Cool, Science-y Masters Programs For Software Devs? 150
An anonymous reader writes "I'm an early-30s software engineer with 10 years of development experience, and a BA in computer science from a top university. I've been working for several years at a national lab in bioinformatics, but I'm starting to wonder what other interesting directions there are to go for people in my boat: computer science majors with software development experience. The goal would be to find a position that could leverage my development skills, but also include a strong research component, without the need for a Ph.D. (I would be happy to get a masters for the right job.) I'm actually getting some of those things in my current job, but I'm ready to move on to new or different areas of research. Possible fields that seem interesting so far: neuroscience, economics/sociology, and AI. I'm happy to work in a team in support of Ph.D.s, but would like an active part in the research end of things as well as the tool-making end."
Re:Law School. (Score:4, Insightful)
No offense, but I'm guessing that anybody with the same interests as the OP would find the topic of law wrist-slashingly dull.
You're already doing it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Get a MS in bioinformatics and instead of concentrating on the computer science which you'll find easy at the moment, learn all the relevant biology. And then go back to the national lab.
Or, try physical oceanography/geophysics/atmospheric physics; there is substantial data analysis & software.
But, think about your career path after your degree program.
The problem is that you start to do all the real research after the masters, and everybody else is a PhD student/postdoc. And unless you want to get paid like a PhD student (unlikely since you're at a national lab and making much more $) it would be very hard for a research group to afford you. If they do have the money for a professional programmer (very few do these days) they'll want you to do the programming stuff that the grad students don't want to do (or don't have time/expertise). Even if you can program better than the grad students, you won't be appreciated in an individual research group because the essential purpose is scientific creation and the valued artifact is publishable scientific results, not an enduring software system.
You wouldn't be valued for your scientific skills much unless you are on the science track which is PhD, and if you want to do science for real that's what you need.
If you can get the job you could try to be a scientific programmer for the very large climate model codes on supercomputers which present substantial software problems beyond what a typical grad student or postdoc can accomplish on their own; that's a reasonable, though difficult career path. That's an application where the software itself is considered valuable enough to be worth maintaining professionally. Problem with this is that it is 100% dependent on Federal funding, and as it looks like Republicans are going to win the next elections and likely eviscerate climate research it may not be a large opportunity.
Are you doing this for your own personal enjoyment or do you want to make scientific contributions (i.e. publish papers in journals and contribute to core ideas). If it's the 2nd there isn't any substitute for PhD.
Re:Law School. (Score:4, Insightful)
There wasn't much memorization in law school (now studying for the bar is a different matter). I loved it because law is essentially programming. Both law & software provide a set of instructions that you are supposed to follow to get a result. In law, your processor may or may not follow the instructions, or may not even understand the instruction set that is being used, and moreover each processor's interpretation may affect (i.e. screw up) subsequent processors. In software, your processor does exactly what you told it to, whether you want it to or not. The end result of both is bugs, either leading to re-factoring, hacking, or wholesale replacement.
Leaving aside ideological positions for the moment, Roe V. Wade is a good example. The legal framework from that case was an unworkable "trimester" framework that was subsequently replaced in Planned Parenthood v. Casey with the "point of viability" test, which arguably isn't much clearer (when exactly is the point of viability?) in programming, there really can't be any uncertainty because a processor can't handle it. In law, the entire game is "where to hide the uncertainty." In tort law, uncertainty hides behind the "reasonable person." Want to know what the standard of care is? It is what a reasonable person would do. It is a fascinating study in sociology & logic.
Finally, as a programmer, it is relatively easy to understand. What a lot of your classmates and up struggling with will seem like a relatively trivial set of if-then statements compared to the nasty logic you had to sort through as a programmer. And if you are seeking to either exploit or overturn the existing IP framework, what better way than to understand it from the inside.
Re: my MIT classmates do software; none majored in (Score:5, Insightful)
(Sorry if this sounds a little bit gruff.)
Re: my MIT classmates do software; none majored in (Score:0, Insightful)
Ah, another CS major getting all huffy when they see non-CS majors doing their work. Hint: your degree doesn't mean you can develop software. In fact, many of you get so lost in theories of design you can't make the first step to solving the problem.
Re:Obvious answer... (Score:2, Insightful)