Is it worth it to get PHD in Mechanical Engineering 3

[am586]

I hope this is the correct forum to post this question in, but I am at an interesting point in time in my career and have reached a crossroad. I will be graduating in May with a BSME degree and I have two great options;

Option 1 involves going to work in a feild engineering position at a large company who makes power plant equiptment. I figure I would work there for a few years in the field till I get tired and then move into their home office, and hopefully get into a design and development department. I have always been a hands on learner have had a bit of internship experience and up until now I have been itching to get out into the real world. If I work for this company once I move into their home office, I will hopefully have enough money from the field engineering position (Where they will be paying for most all my room, board, and food) to have a great down payment on a house. They will offer tuition reimbursement and pay for my Master's Degree.

Option 2. I just started doing some research with a professor here at school and he and I get along great. I am real interested in the work he does, and he should be having a research project coming in in another month or so he will know for sure, that would allow me to be hired on for 4more years of schooling or so where I could get a PhD out of the deal. Up until now I figured a Masters would be as high as I would ever go educational wise, and I figure if I don't get a PhD now I never will. The pay will be considerably less, yet the project will give me an excellent background in metallurgy, failure theory, heat transfer, and manufacturing. All things I really am interested in learning quite a bit more of. I have no intention of spending the rest of my life however in academics. I am finally at the point where I can enjoy most of school but really want to be in the real world eventually. Any other project I wouldn't even give it any thought I, I would not consider a PhD but I really like the guy and it is interesting stuff.

So I was wondering what people think. Career wise, I want to be on the development side of research and development one day. I have wanted to go into the power industry for quite some time, love working around big heavy machinery, and think that the field position would really provide me a great basis as a design and development engineer. I don't want to be in academia, nor do I want to be the type of guy who spends his whole day writing research papers. For me the trill of engineering is when something you work on comes to life for the first time and works! 20 or so years down the road I would love to be the type of guy who people can come to when they have the tough challenge or issue to solve, and can get expert advise from, and or help develop something better than ever before. Does a PhD have any value for what I want to be? It seems like getting a PhD would really be a once in a life time opportunity, those who I know in industry who have PhD's seem to say the career satisfaction from having one comes later on in life down the road, but at the same time, if I am going to do it the time for me do it is now? So any advise from anyone who has been there and done it would be a great help. Also out of curiosity how hard is it for a guy with a PhD straight out of college, yet little industry experience shy of a few internships to get a job? I heard a lot of companies will feel they don't want to pay higher PhD wages, yet at the same time see you as not having the proper experience.

Thank you very much. If this is not the proper place where should I post it?

 

[SWComposites]

am586 -

all good advice above, but it is somewhat generic.

Are you thinking of getting a field service job with a company like GE involving the same type of equipment that you would be working on as a PhD? If no, then the PhD experienc will not be directly applicable and may hinder getting a job, so go get the field service job and get an MS while working (its a bitch, but at least you will be getting a real salary). If yes, then you should as soon as possible interview with GE and talk to the GE project manager - discuss potential jobs and career paths with and without the PhD at GE; hopefuly this will give you much better info on which to make a decision.

 

[am586]

Thanks for all the advise, I really hadn't thought of many of the actual career limiting potential of getting extra education early on in my career. I suppose at this point in time the only thing left to do before totally scrapping the idea of staying on for a PhD is to see if my professor can get me in touch with some one at GE or Pratt and Whitney who he has done work with in the past, and speak to them about the opportunities in industry that would exist for me if I do get the PhD and see if my skills would be in demand, and if the jobs I could get would be of interest to me.

The one other thing in this whole thing that I think is kind of frustrating is from what I understand unless you get into a 4-5yr PhD program straight out of an undergraduate(where you basically get a Masters and then a PhD during that time), the type of Masters you do at night is different from the one during the day. The night Masters you do while working for another company rarely if ever requires a thesis, instead of doing research you usually do a few extra credits. However in order to get a PhD, you must do a thesis based Masters program which seem to be almost always accomplished as a full time student.

I guess I am at the point in my career where I want to open as many doors as possible and not close too many permanently, but frankly I couldn't see my self ever again in the future having the ability to work/live off an academic stipend for 4-5yrs.

So anyhow thanks for the advise, btw Mike, do you still have my email? I couldn't find it on my computer anymore. If not I'll try to send you a pm on the other site (it doesn't seem like you can do that here) when I get a chance.

 

[zdas04]

am586,
One thing you don't have quite right--I did a MSME at night school with a theses option. In fact my employeer funded the research (to the point of flying me to the field many times and providing field techs to help with the grunt work). The research was something that the company wanted done and we had a really good fit between my needs and the company's needs.

Comparing the program I did to the full-time students I just can't see a difference.

David

 

[KENAT]

Ok, so I work in nanotechnology (no I don't do the clever stuff) and around here PHD are pretty common, but that's at least partly because it's not a mature technology and is still very heavily research led.

However, I don't believe any of the PHDs do the real design work. They come up with concepts and do real cutting edge research and find new ways to use the tools but...

They don't really design the tools we sell.

I'd guess PHD's in UK/US tend to be seen as technical specialists. They might lead the stress department, the materials department etc but they aren't going to be the lead designers for an actual product.

However this is based on a lot of assumptions etc. I was never smart enough to seriously consider a PHD so take anything I say accordingly!

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[ischgl99]

Adam, I'll take a look later and see if I still have your email, looking forward to chatting with you. Can't believe you are graduating already, seems like last year I was touring the school with you.