Ask Slashdot: Worth Going For a Graduate Degree In the Middle of Your Career?

spiffmastercow writes "After nearly a decade of professional software development, my desire to work on something more interesting than business applications has pushed me toward looking into going back to school. I'd like to go into a graduate program for Computer Science, but I need to weigh my options very carefully. Is a Ph.D. a near-guarantee of a spot in a skunkworks type of job (Microsoft Research and the like)? Is a M.S. just as good for this? How does the 'letter of recommendation' requirement work if you haven't kept in touch with your professors?"

Re:Guarantees

[Mr. Underbridge]

I don't know about that - the division I'm in (of a large company) hires almost solely PhDs, and we're not exactly "hard core", whatever that means. Also, if he's sure he wants the PhD, it's not like getting the MS will shorten his PhD appreciably, if at all. If I were mid career, I would definitely not waste time on an MS if the PhD is what is desired.

I would decide what the goal is. If it's to attempt to get a higher paying job, don't get the PhD. If it's prestige, don't get the PhD. If it's to focus on interesting problems that might require some fairly deep insights, both during the PhD program and later as a career, then get the PhD.

To answer the submitter's question more directly:

A PhD isn't a guarantee of a job in a skunk-works type of environment. It isn't a guarantee of anything, really. It is an opportunity to focus on a narrowly defined problem for a number of years, and learn the skills and mindset necessary to move what the world knows about a subject. This requires being able to synthesize knowledge and insights from collections of facts, data, theory, etc. These skills are the sorts of things you need to do to work in a skunkworks type of environment, certainly as a major contributor and not just in a support role.

I would say this - if you like to apply skills that you've learned toward your job, get the MS. If you like to figure out things that people don't know yet, get the PhD.

Re:Guarantees

[CadentOrange]

A PhD doesn't really guarantee you anything.

You're correct that a PhD doesn't guarantee anything. My personal experience of working in the software industry in the UK, after getting a PhD in computer science has been mixed. On one hand, employees still have the stupid mind set of looking for X years commercial experience. It didn't matter that I had spent 4 years writing lots of C++ code for complicated machine learning algorithms, and like most on /. had been programming from a very early age before going to university. It still counted as 0 years commercial experience at a lot of places. I gave up trying to figure that one out. A PhD isn't going to automatically give you a high paying job.

On the other hand, having a PhD can open doors. I've found out that clued up start-up founders are desperately keen on hiring PhDs. This isn't strictly down to the area of your research (though it helps obviously). A PhD says that you've spent years working on problems where the solution isn't well defined (buzz word here is "wicked problem"), you're self motivated (no need for management hand holding), you can work with plans that change, you're not fazed by failure and most importantly you persevere and finish the damn job. Big companies tend to be pretty "Meh" about these traits, but start ups know that these traits are absolutely vital to getting off the ground.

TL;DR version: The PhD may not help you in your career in well established organizations, but it may give you a better shot at working at start ups where the skills you picked up over the course of your PhD are better valued.

A PhD is a foundation

[selil]

I was 28 years old when I entered university. With a background in law enforcement and military the idea of being some prep-school university type was not something I wanted to do. In my late 30s I received my Masters degree in computer science and saw a significant increase in perception of how my income was made. After the dot.bomb I was doing pretty good but shrinking staffs, horrible hours, executives who ran IT shops like they were slave pens, had me burning out pretty quick. I'd stepped out of doing the stuff I thought was fun and started getting paid to do stuff nobody thought was fun. I took a mid-university professor job, but they wanted me to get a PhD. A masters degree is sort of like being a journeyman. You've mastered the discipline. A PhD is about defining the future of the discipline. There are a lot of junk PhDs out there. I've read their dissertations. There are a lot of good people with bad degrees and bad people with good degrees. Look at the trends to define rather than specific anecdotal evidence like my case. Don't mix up the history PhDs with the Computer Science or Technology degrees. What I would say was that I took nearly a 66% cut in pay to become a professor and full time researcher. I got the opportunity to do what I want, when I want, and how I want. After I got my PhD I ended up in one of the top engineering schools in the world, have done tours at major science institutions and government agencies, and turn down opportunities to work with others. So, yes a mid life PhD can be a great thing for your career. You will find that people who don't have a PhD don't have any clue what it means to have one are either jealous or ignorant. A research based doctorate (PhD) versus an applied doctorate (DSc) will give you a broader understanding of what research is and how it is done. I was just speaking at a major national lab to a bunch of masters degree students about why they should get a PhD. I told them "don't do it." Unless, you love research, are willing to commit 5 to 7 years towards the goal, have your employers buy off, family buy in, and time management skills to die for. Nobody listens but the PhD is really about what you put into the effort. That will be obvious when you finish the longest test of your life. The dissertation. In the end that will determine whether it was worth it.

Re:Guarantees

[serviscope_minor]

A PhD doesn't really guarantee you anything.

Certainly. A PhD is often not very structured (in the UK, there are no exams either), and will not give you much if anything if you don't put anything in.

It can also be detrimental depending on what you want to do as some companies consider it too much or too expensive.

I would generally think that those companies have an attitude problem and you probably don't want to be working there. It sounds like they don't value skills or want to pay for them properly. Not wanting PhDs is merely the outward manifestation. It will apply to very skilled workers without PhDs as well.

You'll be better off starting in a Masters program and then deciding if you you really see a need or feel the desire to go for the PhD.

This again depends very much on the country, and what you want to do. And it would have to be a research Masters, otherwise it won't be anything like a PhD. The trouble with a 1 year one is that 1 year isn't very much, and by the time you've done 2, you may as well stick it out for 3 and get the PhD. Also in many places, you can bail on a PhD after 1 year and get a Masters instead.

A PhD is a LOT of work and time.

Certainly. It's a full time job for a minimum of three years. Not only is it a full time job, but it's also one that's not easy. Especially as you can't share the load in any way.

Really unless you plan to go into academia or hard core research I'd steer clear.

I would very much disagree.

A PhD will give you many things. The most obvious is that it will give you a narrow area of expertise which you could use to get a new job in that specific area. That's actually the least that it will give you.

What a PhD really gives is much broader and more useful.

One it teaches you how to learn much more effectively than an undergraduate degree. You will have to learn all sorts of ancilliary stuff with generally decreasing amounts of help as you go on. For instance if you do work in things like AI, machine learning, image processing, computer vision, you will have loarn all sorts of numerical computation stuff. You will have to learn how to plough through badly written research papers that document disjointed fragments about the absolute latest state of the art. This is necessary if you ever want to adopt cutting edge techniques afterwards before they are establised and there are well-written resources.

After you've done one PhD you should never need another: the PhD will give you the tools you need to come up to speed with the state of the art in a new area by yourself.

This not an unverified claim. Many academic workers (postdocs) switch areas after the PhD. This is often considered a good thing. If they succeed, it means that the PhD actually did what it was supposed to.

It also teaches you how to research effectively. This is useful even for small bits of research needed in R&D jobs. It will give you much better experience in figureing out where to look, where not to look, when to push on and when to cut your losses.

In other words, a PhD sets you up well for a lifetime of future learning.

A PhD is not about learning a very narrow area in detail. That's merely a necessary consequence.

As a final note, some people may chime in that you can do that without a PhD. Well, of course some people can, but most people find it much more effective to be taught how.