Thesis vs Non-Thesis Masters in EE with a low BS GPA+ Work Experience For PhD Admission?

Graduate School
1

Read below and decide if it is worth it for me to do a thesis masters if I wish to do a PhD later?

I had a 2.9 overall GPA in my BSEE from Cal Poly. I did many interesting projects on the side during my undergrad, so contrary to what most “naysayers” told me I landed a government engineering position just fine right out of college with my transcript, resume and good recommendations, plus I had an upward trend in my last couple of years of GPA. I also hold a secret security clearance.

Anyway, I got bored doing the same old stuff and I realized how my supervisor was pushing me towards more management/administrative roles. I was surrounded by all these senior engineers who had MS/Ph.D. and they were doing cool technical things, while the BS guy/gals were doing the same things forever. I realized if I am stuck here for 20 years, my skills would be obsolete.

I knew I could not change my supervisors’ mind about letting me do more R&D type things. Plus whenever I talked to some other projects they rejected me saying they could not fund me. I am assuming because I don’t have advanced degrees. Also, my salary out of bachelors was not high enough to catch up with senior levels sooner.

So I took a big leap. I applied for MSEE to a tier 2 research university in the mid-west which is close to another giant federal govt. research facility. And I got accepted with my GPA without doing any GRE. I finished my first semester successfully and am still taking summer semester.

Right now, I am going through a bit of identity crisis. My idea was to take the GRE and apply for Ph.D. and govt/industry jobs both. My Ph.D. admission is my first preference, if it does not work, I will be happy to go back to the workforce for now. I want to aim for top 40+ schools in EE.

So one day I think about finishing my MS early with a non-thesis option, do GRE and still apply to PhD/jobs, and “let chips fall where they may”. Another day, I want to wait for doing a thesis masters and repeat the same process. Note that, for the thesis route it would take more than two years.

I do like the R&D govt. labs. But I wish to apply for NASA as well. For NASA it does not have to be R&D roles. I just wanted to do more interesting and meaningful work with a bit of higher salary than my previous job would allow me. But seeing how most people in that federal facilities had MS/PhDs, inspired me to at least try.

2

I think doing the thesis is your best option. PhD admissions basically care about one thing: are you going to be successful in their PhD program or are you going to come in, suck up a few years of a PI’s hard-won research dollars, and then flame out before finishing. Your goal is to prove that you will do the former, obviously. So let’s think about what sorts of things you need to show in order to prove that:

[ul]
[li]Show that you can succeed in the coursework: Your undergraduate GPA may leave some to be desired, but you have worked for a while and now have success in a graduate program to show that you can handle it. This shouldn’t be an issue at this point.[/li]
[li]Show that you you can succeed in research: Working at a government research lab will help here, but you said you were not in an R&D type role, so that will mitigate that factor to some degree. Your best bet is to do this by doing academic research as part of your MS program.[/li]
[li]Show that will see the PhD program through to completion: Again, the best way to show this would be by actually finishing your research thesis as part of the MS. Moving into a non-thesis option will at best do nothing to help you, and at worst might imply you aren’t serious about the research aspect of things.[/li][/ul]

Do the thesis.

3

@PolyENG - Welcome to the Forum! You have done exactly the right thing up to now. You have work experience, which is valuable for engineering graduate programs, you have proven yourself in graduate courses (I presume your graduate GPA is above 3.0) and now you have to plan your next move.

The first thing is to decide if you really want a Ph.D. Your industry experience will tell you if it is worthwhile for you to dedicate the next 4 or so years to research for your career goals. Given that you decide that a Ph.D. is what you want, then apply as soon as you can. There is little value in engineering to getting a M.S. with thesis and then starting over for a Ph.D. You should take your current academic record and move into a Ph.D. program right away. Ideally, if you can stay at your present institution, all your coursework will be applicable to the Ph.D. at the university. Of course, if the research opportunities at your current institution, are not what you want, then you will need to apply elsewhere and the cycle begins in Fall. In that case, you might need to take the GRE soon and then see if there are any opportunities to enter a program in January 2020 instead of waiting until the Fall of 2020.

Alternatively, you could simply complete a coursework M.S. and then apply for a Ph.D. after that. It might stretch into 2021 if you are taking classes part time but you might be able to finish by Spring of 2020 as well.

Good luck!

4

I’d argue the first part of this generally only applies if the latter part is true. If you stay put and it all transfers, then great. Otherwise, I think the chances are better if the student finishes the thesis MS at his current university before moving on to a new university.

5

@boneh3ad - I defer to your knowledge of engineering admissions. In physics it is not such an issue as I have had a number of students follow this path.

6

I am not sure that engineering is terribly different from physics in this regard. I suppose what I was trying to convey is that it may be an issue. Some PIs are going to see it as a red flag. Others won’t. It’s probably also a function of how desperate they are for new students. It just adds a layer of uncertainty into the equation that doesn’t need to be there in my opinion.

For my part, I don’t have a standard opinion for a situation like this. If I have a funded grant that needs a student with no one lined up and I see someone like this come along, odds are I am not going to care. I will look at their resume, their transcript, and think “This person has some good experience, is mature enough to know what he/she wants to do, and has proven they’re better than their undergraduate grades. Let’s make an offer.” If, on the other hand, I have a funded grant and several people all looking for paid positions, doing a a non-thesis degree with no research component is not going to compare well to someone with more actual research experience. YMMV

7

Thanks for your valuable inputs. I partly agree with both of you. In fact, I planned my way up to this point exactly as @boneh3ad said to try to prove myself that I can -
a) get good grades.
b) finish research.

But recently I have also seen opinions like what @xraymancs said that if PhD is the end goal, doing a thesis in my masters can be a waste of my time.

I know there is no clear route to it. It also depends on the PhD program and the particular professor.

Anyway, thanks again!

8

No problem, @PolyENG. Cheers!

9

I suggest discussing your future plans with your current profs as well. They can be useful not only for writing strong rec letters but also by working their contacts at these top schools that you are interested in. They might think (and convey this in their letters) that you already have enough maturity and research knowledge to do well in a PhD program or/and they might encourage you to stick around and finish the masters thesis.