Advanced degrees worth the cost?

[chiph]

One of the other members mentioned in thread656-556614 that he regrets not continuing on to get his PhD in computer science. I've recently been giving some thought to going back to school part-time and getting my Masters in CS, so I thought I'd ask:

Is having an advanced degree worth the cost in time & money?

What does it get you, salary and career-wise, beyond a Bachelor's?

I'm mostly interested because the local university (NC State) offers classes in areas that weren't taught at the school I got my bachelor's from -- Artificial Intelligence, Computer Graphics, eCommerce -- cool stuff!

Chip H.

 

[johnherman]

I think a Masters could be useful in the real world. I don't think the Doctorate will be useful except to gain you a bit of distiction and could actually be a detriment in getting hired (over qualified)

Doctorates are useful (and recognized pay-wise) in education and R&D type activities

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The trouble with doing something right the first time is that noboby appreciates how difficult it was.
- Steven Wright

 

[venkman]

Well, from what I've gathered, a masters is really just a more intensive bachelors degree. A PhD is something different. As such, a masters will qualify you for the same types of jobs a bachelors does, but if you're lucky at a higher level than a bachelors would. A PhD qualifies you for a whole different set of jobs. It's really a completely different carrear path. The same is probably true about MBA (that it's a different carrear path from BS/MS in CS and PhD in CS), but I know less about that.

-Venkman

 

[CajunCenturion]

What you must also keep in mind is that often a Masters or a Ph.d. will disqualify you for many jobs as well. You become over-qualified. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but something to keep in mind.

Good Luck
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[Onyxpurr]

Doctorate becomes useful in certain fields, such as Science and Teaching. Most universities won't even consider you unless you have a PhD.

I think a Master's is useful, however it is used mostly for the intention of being a manager. If you do not have any intentions of movig into management, then I would do research on the field you're in and see if you will need a master's to get where you want to go.

 

[SQLSister]

If you wantt o do business related programming, forget the Masters (except an MBA if you want to move into management). Frankly it will disqualify you for more jobs than it qualifies you for. If you want to do scientific programming, teaching, or research, go for it, only get a PHD. Note that a Phd will probably require you to relocate.

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