Graduate Degree Questions

[txrandom]

I'm currently a computer science and plan on staying in computer science for graduate school.

If I wanted to start graduate school during the Fall of 2010, when do I start applying to schools? Are most the deadlines around December 2009 because that's when my current school's deadline is.

How likely is it to go directly from undergrad to phd? Do most students do a masters first?

Do you recommend going to different school for a graduate degree?

Is there any point to a graduate degree? From my limited work experience, it seems like graduate degrees especially phds can open a lot of doors for some companies.

 

[esun]

For fall 2010, deadlines will be in December or January. Get started ASAP, filling out those apps can be time consuming. You'll also need to contact profs for recommendations and write your personal statement, which can also take time (profs can be terribly lax with deadlines for things like recommendations).

Skipping the masters really depends on the school. Even if you're accepted directly into a Ph.D. program, very often a Masters will be gotten along the way anyway, but often isn't technically necessary.

Some recommend a different school for graduate, but really I think it's only important if you're interested in becoming a professor.

Graduate degrees can open up some jobs but the advantages aren't huge IMO. They're necessary for most research positions, but there are a lot of jobs out there that aren't research related.

 

[Chronoshock]

Originally posted by: txrandom
I'm currently a computer science and plan on staying in computer science for graduate school.

If I wanted to start graduate school during the Fall of 2010, when do I start applying to schools? Are most the deadlines around December 2009 because that's when my current school's deadline is.

How likely is it to go directly from undergrad to phd? Do most students do a masters first?

Do you recommend going to different school for a graduate degree?

Is there any point to a graduate degree? From my limited work experience, it seems like graduate degrees especially phds can open a lot of doors for some companies.

I don't know about applications but it should be easy to look up

Many people go directly from undergrad to PhD. While you get your PhDyou also get a masters (at least that's usually the case for CS). You get your MS in 1-2 years and then your PhD 3-5 years after that.

I recommend you pick the PhD program that matches your abilities and interests. While there's not necessarily anything wrong with sticking with the same school (if there happens to be a professor you want to work with), it can show a lack of initiative or motivation.

It depends a lot on what you want to do. If you plan on going into academia, corporate research, or start your own business, the experience of a doctoral program is somewhere between necessary and extremely helpful. If you just want to work in industry developing software with the possibility of moving to management later on, a bachelors or bachelors + masters should suffice.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Keep in mind you'll spend 5-8 years just to open those doors, and that 5-8 years of full-time work experience opens doors too. So unless you do want a career in research you might be better off going straight from a bachelor's to the work force.

If there are specific companies you're interested in working for then try to find out what degree they care most about, it could be BS, MS or PhD.

 

[alphatarget1]

Originally posted by: txrandom
I'm currently a computer science and plan on staying in computer science for graduate school.

If I wanted to start graduate school during the Fall of 2010, when do I start applying to schools? Are most the deadlines around December 2009 because that's when my current school's deadline is.

How likely is it to go directly from undergrad to phd? Do most students do a masters first?

Do you recommend going to different school for a graduate degree?

Is there any point to a graduate degree? From my limited work experience, it seems like graduate degrees especially phds can open a lot of doors for some companies.

Take GREs now... Don't do BS>PhD directly. If something doesn't work out you'll at least have a MS if you don't do it directly.

 

[Fox5]

So unless you do want a career in research you might be better off going straight from a bachelor's to the work force.

What qualifies as research versus just work? Is R&D or project development research? Or are you talking about purely boundary pushing theoretical stuff?

 

[MovingTarget]

First, take the GRE and fill out a FAFSA. Thats step 1. Anything else you do will require these things.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: Fox5

So unless you do want a career in research you might be better off going straight from a bachelor's to the work force.

What qualifies as research versus just work? Is R&D or project development research? Or are you talking about purely boundary pushing theoretical stuff?

Mostly the boundary pushing theoretical stuff.

A PhD is required to be a first-class citizen in the academic world. University instructors with just a masters often teach night classes and are low-paid at-will employees.

Google, Sun, MS and other large companies with R&D departments seem to appreciate a PhD, but that's partly because you'll have started to research some area to earn it. If you've co-authored a paper on search you're a much better candidate for the Bing group.

> project development research?
Development can require a lot of creative thinking and exploring the best way to architect a system, but at most companies (especially small to medium ones) a BS or MS and some real-world work experience is all that you'll need.

If you want to work on improving the algorithms of page rank or bing, or on graphics techniques that are a generation or two away from being practical, consider the PhD. If you want to work on commercial applications or high performance web apps, or other programs that get used, you might just need a BS.


You can always go into a PhD program and bail out of it like I did, if you decide theory is less interesting than practice.

Your first couple of years you'll be taking a bunch of interesting graduate-level courses, reading papers and attending seminars about the research projects at your university. You can try becoming a Research Assistant for a professor's project and get your feet wet.

You probably can get an MS at that point by staying a bit longer to do a project or thesis.

 

[txrandom]

Thank you for the input.

How often to people actually go back to school after working? My previous boss worked about ten years and then decided to get his Phd at Stanford.