Grad School or Job

Off Topic
41

[quote]GrizzlyBerg wrote:
I was in this exact predicament this past spring. I graduated with a biology degree and ended up taking a year to work (at a company I already worked part time at throughout the year). I ended up realizing how much I missed learning and research. My end goal is to be a professor at the collegiate level which requires me to pretty much receive I higher degree than my B.S.

So for me it worked out because I now saved up some money and rekindled my love for learning. Also look into research positions or teacher’s assistant positions when applying to grad school. Most schools will fully fund your education if you do research with them.

If you want some more specifics just let me know. I would love to help.[/quote]
Yeah exactly what I would recommend. Work for a bit and save then do your masters, which you need. I’m about to finish up my Bachelor’s and work full time for a few years. Then hit up teachers college. Too much debt mounting the interest scares the shit outta me aha.

42

[quote]Captnoblivious wrote:
Well there are some very smug entitled dumbasses working on or having PhD’s, but not everyone with a grad degree is that way.
[/quote]

Definitely agree.

Mostly, I was trying to emphasize that academic experience is no substitute for on-the-job experience.

When most people finish school and are looking for a job, they’re in a fairly vulnerable position anyway. There’s a lot of uncertainty.

“I just spent X years in school, I’m in debt up to my eyeballs, and I put all of this work in… for what?”

Their ego’s on the line, so a common fallback is to mentally inflate themselves and their education, to compensate for the psychological pain. For some people, it gives them a smug, arrogant, entitled attitude. Not everyone.

Facebook is littered with messages like: “I’m so glad I got my master’s degree so I could get jobs that require a high school diploma…” [actual quote]

I’m not quite sure I’d call it entitlement, but rather, just not really knowing how to transition from a heavily structured environment to “real life”.

That being said… absolutely, someone with critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, the ability to think for themselves, the ability to take on and handle responsibility… who also has an advanced degree… is an excellent candidate.

It’s just those earlier qualities aren’t usually there, and aren’t usually developed without some real work experience.

43

More debt is always a bad thing. In my experience, even a high paying job is not all its cracked up to be when you have student loan debt. You make a lot less money than you think, and you will be giving a large chunk of your paycheck to the government every month.

I graduated in Electrical Engineering a year and a half ago and have been paying my student loans. I have resorted to alternate income sources outside my job to pay off my debt faster.

44

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]carbiduis wrote:
It doesn’t take long for the smugness to be wiped away from a new grad, the professional world is a humbling place

So you turned down candidates with doctorate degrees cause “they know everything”? And you know they were all like this? Stereotype much?

The truth is they were over qualified for the position and you didn’t need a doctorate for the position

There are plenty* of job opportunities for people with graduate degrees and GASP ZERO EXPERIENCE, usually highly technical and large companies.
[/quote]

It’s funny the things people pick up on.

No, we turned down candidates with doctorate degrees because they couldn’t do basic problem solving.[/quote]

maybe you should have looked at someone with a math/science/engineering type degree instead of candidates with doctorates in art history

I defend the highly educated cause people are constantly bashing them, even though there is a reason they were able to make it through the schooling (I’m assuming a math/science/engineering type degree)

it is nuts how many people can get through tough schooling by simply regurgitating information and not processing it. I couldn’t do that and was forced to actually understand the problem solving/application side of things, it made school a lot harder.

45

[quote]Ripsaw3689 wrote:
More debt is always a bad thing. In my experience, even a high paying job is not all its cracked up to be when you have student loan debt. You make a lot less money than you think, and you will be giving a large chunk of your paycheck to the government every month.

I graduated in Electrical Engineering a year and a half ago and have been paying my student loans. I have resorted to alternate income sources outside my job to pay off my debt faster. [/quote]
Sounds like its time to find another job period or move to another state.

46

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]Captnoblivious wrote:
Well there are some very smug entitled dumbasses working on or having PhD’s, but not everyone with a grad degree is that way.
[/quote]

Definitely agree.

Mostly, I was trying to emphasize that academic experience is no substitute for on-the-job experience.

When most people finish school and are looking for a job, they’re in a fairly vulnerable position anyway. There’s a lot of uncertainty.

“I just spent X years in school, I’m in debt up to my eyeballs, and I put all of this work in… for what?”

Their ego’s on the line, so a common fallback is to mentally inflate themselves and their education, to compensate for the psychological pain. For some people, it gives them a smug, arrogant, entitled attitude. Not everyone.

Facebook is littered with messages like: “I’m so glad I got my master’s degree so I could get jobs that require a high school diploma…” [actual quote]

I’m not quite sure I’d call it entitlement, but rather, just not really knowing how to transition from a heavily structured environment to “real life”.

That being said… absolutely, someone with critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, the ability to think for themselves, the ability to take on and handle responsibility… who also has an advanced degree… is an excellent candidate.

It’s just those earlier qualities aren’t usually there, and aren’t usually developed without some real work experience.[/quote]

There just aren’t jobs for some advanced degrees. And in my experience some american born grad students are lazy entitled fuck offs from wealthy families. I’ve seen 25 year old men behave like teenagers. I agree about the lack of critical thinking and inability to handle responsibility.

I would state that IMO, advanced degrees give you an upper hand on the competition and some valuable educational experience. And as derek stated, some jobs just require them. I previously believed graduate school was worthless and I was wrong.

Some coworkers and bosses are intimidated by individuals with stronger academic backgrounds.

47

[quote]carbiduis wrote:

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]carbiduis wrote:
It doesn’t take long for the smugness to be wiped away from a new grad, the professional world is a humbling place

So you turned down candidates with doctorate degrees cause “they know everything”? And you know they were all like this? Stereotype much?

The truth is they were over qualified for the position and you didn’t need a doctorate for the position

There are plenty* of job opportunities for people with graduate degrees and GASP ZERO EXPERIENCE, usually highly technical and large companies.
[/quote]

It’s funny the things people pick up on.

No, we turned down candidates with doctorate degrees because they couldn’t do basic problem solving.[/quote]

maybe you should have looked at someone with a math/science/engineering type degree instead of candidates with doctorates in art history

I defend the highly educated cause people are constantly bashing them, even though there is a reason they were able to make it through the schooling (I’m assuming a math/science/engineering type degree)

it is nuts how many people can get through tough schooling by simply regurgitating information and not processing it. I couldn’t do that and was forced to actually understand the problem solving/application side of things, it made school a lot harder.
[/quote]

I don’t know where you get these assumptions from.

We’ve rejected candidates with Computer Science degrees from MIT, Caltech and UIUC because of inability to solve the programming and design problems we presented them.

For what it’s worth, they at least got to the interview stage and weren’t rejected based on resumes and phone screens alone.

EDIT: While they were certainly able to do fine if you stick to, say, exam material… algorithm design, analysis, statistical modeling… they were very weak with the applied side of things.

It’s one thing to be able to design a scalable system that works in theory and would get the nod of approval in the academic world; it’s quite another to be able to evolve an existing system to become more scalable (which is a hard problem), or to develop a new working scalable system given the actual constraints and failures that happen in operating systems on real hardware (not quite as hard a problem). Basically, there are a lot of implementation details that get glossed over.

Secondly, and somewhat less important, they tended to be very bad with actual coding and debugging. This is a skill that can be learned of course, but there was a surprising lack of attention to detail. (Interestingly, those with just undergrad CS degrees are much stronger at this.)

To be fair, we reject a lot of candidates regardless of background.

It’s more that we’ve seen little positive correlation between academic qualifications and actual job capability – at least if there’s no relevant work experience.

48

[quote]Captnoblivious wrote:
Furthermore, the consulting world loves PhD’s. Why it adds more veracity to their stance especially when testifying in court. [/quote]
Good to know.

49

[quote]carbiduis wrote:
it is nuts how many people can get through tough schooling by simply regurgitating information and not processing it. I couldn’t do that and was forced to actually understand the problem solving/application side of things, it made school a lot harder.
[/quote]

That is a great character attribute for solving real world problems. I’m not an engineer but I’ve solved problems that had people sitting behind desks shaking their heads and resigning to lose multi-million dollar contracts simply because they didn’t have the wherewithall to get off of their asses and look at what was actually happening.

Virtual applications don’t tell you what is actually happening in a process.

50

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]Ripsaw3689 wrote:
More debt is always a bad thing. In my experience, even a high paying job is not all its cracked up to be when you have student loan debt. You make a lot less money than you think, and you will be giving a large chunk of your paycheck to the government every month.

I graduated in Electrical Engineering a year and a half ago and have been paying my student loans. I have resorted to alternate income sources outside my job to pay off my debt faster. [/quote]
Sounds like its time to find another job period or move to another state. [/quote]

Oh I make plenty of money. I just don’t want to spend 10 years paying the government. I’m trying to start investing in real estate ASAP.

51

[quote]Ripsaw3689 wrote:

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]Ripsaw3689 wrote:
More debt is always a bad thing. In my experience, even a high paying job is not all its cracked up to be when you have student loan debt. You make a lot less money than you think, and you will be giving a large chunk of your paycheck to the government every month.

I graduated in Electrical Engineering a year and a half ago and have been paying my student loans. I have resorted to alternate income sources outside my job to pay off my debt faster. [/quote]
Sounds like its time to find another job period or move to another state. [/quote]

Oh I make plenty of money. I just don’t want to spend 10 years paying the government. I’m trying to start investing in real estate ASAP. [/quote]
That’s how I feel.

52

job

53

I graduated in May with 10k in debt(extra 3k cause I was an idiot and fucking gambled in college and didn’t work), got my job in September working for a smallish Construction company doing Reporting for Accounting/Finance as well as Database Administration work and some boring Admin work. But I got pretty fucking lucky considering I majored in Acct/Information system.

Do you live at home? If you do get a fucking job ASAP and stay at home making that sweet sweet cash and offer or pay your share of the rent and just save/save/save and figure out what you wanna do.

54

[quote]optheta wrote:
Do you live at home? If you do get a fucking job ASAP and stay at home making that sweet sweet cash and offer or pay your share of the rent and just save/save/save and figure out what you wanna do. [/quote]

If you do this, for the love of God, don’t waste money going out every single night like 90% of the people that “live at home to save money.”

55

[quote]Ripsaw3689 wrote:

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]Ripsaw3689 wrote:
More debt is always a bad thing. In my experience, even a high paying job is not all its cracked up to be when you have student loan debt. You make a lot less money than you think, and you will be giving a large chunk of your paycheck to the government every month.

I graduated in Electrical Engineering a year and a half ago and have been paying my student loans. I have resorted to alternate income sources outside my job to pay off my debt faster. [/quote]
Sounds like its time to find another job period or move to another state. [/quote]

Oh I make plenty of money. I just don’t want to spend 10 years paying the government. I’m trying to start investing in real estate ASAP. [/quote]

Well you must not make plenty of money if you have to seek outside revenue.

56

[quote]setto222 wrote:
IMO You went into a hard science (chem, phys, math) and the best bet is to go to grad school. From their you can choose either academia or industry. Sadly the masters won’t be much more helpful and a PhD may be necessary. Be sure to find a school that has a fast track program that bumps up promising masters students into PhD work. [/quote]

QFT. I graduated with a B.S. in Physics. Unfortunately that didn’t translate to much so I’ve had to step outside of my knowledge base. The degree basically just satisfied the “has degree” part of the application but not much more. I know that part of that is my fault as I’m sure I didn’t apply myself to the appropriate places.

Now I’ve found that physics isn’t something I’m really interested in anyway so I’m dabbling in health care while trying to work myself up the ranks in an unrelated field

57

I think my message got lost somewhere in all the stuff I said.

I think it’s great to get graduate level education, and I commend everyone who’s done that.

I only caution against the mindset that having a graduate education automatically makes you a more desirable job candidate. It may and it may not.

But the more smart people out there, the better. No doubt about that.

58

[quote]LoRez wrote:
I think my message got lost somewhere in all the stuff I said.

I think it’s great to get graduate level education, and I commend everyone who’s done that.

I only caution against the mindset that having a graduate education automatically makes you a more desirable job candidate. It may and it may not.

But the more smart people out there, the better. No doubt about that.[/quote]
Excellent summation.

59

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]Ripsaw3689 wrote:

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]Ripsaw3689 wrote:
More debt is always a bad thing. In my experience, even a high paying job is not all its cracked up to be when you have student loan debt. You make a lot less money than you think, and you will be giving a large chunk of your paycheck to the government every month.

I graduated in Electrical Engineering a year and a half ago and have been paying my student loans. I have resorted to alternate income sources outside my job to pay off my debt faster. [/quote]
Sounds like its time to find another job period or move to another state. [/quote]

Oh I make plenty of money. I just don’t want to spend 10 years paying the government. I’m trying to start investing in real estate ASAP. [/quote]

Well you must not make plenty of money if you have to seek outside revenue. [/quote]

Your lack of greed is disturbing.

60

I spoke with my professor (the same one I am doing a research project with and the one who recommended I go to grad school) and he said that he has been in contact with a friend of his at another university about me and the PhD program there. He mentioned that his friend would like to talk to me and we could possibly visit over winter break.

Both these guys are ChemE, which isn’t really a problem for me.

From what I understand the PhD program pays you to do your research with them and to get the degree. I voiced my concerns to my professor about a PhD being a big step and intimidating to me. He elaborated a little, saying that’s what he thought too when he did his but it’s really very similar to what he’s is doing with me right now. And I really like doing the research with him, it may be the most satisfying of any course I’ve taken.

What I’m thinking at the moment is that, granted if I can get into the program, it’d be pretty stupid of me not to go for it. The worst possibility being I can’t complete my work or dissertation or whatever. In that event, the program and I can go our separate ways and I get some good experience and know how along the way, while also getting paid.

Still, it is very intimidating…