Grad school?
 

Hey everybody,

If you guys could spare me ten seconds or so, there is somewhat of a personal issue I'm facing now. I don't mean to be an attention whore, but I've given this a lot of thought and I figured other people might have experience in the matter.

I'm a junior right now in undergrad (BS in mechanical engineering) and looking to pursue graduate studies later. As an engineer I would be given a research assistanceship to support my living (and not have to pay tuition) and would offer enormous benefits in professional development further down the road. Right now I'm looking at a program in combustion and propulsion engineering (moreso directed towards aerospace applications) and there have been a few schools that reached the top of my list, two of which are in California (where I'd like to live later on): UC Berkeley and Stanford.

There are, of course, a few drawbacks to pursuing graduate studies. One of which, of course, is being prevented from getting into industry until later on when I'm not entirely sure that this is what I want to do for a living. And another, grad school isn't necessary at all for an engineering student and doesn't really accomplish much in the way of financial reimbursement (there's a $10,000 buffer between BS and MS degrees). I am, however, heavily interested in my field of choice and I'm not using this as a cop-out to stay in school (which is why I want to go somewhere west).

This issue presents all sorts of complex consequences from which my life will most certainly be affected. If anyone has any relevant advice for me I'd be really happy to hear it.

Thanks.

As I think I've mentioned to you before, my wife is an electrical engineer and through her I know quite a few professional engineers. My understanding is that, if you want to pursue a masters in that industry, you are better off getting a few years of experience working before you go for it. Not only will this help you get into a better graduate program but more often than not your employer will pay for your studies.

I don't need to worry about tuition. The assistanceship is integrated into the program so that the research I'm doing is applied to my studies.

I'm in a similar situation. I have a degree in genetics and have been considering graduate school. I went to Purdue, which is known for its engineering, and most of my friends that studied that went straight out to get a job. I think Janszoon is right about working a bit before heading to grad school. Not only will you be able to chip away at your student loan debt (assuming you have some), but you will be in a better situation to get the hell out if you decide you couldn't imagine doing that the rest of your life.

For me, I got kinda stuck...to make any real progress in science you kind of need grad school. But engineers do just fine with a BS.

It's a solid piece of advice, but my advisor told me that relatively few people who get work experience following college ever go back for their masters. And its definitely believable; once you get entrenched in work habits and lifestyles it becomes difficult to separate yourself from that and make the transition back to school. It took my dad ten years to get his masters after he left school for a while and his was an integrated BS/MS program.

I've decided already that I'm not going to try and work and go to school at the same time (which is usually the principal requirement for companies to pay for tuition). It's just...too much. Full time employment plus graduate studies would put my workload somewhere between 70 and 80 hours of shit a week.

Unfortunately advisors are not the most knowledgeable people about the working world though. This is just anecdotal evidence on my part, but I will say that all people I know who have gone to grad school have done so after working for a while. I literally don't know a single person who went directly from undergrad to grad.

I suppose so. That's when it gets to be financially available for a lot of people. I'll ask around but I don't think I've known any older graduate students during my time here.

I wonder what Tore's experience has been like so far...

This is an important point that shouldn't fall on the wayside. I am a computer engineering dropout, so I have a little insight into the matter :)...

I had multiple professors who said they got masters degrees before entering the industry, then had trouble finding work! Companies told them they were too qualified for any of the positions they were looking to fill. Getting a masters actually worked against them in this regard.

It is recommended that engineers get a few years of experience under their belt in the industry before going for a masters. It helps further your career, it helps you in your eventual masters program, and you can stock away some money to comfortably afford your school life. Plus, it you'll get a better picture of how you like the work before dedicating a few more years to studies- especially crucial if you're unsure if you want to do this stuff [my reason for leaving].

Berkeley is pretty cool. There are some seedy areas, and from what I understand the rent control makes finding a place pretty hard. Stanford is like it's own city, the campus absolutely blew me away. Both are great choices.

Thing about Stanford is they usually prune undergrad students to pursue doctoral studies (a further three years), which gets so insanely competitive it's almost useless to try.

Other good schools for my program of choice are UC Irvine and UC San Diego, both bucketloads of awesome. Getting away from the six months of winter we get here would be magical. There are some great schools in the east for mechanical engineering, just not my program of choice. Sadly I do not give two shits about robotics.

Move to New Zealand, I've heard they have been trying to get expats to move there. I may be wrong....

Haha, funny you said something about that. I actually looked at University of Auckland's program, it just isn't the same caliber as American schools. Or maybe they don't have the major industries that attract those jobs. Even so, engineers get compensated EXTREMELY well in New Zealand, presumably because they suffer from such a shortage of engineering programs -- a lot are Australian ex-pats. The jobs I saw were commanding salaries of about $120,000 NZD, pretty ample for even a mid-career professional.

Actually, I think Seltzer should know way more than I do about it.

Go with San Diego, you won't regret that. Lots of tools- bleach blond bimbos and ed hardy guys with tribal tat's and gelled spikes- but it's just such a nice place. If you're looking to get away from harsh winters, you will love it there.

Janszoon makes good points about how in the field of engineering, industry work before graduate school may be the norm and not having an M.S. may prevent you from being considered "overqualified," but after reading everything you wrote I would, if I were in your situation, go to grad school now while you can. Reasons:

(1) You are heavily interested in your field, so you would probably love graduate school.

(2) It sounds like your graduate programs of choice would actually pay you. Since I've seen the volatile funding climate first hand, when I see money available for a student, I say go for it while it is there. You could see if the program allows you to apply, get accepted, and defer for one year to do an internship in industry before beginning grad school.

(3) Like you say, you are in a life position right now to handle the time commitment of graduate school (contrasted with your dad's situation). If engineering is anything like molecular biology, while I was getting my masters the work ruled my life: experiments sometimes get done at odd hours, for example. I have many memories of 3 a.m. experiments because there was no way to time them into daylight hours. As I get older, staying up later and sacrificing my life and time for something that is uncomfortable for me to do becomes much harder.

Plus, if you get married and have a child, going back to school becomes *very* difficult.

(4) Are industry jobs that would consider someone who has an M.S. overqualified actually jobs you'd want to do for your career, anyway? (I know when it comes to getting a job, getting *any* job can be the main priority, but still, it is nice to find work you actually like.)

A good Masters program should give you hands-on experience as well as theoretical knowledge, so hopefully industry appreciates people with an M.S...though industry probably just tries to get workers for as little of money as possible, and plans to teach them what they need to know on the job.

(5) Even if you do your M.S. and find you don't want to do engineering for a living, at least you'll have the M.S. and will have enjoyed yourself getting it. If you work for 3 years instead, and find out you don't like engineering as a career, then you'll be back to square one, facing grad school decisions...or perhaps being in a situation where going back to grad school would be difficult.

i went straight from BA to MA to PhD. but i did anthropology which was quite easy. now i'm $45,000 in debt and have nothing to show for it but a Dr. in front of my name. ugh.

science/engineering is the way to go though. they pay you to go to school instead of the other way around. my brother is doing PhD in biochem at Yale right now, and his monthly stipend is more than my monthly salary. ugh.

If you can get into the program you want in either of these schools then do it. I can't imagine the drawbacks outweighing the rewards.

I'm a civil, and all of the engineers that I worked with on my two internships say that getting work experience is way more important than grad school. They all told me to get right to work at the company (they offered me a job) once I'm done (Junior right now as well, btw) and take night classes when I want to start pursuing grad school.

Oh I'm not that smart. Just really hopeful. :D

Actually I have a fairly decent chance to get into Georgia Tech's program which is just about as prestigious as the others I mentioned. My dad's a legacy and they have a working relationship with graduates from my university.

Sorry about the late reply - I temporarily went AWOL.

Personally, I'm dissuaded from doing postgrad for a few reasons, one of them being that it can actually be detrimental and count against you in the eyes of employers (in computer science / software engineering) as PhD students entrenched in academia tend to be smart (but not always based on my experiences) and good in their areas but often devoid of practicality. So unless an ardent passion to work in a particular field is ignited within me, I probably won't do postgrad (still have this year to decide).

I think you have a good case for doing postgrad given your specialised interests. In which case, I'd advise that you don't start work with the intention of later returning to uni.


Judging from this, it seems that UoA ranks around the #50 mark for engineering which isn't bad but they simply don't have the resources to compete with the top tier British/American universities. Besides, I don't think the mech eng dept offers much in the way of aerospace engineering.

As far as I know, the average engineering salary here is lower than that of Australia/UK/USA despite the massive demand for engineers which results from brain drain. I haven't checked any figures in a while though.

in my experience, experience is better than going for the grad degree out of the gate. I work with so many people at my job who can't make decent hires, that can't delegate correctly, have any useful skills, and put too much effort into minor details and not any long-term goals.

I'm a big proponent of education, but its almost impossible to have something better than experience. I'd suggest getting into the worforce (which may give you money for the degree) get some years under your belt, at least 2, and then make your move.

I was thinking of going to grad school but I've changed by career path three times since I left college.

Hi, I don't know you at all, but I thought I'd toss my two cents in.
I'm a junior as well and I've had similar debates. You really have a tough decisions ahead of you -- but you know that.
Well, my brother studied engineering. He was at WPI. He got some great fellowship and started this year as a TA but ended up dropping out. Now he's working as an engineer for some company. Everyone I know thinks he is crazy for quitting school.
Personally, I think of all the things you could go on to graduate school for, engineering is probably the most logical just because you'll make the money back quickly.
So, if I were you, I'd just do it. Waiting out the recession in grad school is the thing to do right now it seems.
Hope something I said was helpful. Good luck with your decision!

Didn't I just read that you make about 30K/year? While that may sound attractive to a student - it's hardly a good argument for experience over education. Regardless, you must know that being 'in the workforce' totally sucks right now.
I'm also a huge proponent of education and I while I believe your general (statistical) assesment of education vs. experience is true - a savvy individual can get an early higher ed. and use it to their financial advantage later instead of becoming a 'useless' academic whose ego forces them to become too involved in minor details. I personally prefer useless academics who pursue their personal interests but that's not the point. The reality is that in the long run - credentials = $$ if you play them right

My Masters is in physical therapy.

I worked for 3 years before getting into Masters program/ after Bachelor, but not by choice, it just took that long to get in. I was lucky enough not to incur a wife, baby, or house in that time that would have changed my ideas about going to school 3 1/2 more years.

"Berzerkeley" is very near the Oakland ghetto, smack in the middle of the East Bay Area. Nothing is cheap or convenient. The campus is on city streets. Depends on what you're into.

Stanford is very near East Palo Alto, also pretty rough. However the north Peninsula in general is more savory than the East Bay. Oakland, Vallejo, etc are just rough towns. I'm sure Stanford takes care of their own, though. I would bet you will meet people that know about jobs there.

If I had a choice of all those places, I would easily go to San Diego. San Diego has gerat weather all year. People can be superficial, but who cares about those people, meet better freinds. Mexico is close, you have from the hippy end Ocean Beach to Mission Beach to more uppity Pacific Beach to rich La Joya. Again, whatever you're into. There are several colleges, lots of young and old people. You will probably get a keen appreciation for Mexican food, if you don't have it already. San Diego has a big military influence also, so a large international flavor.

The hottest women you have ever seen are just walking around on the beach like nothing, and since there are so many, they don't think they're that hot. You can find somewhat affordable housing at Linda Vista area, by sea world.

You will not see the hottest women in the world walking around in basically their underwear in Berkeley. You will mostly see half shaved head-other half died pink lesbians bitching about the man and picketing something or other, sitting beside you on the bus acting like you're taking up more of the seat than you should.

In Stanford, its coastal weather, but much chillier than San Diego, and maybe more expensive. The women will be covering up with sweaters. Thats not necessarily bad, but I wouldn't want my car to break down in the Bay Area.

If you love the material, I absolutely urge you to get a masters. In most fields, a bachelor is about studying what people have come up with and outlined already. A Masters is mostly about taking what is known and the basic principles, and learning about something that ISNT really known yet. So you get to shape what you aer learning and decide what you want to study.

Thanks for the background, but that doesn't help me whatsoever. I'm interested in Berkeley because it has the best program in the world for my field of choice. Last year they accepted 44 candidates for graduate mechanical engineering studies out of a pool of 893 applicants, most of which had GPAs over 3.70. It's definitely a stretch school for me, even if I had the grades for it I probably wouldn't get in.

What I'm really concerned about is the strength of the school's program, if it means making better contacts in the industry I'll go somewhere that I have a decent chance getting into rather than somewhere that has nice weather.

that sounded very... pompous.

to be perfectly frank, if you're serious about finding the best program in the world for your field of choice, then you can probably find a more appropriate place to ask than a forum full of burnouts and rockers...

in fact, if you truly are PhD material, you should be able to do a bit of research and find the answer for yourself :D

i know i'm being an ass, but MAStudent was only trying to help, and you should be more grateful.

Touche.

Wages here are not as well paid as Aussie though. I recommend getting more experience and getting work to pay for tuition as someone else recommended. I'm doing post grad study now and if I own my post graduate diploma I can get straight into a PhD.