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In a lot of ways, graduate school seems obsolete for many fields.
Today's good jobs often require specialized knowledge of specific systems and policies tailored to a company or an industry. Colleges and universities usually can't provide direct experience on this kind of thing, even as companies are becoming more demanding on experience.
Academic experience, by itself, isn't sufficient or a substitute for job experience. Having a master's itself often doesn't qualify you for anything above and beyond what you'd be able to get if you just have a bachelor's in most industries.
It also depends on whether or not the degree came from a school viewed as legit. You could have a PhD from Phoenix University and that won't get you anywhere.
In my opinion, a graduate degree is best coupled with significant work experience. A liberal arts MA/MS without the accompanying real life knowledge and work experience doesn't mean much to me.
It also depends on whether or not the degree came from a school viewed as legit. You could have a PhD from Phoenix University and that won't get you anywhere.
This is very true. UofP and Capella are putting out PhDs in my field like revolving doors. I don't see any reason why you should ever pay for a PhD. I was once told by a prominent PhD that if you have to pay for your PhD the school either does not want you or it's not a school you want to be going to.
In my opinion, a graduate degree is best coupled with significant work experience. A liberal arts MA/MS without the accompanying real life knowledge and work experience doesn't mean much to me.
I think that's true of virtually any masters. Every MBA I know who has not coupled it with good experience has not been able to advance their career.
I'm proud to have my Master's degree, but you have to have a genuine interest in the field of study the degree is in. If you have no passion or belief in your degree, you cannot use it to your advantage.
Now, let's talk about employers perceptions of the schools the Master's degrees come from. I have a co-worker friend with an MBA from Phoenix University who after 5 years of getting that degree, is still having difficulty finding a director level job she wants. I dare not tell her that there may be a bias against online university programs, versus a brick and mortar university Master's degree.
My job is a blend between Finance and IT. I started as a CS major, but switched to Finance before graduation since I didn't want to spend my day just coding.
While I knew a lot from my early computer classes plus my own interest, I had nothing in my education history that indicated this on my resume, so when I went for my MBA, I concentrated in IT Management. I definitely think it's helped and some of the classes are relevant to what I do day to day(classes on Databases/SQL were extremely helpful for example).
However, when I went for my MBA, I already had a full time job at a company I was previously working for as an intern. After working full time for 1.5 years, I went back at night, so by the time I finished, I had ~4 years full time experience.
It definitely made it easier to hop to the next job, but at the same time, I don't think it by itself would have mattered as much as my 4 years experience did.
Best way to think of a Master's degree is an experience multiplier.
2 years experience with an Masters would probably lose out on a job to someone with 5 years experience without one.
But 2 years experience with no Masters beats 0 years experience with a Masters easily.
It all depends on the employer and field. For my undergrad hardly any dropped out or didn't make it. If passing was a D they passed. Graduate anything lower then a B- was frowned upon, people failed out of classes and exist exam some failed multiple times and did not graduate even after being in for years. The writing was much more intense on the graduate level and the field I am in is known for writing and analyzing data.
Being able to put things together, view from different angles and satisfy multiple requirements I would say is key.
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