A career question
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a.1)Having a master degree.(2 years) a.2)Working and gaining experience on the field rather than master.(2 years) a.3)Try to do both. b.1)Having a doctorate degree.(+5 years) b.2)Working and gaining experience on the field.(+5 years) b.3)Try to do both. Which way is the right way? Of course there is no direct right way but I would be happy if pros and cons are provided also.
Depends on what kind of job you're after. If you want one where you are expected to do original work (ie. invent new technologies), then a doctorate or prior work experience doing just that is important. It is really difficult to get anyone to give you a chance to do that unless you have the doctorate degree, especially in large companies. Small companies will give you the chance, but you won't get an official title and larger companies will usually derate the experience (kinda stupid, but true). If all you want is a good paying job designing and implementing apps, then the doctorate is overkill and prior experience is more important. Doesn't hurt, and can tip the candidate selection in your favor, but it isn't _required_. In large companies, more education will be more important to get any job, but it doesn't replace experience in desired technologies. Academia jobs? They're all about education, so what do you think?
patbob
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I am not interested in how for long someone has worked or what their paper qualifications are. I want to find out how good they are at what I need them to do. Neither of work experience or qualifications are more than rough indicators of this. One needs to find out the quality of the work experience and this is not found from what the candidate inflates into a CV, but only by speaking with a number of their colleagues in their previous employments, which is not practical. Grades from qualifications tell you that the candidate was able to work out what they were likely to be asked in an exam and retain the answers over a short period of time long enough to get them on paper. A PhD does not fit this model, but shows a specialised analysis and logic with the ability to write a coherent report. Unfortunately many do not have a realistic view of life or the necessities of commerce where 'good enough' is often more desirable than 'perfection'. There is no good way to find out except to employ them and watch. However, with experience a full interview can fairly reliably pick out those that are bluffing their way through life. We, at Ischus, are interested in candidate's ability to think and to find solutions within the domain of program design and writing applied to engineering problems and so a background and interest in these is necessary. Lamentably however we find many 'qualified' applicants do not have an interest in either although they have made one or the other their career choice. Martin Wells (for clarification: I have a degree in Physics) Managing Director Ischus Limited (in the UK)
Martin - what you state rings so true! It's nice to see reason espoused. My own opinions stem from a bias accumulated over 30 years doing s/w development. I often have had to work with other programmers that held the title but probably shouldn't have, sort of like they were a square peg trying to fit in a round hole - they just didn't think the right way. But they had the paper... As for myself, I do have a BSCS and in at least one place I tried to get into 25 years ago that wasn't enough. It was Hewlett-Packard and they wouldn't even interview me because I didn't have an MS. The funny thing is that I ended up working for an outfit that was doing graphics standards s/w and we had to port it to run on an HP graphics card. In my role as lead for the work I had to fly out to an HP facility to work with their engineers on problems that were being found. In the end I was able to demonstrate to them that they had problems in the ASICs on their card. As a result, the manager of the group came to me and asked me what it would take to have me sign on with them! :-) (note: I did not end up going over to work for them)
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John C wrote:
I am so opposite: when I'm told I *have* to learn anything I'll learn what I have to and remember it for exactly as long as I need to and not a second beyond, I had no problem passing tests all my life but it's in one ear and out the other as quickly as possible.
Oh, don't get me wrong; there are classes I've had to take in my past that I was more or less the same about. I think that's true for everyone. If you don't see a personal benefit in remembering something you're forced to learn, it's very easy to quickly memorize only what you need, and not really learn it so it becomes part of your long-term memory. However, I would like to say I've spent enough time in the real world to see the personal benefit for most things I'm learning these days. I hope so, anyway!
On the other hand if I'm interested in something on my own I'll learn about it exhaustively, every last detail until there's no scrap of information left and will generally retain most of it that is in any way interesting.
If it's something I find fascinating, I agree. But what about the stuff that isn't so fascinating, necessarily, but it is useful if you would only learn it? That's more the stuff I'm talking about here. I am interested, but not fascinated to the point of being driven to spend that precious resource I have so little of to focus on it without some prodding. It's bad, I know - it shows my lack of self-discipline! But at least I do recognize the quality in myself!
Formalized education and myself are like fire and water.
I have a number of friends and colleagues who are the same (including my husband, really!). And that's absolutely fine; it's not like you are stubbornly refusing to learn, after all, and neither are they. You just know yourself well enough to know that your learning style is not suited to traditional constraints of many schools. I'd say it's good to know yourself that well!
Caffeine - it's what's for breakfast! (and lunch, and dinner, and...)
ResidentGeek wrote:
I have a number of friends and colleagues who are the same (including my husband, really!). And that's absolutely fine; it's not like you are stubbornly refusing to learn, after all, and neither are they. You just know yourself well enough to know that your learning style is not suited to traditional constraints of many schools. I'd say it's good to know yourself that well!
Maybe it's like the difference between read-the-manuals people and those that experiment until they figure out how it works. For my software I always encourage people to read the manuals but I never or at least very rarely would if it was me. We know so many do not read the manuals that we have a lot of the same information in FAQ's on our site and in videos showing how to do common tasks. Next up cartoons? (I seriously considered that more than once). My wife is a read the manual person and I'm not, she was a valedictorian and has a university degree, I don't. Tells you right there I guess. :)
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
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I don't have a degree and I haven't had any problem finding work - but I was lucky enough to get experience right at the start of the big boom in the computer fields, when there were far too few people with degrees to fill all the positions everyone was trying to fill. I have no problems getting gigs without that degree. However, I'm working on my BS in IT right now, and I plan to go on to take an MBA with an IT Management specialization as soon as I'm through. Why? Because I've come to a point where I realize I want positions that are more focused on project management, and a lot of THOSE positions are actually shopping for people with degrees. Plus, while I've done a lot of hands-on, down and dirty learning over the years, I know that I've also done *targeted* learning. By that I mean that I've focused on the stuff I really needed to know at the time, and on practical application, without really taking much time to study the big picture or to understand the theory thoroughly. By taking courses, I'm getting a chance to gain that broader stroke of knowledege, and indulge my love of learning. Ph.D.? Nah, highly unlikely for me! I'd be more likely to go back and get another masters in something else than to torture myself with a doctorate program! Plus, as many others have said, a doctorate tends to make you either over-qualified or look too much like an academic (I know, it's silly - if you still have tons of experience on the resume that show you have real-world applied skills, it shouldn't matter, but still....)
Caffeine - it's what's for breakfast! (and lunch, and dinner, and...)
I support your idea to go from a Bachelor's in IT to a Masters in Business Administration: that's what I'm doing, too. I noticed that, rather than technical people, more of the high-paying jobs are going to those perceived as business people with technical know-how. So, I figured I'd get my Bachelors in IT, with Business Administration as the minor. Then, my Master's in Business Administration, with Technology Management as the focus. You might be interested in one other thing. I personally know some top IT guys in a few major companies. My friend, Harold, supervises the 800-strong IT team at FedEx that keeps track of stray inventory. He's a technical guy that became adept at business, working his way up. I told him about my idea to mix IT and Business degrees, and asked for his opinion. He not only thought it could help, but said one of the top people at FedEx did that: a woman who went from B.It. to M.B.A. (accounting, in her case), and got a near-senior management position quicker than any credentialed person before her. She attributes her choice of degree programs as getting her foot in that particular door. So, maybe we are on the right track. Best of luck to both of us, huh!? :-D
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Martin - what you state rings so true! It's nice to see reason espoused. My own opinions stem from a bias accumulated over 30 years doing s/w development. I often have had to work with other programmers that held the title but probably shouldn't have, sort of like they were a square peg trying to fit in a round hole - they just didn't think the right way. But they had the paper... As for myself, I do have a BSCS and in at least one place I tried to get into 25 years ago that wasn't enough. It was Hewlett-Packard and they wouldn't even interview me because I didn't have an MS. The funny thing is that I ended up working for an outfit that was doing graphics standards s/w and we had to port it to run on an HP graphics card. In my role as lead for the work I had to fly out to an HP facility to work with their engineers on problems that were being found. In the end I was able to demonstrate to them that they had problems in the ASICs on their card. As a result, the manager of the group came to me and asked me what it would take to have me sign on with them! :-) (note: I did not end up going over to work for them)
geoffs, Many thanks for your comment. Large companies have so many applications that they are sometimes forced to implement artificial sieves and so often fall back on a set of defined necessary qualifications. We feel that they are often the losers for the reason that you indicate. We lament the lack of effort from many applicants in their research before applying. We expect an interesting and informative letter to have been written that outlines what the applicant has to offer our company. And I do mean 'our company' - that means they will show that they have researched us in enough detail to know what they would be doing if they worked for us. Further, we would expect them to have some idea of what philosophy we are likely to have and so to show how they would fit in with the team. We expect lucid and coherent, well-written prose structured with well constructed paragraphs that show that the individual has a grasp of English along with a balanced analysis of their abilities and philosophy applied to what they have understood about our company. We put more weight on this document than a CV, which should be brief, concise, spelt correctly, grammatical and well-laid out without fanciful, unprovable subjective descriptions. Many applications that we receive are poorly executed and demonstrate that the, often well-qualified, individual has very little ability using Office applications. This makes us question their programming ability and their ability to handle small details accurately. A job is a partnership. One of the saddest things is to see someone who has worked hard at trying to look like the person that is required for a job, and then hated every minute of it once appointed because they were not the person they presented themselves as. Companies (or more precisely - their managers) are often also unrealistic in the way they represent themselves which aggravates the situation. Two entities who both are presenting a different image from that of their natural inclinations are not likely to work well in partnership. It is time we rejected the falseness that drives many aspects of our relationships today, I doubt we have the courage to do it :( . It's great to know that there are at least two of us 'in the fox-hole' sheltering from the world! :)
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Tim Craig wrote:
If you had to hide it, you were looking for the wrong kind of job.
No, I would say too many bosses got the wrong job. ;P
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True to a degree (pun intended). Ph.Ds are handy if you're looking for a scientific or academic career, but in the business world they can be a hold back as it gives you the aura of a professional student.
I'm largely language agnostic
After a while they all bug me :doh:
MidwestLimey wrote:
Ph.Ds are handy if you're looking for a scientific or academic career
Exactly. :doh: But if you're going to apply for a common coder job with a PhD, you set off all sorts of alarm bells. Mostly, you couldn't find a job doing what you were trained for and will leave at the drop of a hat if something better comes along. Plus, he probably also had the stigma of wanting them to supply him with a green card on top of everything else.
Doing my part to piss off the religious right.
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Personally I think you should do what you want. I believe a higher education in a technical field is about as worthwhile as toilet paper when you get into the job market if you actually plan to do something rather than manage or teach or research something, wheras real world experience is priceless and will take you extremely far and the fundamentals can be learned in a much shorter period of time. Give me a stack of books and a couple of months and I could probably learn the equivalent of any masters degree, couple that with real world on the job experience and "Bob's your lobster" as they say. I'm sure many with degrees will vehemently disagree with me but I've found this to be true in the real world job market. If I'm hiring a programmer the one who has the real world experience gets the job *every* time over the one with the degree and no experience. In fact I wouldn't even consider the degreed programmer with no experience, I'd shred the resume and move on and even if they did have experience I'd be highly doubtful that they could ever fit in as a part of any team of people. All the people I know with degrees are far happier discussing things than actually getting the job done. But perhaps most importantly of all, if you are young it's a terrible mistake to go to university or college without getting some real world experience in...well in *anything* really. Take a few years to travel and or work at a variety of jobs, learn how to deal with people and be a well rounded human being then you will really appreciate higher learning and take full advantage of it and when you come out you will not be a socially retarded ivory tower git like some of the people that hang out here. ;)
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
modified on Monday, March 3, 2008 2:24 AM
John C wrote:
I believe a higher education in a technical field is about as worthwhile as toilet paper
Yeah, I'd really love to ride in a plane that you designed. I think I'd much prefer one that was designed by someone who had a bit of an idea of what makes them fly. :doh:
Doing my part to piss off the religious right.
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a.1)Having a master degree.(2 years) a.2)Working and gaining experience on the field rather than master.(2 years) a.3)Try to do both. b.1)Having a doctorate degree.(+5 years) b.2)Working and gaining experience on the field.(+5 years) b.3)Try to do both. Which way is the right way? Of course there is no direct right way but I would be happy if pros and cons are provided also.
i think all are the right ways. No matter which way you choose, you should try your best to gain more knowledge and experience. Everyone thinks differently, so they will have their own right way. Maybe no best way, no worst way either.
Good good study, day day up !
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True to a degree (pun intended). Ph.Ds are handy if you're looking for a scientific or academic career, but in the business world they can be a hold back as it gives you the aura of a professional student.
I'm largely language agnostic
After a while they all bug me :doh:
In the country i living in... i dont think the employers want to hire a master degree or Ph.Ds without any experience. they will hire a diploma or undergraduate student for fresh workers coz it would be much more cheaper and they can be trained (like me) ;P now for me... maybe i need to get master degree in order for me to get more respect and have a better chance for promotion (also to show off ;P ) btw, the parents always ask their children to study higher till they get Ph.Ds... but really, i dont know wats the point of doing so if you cant even do the job properly... i agree that the academic qualification is only as a passport to enter working life... but to survive there, we need experience... well... thats wat happen in my country... ;P
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a.1)Having a master degree.(2 years) a.2)Working and gaining experience on the field rather than master.(2 years) a.3)Try to do both. b.1)Having a doctorate degree.(+5 years) b.2)Working and gaining experience on the field.(+5 years) b.3)Try to do both. Which way is the right way? Of course there is no direct right way but I would be happy if pros and cons are provided also.
This question is a variation of The Fundamental Question: What the heck am I doing with my life?. From a salary perspective, nothing speaks louder than success. Top talent get to pick their jobs. It's pretty much universally agreed that the top talent in the field is 10 times more productive than the average to low talent. I just spoke with two people willing to pay 150k for developers that they can't find! And it's not b/c there aren't any developers around, it's just that they're looking for all-stars and most of the developers out looking for jobs aren't even good enough to start. My take, if you don't have a thesis picked out, then don't bother with an advanced degree in computing. Your Master's is either highly relevant or basically has zero value; experience is always relevant. If you can pick your thesis right now, then it's far more likely that your study will be relevant and profitable long-term. If you just want to "do a Masters" and haven't already picked a topic, then it probably doesn't matter what you do it's going to be irrelevant, go work instead.
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John C wrote:
I believe a higher education in a technical field is about as worthwhile as toilet paper
Yeah, I'd really love to ride in a plane that you designed. I think I'd much prefer one that was designed by someone who had a bit of an idea of what makes them fly. :doh:
Doing my part to piss off the religious right.
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If I designed an airplane you certainly wouldn't want to fly in it, neither would I. Sadly we weren't discussing designing airplanes so I think you missed the mark but thanks for trying. ;)
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
So aeronautical engineering isn't a technical field? I certainly thought it was with all those equations and science thingies I had to learn. I'd say it's a heck of a lot more technical than grinding out software.
Doing my part to piss off the religious right.
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I have no degree at all. The hard thing is getting the first job with no qualifications. I got lucky. From there, I worked hard, and now I have more work than I can deal with, and no-one ever asks what my qualifications are - my work history speaks for itself.
Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ "also I don't think "TranslateOneToTwoBillion OneHundredAndFortySevenMillion FourHundredAndEightyThreeThousand SixHundredAndFortySeven()" is a very good choice for a function name" - SpacixOne ( offering help to someone who really needed it ) ( spaces added for the benefit of people running at < 1280x1024 )
Completely agree. The bit you need is the "get lucky". Fortunately I did too and am now in the situation where I often farm out work to sub contractors. And for the record, I am not interested in degrees when employing them either. Work ethic, work history, ability to communicate and a strong focus on getting it done as opposed to making it elegant. Don't get me wrong I strive for an elegant solution (for maintenance reasons if nothing else), but getting it done gets you paid :)
The only thing unpredictable about me is just how predictable I'm going to be.
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a.1)Having a master degree.(2 years) a.2)Working and gaining experience on the field rather than master.(2 years) a.3)Try to do both. b.1)Having a doctorate degree.(+5 years) b.2)Working and gaining experience on the field.(+5 years) b.3)Try to do both. Which way is the right way? Of course there is no direct right way but I would be happy if pros and cons are provided also.
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Just be aware that most of the advice you are seeing here is coloured by the (often limited) experience of the poster (as is this post). At the risk of adding another generalisation, most of the generalisations made (e.g. PhDs do or don't xxx etc) are mainly a result of limited experiences. I have seen PhDs that I'd struggle to employ as a technician and good graduates that are as good as any PhD. If you are considering a doctorate then you are probably an honours student near the top of the class. You have to decide whether you want to use your talents to go out and make the best 'widgets' (includes software) or whether you want to develop emerging technologies and focus on unsolved problems. A PhD is not essential here, but the appropriate one may be a good pathway to these jobs. My generic advice to those making career choices is to list what they like and don't like about the options, go out and meet people (and work with them if possible - holiday jobs can be great helpers) and refine your list. If still in doubt go for the one that keeps most options open.
Peter "Until the invention of the computer, the machine gun was the device that enabled humans to make the most mistakes in the smallest amount of time."
Good point cp. In addition, if you decide to go the PhD route you need to be quite sure that it is the right way to go. Dropping out in the middle of the PhD program is not nice for your self esteem, nor for your resume. While changing jobs after 3 years is just fine.
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a.1)Having a master degree.(2 years) a.2)Working and gaining experience on the field rather than master.(2 years) a.3)Try to do both. b.1)Having a doctorate degree.(+5 years) b.2)Working and gaining experience on the field.(+5 years) b.3)Try to do both. Which way is the right way? Of course there is no direct right way but I would be happy if pros and cons are provided also.
> b.1)Having a doctorate degree.(+5 years) > b.2)Working and gaining experience on the field.(+5 years) > b.3)Try to do both. If you are asking this question, then you must be a citizens not having any problem getting a job (otherwise your only option is academia), but also not having a family and home mortgage to pay for (otherwise your only option is to get a reasonably well paid job). You must also be leaning towards an industry career, but must feel you would be able to handle getting a PhD. I know a few people that were in a similar situation and chose b.2) and did very well. And I also know a few that did b.3) and did very well. I personally also went the b.3) route. The ideal path along b.3) is to pick a field of PhD research that is very concrete and has an immediate industry demand. One current such example is GPGPU programming. But in general, when you pick your PhD advisor, look at the research projects he has as well as the consulting he does for companies. IF you are very excited about the research project, AND there are companies willing to pay him money to consult for them or it he has a sub contracting side business in the same topic area, THEN you know that what you do your research on can also be counted as relevant experience. And during summers and toward the end of your studies you can work on some of the industry related projects of your advisor, or even better on internships in side some of the industry partners. That will put you in a pretty good position for the a little more "researchy" position inside industry R&D labs.
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dnh wrote:
People will call you a doctor!
Right. If they don't, I will remind them to. My name tag in office and my business card both say "Dr. Xiangyang Liu". :laugh:
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John C wrote:
I believe a higher education in a technical field is about as worthwhile as toilet paper
Yeah, I'd really love to ride in a plane that you designed. I think I'd much prefer one that was designed by someone who had a bit of an idea of what makes them fly. :doh:
Doing my part to piss off the religious right.
Tim Craig wrote:
I think I'd much prefer one that was designed by someone who had a bit of an idea of what makes them fly.
I think you are misrepresenting John, and ignoring some obvious assumptions. First John is referring to programming which is available easily in book form and you are comparing it to aerodynamics which follows fluid dynamics in usage. Of course some of us are actually using fluid dynamics although we do not have a college education, the books you buy in college are also available at the bookstore. Second, someone once invented/discovered these, you are assuming that no one today has the brains to learn/discover them on their own without private tutorage? how in the world were they discovered in the first place if this is an absolute? Now let me tell you a story, don't worry, it is fully applicable. In high school junior year I was beat out for international science fair by a new young bright kid with a project in aerodynamics. Seems he reinvented the wing, or rather significantly improved it. Without a college course on fluid dynamics he learned the motion of fluids through an air chamber and then proceded to shape wing shapes with clay such that he could try dozens if not hundreds in minor variations to fully understand the motion of air around a wing. With simple "what if we did this?" type operations. His wing, a new modern wing is still a well kept secret. I know approximately who he now works for, because I can smile every time I see this new wing. Before him I was beat out for International by a gentleman with a project on oil spill capture and recovery. He was granted a job straight out of highschool with his college education paid for in full by the company. That oil spill capture and recovery system is in use today. These people discovered these things not because of their college education, they were in high school at the time. The discovered these things because they thought outside the box, rather than restrict themselves to the same-old-same-old taught and retaught sciences, they dared to ask the questions, "why?" and "how?" These are the questions you do not get to ask in a college education where everything is laid out for you in black and white and nothing new is taught. No college in this world teaches innovation, they teach what others have innovated, and some of those innovations came without a college education. I am all for a college education, the paper would help on my wall and increase my income,
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Personally I think you should do what you want. I believe a higher education in a technical field is about as worthwhile as toilet paper when you get into the job market if you actually plan to do something rather than manage or teach or research something, wheras real world experience is priceless and will take you extremely far and the fundamentals can be learned in a much shorter period of time. Give me a stack of books and a couple of months and I could probably learn the equivalent of any masters degree, couple that with real world on the job experience and "Bob's your lobster" as they say. I'm sure many with degrees will vehemently disagree with me but I've found this to be true in the real world job market. If I'm hiring a programmer the one who has the real world experience gets the job *every* time over the one with the degree and no experience. In fact I wouldn't even consider the degreed programmer with no experience, I'd shred the resume and move on and even if they did have experience I'd be highly doubtful that they could ever fit in as a part of any team of people. All the people I know with degrees are far happier discussing things than actually getting the job done. But perhaps most importantly of all, if you are young it's a terrible mistake to go to university or college without getting some real world experience in...well in *anything* really. Take a few years to travel and or work at a variety of jobs, learn how to deal with people and be a well rounded human being then you will really appreciate higher learning and take full advantage of it and when you come out you will not be a socially retarded ivory tower git like some of the people that hang out here. ;)
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
modified on Monday, March 3, 2008 2:24 AM
I agree John 100%, And another thing.. TimCraig is not even on topic, and if he has a degree in aeronautical physics why would he be writing software. He should be writing the formulas and other concepts for the coders to use in aircraft design software.