Masters Degree with Experience. Would you hire me with a postgrad degree?

Question

I'm looking to see how detrimental a postgrad degree can be to future career options. Sorry for the long read:

I'm currently in the final year of my undergrad computer science degree. I've done one year in industry at one of the worlds most well known technology consultancies as part of an Industrial placement scheme while from University (salaried) as a software engineer. At the moment I'm working as a full time web applications developer (mainly C#.net MVC) and finishing my degree at the same time (mainly A's, a few B's)

I've saved alot of money and now I'm thinking about doing a masters in data mining algorithms. I'll have to take another year at University to do this and won't be able to work while I'm doing it (it's very intense).

I know there is a lot of bad feeling around here towards advanced/postgraduate degrees, if I was to finish the masters and want to go back into general software engineering as appose to something specific to do with my masters, would I be at a disadvantage because of the postgrad degree even though I have two full salaried years of development experience?

---

Note:

Most of the comments include links to other points (at time of writing) it appears none of these posts really cover my situation > postgrad with experience fresh out of school in mid-twenties. Most of them cover older people, or people with no experience.

Answer 1

This might have some answers for you: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/52254/should-developers-go-to-grad-school

Answer 2

Personally, I think the Master's would add a lot of value. Not so much a PhD. Generally the difference is that the Master's involves a lot of coursework that would be beneficial whereas the PhD takes that coursework and reorients it towards doing research. The "bad feelings" towards advanced degrees really stems from the penchant for some PhDs to be overly concerned with the theoretical aspects of the work rather than on getting it done. Especially if you are looking at a field where there is a premium on the latest algorithms and techniques, you might want to consider the education route. My personal feeling is that a MS and internship experience is probably better than a BS and a single year's experience. The MS demonstrates that you have the capacity to take on advanced topics which, in my mind, more than offsets the single year's experience.

Full disclosure: I have a Master of Computer Science degree and work for a University.

Answer 3

I would recommend pursuing a Master's degree, especially in a topic that you are interested in and related to your career. It is rewarding and useful, especially after you have some work experience. I can't imagine having a Master's degree would put you at a disadvantage.

However, it may be worth understanding where the 'bad feelings' come from toward those with advanced degrees.

• Many people that pursue advanced degrees (and in academia) are very smart, but don't have the practical 'get it done' attitude. Often times they prefer the theoretical -- which is why they are attracted to academia. This doesn't mix well with the practical realities of the business world. One of my favorite quotes is 'In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they are not'.

• An advanced degree is not a substitute for experience. The degree may provide more knowledge and 'tools in your toolbox', but experience helps a person to exercise good judgement and know when to apply those tools or how to balance trade-offs. Those believing that a degree is a substitute for experience may not be well received.

• A very few people may be elitist because of their degree. It goes without saying, but a piece of paper does not make a person better at their job. It really shouldn't even be relevant when working with a team. It is how the knowledge is applied that makes a difference. Unfortunately, this also happens with undergraduate degrees based on the name of the school.

I believe most of the 'bad feelings' towards people with advanced degrees are due to personality traits of those people which may develop into stereotypes based on patterns in some organizations. It certainly isn't the caused by the degree itself.

Answer 4

I'd certainly employ you, if you were the right person for the job, now as you're looking to specialise in data mining, that's a pretty narrow field, but if that's the career you want great. For a general software engineering role I think the Msc would neither beneficial or detrimental, at least I hope that most employers would think that. My reasoning, as a potential employer goes something like this :-

1) Does this person meet our base requirements, and how does the CV read.

2) He's done an MSc straight from undergrad - hmm, so he's a specialist would he be bored here.

3) Has MSc, should be a cluely individual

4) Do we need depth in Data Mining - could be good for targetted sales/marketing/analysis

5) Let's get him in for interview and see what he's like

I'm also wondering about timing, I think an MSc taken later in your career is likely to be of more benefit to you, not your employment prospects. Once you've been in industry for a few years you'll have a much better idea of where you want your career to go. You may find that IT just doesn't suit for instance. OTOH, jobs are scarce these days, and staying in academia for another 12 months puts off the pain of the job hunt. OTOH, is the job market going to be any better, in 12 months? As you see there are few straight answers, just shades of opinion.

BTW does an MSc in data mining get into the sensational marketing that Amazon manages? If so where's the course?

Answer 5

I got hired right out of grad school with a non comp sci ph.d. to do programming, and it didn't hurt me at all. I had recruiters calling me and a really great company found my resume online and hired me 3 hours after the interview. I don't know how a master's in comp sci matches, but my personal experience was that it was a huge leg up on other applicants. I don't think it hurts at all, and probably helps you stand out quite a bit.

Answer 6

There are some obvious pros and cons that I notice when talking with PhD+ candidates:

Pros:

• Generally interested in precision and correctness, as opposed to just hacking through a toothpicks-and-straws solution.

Cons:

• Resume is way too long. Grad students get used to writing C.V.s and expect recruiters to wade through 4 pages of crap to find a few salient sentences. This probably shouldn't be a con, but the reality is that it is, because recruiters for the best jobs often have to wade through tons of resumes.
• CS Researchers generally have the luxury of defining the exact problem they can solve, and providing an optimal solution. In the workplace, the exact problem is provided by the existing environment, and optimal solutions don't exist. This can actually hurt someone's ability to do problem-solving on the job, because the constraints are so different.

Personally, I've made a conscious effort to avoid generalization during the interview process, but I have encountered people who simply weren't interested in anyone who "spent too much time in school". However, that's not to say that you shouldn't get a higher degree. If you want to work in industry after college, make sure you work in industry in parallel with your degree (co-ops, internships, years off, etc). Anyone who can demonstrate both rigor and pragmatism is the best of both worlds.

Answer 7

It will totally depend on the employer. Big corporates may like people to have more degrees while smaller places may like to have people they see as self learners with less degrees. There are so many variables on gaining employment, like the elusive cultural fit, to timing, you could be the right person with the right skills at the right time.

If you are worried I would suggest emailing / calling some companies you would like to work at and ask them. You will probably get mixed answers.

At the end of the day I think it comes down to what you want to do. If this masters is something you are keen, on then do it! :)

Answer 8

For me personally the answer would be yes for the following reason...

If you received your masters degree in computer science you are exposed to a much broader range of things to learn, such as compilers, theory and most likely other languages that are quite different (non procedural) than what is taught in undergrad (like prologue which is a rules based languate).

Note, while I personally do not have an advanced degree, my right hand man does. His knowledge of software development sky rocketed after receiving his degree and again, I think it is mostly due to the fact you learn so many different things while working towards your postgrad degree.

Of course you would still have to be a good/qualified candidate. Having a post/grad degree would not automatically get you a job. However, I personally think it could be an advantage.

P.S. I also agree with all the g. said above about there being (general) 'bad feelings' towards those with graduate degrees.

Answer 9

Go as far as you can because it will be nearly impossible to return to Academia when you start making money and have a mortgage, car payments and all the trappings of a solvent individual.

Jr. College = you are poor College = you are really poor University = you live in poverty

With this handy little legend you can see that life in academia = (you are not rich) so stay as long as you can because being poor is no fun and once you break free from it you won't want to return.

PhD or Masters level will give you an edge, but you should co-op to gain experience during your entire career as an impoverished student so you aren't wet behind the ears on your first day of "paid work".

Anybody who pokes fun at a PhD or Masters and tells you it's a waste of time probably doesn't have the insight gained through postgrad education that makes it so clear why this is a necessary and worthwhile endeavor.

Applied mathematics is a most demanding rigor and the more you learn, the higher you will ascend in the field of Computer Science.

Answer 10

I have two fellows who decided to do PhDs after obtaining master. One of them is okay, but the other guy is too much in conferencing/ writing papers, saying things like "maybe what we do will change the world" etc.

Once we had a project together and it was a constant pain him trying to make a "one-true-architecture", complaining about wrong ways to do it etc. instead of just doing it simply and quickly (even with quality, why actually not?).

At some time we were all enlisted in a course which required writing a small program to break encryptions (some security course). Their group was doing it "the right way" which took quite long.

Some other fellow (very practically-oriented) just used kind of a brute-force implementation which provided the results the first. He said then: "Crude or not, doesn't matter, if we were in a battle, your submarine would already have sunk".

I really like remembering that experience. :)

Answer 11

MY experience with hiring would be that for the specialist data mining position you would be way ahead of the competition without the degree, but for the generalist position, most hiring managers might consider the guy with two years experience and a BS to be a less expensive asset than the guy with two years experience and a Masters which would give the guy with the BS the edge (all other things being equal and no particular interest in data mining onthe part of the company). This is especially true at small companies that are not software houses. Large corporations would be more likely to see the more expensive person as a more valuable as well. They are also the companies that tend to be more likely to hire specialists. So the real answer is yes you might be less likely to get some jobs but they are probably the jobs you would be least interested in anyway.

Answer 12

If it really is hte area you are interested in then go for it. I'd lean more towards a institute with excellent research reputation. It will open numerous doors in that specific area.

So a search company would love you. Accenture wouldn't care.

Answer 13

The Masters degree itself seems to not hurt things for the most part. At bigger companies where they aren't pinching a penny so much, a Masters can only help you to look better. It's not a real game changer. It does let you start out at a higher salary sometimes. They may also see you as more highly skilled for it (the bigger the company the more weight degrees/certifications can have, while smaller ones are more like show me what you got). This might help getting past HR for an initial interview as well (again the bigger the company the larger the HR hurdles to go through...). But mostly you aren't treated much different from a Bachelors. A fair amount of Data Architects/Software Architects have Masters degrees as well (but there are many without one too..).

It might be a double edged sword in a bad economy. Since you have a Masters, no doubt you expect a higher salary than a guy with a Bachelors degree. This is not lost on employers, particularly a start up where every penny counts. If you have a choice between two equally good candidates, are tight on a budget, and one has a M.S. and another has a B.S., who could you pay less... This could go either way because they may also see hiring as investing in a person and think you could go farther with the M.S..... It's a small risk, but it's there....

The bigger danger is you becoming discouraged by not using your masters degree at work. Most business jobs I have seen use basic programming skills (could be learned from teach yourself programming in 21 days, etc...) and high school algebra for the most part. Even an undergrad education is overkill... There are exceptions, but hooking the average business app to a web interface and database doesn't require that much. You mentioned data mining, so I suspect you will want a job that uses it. And while more companies are using it, the majority seem not to be at the data mining level yet and still stuck on the analytic report level....

Also most of the concerns about being overqualified, etc. seem to apply to the PhD. There they will discriminate against you. Heck even my own co-worker who is working on his said he wouldn't hire a PhD. Basically the Masters is considered the final level of degree for professionals. And the PhD is a degree for researchers.

So to summarize I don't think that a Masters degree puts you at a disadvantage. Also when I looked at the jobs when I was hunting, I noticed a lot of Bachelors + 5 years or Masters + 1 year experience jobs. I suspect even the ones that are just Bachelors + 5 years would be willing to drop some years of experience if you have a Masters. Then there are very few jobs which say M.S./PHD. preferred (here without the Masters you are not even in the running...). From a number of jobs perspective, it seems like the Masters can maximize the possibilities.