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Ithaqua posted:If the job doesn't explicitly call for a graduate degree, the exact same rate as a bachelors. It's just that some grad degree holders think they're entitled to more money. Depends on the company. If a company does value it, they're going to value it to the tune of $10-25k a year or so, even if they're doing the same work as someone with a bachelors. The differential will generally disappear as you gain experience though. Personally, in finance, I got a $25k/year raise and a promotion right after I got my masters and they told me the reason they did that was because I got the degree. I work with plenty of people with only bachelors degrees but with more experience.
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Feb 13, 2013 21:34
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KidDynamite posted:So what does a CS job with a masters command? Considering most starting CS jobs are what other jobs expect with a masters the number must be uh, impressive. For a whole host of reasons this is impossible to generalize; however, here's some data from a few years ago: According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, starting salary offers for graduates with a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering averaged $52,464 in 2005; offers for those with a master’s degree averaged $60,354. Starting salary offers for graduates with a bachelor’s degree in computer science averaged $50,820.
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Feb 13, 2013 21:40
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Some companies consider a master's equal to a bachelor's + a few years experience. I know Google loves grad degrees, for example.
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Feb 13, 2013 21:40
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So I'm gathering that right now I should be looking towards a master's, but to basically treat it like a bachelor's and not expect the world from it. I'm really just looking for a solid education leading to a satisfying career, not a get-rich-quick card, so I'm more than fine with that. I sent out a couple emails to my school's advising department and am planning on meeting with an advisor sometime in the next week or so. I'll discuss my situation and feel out what my options are. I'm also going to start learning Python on my own and generally work on shaking off the rust from the last six years of not-coding. I hope I haven't forgotten too much from my high school classes. I'll sign up for a couple classes on Coursera as well when I get home tonight.
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Feb 13, 2013 21:43
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Ithaqua posted:If the job doesn't explicitly call for a graduate degree, the exact same rate as a bachelors. It's just that some grad degree holders think they're entitled to more money. I don't get it. If I invest 2+ years and all of that money into a post-grad degree, I'm not allowed to expect to be compensated more than someone without a bachelors? What's the incentive then?
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Feb 13, 2013 21:59
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biochemist posted:I don't get it. If I invest 2+ years and all of that money into a post-grad degree, I'm not allowed to expect to be compensated more than someone without a bachelors? What's the incentive then? From what I've seen the short answer to this is: "Not in this field, no".
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Feb 13, 2013 22:01
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KidDynamite posted:So what does a CS job with a masters command? Considering most starting CS jobs are what other jobs expect with a masters the number must be uh, impressive.
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Feb 13, 2013 22:02
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The only reasons to get an MS in CSE are if you want to get a job that requires one (specialized industry), or if you are looking to change focus to something that your prior experience doesn't align with. If you want to write software in industry, the MS won't really help you with that. There is very little difference in the code that a BS grad writes vs what an MS grad writes, and neither has practical software lifecycle experience unless they got it as an intern. If you want to work in a specialized field though, then the MS might be what gets you the job. Edit: Or if you want to go into academia, but then you are presumably moving on to a PhD armorer fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Feb 13, 2013 |
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Feb 13, 2013 22:04
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  This is according to the Hard Times report: http://cew.georgetown.edu/unemployment/ Also  CIS unemployment rate.
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Feb 13, 2013 22:05
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biochemist posted:I don't get it. If I invest 2+ years and all of that money into a post-grad degree, I'm not allowed to expect to be compensated more than someone without a bachelors? What's the incentive then?
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Feb 13, 2013 22:15
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Cicero posted:Look at it from the other way around. How does your master's degree help your software development for a given company? I'd say that a good Master's Thesis is a proof by demonstration that a person can: - survey the state-of-the-art in a technical area - identify an interesting technical challenge in that area - independently design a solution to this problem - convince a panel of superiors that this solution is worthy of implementation - independently implement this design - design and execute experiments that will support this solution - write a document rationally supporting this solution with theory and experimental results - verbally argue in support of this solution in front of a panel of superiors All of which is relevant to functioning in a real-world software development team and all of which requires a much higher level of effort at the Master's level than at the undergraduate level.
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Feb 13, 2013 22:44
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Ithaqua posted:If the job doesn't explicitly call for a graduate degree, the exact same rate as a bachelors. It's just that some grad degree holders think they're entitled to more money. Objectively false over here. People with masters literally come in a pay grade higher. This "entitlement" stems from the fact that it's loving true for most of the world, not some mythical land of make-believe. edit since that's been covered: Brannock posted:So I'm gathering that right now I should be looking towards a master's, but to basically treat it like a bachelor's and not expect the world from it. I'm really just looking for a solid education leading to a satisfying career, not a get-rich-quick card, so I'm more than fine with that. I sent out a couple emails to my school's advising department and am planning on meeting with an advisor sometime in the next week or so. I'll discuss my situation and feel out what my options are. JawnV6 fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Feb 13, 2013 |
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Feb 13, 2013 22:45
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JawnV6 posted:Objectively false over here. People with masters literally come in a pay grade higher. This "entitlement" stems from the fact that it's loving true for most of the world, not some mythical land of make-believe. I should've qualified that my statement was generally true for my particular segment of the industry. Blanket statements are bad when we work in such a big field. Sorry!
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Feb 13, 2013 22:49
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Generally speaking a master's will get you higher pay simply from the negotiating advantage you get by having other companies that would (equally wrongly) give you higher pay. Even if the entire industry realizes that they don't make you a better developer, the pay advantage could persist for a while for this reason.
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Feb 13, 2013 22:57
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Cicero posted:Look at it from the other way around. How does your master's degree help your software development for a given company? Unless the work you'd be doing is in the same field as what you did your master's work on, the answer is probably, "It doesn't." And if it's not beneficial to the company, why should they give you more money? At my company, my supervisor was like "you should get a master's degree. We'll pay for the master's degree, we'll pay you $30,000 more than you're already making, and we'll move you out of QA." It was a very compelling argument.
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Feb 13, 2013 23:01
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shrughes posted:Generally speaking a master's will get you higher pay simply from the negotiating advantage you get by having other companies that would (equally wrongly) give you higher pay. Even if the entire industry realizes that they don't make you a better developer, the pay advantage could persist for a while for this reason. They don't make you a worse developer, and it's comparatively likely that someone with a masters has a better understanding of various parts of theory and application than someone with only a bachelors at the same experience level. Having a bunch of developers with advanced degrees can help a company sell technology a to non-technical investors and clients.
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Feb 13, 2013 23:05
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armorer posted:The only reasons to get an MS in CSE are if you want to get a job that requires one (specialized industry) In my experience, this is not true. Sure, a web development shop is probably not going to have much reason to hire someone with a masters degree over a bachelors, but it's my understanding (both from experience and speaking with others) that there is a *very* high concentration of workers with advanced degrees at companies like Google, Apple, VMware, Microsoft, Oracle, etc. Also, for what it's worth, where I went to school there was a 5th year master's degree program, and most of my classmates completed it. In fact, according to the department website: "More than 70 percent of EECS undergraduates apply for this program, and more than half enter and complete it."
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Feb 13, 2013 23:58
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I am not at all opposed to people doing a masters. I just think that, for the vast majority of programming jobs out there, it really doesn't help you. I agree completely that there are places where it will get you more money. I also agree completely that it is valued at big software companies like the ones you mentioned. If you want to work for a software company, you should take your masters classes in something widely applicable (like algorithms, networking, software engineering, operating systems, compilers, etc.) Don't take a computer graphics focus in your masters classes and expect to get paid more building web applications. That is mostly my point. Even at the big software companies, the MS is not what will get you the job. Being able to speak intelligently about projects you have done is what wins technical interviews. The highest points come from projects that convey expertise in an area of interest to the company. If your college offers a 5th year masters program, absolutely take it. I think you would be stupid not to really. Just make sure you work a decent internship the last two (ideally three) summers of your college career.
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Feb 14, 2013 01:02
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armorer posted:I just think that, for the vast majority of programming jobs out there, it really doesn't help you. The vast majority of programming jobs out there are also mundane and boring. After 5-10 years of doing webapps or gluing enterprise cruft together it gets old. All of the interesting jobs I saw at good companies doing interesting stuff wanted masters/phd. unixbeard fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Feb 14, 2013 |
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Feb 14, 2013 03:49
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Steve French posted:I think this is a pretty poor generalization; a masters degree is not like a PhD; I have a lot of trouble believing that the average fresh graduate with a bachelors and masters in CS is less proficient at practical development work than the average fresh graduate with only a bachelors. I'm not sure it qualifies as a generalization- I'm only saying I'm initially a little wary of CS ppl who opted to continue studying right away, due to anecdotal experiences as mentioned already by others. Certainly I would expect someone with a masters or phd should be more proficient.
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Feb 14, 2013 05:12
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unixbeard posted:All of the interesting jobs I saw at good companies doing interesting stuff wanted masters/phd. These jobs are exactly what I meant by "specialized industry". I think we are saying the same thing. It sounds to me like you are talking about jobs other than "just writing code in industry" which is what I said the BS was fine for. You should get an MS if you want a job that requires (or "strongly prefers") one. This includes jobs like doing operations research or r&d at a major software company (PhD realistically), writing software for any sort of autonomous robot, working on some government defense contracts, etc. If you just want to graduate, and work someplace close to home that pays pretty well, then an MS is a waste of time and money. If you are young, single, mobile, and passionate about AI - go ahead and get a masters with a focus in it. Then look for a great job that lets you put those skills to use. If you are married with a kid and a mortgage, and trying to decide whether or not to get a masters taking night classes over the course of 3 years... it really might not make sense. You might benefit more (in terms of employ-ability) by contributing to a high visibility open source project in the evenings. You should not expect that having the MS means you write better code, or are a better software developer. A person who got a BS and worked in industry for two years (at a place that doesn't suck) will write better code than you. They will also have experience with all of the things that school doesn't really teach you in depth: libraries, VCS, software lifecycle, unit testing, continuous build, provisioning, etc. You will almost certainly know the internal details of some niche in CS better than that person does though, since you studied it as a grad student. To the majority of potential employers out there, the BS w/2 years experience is a better "drop in replacement" for whatever spot they are trying to fill. Bonus that they probably will ask for less money than the MS will too.
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Feb 14, 2013 13:53
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I'm glad I asked given how much discussion has come up. My dream job is to work for Space X so I guess I know what I'm doing.
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Feb 14, 2013 14:02
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I have an interview coming up for an app company, they have asked me to prepare some things.quote:Activity requirements Has anyone had to prepare a project for an interview in this manner before? What kinds of things would you be looking for from the candidate? It's a graduate role so I am assuming it's more of a thought process thing than a proficiency in a language or whatever but I am not sure what to expect.
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Feb 14, 2013 15:38
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jiggerypokery posted:I have an interview coming up for an app company, they have asked me to prepare some things. I had to do a project for a UX position and I've seen it done elsewhere for coding jobs. In my case a big part of it was a) to see if I could explain and justify my decisions rather than just saying I would do X without any reasoning behind it and b) could come up with alternate methods or cope with changes to the project requirements that they threw at me. Seeing as they'll be observing and want you to talk through your process, I would expect something along these lines.
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Feb 14, 2013 17:39
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armorer posted:These jobs are exactly what I meant by "specialized industry". I think we are saying the same thing. It sounds to me like you are talking about jobs other than "just writing code in industry" which is what I said the BS was fine for. Yeah, I agree with all of that. I do think being a developer is one of the best career options out there for people. It's well paid and very transferrable across industries and countries. As a general comment about degrees/certs, I feel they establish a lower bound rather than an upper bound. Look at the bottom 10% of people who managed to complete X and that is what "I have completed X" really says. So having a BS in comp sci doesnt say "here is someone who knows a lot about CS", it says "here is someone that should be vaguely familiar with some concepts they are likely to come across working as a developer, and at least knows how to fake it enough to cross a low bar". I don't really know what an MS says. It helps establish credibility I guess, especially to those outside the domain. Mine is to help me fill in some blanks, and it's what employers want, so I need to give it to them. unixbeard fucked around with this message at 10:52 on Feb 15, 2013 |
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Feb 15, 2013 08:03
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What kinds of things do people recommend talking about if asked to give a 5 minute presentation introducing themselves in front of all the other candidates? Sounds like it could be quite tense, i've never had to do anything like that before.
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Feb 16, 2013 10:44
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jiggerypokery posted:What kinds of things do people recommend talking about if asked to give a 5 minute presentation introducing themselves in front of all the other candidates? Sounds like it could be quite tense, i've never had to do anything like that before. Bring up one or two cool projects you have worked in the field and then talk about a subject that you like not related to work like "I hitchhiked when I was 19 across the whole east coast" or "I like to collect tea". Whatever. Something that shows you can relate to them on a personal level.
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Feb 16, 2013 15:38
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jiggerypokery posted:What kinds of things do people recommend talking about if asked to give a 5 minute presentation introducing themselves in front of all the other candidates? Sounds like it could be quite tense, i've never had to do anything like that before. Never given a serious presentation before? It's easy, 5 minutes is no time at all and 100% of the thing is having confidence, and "myself" is a topic anybody can speak confidently on.
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Feb 16, 2013 20:00
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jiggerypokery posted:What kinds of things do people recommend talking about if asked to give a 5 minute presentation introducing themselves in front of all the other candidates? Sounds like it could be quite tense, i've never had to do anything like that before. Just make sure you put what you're planning to talk about in descending order of importance. 5 minutes is really way shorter than you think, especially if you're not an experienced public speaker as you will likely use a good amount of filler words. If 5 minutes go by and you have some less important stuff left over just skip it rather than going beyond your allotted time unless you feel it absolutely needs to be said.
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Feb 16, 2013 20:04
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I guess asking some advice on public speaking is a whole other thread really!
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Feb 16, 2013 22:51
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hieronymus posted:Might be worth asking 'hey guys, when are you going to hire me?" I finally got a chance to talk to my boss. He told me that he gave HR the go ahead to hire me a few weeks ago. He seemed shocked that it hasn't happened yet. I also got a call from my recruiting company saying that my offer should come within a week or two. I've been told for about a month now that I'm going to be hired in. I think if it doesn't happen in a week I'm just going to start looking for another job.
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Feb 17, 2013 05:19
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When doing a resume for an internship should you put what CS classes you have completed/are currently taking?
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Feb 17, 2013 22:06
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KidDynamite posted:When doing a resume for an internship should you put what CS classes you have completed/are currently taking? Personally when I was reviewing resumes for internship spots I never really cared, I was more interested in experience.
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Feb 17, 2013 22:11
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Classes taken is mostly just a decent way to pad out a resume to comfortably fill a page without being blatant padding.
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Feb 17, 2013 22:59
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Courses taken is very handy for me as an interviewer as it gives me a chance to ask you about stuff you should know, rather than having to guess. Nothing worse than seeing a CV with no classes on for someone fresh out of or at uni.
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Feb 18, 2013 00:50
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Milotic posted:Courses taken is very handy for me as an interviewer as it gives me a chance to ask you about stuff you should know, rather than having to guess. Nothing worse than seeing a CV with no classes on for someone fresh out of or at uni. I just make assumptions and then ask you about them during an interview  "You don't know what a linked list is? Okay, let's move on . . ."
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Feb 18, 2013 00:59
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Maybe better to list interesting projects you've done in your coursework as opposed to just the list of courses. If you've done notable projects in those courses, that can give you and an interviewer a good starting point to talk from. But that only counts if it actually is unique and a substantial project, like it was a final project idea of your choosing. I remember going to one career fair where half the resumes I saw listed "designed an account management system for a bank" as a project. Turned out it was just a run of the mill homework assignment for an 200-level course where they were trying to introduce concurrency.
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Feb 18, 2013 01:56
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I wouldn't say unique, but I would definitely agree with substantial. If you've managed to go through an entire CS program (or even worse, gotten a master's on top of it) without managing to program one substantial project, I am not impressed. Also, if you're going to put down a group project, make sure you actually participated. If I press for details and realize you picked 'mooched off my groupmates' as a resume bullet point, I am still not going to be impressed.
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Feb 18, 2013 05:50
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It looks like I'll be able to continue my degree (it helps that I technically never graduated...) and obtain a second major in CS - meaning I won't have to jump through any hoops to get into a program. I'm pretty happy, just have to do a bunch of paperwork and go through a few meetings. If all goes well I should be starting school again this fall. I'm looking into if it's possible to get a summer class or two. It also looks like I'll have to learn Python, C++, and Java on my own to prepare for jumping back into this whole thing. Already progressing on learning Python, the others will come in time. I guess at this point there's nothing special I need to know or to prepare for? Just focus on my coursework, learn how to program properly, learn the theory, and make sure to get an internship and contribute significantly to a few projects. I'm older now and have a much improved work ethic (and appreciation for why this is important), so at the least I'll be taking my education very seriously and putting in the more than just the minimum. I don't think I'd have done that if I had taken this route several years ago.
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Feb 18, 2013 18:35
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I quit the Friday before last, for better or worse. Things had just gotten so toxic at my old position that I just cleaned up my work computer, turned it in, and resigned on the spot. Probably not the best decision considering I didn't have anything lined up, but I have some savings and now a lot of free time to look for a new job. One big issue is that all the major projects I've worked on in the last few years have been canned. How does someone in my position build a portfolio?
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Feb 18, 2013 21:19
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