#Grad school for CS?

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

void current
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I've heard a lot of different answers to this question, so I wanted to see what the overall consensus is here. I've had a couple employers tell me having a grad degree doesn't make much of a difference when job searching in these times especially for solo work, so I've been on the fence about it for a while. Should I go into grad school/why/why not? Which cs topics/focuses would require/need me to go into grad school if I wanted to do them as a career versus which ones would not?

deep bobcat
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@winter sentinel May have some good wisdom for this

rigid scaffold
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It depends on what your career goals are, so in that vein, what are your goals

void current
rigid scaffold
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Here's a good rule of thumb, if you want to do research do grad school, if you don't want to research don't do grad school

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Don't do grad school in the hopes of better jobs or more money

void current
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I've got 2ish years to fully decide but I wanted to see if I should take any grad classes in my undergrad early

rigid scaffold
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Grad school is not needed for a CS career

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It is needed to do research

south patrol
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well, I will say I did a masters and did no research, non-thesis track. It let me start at a level or two more senior that others on my team that started at the same time who have BS's

frigid junco
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Whatever trash entry level job/internship you take right of college will eventually come off your resume

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Your education will always be there and factor into you being hired

rigid scaffold
willow parrot
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my opinion? do it if you like learning and want to get some extra brownie points on your resume. clemson also makes it easy with the BS to MS program, which i took advantage of.

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of course, those brownie points come with a hefty price tag in form of tuition, so please do consider your financial situation

winter sentinel
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Yeah master's students at SoC will have a tough time getting funding their first year. PhD students will have an easier time getting funding early on, but you usually need to have some kind of idea of what you want to do research-wise.

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You lose stuff like state scholarships once you get your undergrad degree. The funding at grad level usually comes from assistantships and grants. If you get an assistantship or fellowship, your tuition is waived, though they add a fee plus you have to have insurance which the school provides if you don't otherwise have any. Without the fee for insurance I pay ~$1000 I think.

At SoC, you can get a teaching assistantship which means you are a graduate TA, which means you either lead labs or perhaps do grading for a class that doesn't have labs. A research assistantship means you're doing research with someone ( usually your advisor). Fellowships can come from grants and whatnot. But master's students are basically at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to consideration for stuff like teaching assistantships, sadly. And if you're not doing the research route then you ofc aren't gonna get the research related funding.

latent snow
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And like John said , there are times where a masters can just push you forward a promotion or two with less time investment (4+1)

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if you know what kind of job you want (or what companies you want to work for), go look at their postings and see what they qualifications they ask for. job reqs are more of a suggestion, but at degree level it can mean you get filtered out by HR unless you know someone at the company.

marble torrent
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One other thing I haven't seen brought up here is the GPA issue. If you have a 4.0 when you graduate, that's a huge deal for getting a job (or so I've heard), and if you go to grad school that benefit flies out the window unless you also get a 4.0 there, which I've heard is substantially harder

deep bobcat
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See ive heard also that the GPA doesnt really matter lol

marble torrent
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I think it matters more for getting interviews than it does for getting jobs if that makes sense? Like once you have the interview yeah but if a company is just running resume's through an alg, a high gpa is probably something it likes

deep bobcat
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True

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it probably also depends on the recruiter

marble torrent
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but yeah who fuckin knows. the only thing I've heard universally is that projects are the #1 thing

deep bobcat
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ive heard a couple recruiters say they dont really pay much attention to GPA

latent snow
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I respect a 4.0 and it can show a degree of diligence and staying on task, but it's just one of many possibilities on your resume. Experience outside of school can bridge a few decimal points.

You shouldn't be looking at the same jobs when you have a masters. An advantage in one job doesn't matter if your goal is a different job.

If you got a 4.0 in undergrad then just keep it up an extra year or two for your masters yep

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I would also generally encourage people to favor their in-major GPA on their resume if their GPA is brought down by non-major classes

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Just as an aside

frigid junco
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I also think that projects and work experience would probably matter a lot more to getting hired, anyway.

void current
south patrol
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I've been working on hiring for a position on my team and I do look at the GPA, but it really only changes my decision if it is abominably low. I'm much more interested in projects, career experience (even if it is not CS, just showing commitment and soft skills), and range of skills.

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and yeah, a 4.0 looks impressive, but if you spent 100% of your time working toward that 4.0 and did nothing else with your time, you are likely not going to be a "well rounded" employee (even though I hate the term "well rounded", it really is apparent the people who know nothing outside of their book knowledge and have very few soft skills)

quaint badger
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My take on grad school for someone interested in just general software dev is to do an online school if you want the resume brownie points

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I wouldnt do a full time in person grad school unless you were interested in research/academia

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GT has a part time, very cheap online MS program

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$800 a class, 10 classes for a masters degree from a T10 school is a steal

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and allegedly its pretty easy to get into, AR is like 48%

frigid junco
latent snow
latent snow
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i guess i should clarify that the reason i disagree is that doing a masters in cs now generally doesn't involve any direct research; it's more shaped like a continuation of undergrad with "more advanced" topics and possibly touching some research, but only by consumption, e.g. awareness of new/upcoming technology as well as evaluation of the history of a technology's development.

you don't really have to search too hard to find jobs where masters qualifications are preferred. The "or phd" portion is actually more about phd recipients that want to transition away from research.

mastersgoogle.PNG
south patrol
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I did the non-thesis masters and it is the reason I have my current job and salary. I graduated Dec 2021

latent snow
vernal vale
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I was told a MBA was more valuable than a masters in CS for career development during my internship

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if you're wanting to go into upper management down the road*

latent snow
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as always it depends on your long-term career goals. MBAs managing CS majors is an old-school concept but it still exists at some companies, particularly in non-software industries. That kind of position doesn't even exist at companies like Google, where even the VPs are CS. But I also know VPs at bank of america who were (1) pure CS, (2) didn't have a masters, (3) still wrote code in addition to their management responsibilities. Your experience may vary.

vernal vale
latent snow
# vernal vale Well they meant CS undergrad and MBA, and that company is going to be part of go...

I said your experience may vary PES2_Shrug The west-coast style software shops tore down a lot of the old office structures. That doesn't mean it's universal, even within a single (very large) company. When you interview for a non-junior software/tech role at google (cloud, search, sinfra, guess I don't know about other parts), they tell you about the promotion track and that's the hierarchy I described.

frigid junco