BASc or MASc? 6

[mudandsnow]

Decision time is approaching so any input is appreciated.

I worked for 6 years as an Electronics Technologist before my recent return to school. Now I am in 4th year of BASc Electrical Engineering, graduating May 2016. I originally planned to get BASc and go back to work asap but profs keep telling me I should stick around for a masters. I'm enjoying school and would like to work on power systems with some of my profs but I'm not sure a masters would be worth another 2 years of being a very busy, broke, home renting, girlfriend ignoring, student.

I might stick with the electronics industry since I already have experience there and have a tentative offer to be CTO of a small tech start-up but I'd like to move towards the electrical side of things since it seems there are more opportunities.

Ideally I'll work near a small or medium city in western Canada. I'm happy in an office but if I can get outside and work with my hands, that would be a bonus.

I worry a masters will steer me towards an office job in a big city and might even limit my opportunities.

Will a masters help me get more money and more opportunities or will I be over qualified for some jobs and end up with less opportunities? Are there jobs that require a masters? Do employers prefer it and or pay more for it?

Any thoughts on this or pros or cons of getting a masters in electrical engineering would be appreciated.

 

[SNORGY]

Those who are academically qualifed to get a higher degree, and have the opportunity, should. Period.

 

[mudandsnow]

It sounds like you know of some benefits to having a higher degree. Care to share them?

 

[SNORGY]

Hi, mudandsnow

It's not so much that, as it is that I view it as extremely unfortunate (just plain wrong) that there appears to be a growing perception among young people entering the workforce that higher education beyond a BSc. might be seen as a waste of time or a detriment to their employability. There are folks who even say, not only in these various fora but indeed in the working world, that they are less inclined to hire MSc / PhD types than BSc types, since they fear - rightly or wrongly - that "ADVANCED DEGREE = EGGHEAD WITH NO SENSE OF PRACTICAL" (paraphrasing with a sweeping generalization). I would suggest that these sentiments should never be permitted to enter into play regarding the decisions a young person makes towards developing himself or herself.

The choices that I made when I was young effectively rendered me ineligible for graduate studies, so I had no immediate alternative but to enter the workforce because of that. Otherwise, I would now be in a much better position to work - and be accepted - both north and south of the border, and the stuff that I would be able to work on would be far more interesting and exciting. For example, if I wanted to immigrate from, say, Calgary, Alberta to Houston, Texas - if there was room in the annual quota in effect at the time, that is - I would be looking at a ten year process towards permanent residence status with my lowly BSc in Engineering. Alternatively, I could get there right away with $1,000,000.00 U.S. in my pocket plus a commitment to provide a job for 10 Americans when I got there. Conversely, with a PhD, I could come across the border immediately with no questions asked and no $1,000,000.00 U.S.

At least, that is what the immigration lawyers advised me when I had an appointment with them in Houston 2 years ago.

Why limit yourself based on perceptions held by people who view higher education as a bad thing? It is never a bad thing.

 

[mudandsnow]

Thank you for the reply Snorgy. Is it just young people that have these bad perceptions about eggheads or have you heard of employers that feel the same way?

I'm not too worried about these perceptions but I wonder if they counteract the potential benefits of having a masters. The masters will cost me about $100k in lost wages and possibly a gf, and put my life on hold for another 2 years. I want to make sure it's worth it.

When you say higher education would have given you more interesting and exciting stuff to work on, would that stuff typically be in offices in big cities?

 

[IRstuff]

These perceptions have existed for many decades; the term "ivory tower" in this context has been in use for more than a century. Certainly, the lower the degree, the more likely the perception exists. Unfortunately, in many cases, there's a grain of truth in the stereotype; some PhDs area seemingly obtuse to the notion of practicality, and others are unable to communicate at a sufficiently low enough level for us mere mortals to understand. There are many others where neither is an issue.

TTFN
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[mudandsnow]

I'm hoping the 6 years working my way up as a technologist will exempt me from the stereotypes but I wonder if these perceptions affect general hiring and salary policies at some workplaces.

 

[KENAT]

I'm not an electrical guy but I'd think having several years as a Technician would off set any concerns about having your Masters meaning you aren't very practical.

Carefully consider the cost benefit when applied to what you want to do etc. I'm entirely unconvinced by "Those who are academically qualified to get a higher degree, and have the opportunity, should. Period". I believe there are situations where the ROI for both the individual & society as a whole are not positive (not just $ but time, effort...). Next thing you know someone will be suggesting MBA's for all.

I work with many PhD's, and a good few masters plus maybe 2-3 bachelors and one guy who I don't think has that but came up through a machine shop.

Most of my colleagues by most measures are significantly more intelligent than me & several of them with Masters or PhD are also more practical than me in many areas.

However, some of them do not seem to have an innate intelligence higher than me, more they expressed the time, money and patience to hang around university a lot longer.

Also, a lot of them don't seem to get working in industry, every project becomes a lab experiment & their ability to coordinate with other departments is abysmal.

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(probably not aimed specifically at you)
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[tstructural]

I'm not electrical so have no experience as to whether or not advanced degrees are needed or are even beneficial but I like that you are thinking about cost. I can't put a dollar amount on 'losing a girlfriend' but as you already stated you will miss out on $100,000 of paid wages. Add to that the cost of college (graduate studies are generally twice as expensive per credit). If your earning power increase isn't enough to cover that then maybe graduate school isn't worth it.

Certainly happiness in your job is important. If you need the advanced degree for that then do it. But keep in mind that the financial investment you've described is really big. Do you want to be paying student loan debt for 15 or 20 years - or do you want to have children (very expensive), maybe travel, purchase a home, what about saving for retirement.

I love my work and am so glad I spent the time and money but it is a financial investment that you make. Do the math and make sure it's a sound financial investment.

 

[IRstuff]

Certainly, the fact that you have ANY job experience can allay some suspicions about your ability to work in a "real" environment. That said, we had a PhD in controls who had been working in industry for 30 yrs, and still never seemed to "get it" about practical and simple solutions and presentations.

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[SomptingGuy]

It also depends on locale. If your local Bachelor degree is a not much more than a continuation of high school studies, a further degree with actual useful engineering content might be needed. In some countries, this this common and is the basis of opinions of those who have come through these systems.

Steve

 

[SNORGY]

mudandsnow,

It's usually the person oing the actual hiring that has the concern about people with higher degrees than that required for the position being applied for. One of the prevalent concerns is that they don't want to bring someone on, only to have that person become intellectually bored and disengaged. (Then they leave anyway, after a short stint.)

I can't advise on the gf. What I *will* say is that I, myself, would only make life-altering sacrifices for a person I was seriously considering marrying. That person, once found, would make it work somehow.

$100,000.00 on your education, well, yes, that's a lot - upon first inspection. But that said, over the past 30 years I have probably frivolously spent that much on audio equipment, so, over a few dacades, how much is that extra money, really?

The more interesting work I was thinking about would be more office / lab based, but you can always balance that with being in the field. It opens more doors than it closes, in my mind.

 

[moltenmetal]

You've answered your own question I think. Remember that the profs are motivated to get you to work for them- it benefits them if you're competent and hands-on. Like me during my Masters, you could end up spending a lot of your time repairing and building apparatus for other students who aren't nearly as hands-on, since the number of techs to help with that kind of work in Canadian university settings is usually woefully inadequate to the task. (Aside: in chem eng, as a consequence, some of those labs are amongst the most potentially dangerous work places around. It amazes me that more people aren't injured or killed in there, given the lack of knowledge and skill amongst those students and the people directing them related to pressure retaining equipment. Fortunately during my time in grad school, I was aware of only two incidents involving hospitalization, but there were so many near misses it was terrifying.)

What you learn from an engineering Masters is a) coursework that you could otherwise take while working if you were really all that interested, or b) how to measure stuff, do research, analyze data and present your findings (a thesis Master's). The latter is really valuable if a) you're a fresh grad without much work experience under your belt and b) there's a project that you're so jazzed about, and a prof you're so keen to work with, that it's worth another two years of near poverty. Personally, mine was a valuable experience- to me personally as an educational experience. But when I did my Masters, it was an accelerated program so it took only 4 terms- and I had good scholarships, so it wasn't real poverty- so the cost personally wasn't all that high.

If your job search turns up nothing, you can always enroll in your Masters after not finding anything to your liking.

As to return on the investment of effort and finances- barring the excitement necessary to make it worthwhile whatever the cost as noted above, i.e. making you qualified for employment in a subspecialty that you would never get into otherwise, the return on investment is rarely any greater than what you'd get for the two years of extra work experience- minus the earnings from those two years of work. That makes it a net negative, i.e. no financial return. That's based on a review of the salary survey data, so it is true about the average Masters grad versus the average Bachelors grad. Individual results may vary!

And YES, it is possible to be overqualified for a position. A Masters would seldom make you considered so, though sometimes it would in some employers' minds- but a PhD almost certainly would. The risk of people getting bored and taking a walk too soon is very real in some positions, as it represents a real cost to an employer. For other positions, a PhD is really needed- but those are few here in Canada in engineering.

As to the notion that everyone should seek the maximum level of education they're capable of- seriously? Give your head a shake! If that were the case, virtually everybody capable of one PhD should go on and do another in a related field- and virtually everyone who is capable of a Masters should go on to a PhD! Seriously- there's no shortage of people capable of doing a PhD- the notion that it's the absolute pinnacle of ability, skill and intelligence is a trifle old-fashioned I'm afraid! The failure/abandonment rates in PhD programs aren't all that high here in Canada- and the drain of people with PhDs out of the country looking for work appropriate to their level of education, continues to the point that I swear there's an audible sucking sound... If you want to work here in Canada, a PhD in engineering is likely a bad idea for those who are not already independently wealthy.

 

[mudandsnow]

Thank you all for the responses. I agree with most of what I am hearing and am still leaning away from a masters. Did some research yesterday and found that masters doesn't seem to bring in much more money. I actually found out that MBA+BASc make more money than PHD ASc. I'm now mostly focussed on the effect it will have on the opportunities. I do like interesting, challenging problems where I can make a difference but I also enjoy easier, more hands on type of stuff so if a masters only shifts me towards the prior then I don't think it's worth it.

Aside from the above, I have 2 reasons to go for masters.
1 - One of my profs has about 50 years of experience in power systems and is working on a very interesting project.
2 - When faced with a similar decision 10 years ago, I chose to just get a technologist diploma and not bother continuing on to get an engineering degree. I now regret that decision and wish I put the extra work in back then so I could have been making a living through my 20's instead of just barely surviving.

What do you all think about the opportunities for a MASc vs BASc? Will MASc push me into an office in a big city?

 

[SNORGY]

mudandsnow,

It looks like you are thinking things through carefully, looking at all the pros and cons. I do agree that the older you get (and you're not old), the more it makes economic sense to work rather than study.

moltenmetal does put a different but valid perspective on the whole PhD issue. We just view it with a different bias. Me, I deeply regret the lack of career fulfillment and relegation to doing relatively simple, dull, non-challenging things like I have been doing for more than three decades. moltenmetal, on the other hand, correctly indicates that it makes no sense to create a glut of people to fill a nonexistent void in the employment market for people with those credentials. Indeed, by the very example I brought up earlier, after obtaining *my* PhD, I would contribute incrementally to that audible sucking sound created by the brain-drain to which moltenmetal alludes.

Through other threads in other fora, reference is often made to the perceived - probably real - oversupply of engineers in the workforce. Maybe that's indeed the root of the problem: lots of engineers in a society that has no need for engineering, at least not for what engineering *should be*. So, even in engineering jobs, we end up doing a bunch of mundane drudgery that anyone with a basic high school education could do - the only difference is, we create legislation that forces us to "stamp" it, thereby artificially justifying the requirement for enduring the journey through undergraduate studies and work experience towards becoming Professional Engineers. In a sense, through legislation, first we invent an employment market and then we flood it with ourselves. It is paradoxically brilliant and stupid at the same time.

I guess my view is that, if you can, why not strategically prepare yourself for those types of career opportunities that, when those skills and tools you would acquire through higher learning are legitimately called upon, you have them?

 

[mudandsnow]

I guess the hard part is figuring out where the voids are and even harder is figuring out where the voids will be over the next 30 years. I originally got into electronics in the early oughts when there seemed to be good opportunities thanks to the dot com boom. By the time I finished school, it seemed like I missed the boat, my first job was outsourced to usa and my 2nd job took a while to find and a pay cut despite having many more responsibilities. I job hunted for years and found the high power electrical industry (resource development, industrial control and power generation/transmission/distribution) had a lot more opportunities and better pay. It still looks that way but it seems 'just my luck' that right before I finish this round of school there is a downturn in that sector (Canadian oil sector layoffs). Despite this recent downturn I figure that will be the most stable area because it is harder to outsource and there are less hobbyists flooding the job market.

 

[IRstuff]

I think people continue to overthink the concept that somehow, one can glean what the ideal career might be for "the next 30 years." Consider that whatever career you choose, it's likely to be greatly affected by economic and social forces beyond anyone's control or prediction. We can't even realistically predict where the market will be next year, so a 30-yr timeline is essentially impossible. There used to be a brief time when one went to work for GM, IBM, or similar, and stayed there for one's entire career. As you should know, that hasn't been the paradigm for over 30 years. Therefore, the best you can do is to pick what's good right now, with some consideration of the near future 5 yrs, and a de-emphasis of anything beyond 10 yrs. Whatever you decide, just do not paint your self into a literal or figurative corner, and simply be flexible enough that doing something completely different won't even cause you to break into a sweat.

This discussion makes the tired old question, "Where do you see yourself in 5 yrs," that's often asked in interviews laughable. One cheeky answer might be, "I expect that there'll be an economic downturn where you are going to lay me off, and that I'll be looking for a new job." A former general manager, one of the rare, honest, ones, stated that we should expect to average about 5 years per job, and that anything longer than that would be extremely unusual. I've averaged about 7, so somewhat better than what he said. And, I'm certainly doing nothing related to what I majored in.

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[zdas04]

This deceased equine has nearly been beaten to a pulp, but I want to clarify one point. I frequently advise against going straight from a BS to an MS. When I was in a position of hiring, candidates with an MS and who had never worked as an engineer were exactly as worthless as new BS', but demanded more money to start and were a bit less likely to stay after the training process. Terrible economics.

I was a plant operator prior to college (6 years coincidentally) and I found that potential employers absolutely ignored time spent (working with mechanical stuff) prior to the BS. I don't think that is fair, but it is real. So if you came to someone like me who had been burned by people with MS degrees a few times then you would be more likely to get an interview without the MS than with it, and your technician experience likely wouldn't count for you (I've hired a couple of technicians-turned-engineer and neither worked out well, one thought he was still a technician and couldn't see that there was a big picture, and the other dumped all of her work on her tech and didn't check their work).

An MBA without relevant experience is also a lead weight on your ability to land the first job. Engineering managers that I've worked with see a BS immediately followed by an MBA as someone who doesn't want to work as an engineer and just wants to be on the board of directors without paying his dues--often not true, but if you don't get an interview no one will ever know.

I don't see it as a bias against the "Ivory Tower" as much as "If I don't have a differential equations for you to solve, what can you do for me that someone with a BS can't do?" and the answer is "Nothing". Now if you work as an EE for a few years and then get your MS after that, most potential employers see the MS as an asset (because you have demonstrated competence in commercial engineering, now you are bringing some advanced thinking).

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[zappedagain]

Once you can find a job with your BS, an employer may help you pay for the MS (if they see value in it). Of course, in my past this was typically for a MBA for employees showing good management potential. And I agree as stated earlier, 6 years of experience vs a MS may make the difference in pay insignificant.

Now if that professor's project is really interesting, and you've survived without a girlfriend for this long...

Z

 

[zdas04]

My employer fully funded my MSME, and even worked with me to develop a thesis project that they wanted the data from so they paid for all of that too (including staff to run the experiments). I may have just gotten really really lucky, but it worked out great.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist