When to work while studying in grad school

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>So I am very interested in research and I plan to take my education all the way to PHD but have two main concerns: money and the knowledge of knowing for sure if management (MBA) is not the thing for me..</p>

<p>I have finished two years of my undergrad with one more year to go and don't have any work experience...so I feel like I haven't gone out to the industry to see if management or finance may be the thing for me</p>

<p>So my question is, when can I work for 2-3 years? before my M.S.? or before my PHD? First of all, suppose my M.S. advisor and I do click, would he let me to work for 2 years before I return (that too if I decide to return) ?? </p>

<p>I've heard that working before M.S. may be a good thing because it gives me some work experience that will help for my admission...I'm getting an LOR from a prof who just says 'did well in class'...would it be better if I replace this with one I get from the place I work?? Can I get funded for M.S. by the company I work in? What would be the catch in that scenario and finally, how could working before M.S. be a bad thing?? Would I feel like not going back to school..</p>

<p>Secondly, studying for approximately 5 years straight, i am also worried about the lack of money I will be making, which for my family's sake, can hurt. Do grad students with an assistantship make anything per year with their stipend after paying for housing and other things? This isn't the case with summer internships is it? because they pay for housing so you can make a healthy amount over a summer…but while being a RA for a prof, do i have the freedom to intern over the summer… so if I work during the summer before M.S. and the next two summers, how much can I expect to make? 50k? more? (I'm a ME major btw)</p>

<p>Thanks, for your input guys..what you say may influence whether i search for a full-time job after next spring or just an internship for the summer before going to M.S.…</p>

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<p>I’d say maybe take a year or two to work and see if you want to stay in industry or go back to school to further your education. </p>

<p>Work experience would only further your application/resume and if you want to go for a PhD. you should be 100% sure you want to do it.</p>

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<p>Research and working in industry are, in most cases, two very different things. My best advice is: Before you graduate, get experience with both and see which you seem to prefer.</p>

<p>Your questions are kind of haphazard-ish, so I’ll address what I have discovered in pursuit of deciding what I’m going to do after B.S. myself. I have found many people will work prior to M.S., then get M.S. and Ph.D., as well as the other way around (get M.S. right after, work, then get Ph.D.) There is also the route of going directly to Ph.D. after undergrad that seems to be becoming more popular, but I’d only recommend this route if you know for sure that research is your thing.</p>

<p>A LOR for an industry rep could work if this individual has a graduate degree. I’ve heard that in most cases it’s good to limit industry LORs to one per application. Graduate schools are trying to look and see if you’d be a good fit for research, and because of this professor LORs are the best fit. This is entirely different if you are pursuing a terminal M.S. (likely without a thesis).</p>

<p>There are many companies out there that will fund an M.S. for you, but this is going to be different than a thesis/research-based M.S. You will have to work while getting this M.S., and your M.S./M.Eng. will be composed of just taking classes and doing projects instead of writing a thesis and doing research. Each type of M.S. has its place, you just need to weigh your options and think about where you ultimately want to end up to decide which is your best fit.</p>

<p>In my experience, all research-based M.S. students do not have the freedom to pursue internships over the summer… their research does not have temporary pauses. From the current and past Ph.D. students I know, their income with pretty substantial grants and research assistantships has been in the 30-40k range with tuition paid for. You shouldn’t expect this as a M.S. student though. Your salary as an ME in industry is going to heavily depend upon what type of company it is and where you work.</p>

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<p>gstein answered the question pretty well.</p>

<p>I would like to stress a few things that he mentioned in his response though. First off, a Ph.D. is a research degree, as you know. Probably 95% of the time, if a company is footing the bill for your Masters, it is not going to be a research-based Masters. That really doesn’t give you much help when it comes to Ph.D. admissions at all, so if you are eventually wanting a Ph.D., you should be very cautious when considering that route.</p>

<p>As for deciding on a Ph.D. itself, that is a difficult thing to do sometimes. If you are still on the fence, you should do the research-based M.S. and use it as kind of a trial run for a Ph.D. It should get your feet wet in the world of academic research, and by the time you are done after three or four semesters, you ought to have a better idea if research is really what you want to do. If not, then you just have a nice and marketable M.S. to get a job with. Of course, if you are absolutely sure you want to do research as a career, then starting right off working towards a Ph.D. can save you a couple semesters in the long run, so that is always an option too.</p>

<p>As for the work experience, it is really kind of a mixed answer. If you really want to get a Ph.D., having (or not having) a B.S.-level internship is going to have very little effect over how marketable you are at the end of your doctorate. That is going to come down to what industry connections you have made and, similarly, who your advisor is. The hitch in the plan here is that if you stop at an M.S., not having any prior work experience may hold you back just a little, but it will still be a much smaller effect compared to if you were doing a job search with only a B.S.</p>

<p>Most of the time, advisors do not let you work at an internship over the summer as a graduate student **unless you are on the SMART fellowship or something similar that requires it, or if the internship directly aids your actual research project back at school. For example, my coworker is currently working an internship at NASA Langley because it directly relates to the work we do at our lab (in fact his boss originally ran our wind tunnel and he works with the guy who designed it). In other words, don’t expect to be interning anywhere while you are a graduate student.</p>

<p>As for pay, it varies quite a bit depending on your situation. I know that around here, the typical salary for a first year Ph.D. student with a research assistantship only is roughly $20k plus tuition. You can greatly increase that by competing for and winning fellowships up into the $35k-$40k range. Of course, if you went somewhere with a higher cost of living or where the department has more money, you may make a high salary, but it likely won’t be too much more. In general, graduate students make enough money to survive and to have a little bit of fun on the side, but not much more unless they have a fellowship or grant of some kind. Graduate students are basically a group of overworked, underpaid research employees who also happen to be taking a full course load at the same time. It is not an easy life, but if you decide to go that route and like the area you are studying, it can be very rewarding. I am stressed out beyond belief at times, and yet I love my program.</p>

<p>When to work is kind of a complicated issue. You could work right out of undergrad, but it is very common for people who do that, despite the best of intentions, to never go back to being a full-time student again. Once you start seeing that paycheck coming in regularly, it is hard to give it up to go back to school. Factor in that by the time you want to go back to school, you may have other concerns like a wife and/or kids, a house, and all the other things that require money as you get older. It just makes it difficult at times. There have been many people that intend to go back to school and then don’t because of situations like this. Of course, you could go straight to the M.S. program and then work when you are done, but you do run the same risk of just losing interest. Still, people do successfully take both of those routes, it just doesn’t always work out.</p>

<p>So basically, a lot rides on how sure you are that you want to do research as a career. For me, I was very sure. I loved it when I got my hands dirty as an undergrad, and I love it even more as a grad student.</p>

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<p>thanks guys for your elaborative answers…
Since, now I am feeling more contended and sure that I will pursue my M.S., I have one small query: Is one allowed to work after M.S. before coming back for PHD??</p>

<p>For this, I think I need to fully understand about what the difference between getting a M.S. before PHD and getting a PHD right away is. Is the understanding between the student and his/her advisor that they will stick together till PHD mean pursuing PHD right away? It’s in this case that one skips a year from the total study? But, don’t many universities prohibit students to apply for PHD without a masters, like MIT and Stanford? </p>

<p>The reason I am wondering about this is will your advisor, who you did click with during your M.S, allow you to come back to get your PHD after working for 2 years…or will you have to apply for PHD separately with the risk of not working with the same prof?
Thanks in advance, this will probably be my last query haha</p>

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<p>Certainly, though it isn’t extremely common. I do know a couple people who have left after getting an M.S. to work for a few years and then came back to do their Ph.D. a little bit later. It does happen, just not very often. I believe most people who do it are doing it to test the waters because they haven’t decided if they really want to get the Ph.D. or not. They aren’t doing just to get the experience.</p>

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<p>No one makes the assumption that you will be continuing on to get a Ph.D. when your M.S. is finished, especially since this doesn’t happen in the majority of cases. In general, if an advisor likes you and you aren’t already signed on for a Ph.D., he/she will probably make a strong push to get you to stay. I know many professors make jokes about how M.S. students leave just as they become useful, but it has some truth to it. Professors have a vested interest in trying to keep their good students around, and pretty much all of them will make some effort to convince their M.S. students to stay.</p>

<p>Usually people do stick with their same advisor for M.S. and Ph.D., but it isn’t unheard of if they switch. After all, peoples’ interests change. I know people who have switched advisors or even tweaked their major research area a little bit between M.S. and Ph.D.</p>

<p>Going straight for a Ph.D. could mean a few different things. Some universities require you to hold a M.S. before even attempting to become a Ph.D. candidate. This practice seems to be fading somewhat. Some will let you apply directly to the Ph.D. program if you are a strong enough candidate (or get into it after a semester or two on campus). In this case, you essentially start working towards a Ph.D. straight after undergrad. The way schools handle this varies. Some will give you a M.S. along the way when you have earned it, and some will just let you go straight to Ph.D. without bothering with the M.S. It just depends on the institution.</p>

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<p>In graduate school, professors have all the pull, at least when it comes to who they work with. If you leave and come back, as long as they want to work with you, they will. Basically, when you leave, just make sure you don’t burn any bridges and you will be fine.</p>