Advice for Returning to School After Long Break? 580
arohann asks: "A few months ago, I quit my secure, well-paying (but boring) job as a software engineer in India and have been applying to graduate schools in the US, Canada and the UK. My aim is to get back to computer engineering studies (my undergrad major) as a grad student. However, after a 5 year break from academics I'm not sure about my decision and could do with some advice from Slashdot users."
"Here are some of the things that I'd like to know:
1) Typically, how do graduate admissions officials view work experience? Note that I haven't been working as a Computer Engineer but as a Software Engineer.
2) What are the differences between graduate studies at the Masters level in the US, Canada and the UK? I already know a bit from what is available on the websites, so I'm looking for some deeper insights.
3) I'd like to hear from people who've done this, i.e. quit their jobs and gone back to get a higher engineering degree. What problems did you face and what advice do you have?
4) People who've studied in the UK at the MSc, MPhil, MEngg level - how did you fund your education? Were you able to get things like teaching or research assistantships and how much of your costs did these cover?"
Guide to Success (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Guide to Success (Score:5, Insightful)
step 2: get fat off the work of foreign workers paid much less that you
step 3: complain when your boss discovers that the free market apllies to your job too.....
step 4: post on slashdot about it, instead of looking at why it happened.
Re:Guide to Success (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Guide to Success (Score:3, Insightful)
I was pointing out an obvious perspective. No mocking was done. In no part of my Guide to Success post did I say anything about the asker being a bad person, sim
Re:Guide to Success (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Guide to Success (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Guide to Success (Score:3, Insightful)
Errrrrr... wouldn't you consider the public school system to be a "socialist education?"
Both a total socialist society and a total free-market capitalist society will fail miserably. (And even if the socialist soc
Re:Guide to Success (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Guide to Success (Score:3, Insightful)
The Constitution certainly doesn't support that logic.
On the other hand, Public Health is certainly a legitimate function of the government. We don't educate our citizens because they have a RIGHT to an education. We educate them because we ALL benefit from living in a society full of educated citizens. Likewise, we would ALL benefit from living in a society full of HEALTHY individuals. It benefits us, because the people that would otherwise be Unhealthy, w
Re:Guide to Success (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you sure ? Would you have any savings if you had to use that $1.95/hr to pay for all the things the government provides ? Costs for private security, toll roads, taxis (if you currently use public transport), paying off your primary+high school e
Re:Guide to Success (Score:3, Insightful)
Where do you think the consumer gets the money to purchase goods? It comes from having a job. Take away that job, ship it to another country, and the consumer is no longer able to buy goods.
In fact, it INCREASES it. Cheaper labor means cheaper goods.
Cheaper goods doesn't matter when your paycheck goes to 0.
It also means MORE labor, so it means MORE goods, which also means cheaper goods.
But if you don't have a job, cheap
Re:Guide to Success (Score:5, Funny)
You took my job, now I can't afford to send my kid to college, but it turns out he/she was put on the waiting list in favor of the software engineers from India that took my job! What will they take next, will I wake up to find one of them sleeping with my wife?
Interesting (Score:4, Funny)
Sounds like a fair trade to me.
Re:Interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
No offense, but you're clearly speaking of consultants in companies I've never heard of. While it's true that what you describe is what consultants are *supposed* to be, in reality the vast majority of the consultants I know are long-term workers with no specified end date. Many of them have worked in a single consulting position (same desk, same type of work) for 3-4 years.
This is birthed from the myth held by many upper management that cutting "head count" will reduce overall costs. While this may be true in some individual departments here and there, what usually happens is that when the policy is originally initiated, some people lose their jobs, and their former coworkers start busting butt to get all the work done. This manifests itself in the form of exhausted, disgruntled workers who produce lower quality but higher quantity. Eventually, despite having no additional head count, the individual departments decide they need more bodies to get the work done, and so hire consultants to help out with some particularly large project.
Once this large project nears an end, other tasks are offloaded to the consultant, and the consultant finds themselves a standard part of the rest of the team. With only one exception: as a consultant, all the employees tend to look down on you a little bit. They don't necessarily think you're a lesser worker, they just feel you don't have the same entitlements. The consultants don't get invited to the company Christmas party even though they might have worked more hours than anyone else on the team, or having been with the company for more years. They don't get access to company discounts, they are not elligible for company training, they may not be permitted to perform certain security actions (such as VPN), and finally, their opinion really isn't given quite as much weight in the decision making processes.
Anyhow, I've digressed. I've spent time both as a consultant and as an employee, and I have a unique insight in that the company for which I'm currently consulting, I am a former laid-off employee of. Now they pay me more (compared to industry standards) than they did when I was an employee. I spent 4 years as an employee, and have now consulted with them for 4 years. It's distinctly interesting how some people who've been with the company for six months to a year look down on me some times, despite the fact that I'm clearly the veteran here. I don't think I behaved that way when I was an employee; I sure hope I didn't.
These guys have no intention of letting it end: they need someone to do the work I'm doing, and they don't have time to do it. Work only promises to get more intense, not less, and they may hire another consultant to help me with the work I have on my plate already. Of my developer buddies, from college, and from 'net acquaintences (a web of friends as it were), I know at least 14 people, myself included (having just now counted in my head, myself included) who are in long term consulting positions with no end in sight. I can think of only 2 that really are in short term consulting positions. Maybe my web of friends is nonrepresentative of current market conditions, but I find it unlikely.
Re:Interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
I ran the statistics last month for my department and 3 consultants, in a department of 20, are doing 30% of the work. Naturally they let one of the 3 go to a lower paying lower profile FTE job. The other two, a friend and myself are both looking hard for other work. Why work your ass off when there is no possible hope of promotion or higher pay?
There is no difference between the FTE's and the "Contractors" other than a meaningless budget line. I am sure the Contractors cost with 10% of th
Re:The answer is ! (Score:3, Interesting)
Before I hear some crap from a bunch of free market, Fox loving, orielly fans consider this.
I work with a guy that came over here from main land china on an H1B. Nice guy. I had been laid off a couple of years ago. Downsizing not outsourcing. Anyway he asked me what benefits american workers got for being laid off severance etc. I told him nothing
Re:The whole friggin article is one big troll..... (Score:3, Informative)
Mature students generally do well (Score:5, Insightful)
So don't be intimidated. Sure, you'll have some catching up to do, but it won't be that onerous.
Re:Mature students generally do well (Score:4, Insightful)
Right on. Every graduate admissions guru I've talked to from computer science to humanities to law says they prefer somebody with field experience as opposed to (exposing my personal bias here) a snot-nosed 22 year-old who thinks they're God's gift to the university. Arrogant people are very hard to teach.
Re:Mature students generally do well (Score:2)
Re:Mature students generally do well (Score:3, Interesting)
Well yeah, I'll grant you that, 42 is over the hill. I'm not going to be a namedropper, but my mentor here at Berkeley was on the admissions committee at Chicago and is now on the GRE board for one of the subject exams, so I think he's pretty authoritative, Mr. Anonymous Coward. He's advising his best students to wait a year or two, maybe more. My neighbor from back home, a tenured associate professor of anthropology at Stanford, has made his three very bright daughters, all who went to top-teir small liber
Re:Mature students generally do well (Score:3, Informative)
There were some other things, especially being able to bang out a 10 page paper in an evening without having anything particular to say. But on the whole, as the parent says, general cluefulness makes up for a whol
Re:Mature students generally do well (Score:5, Insightful)
First, I kept my full time software engineering job while I went to school. It makes it so I have less time at home, but I'm still able to maintain a "full time" (12 credit hours) schedule at school and maintain a good GPA (3.75 so far).
I think you're dead on about mature students. My first time in college, I went in with a full scholarship, and lost it after the first semester because of poor grades. I ended up with a 2.1 GPA and dropped out after 3 semesters suffering from pretty severe depression. I think a lot of this is due to immaturity, and the fact that I just wasn't ready. After 13 years of school in a highly structured environment, I think the sudden shift to the freedoms and unstructured environment of college were just too much for me. I had a lot of trouble motivating myself, I partied too much, and I got poor grades as a result. The whole thing was a downward spiral.
Anyway, I took 7 years, got into the workforce, rode the dot-com bubble up and back down again, and decided to give it another go. It is MUCH easier this time around. The workload is much easier to handle now that I've been in the workforce so long, and I have experience juggling things on tight timelines. Trust me, with my work experience to this point, deadlines in college are a cakewalk in comparison. The only thing I found difficult is I would forget really basic stuff in math classes, but after taking 10 seconds to look it up, the rust was shaken from my memory, and it all came back to me.
Going back to school is a great decision, and I encourage anyone, especially those who have not yet gotten a 4-year degree, to do it. As competition in fields like programming becomes more intense, 4-year degrees are quickly becoming the baseline qualification that you must have to be considered for any job.
Re:Mature students generally do well (Score:4, Interesting)
Damn. Boy does that ever sound familiar. I had 3 scholarships and I lost all of them too. I did horribly. I didn't know how to study. I didn't really get the importance of higher education. All I wanted to do was work at a campus job I liked (they really needed me which was a big plus for me) and play in the marching band. IIRC my GPA started with a decimal point. Yeah, I did a horrible job. I drug it out for 2.5 years though instead of only 3 semesters. Then I went into the work force. I just wasn't ready for college at that time either, no matter how I tested before entering it.
I've been planning on going back for a number of years now. First I needed to get out of debt and get some savings to live on for my first year or so (no outside work temptations to drag me away from my studies). I had just gotten out of debt when my employer laid me off. That was actually a good opportunity to go back to school. Unfortunately other things intervened. First I wrecked my motorcycle. That laid me up for a little while thanks to my back. Then my parents started building a new house. They needed my help badly. We had to get various stages completed so that the log home builder could come out and put up the house. Since then we've been working on adding the garage, wiring, plumbing, etc... I've been working on their house in various stages now for almost two years. Unfortunately the construction loan is up in March and the house HAS to be finished by then. That means I won't make it back to school this semester either. I will make it back to school I'm sure. Things just have to slow down a bit first.
My biggest concerns seem to be echoed by everyone here. I used to be excellent in math. I went to numerous competitions and I have dozens and dozens of medals for my efforts (minimal efforts, not to brag; I had a really good teacher set me on the right path). Unfortunately I can't remember jack now. I used to be able to do complex crap in my head. Now I can't even recall where to start. It's a good day when I can manage to add and subtract correctly. That's a big concern for me. I never was good at studying because in HS I never needed to. All I had to do was simply listen to the teacher or read the assigned reading in the book and I could pass any test they threw at me. I could whip out a 2-page book report on a book I'd never read in 5 minutes. I could whip out a lengthy research paper over night. Then I got to college and found out I couldn't do that anymore. I had to study to get by. Given all that I knew and my ability to learn, I just didn't know how to study. My failure was readily apparent early on. Ever take a 5 minute Chemistry final? No, I wasn't that good. It took 5 minutes to fill in all the bubbles as fast as I could. That should have been an indicator.
Well, enough of my ramblings. Best of luck on your degree. Hopefully I can get mine in the near future too.
Re:Mature students generally do well (Score:4, Interesting)
Being 40 years old helped, I'm sure. I can most definitely say that I'm not the same person that I was 20 years ago. Which is a good thing, because I'd probably be dead if I'd kept it up.
Interestingly, though, when I started talking about getting an MSEE, the company where I work (with about 20,000 employees) offered to pay for it, but pointed out that it wouldn't be particularly beneficial in terms of promotions or pay increases. Where I'm at, I guess, the degree gets you in the door, then it's experience from there.
-h-
Re:Mature students generally do well (Score:2)
Re:Mature students generally do well (Score:2)
I'd go a step further and say that if you have the experience, you don't need the education. My CS degree isn't getting me anywhere, whereas my friends without any degrees at all are getting their foot in the door for coding jobs based purely on work history.
Re:Mature students generally do well (Score:5, Funny)
My Advice (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My Advice (Score:2)
Re:My Advice (Score:2, Insightful)
No, no, no.
You're a *student*. You will not have a lot of money. You want to be able to get as drunk as possible for as cheap as possible, so don't destroy your intolerance for alcohol; it's your route to getting very drunk, very cheaply.
If you're skinny enough, and lightweight enough, and willing to drink in unfashionable student unions, you can get totally out of your head for under five quid (well, in the UK anyway).
NB; bear in mind that this does
Grad Help! (Score:4, Informative)
Some advice from a recent grad... (Score:5, Informative)
I just completed a professional degree program after several years away from school. Here are a few nuggets of advice:
Good luck, and make sure to do all the readings and homework this time around.
Re:Some advice from a recent grad... (Score:3, Informative)
(btw it's
Re:Some advice from a recent grad... (Score:2)
Books, useful and otherwise (Score:2)
This is a double-edged sword. It means you're more likely to get away with not buying the books in many cases (if the book *is* essential, it'll be obvious soon enough), but some of the "recom
For the life of me (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I have to say as a piece of advice, that you are wasting your time going to grad school in CS unless your intent is to be a professor or a heavy researcher. I think the best graduate degree for a CS undergrad is probably an MBA, at least as far as earning potential. If your interests are purely theoretical and money is not something you ultimately desire out of your career, then by all means continue.
Re:For the life of me (Score:2, Insightful)
It still is in the west, to a point. People tend to think someone who graduated from Harvard is "better" than a guy who graduated from local community college, even though they both studied the exact same things.
It's definately a measure of social status. If your father was a PhD, for you to be anything less is an insult to the family name.
At least 3 years of my 4 year degree were useless to me in an
Re:For the life of me (Score:5, Insightful)
For almost any Indian parent, a steady professional job (medicine, business, law, engineering, etc.) is far more attractive than a riskier yet potentially more lucrative job (artist, musician, comedian, etc.)
For most Indians, we are told from a young age to study hard in order not to fail in life. Chinese parents, from my own experience, are quite similar too, in many respects.
Re:For the life of me (Score:2)
I think you meant to say "rewarding." And by that, I don't mean remuneratively rewarding. It's a rare "artist, musician, comedian, etc." who makes more money than your average physician or lawyer. People become artists because that's their calling, that's what they do, that's what makes them happy.
Re:For the life of me (Score:3, Interesting)
For almost any Indian parent, a steady professional job (medicine, business, law, engineering, etc.) is far more attractive than a riskier yet potentially more lucrative job (artist, musician, comedian, etc.)
Those are certainly noble goals to set, but from what I've read the earning potential for a CS/CE major can actually dip with a master's degree. Most l
Re:For the life of me (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:For the life of me (Score:3, Interesting)
After years studying EE (both B.S. and M.S.), I worked in the industry for a few years. Yeah, I could do it - but my heart really wasn't into it. Thankfully, I decided to take control of my own lif
Re:For the life of me (Score:2)
Re:For the life of me (Score:2)
1) Security - job markets are unstable, especially with just a Bachelor's...at least with a Master's or PhD you have a little more flexibility and aren't quite as easily replaced as someone with an MBA (even though the MBA's make a ton more money) This is also important for Visa-retention reasons.
2) It's an easier way to enter the US - getting a job straig
Re:For the life of me (Score:2)
Don't agree with #1 (Score:2)
I would say this is exactly backwards. Businesses are a lot more likley to retain someone who understands the business well. I am not saying that having an MBA automatically grants you some secrect knowledge that no-one else can ever attain, but I will say that having a maasters or PHD for practical corperate IT work is almost never a plus - either nuetral to negative depending on
Re:For the life of me (Score:2)
Re:For the life of me (Score:3, Interesting)
On the shoulders of giants... (Score:4, Funny)
"Maybe later you could help me straighten out my Longfellow."
- Thornton Melon
Does that mean I can have my job back? (Score:3, Funny)
Asking for advice on slashdot... (Score:4, Funny)
and you will immediately do the exact opposite, I presume?
--
You have been warned once. Do not touch my danish again.
Re:Asking for advice on slashdot... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not "either/or" (Score:3, Informative)
Having a job will give you money to fund your own small research projects, buy books/hardware, and contacts that can help you answer questions when you're stumped. It's also a much better way to have a job after graduation.
Re:Not "either/or" (Score:2)
No, that's not true. Don't post if you don't know for sure. I've worked alongside several F-1 aliens in a non-university setting.
He can work off-campus [uscis.gov] after one year of academic studies and provided he is in good academic standing. Work must be part time (<= 20 hrs a week) except during holidays and school vacations.
Phil
wtf? (Score:5, Funny)
In Engineering (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:In Engineering (Score:3, Insightful)
Plan on spending a lot of time reviewing... (Score:4, Informative)
1. For graduate admissions, at least at Carnegie Mellon, they send the files over to the professors based on your interests. The professors then look at your background to see if you are a good fit. In my case, they considered both my academic background as well as my industry experience. In fact, my industry experience helped me.
2. Not sure about US vs. UK vs. Canada, but what I can tell you is that a M.S. in engineering is more than sufficient if you only want to work in industry. A Ph.D. is good if you want to teach and if you want to lead a research team.
3. The biggest problem I had was all in the mental realm. I forgot most of what I learned in undergrad (all that funky calculus stuff, physics, etc
Re:Plan on spending a lot of time reviewing... (Score:3, Interesting)
I definitely felt that my undergrad was a bit of a whirlwind. Now that I'm in grad school, however, all the undergrad stuff seems very trivial. I think it's a few years of unconscious
Here's some advice... (Score:3, Interesting)
I hate to use a cliché, but... Just do it(TM)
After you gather all of this information, do something useful with it. I remember being in college and having a classmate who was in his early seventies. He had been a successful businessman, but had never earned his degree. So instead of spending his retirement playing shuffleboard and bingo, he chose to challenge himself and accomplish something.
It's never too late to go back.
retake Calculus (Score:2)
Some hopefully helpful pointers (Score:3, Informative)
Here's my experience (Score:5, Informative)
I didn't know anyone who could give recommendations (all my professors had either moved on or retired), so I went back to my old school as a master's student for 1 year, impressed the profs, and got recommendations which (together with decent SATs) got me into Purdue.
I found that living on a small income was hard, but the studying was actually easier than it had been the first time through. In particular, math was easier to learn. That was a good thing, since econ and stats take more and different math than undergraduate EE.
I never finished my Ph.D (I'm ABD), but I did get an MS in Statistics along the way, and I'm working as an economist. Finishing would have been do-able, but didn't seem worth the cost in student loan debt and time.
If you can get accepted at a school, you can do it, if you can fund it. If they aren't offering you an assistantship with free tuition and a stipend of more than $10,000 per year, keep looking. Schools recruit undergrads, they hire graduate students.
At least for U.S. schools... (Score:3, Insightful)
don't go back to school simply to get another degree and cram books. enjoy the college life - go to sporting events, cultural events, join student groups... etc. if you are indian, find a way to acclimate without losing your indian roots. be part of the college community. of course, you should always work hard in classes, but don't let it become an obsession. don't become another stereotypical "foreign graduate student." that's a waste...
Don't do it. (Score:2)
Call your old boss up and ask/beg for your job back.
Re:Don't do it. (Score:2)
work experience sort of matters (Score:3, Insightful)
Real world versus fresh-outs (Score:3, Informative)
Having left the industry to go back for a PhD, here's my input. It may be different for a Masters, in particular for a terminal Masters.
> 1) Typically, how do graduate admissions officials view work experience?
For admissions, mostly not at all. Admissions is really "previous GPA, application, etc." Past work is good if there's an interview stage, but most of admission is just paperwork and weeding out.
Now, if you do get admitted, that's when you talk to your advisor and find out which past work can count as credit hours (saving you time and money).
That said, admissions does have one critical bit-- whether they (the committee/department as a culture) tend to favor returnees and people with experience, or if they prefer fresh-outs with no real-world taint that they can work hard and mold in their own image.
That cultural barrier will be the one big determinant for any application. A department that only wants fresh-outs would turn you down even if you have a Nobel prize.
An easy way to check this sort of thing, is find out the average age of their student body. Most universities post that (or call them), and it'll clue you into which are 'real-world friendly'. Older = more likely to value experience.
Good luck!
From my own experience (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Typically, how do graduate admissions officials view work experience? Note that I haven't been working as a Computer Engineer but as a Software Engineer.
They tend to view it quite favorably. Some programs insist upon it, though I doubt that would be the case for Comp Sci. Work experience is a big plus to admission committees in my experience.
2) What are the differences between graduate studies at the Masters level in the US, Canada and the UK? I already know a bit from what is available on the websites, so I'm looking for some deeper insights.
Can't answer this one.
3) I'd like to hear from people who've done this, i.e. quit their jobs and gone back to get a higher engineering degree. What problems did you face and what advice do you have?
The biggest adjustment is getting used to not having a paycheck anymore. It's hard to adjust your standard of living. Otherwise, I found school to be much more enjoyable once I was older. I was a better student, cared more about the material, knew what questions to ask, and could more easily work with the professors.
4) People who've studied in the UK at the MSc, MPhil, MEngg level - how did you fund your education? Were you able to get things like teaching or research assistantships and how much of your costs did these cover?"
I just took out student loans to cover the whole thing. Interest rates are so low right now it's almost free money. I have some student loans as low as 1.5% interest, and in the US the interest is tax deductible up to a certain amount. My only regret is that I didn't take more money out because the cost of capital is so low. (If you don't know what cost of capital means, learn! It's one of the most valuable things to know about) If you get some sort of working stipend or grant, that is great and you should take it but I'd still recommend getting student loans. Throw the extra into an investment/savings account and whatever's left over is cheap money you can build savings upon. (Yes I realize this is borderline with regard to the terms of the loan but no one will check unless you default)
Shouldn't have quit your job... (Score:2)
I guess I'm confused... (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you sure you are in the right field?
Similar Paths (Score:2)
GRE (Score:2)
I breifly looked at the PhD program admission forms for Princeton and Penn/Wharton, and to my surprise, found they were only like one page long. They asked for school history/GPA and publications, etc.
I think they primarily base consideration on Field of Specialization (for PhD) and
Plan B (Score:2)
I did the same thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
My Grad School Resurrection (Score:3, Insightful)
I returned to grad school in music technology after 2 years off. For what it's worth, having been in a "real" work environment (at least in my line of work, at a university) really helped me understand how the whole "school beaurocracy" works.
I think going back to school after working gives you an upper hand on your classmates, especially if you're like me and have a teaching assistantship -- "real world" work gives you a lot of experience managing time and planning on how to get things done. It's very easy in grad school to wait until the last minute just like you did in undergrad, but I've found that since I worked before coming here I'm getting things done early and the quality is higher.
My only advice would be, if you go back to school, treat it like it's a job. Be serious, do your work well, and take time to relax too. If you're doing something you love, it's totally worth it.
going back to grad school a good idea (Score:2, Interesting)
I was lucky in that many (in fact, most) of the students in my department were also people who had been in the working world for years and were in the same boat -- trying to get used to being students again.
Why us? (Score:2)
I did this, it was the best thing I ever did (Score:2)
I went crawling back on my hands and knees to my previous school, and they were surprisingly (well, to me, anyway) receptive to the idea of me coming back. (The "We sincerely hope that you could c
Comment from a mexican (Score:2)
Lessons I learned:
a) Teach yourself with books.
b) Take programming language (i.e. java) courses. Learn what pays, not necessarily what is the best (there are 100x more ASP.NET jobs here than PHP ones - sad but true)
c) Practice a lot.
d) School didn't give me more (or any at all) employment opportunities. It was just a paper. However, I don't know how that applies in the US.
I think that someone with the tools and ex
if youve got the grades and score's, (Score:2)
Start brushing up on (Score:2)
Single/Multivariable Calculus
Differentials
Linear and Discrete math
Stat
Combinatorics
it takes some adjustment (Score:2)
I took a break 3 years after I graduated (this was last year) and went onto a research MSc in the UK. I didn't really find my job boring, and it was certainly well paying, but the challenges seemed to be similar, day in and day out (mostly with insane deadline pressure) and getting a postgraduate degree was a longtime personal goal anyway. Bewarned, this is a long entry *grin*
In the UK, I found that work experience is highly valued. What sort of postgrad you opt to do influences things to a certain extent,
Have a reason to go and a thing to study (Score:2)
We have TONS of grad students where I work that fall in to this category. They go on to get a grad degree because it's hgiher level, so much be better, right? They slag through the classes, learn lots of theory that they have no idea how to apply, do uninteresting "research" and then go on.
Well regardless of the high
Don't be afraid to audit courses & don't overl (Score:2)
Also, don't be afraid to audit courses. If you don't feel you remember something well enough to take the graduate classes in it, by all means audit the lower level course to ref
After 14 years (Score:3, Interesting)
My Master's degree in Math was from 1980. I went back in 1994.
I applied to four universities and was accepted at all of them. So I had my pick of where to go.
The first thing I noticed was that, in general, the classes were somewhat less rigorous.
One math professor told me that was true for undegraduates as well as graduate students. He said that the quality of students they were getting was much lower than in the 70s. The high school (and earlier) education systems were leaving them less prepared for college than before.
I found out that older students were generally treated much better than the usual undergraduate students. That was true at all levels.
Seminars were quire interesting. Often, I was older than the profs at seminars being given by outside people. As a result, the presenter would typically think that I was the most senior professor in attendance. So if I subtly nodded in understanding of a point, he would move on to the next point. But if I looked puzzled, he'd explain it in greater detail.
The campus parking people were much more understanding as well. When I received a parking ticket one night because the parking permit was obscured by another parking permit, they dismissed it on the spot. According to the rules, that was still a parking violation and should not be dismissed.
Most of the profs treated me better as well. For example, in one class everyone had to do a presentation during the course. Most of the time, the prof just sat at the back during the presentation and listened. When I gave my presentation, the prof actively participated in the discussion.
With my background, I participated more in class discussions than back in the 70s. In the 70s, if I didn't understand a point, I'd just figure I'd look it up later. When I returned to school, if I had a question, I'd ask it right then. In nearly every class, I asked more questions than anyone else in the class. Most profs get tired of just standing up in front of the class talking the entire period and really appreciate on-topic questions.
Highly recommended, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
So I went back for CS, and am currently in the process of completing an MS thesis, which should also carry me into a PhD.
It's been a *great* experience, but not without hiccups...
1) Typically, how do graduate admissions officials view work experience? Note that I haven't been working as a Computer Engineer but as a Software Engineer.
The better (top 40-50 in the US) graduate schools exist primarily to create more professors. So your re-entry to the graduate community will be evaluated in academic terms. Despite the greater integration of the commercial and academic worlds through the Internet, academia still is an ivory tower that operates according to its own rules.
Meaning: the better schools generally don't consider work experience relevant *at all*. Unless you were doing *research* or research-type work- had papers or other relevant public/peer reviewed published materials to show for your time- work experience is irrelevant. In fact, it's unhelpful, because you spent productive years *not* doing research.
Don't even bother to submit recommendations from employers, unless those employers themselves have recognized academic credentials (meaning, a professorship. PhDs don't count.).
Put another way, I found that schools considered my *undergraduate* academic performance- from *10 years* prior- to be more relevant in their evaluations than *any* of the innovative, creative professional work I had done since.
This is startling and dismaying, but you'll get over it.
2) What are the differences between graduate studies at the Masters level in the US, Canada and the UK? I already know a bit from what is available on the websites, so I'm looking for some deeper insights.
I can't speak for Canada or the UK, but MS work in the US is viewed in academic circles as *professional*, almost like a trade school. It is of course possible to do research as an MS student, but at most schools there is a class distinction between MS and PhD students that limits access to professors or funding or other academic resources. Most schools expect MS students to *have* another job, while for PhD students, getting a PhD *is* their job.
3) I'd like to hear from people who've done this, i.e. quit their jobs and gone back to get a higher engineering degree. What problems did you face and what advice do you have?
It's been a tremendously *positive* experience for me. However, it was a challenge adjusting after not being in an academic environment for 10 years.
The biggest adjustment for me, frankly, was ego. I came in as an MS student, so it was a challenge coming in at the bottom of the academic food chain, after being at the top in the professional world for the last several years. But humility is a virtue, so I consider this to be a great adjustment to have to go through.
The second biggest adjustment was working/learning style. In academia, especially in research, you get points for completeness and correctness, while in the professional world, you get points for efficiency.
The strategies you learn and the risks you take in the professional world to be efficient, to get quickly to market, to employ FUD effectively to thwart your competitors and deal with the crazy needs of clients/customers- these are the wrong strategies and behaviors in the academic world.
There of course is hand-waving and FUD and all that in academia, and a strong competitive dynamic (getting papers into conferences, etc)- but the way the game is played, as I found it at least, is completely different.
4) People who've studied in the UK at the MSc, MPhil, MEngg level - how did you fund your education? Were you able to get things like teaching or research assis
Addressing the Personal Issues (Score:3, Informative)
I got my BS CS in Dec 2000, went to work for a DoD company for 2.5 years then went to graduate school. I'm currently in my last semester of the 2 year program I choose so I'll share the pit falls.
Money
Your Own
You gotta watch this. I saved a lot of money before going back and it's all gone, even the money I made off my tax returns, since I stopped working mid way through, is gone. It's really hard to step back your spending habits, especially when it comes to things like food, and not eating out a lot as I did. So save as much as you can before hand and make a budget and stick to it!
As an aside, for americans. The FAFSA which denotes how much you get in student loans, as well how much is subsidized will kill you because the form assumes that since you worked the previous tax season you will be working this tax season and therefor you will get probably nothing in loans. What you need to do is petition the financial aid office at your school to manually evaluate your income based on the actual condition for the year ( basically adjust your gross income), that is how much you will be making during the school year. For my first year this was $0 so my loans were then able to cover my tuition etc for a decent part.
Funding
If you are going just for a Masters program do not expect to get an Assistanceship, expect to have to pay tuition, fees and all living costs out of pocket, and via student loans. GaTech, my school, is like this and the TAs and RAs are very hard to come by, they ever fired all the MS TAs two semesters ago due to budget issues. Some schools I think are able to more definitively offer funding of some sort, but be aware.
Time
Going back to school is pretty much turning your life over to academics. Do not plan on having much free time, no more 9-5 then stop working. This was and has continued to be the hardest thing for me. It's compounded by the fact that not everything will be scheduled for you, eg independant work, or working assistanceships that pay you. It's easy to let all that get lost in the mix and set to the side simply because you are getting your course work done.
So accept up front that you will be working most of the time and deal with it and be happy when you do have time.
Etc
I would advise not getting cable for a couple months after you start. First live without it then if you think you can manage having it just get basic
Read this book (Score:3, Informative)
It will give you some idea of the politics and tactics used to get through a grad program.
Re:Well... (Score:2)
Luckily for us Canadians, irritating Candians are actually pretty nice to be around compared to some other countries...
Re:Well... (Score:2)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:First step, stop lying (Score:2)
"A few months ago, I quit my secure, well-paying (but boring) job as a software engineer"
Second step, if that really is the truth, you're clearly not bright enough to go back to school.
Jeez, that's cynical. Some of us have been willing to trade some security and salary for a shot at a job we would actually enjoy. I did that, and am much, much happier for it.
I assume you were going for funny... (Score:5, Insightful)
and not "insightful" (as it is currently modded), but I, too, left a well paying job to go back to grad school. In my case, the job wasn't even boring, and my employer was great (gave me a laptop computer as a going away present), but I wanted to expand my horizons.
There are far more important things in life then money, and the sooner one figures that out, the closer one will come to having a fulfulling life. Of course, this goes back to the maturity equation someone else has already alluded to.
As to some of the original questions - most US schools will look kindly on relevant work experience (even - or perhaps especially - if that work experience is only tangentially relevant). Diversity is still the watchword here, and that includes diversity of experience. Since most grad students (at my school - UVA) have little to no work experience and are in their early to mid 20's upon entering grad school, the older, more experienced applicant has the benefit of bringing diversity. Additionally, as others have pointed out you likely have additional maturity (e.g., well-defined work ethic) that will give you more of an advantage in the course work than the disadvantage of being away from it awhile.
Re:I assume you were going for funny... (Score:2)
Bullshit. (I'm kidding)
They say money can't buy happiness, I say they don't know where to shop.
Re:First step, stop lying (Score:2)
Since you're going to spend about 1/3 (minus time off for vacation (good packages being almost non-existent in the U.S.), holidays, sick time, and cyclical unemployment) of you adult life working, this doesn't sound like such a bad idea to me.
Re:uk courses (Score:2)
Re:uk courses (Score:2)
The submitter didn't state whether he was interested in doing a taught degree or a research degree, which