Graduate Training Scheme or Graduate School PHD?

Question

I'm at a crossroads. I'm not to far away from graduating with a 1st class BSc degree with honours in computer science. I basically have two options, I could go into a graduate training scheme at somewhere like Accenture or Microsoft etc etc or I can stay at University and study for a (very expensive) PHD.

Any thoughts?

edit: If a University is getting funding to do research would any part of the said funding be used to pay for the student/me to do the research or would I have pay myself. Looks to cost around £8000 - £10000 per year for PHD. I don't see how anyone could afford that for 3 years straight out of an undergraduate degree.

Answer 1

The Ph.D. program is mainly intended for scientific research. If you plan to pursue an academic career, that is your default option. But if you plan to work for a company, the Ph.D. could be a waste of time. Could be. In that case, anyway, I would opt for another choice.

Answer 2

It really depends on what you want to do with your life. If you like school, you should stay there. Corporate life is really different, and it will be a bit of a shock at first. Most PhD careers are teaching and research. There are exceptions to this, but that is a major path for most people choosing that route.

There are advantages to leaving school, pay will be higher (at least compared to graduate school), and you won't be studying all the time. On the flip side, you'll have deadlines that can be arbitrary and business politics.

Having been out in the real world for a while, if I had to do it again, I would probably pick graduate school. Having a good job is great in all, but eventually you'll realize that a lot of what you do at different places will be variations on a theme. At times the work will be fun and really challenging, but if you aren't working at a place like Google, Microsoft, Apple, or a place like Fog Creek, the work will get repetitive.

Here's the other thing to think about. At least in the US we are in the middle of a major recession, which could potentially get worse. Getting into grad school can somewhat insulate you from this. They have grants, loans, TA and research work. It's not a ton of money, but normally it is enough to live off of, and you get to stay in college.

Answer 3

Get a Ph.D. if that's something you really want to do regardless of economic consequences. Decide what's important to you - money, type of work, where you'll work, etc.

It helps if somebody else is paying for it. I was lucky - I had the support of my employers.

Mine's in mechanical engineering, not computer science. I had a 16 year career doing that, including time as adjunct faculty, before switching to computer science. There's no law that says a doctorate means an academic career. My adjunct time was my only exposure to teaching. Tenured jobs aren't easy to get. I know of lots of guys who have Ph.D.s and work in industry, but all of them are mechanical engineers like me.

I find that BS and MS computer science degrees are rarities.

I work with a guy now who has two Ph.D.s from Yale. One's in biochemistry; not sure about the other. He does data mining work with Oracle. Very smart.

One benefit of getting it is that you'll never have to wonder if you could.

Decide what's important to you. Do what you can afford.

Answer 4

One other bit of advice I'll offer: Don't go to work in a corporate IT department if you can avoid it. I think corporations have decided that they hate IT, because they perceive it as a cost sink that doesn't deliver value. That's why the fashion is to outsource to companies like Accenture or IBM for build or buy from Microsoft, IBM, etc.

I don't know if the pendulum will ever swing back, but you're better off performing an activity that generates invoices for your employer. The stronger the correlation between your actions and the economic health of your employer, the better off you are. Your job is never in jeopardy as long as you can demonstrate that money you bring in is greater than what you're paid.

Another thought is to be more entrepreneurial. Why not start your own business?

Answer 5

Andrew, I don't know how things are in the UK, but I can tell you that in the US, hardly anyone pays for their PhDs in Computer Science. In fact, you get tuition waived and a stipend from the school in the better schools.

Unless you want to be a professor and do acdeamic research, or to work as a research-only researcher for a research lab, a PhD is very likely not what you need. In fact, it's poisonous for getting development jobs afterwards.

You may want to consider doing a master's degree in the field. If you do research and love it, reconsider the PhD. Otherwise, you have a good degree that you didn't spend too much time on that will help you break some glass ceilings.

Also, you may want (if you do care about research) work as a developer for a research lab. Often you get to publish papers without the PhD, and still build your development skills.