Do i have to get Master Degree? 2

[Riko_93]

Hi,
Could you please, help me to decide that if i have to get master degree or not? My field is Process Engineering. And, i want to be qualified to work internationally.
So, it'll be time lost or i will use it somehow in future?

 

[ashtree]

The question is very difficult to answer but i will try to be brutally honest.
If you have no experience and no idea then getting a master's degree won't help. You will still have no experience and no idea just better educated.
If you really know your stuff and experienced then a masters degree is probably not needed. You will already know more than the masters degree will teach you.
If you are somewhere in between maybe it might make a difference in the right job and employer.

Regards
Ashtree
"Any water can be made potable if you filter it through enough money"

 

[Riko_93]

Thank you so much for the great response

 

[MFJewell]

No.

 

[12345abc6ttyui67]

Certainly in my field (Structural Engineering, in the UK) a Masters degree makes it much each to gain Chartered Membership status with a registered engineering body.

 

[SEP87]

If you have years of experience then i don't think having a Master's over a Bachelor's will really add much to your CV. If you're a graduate with limited/no experience then it certainly sets you apart. As RandomTaskkk has said a Master's makes getting your CEng much easier if that's something your aiming for.

I disagree with you ashtree - from an employer's point of view, if you're looking at employing someone with no significant industrial experience (graduate) then a Master's would definitely be more attractive than a Bachelor's. If you have a choice of two guys with equal skills but one has a Master's then who would you choose?

 

[zdas04]

Ashtree, while I love your signature, I disagree with your basic sentiment. A master's degree without a passion for the subject and an internal drive to know everything you are capable of internalizing about the subject is just a line item on a resume. Very few employers are ever going to care about it. On the other hand, if you pursue an MS because of a passion for the subject, that passion comes across as an asset. It is the passion that is marketable, not the line item. To rephrase your list:
[ul]
[li]A Master's degree without relevant experience is a liability (you have expectations of higher pay because of the MS and no immediately applicable skills)[/li]
[li]With relevant experience, a Master's degree can help you formalize understandings that you acquired in an informal way (e.g., before I got my MS in fluid mechanics, I knew that using a centrifugal pump on an oil stream increased the risk of an emulsion, the MS improved my understanding of shear flow and its contribution to emulsification--I still don't like to use centrifugal pumps on oil streams, but now I can explain why I don't like them with some details and authority).[/li]
[li]If you are somewhere in between novice and expert, an MS is mostly just a bunch of arithmetic that is irrelevant to improving your expertise and it will just be a line item on your resume.[/li]
[/ul]

Nothing I learned in my MSME program has ever been directly applicable to my work as a Field Facilities Engineer in Oil & Gas (I'm yet to ever perform a Fourier Transform or even try to solve a real-world partial differential equation in anger), but having jumped through those hoops had an impact on my approach to difficult problems and has made me a better engineer. Being a better engineer had a positive impact on my life as an employee and has certainly had a positive effect on the success of my consulting business. In my experience, the OP really needs to honestly define his reasons for putting himself and his family through a couple of years of outrageously hard work and long hours.

As to working internationally, with a BS I had no trouble getting visas and invitations to travel the world. With the MS I still have no trouble getting visas. Since 2008, 80-90 percent of my consulting business has been overseas (man camps and hotels are a different way of life, but I like it). Did my MSME help me build a successful business, yes, but maybe not in the ways you would think.

[bold]David Simpson, PE[/bold]
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

 

[zdas04]

SEP87,
I've been in that position a number of times, and I will always take a new hire with a BS over someone with an MS and no relevant experience. The return on investment is often much better.

[bold]David Simpson, PE[/bold]
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

 

[IRstuff]

One of the challenges of hiring advanced degrees is that these degrees tend to force specialization, and that specialization must often be fed quite often to maintain competency, which is true of most specializations, even at the BS level. If you have a thermal analyst, they want to do thermal analysis, and often you wind up laying them off for lack of work, or they go elsewhere in search of that work.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

 

[StrucPEng]

One thing to consider which really depends on your current situation (Number of years of experience, desire to get a license, country or region of practice, etc.) is that from what I have read, many of the licensing bodies are discussing changing the required level of education to a masters degree at minimum. This has not happened yet to my knowledge and currently a masters degree only affords you one less year of required relevant experience when applying for licensure (Canada & USA as far as I know).

With that said, there are many other factors as noted by the other respondents, both economically and personally, to consider.

Best,

Matt Soda P.Eng.

 

[HamburgerHelper]

The Raising the Bar Initiative will be making a masters degree almost a requirement for a PE license. I don't know what year that is happening but it is coming.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.

 

[lacajun]

I don't regret getting a master's and it certainly helped me do my job. I wouldn't have learned some of that stuff any other way. Look into licensure requirements globally.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
NSPE-CO, Central Chapter
Dinner program:

http://nspe-co.org/events.php

 

[oldestguy]

I second the statements of Pam. Historically,looking only at the differences between Baster's and BS from many respondents to questionnaires, the Master puts you ahead of the BS in job responsibilities and pay.

 

[NorthCivil]

I don't have a masters degree and have worked internationally. As long as your bachelors is Washington accord accredited you should be fine.

I just turned up with the right visa and a bit of work experience to a warm market (did my research first) and had no problem finding work. I'm not Irish, but thats what the bulk of their young engineers have been doing for the last 10 years

 

[CWB1]

JMO but I wouldnt expect to see any benefit to an advanced degree within your own field, you should learn far more your first year in engineering than in the same year obtaining a MS. OTOH if you earned one in a different but related field you will necessarily be qualified for more roles due to your broader knowledge base.

 

[SEP87]

zdas04,
In my opinion when hiring i think an MS shows a fuller commitment to engineering and trying to ensure they have maximised their education before seeking (or during) employment. If the experience levels are equal then the BS has done the basic requirements to enter engineering, the MS has gone above and beyond. I would want that approach in their career too and would be willing to pay for it.

I'm quite surprised, you have an MS, and have said jumping through the hoops has made you a better engineer and it has helped you build a successful business, but you would still chose to hire a BS still over an MS. By your own logic aren't you missing out on the 'better' engineer?

 

[zdas04]

SEP87,
Two very different scenarios. If I am hiring an engineer with zero relevant experience I will absolutely pick a BS over an MS. If I'm hiring an experienced engineer then the MS becomes an asset. In my case, I worked as an engineer for 12 years before starting graduate school. That allowed me to look at a school problem and match it to a real-world situation and understand why that particular problem is in the lesson plan. I feel like I got a lot more out of graduate school after working as an engineer than I ever would have gotten had I just stayed after graduation. I am not saying that graduate school is bad, I'm saying that if I have to put you through a novice-engineer training program I am unwilling to pay an MS premium in salary since too large a percentage of people who enter those novice-engineer programs leave before the investment ever pays off.

[bold]David Simpson, PE[/bold]
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

 

[StrucPEng]

I agree with Dave that given a choice between a BS & MS both with no experience the MS should not command much of a premium at initial hire. I finished my masters right after undergrad and I was under no illusion that that made me any more qualified than I was before. With that said, I do believe that the Masters can help speed up the promotion and responsibility path in a firm assuming that you are able to apply some of that knowledge to real world applications. I like to think of it in the sense of compounding interest, at the start a BS may be a 3% rate of return and a MS maybe a 4%, so at the start you are not better off, but over 30-40 year career you most likely will be farther ahead.

Best,

Matt Soda P.Eng.

 

[CWB1]

In my opinion when hiring i think an MS shows a fuller commitment to engineering and trying to ensure they have maximised their education before seeking (or during) employment. If the experience levels are equal

IMHO that's a bit of a stretch. There are many mid-career folks whose careers are defined by minimum effort yet go back for a MS simply bc the employer offers the usual education benefit and folks believe their career will get a boost from it. In reality they rarely do bc they're already in the middle of a lackluster career and not regularly releasing new IP, technology, or products. In the case of recent grads you'll also find plenty who pursued a MS simply bc they couldnt find a job after earning a bachelor's. The key to hiring good people isnt consideration of training or education, its considering what they've actually accomplished. Graduating early, gaining relevant trade/other skills, and continually being the engineer with major accomplishements/major releases speak much louder in hiring than one's degree or school, and rarely are candidates equal in everything but degree. Education is the easy part, pushing oneself to apply that education and remain highly motivated to continually grow is the difficulty.

 

[weldstan]

Rico 93

Assuming that you are a chemical process engineer with little or no experience, my past experience is that Owners seemed to prefer engineers having an MS degree. The Engineering firms for which I worked didn't have a real preference and most often hired engineers with a BS only. I must say that the MS engineers seemed to rise in their careers more rapidly if they contributed to the companies effectively.