for percentiles. Should I accept or not? Moving elsewhere would probably require me to take loans. As such I have been reluctant to go elsewhere; however, I am worried that I am making a “bad choice.”
Your goal after PhD study?
You may want to find out where PhD graduates in your major at this school and others you are considering go to afterward.
Ranking in your major may be very important in some cases (e.g. tenure track faculty hiring).
PhD programs worth attending are generally funded. What you may want to do is apply to various PhD programs and see where you are admitted and funded, then make your decision.
Industry since my particular engineering focus area employs many PhDs. Specifically, I am in RFIC design with a lot of courses in wireless as well.
You may want to find out how PhD graduates from your major at your school do finding industry jobs. Presumably, you are aiming for more cutting edge research type jobs in industry, right?
It is an ABET accredited school. Engineering students do just fine in landing a job in my specific field at my university. A teaching assistant in my focus area recently received a job offer from Xilinx and dropped out of getting a master’s degree.
The thing is, in this specific PhD track, no U.S. citizen has pursued it for a very long time at my university. The few who do so, are international students who travel back to their home countries. If I accept, I would be the second U.S. citizen in a decade to do so at my university.
Correct.
If the university has the research that you want and the faculty member has a strong reputation, then it is probably irrelevant what the “ranking” is. Rankings are all rather flawed, particularly at the graduate level. Big programs generally are ranked higher than smaller programs even if there are really good faculty there.
As an example, my Ph.D. students have done very well in finding good positions in industry and in academia after graduation despite the “ranking” of the Illinois Tech physics program. We are simply much smaller than other research universities but we have very well-funded and recognized individual faculty.
That being said, it is often a good idea to change universities when you go into a Ph.D. program simply because you get a different perspective. You could work for a year or two then apply for a Ph.D. program later on. You should only go if you get fully funded with tuition and stipend.