<p>If a genie were to grant you one of the following, which would you rather have and why: a PE license or a Masters? </p>
<p>Let's pretend you earned them too and gained the all knowledge required to have them.</p>
<p>Also, please state your major!</p>
<p>This could be interesting.....</p>
<p>Depends on your major.
Both, where I live a masters count towards some of your PE experience.</p>
<p>Electrical Engineering: Masters over PE any day of the week. First, I already have the masters. Second, of the thousand or so engineers in my company I could count the number of PE’s on one hand, making getting your PE quite a challenge with minimal reward!</p>
<p>Hands down the masters, unless you happen to plan on one of the few careers that require a PE.</p>
<p>I have an MS in EE. In more than 20 years as an engineer, I can only think of one person I’ve worked with who had a PE, and I don’t think he got any particular value of it. (There might well have been others with a PE, but it never came up in conversation.) I very rarely see a PE listed on a resume, and don’t consider it of the slightest bit of importance when hiring. An MS on the other hand, is given quite a lot of consideration in hiring.</p>
<p>There’s no reason they should be mutually exclusive, but a PE is typically only useful when designing buildings and infrastructure. That would include the electrical and mechanical systems for those as well.</p>