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My advice ... and I can give this with profound personal experience ... is that piling up degrees in order to improve your credentials is a bad idea.
Depending on the field, they may help, but you will be for all intents and purposes doing the same thing.
But more importantly, they will stunt you from making any real change.
For instance, here's a common scenario:
"Ok. Well I got my bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering. I want a good job, so I got my Masters right after college. Well, after 8 years, I want to climb the ladder and make $, so I went to go get my MBA."
Now, all of a sudden, your life goals may have changed (almost everybody in their 20s is full of spit and vinegar and wants to be rich and powerful). Now, you have THREE degrees invested into this field.
Well, now I'm age 38 and I want to be an accountant. But god, I've already spent so much time and $ on school.
Now, some of the head honchos where I work do have some higher education. But it is for the most part circumstantial in their success. They could have gotten to where they are without it.
If I had a child, I would tell them to get the least amount of education possible to get the job they want to try out.
Every option is right for some people, but forbes lists library and info science as the 4th worst masters degree to get for getting a job. Median salary of $50k and lack of available jobs...its behind only music and journalism. Anecdotally, I know 2 people who received this degree more than 5 years ago and have been unable to find a job in the field.
Basically the best are all in 3 categories: Software/Data/Healthcare.
The worst are mostly liberal arts or just really specialized (sports management, library science, etc).
I know plenty of people who have gone to library school in the past couple of years and all have gotten jobs. As the poster said, you don't get rich with this degree but you can find jobs. There are library openings in fields like medicine and law. More and more research is being done electronically so there is a great demand for computer skills and knowledge of various electronic databases. If the OP does not want to be a librarian, he will have research skills that he can take into whatever field he wants to go into.
Perhaps the OP should spend some time thinking about what he wants to do in the future and determine the best way to get there.
My advice ... and I can give this with profound personal experience ... is that piling up degrees in order to improve your credentials is a bad idea.
Depending on the field, they may help, but you will be for all intents and purposes doing the same thing.
But more importantly, they will stunt you from making any real change.
For instance, here's a common scenario:
"Ok. Well I got my bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering. I want a good job, so I got my Masters right after college. Well, after 8 years, I want to climb the ladder and make $, so I went to go get my MBA."
Now, all of a sudden, your life goals may have changed (almost everybody in their 20s is full of spit and vinegar and wants to be rich and powerful). Now, you have THREE degrees invested into this field.
Well, now I'm age 38 and I want to be an accountant. But god, I've already spent so much time and $ on school.
Now, some of the head honchos where I work do have some higher education. But it is for the most part circumstantial in their success. They could have gotten to where they are without it.
If I had a child, I would tell them to get the least amount of education possible to get the job they want to try out.
Yep. Unless you're going into academia, anything beyond a BS in any of the engineering & software disciplines doesn't help. You learn far more working in the corporate world on bleeding edge product development than you'd learn in a Master's program. In my experience, an MS in Computer Science is what somebody with an undergrad in some other STEM field that doesn't pay well gets. They don't know any more than a typical strong undergrad.
I've bumped into a few research-y oriented places over the years that had some degree snobbery. I briefly worked at BBN Labs in Cambridge, Ma. About 2/3 of the employees had the MIT brass rat and at least an MS. They pulled me in because I was a career tech startup guy and they wanted some people who knew how to take ideas and turn the into profitable product. It was hopeless. The brass rat people behaved like academics and only did a coupe hours of actual work per day while billing some ARPA defense project 40 hours per week for coffee klatching, spirited lunch discussions, "doing email", posting on Usenet, and other things that don't move anything forward. I quit in disgust after 90 days.
There are MS programs that come with certifications that give you a huge bump in income. A nurse-anesthetist-oriented MSN where you can pass your CRNA exam pays $150K+ around Boston and it's mostly an 8 to 5 job. Certainly worth the 1 year program and the paid residency. There are a whole bunch of those medical-oriented MS degrees that behave like that. The programs tend to be pretty selective and the people in the programs are bright and motivated enough to get into a Medical School.
If I had a child, I would tell them to get the least amount of education possible to get the job they want to try out.
And pay as little as possible for it. That's why my first two undergrad years were at a community college (called junior college back then), and the last two at a state school.
Are there careers that require a Master's degree? Yes. An example is mental health professions. There are high hurdles for those who don't have Master's degrees - and the positions available tend to be the lowest paid and least desirable ones (not that mental health professions pay that much, anyway - expect upper twenties-low thirties right out of school without a full license to practice independently).
The OP and others need to figure out first what they want to do, then what the minimum amount of education is needed to get into the field, then the most cost-effective way to get that education.
My view is that a Master's degree can compliment your generalist experience and carve out a niche in some sort of specialty area. Otherwise, I would not chase after an expensive general degree for the sake of having it. Have an idea what you want to pursue in your career, specifically, before opting into any Master's program.
I've bumped into a few research-y oriented places over the years that had some degree snobbery. I briefly worked at BBN Labs in Cambridge, Ma. About 2/3 of the employees had the MIT brass rat and at least an MS. They pulled me in because I was a career tech startup guy and they wanted some people who knew how to take ideas and turn the into profitable product. It was hopeless. The brass rat people behaved like academics and only did a coupe hours of actual work per day while billing some ARPA defense project 40 hours per week for coffee klatching, spirited lunch discussions, "doing email", posting on Usenet, and other things that don't move anything forward. I quit in disgust after 90 days.
I worked in the 1980s for Research Triangle Institute in NC. A Master's in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering was the minimal requirement for employment, except for our documentation department. Management all had PhDs and there was a lot of degree snobbery -- but the Master's level people like myself (most from local universities: NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Duke) worked hard and were productive. But then, we didn't have any MIT brass rats in our midst.
I worked in the 1980s for Research Triangle Institute in NC. A Master's in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering was the minimal requirement for employment, except for our documentation department. Management all had PhDs and there was a lot of degree snobbery -- but the Master's level people like myself (most from local universities: NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Duke) worked hard and were productive. But then, we didn't have any MIT brass rats in our midst.
I've found that I've reached a point in my career where I'm being crowded out by MBAs, JDs, and other miscellaneous Master's degrees for jobs that require only a Bachelor's degree. The problem I see is that unless you're in some cutting edge R&D or academic-oriented field, getting a Master's or PhD is pretty irrelevant. However, I know during the 2007-2011, a lot of college grads avoided the dismal job market and continued acquiring more and more education. So now there is a flood of these highly educated candidates and not enough jobs that actually require those education levels. So you just end up being crowded out of the running for jobs that you'd otherwise be qualified for with a Bachelor's degree or less.
I've found that I've reached a point in my career where I'm being crowded out by MBAs, JDs, and other miscellaneous Master's degrees for jobs that require only a Bachelor's degree. The problem I see is that unless you're in some cutting edge R&D or academic-oriented field, getting a Master's or PhD is pretty irrelevant.
Yeah, that's the case -- though back when I did my MS in the early 80s having one tended to open up the higher-level positions even outside the R&D field. By the mid 90s, it was changing and it's no longer the case. For the OP and others who might consider a tech career, I'd say today a BS in a computer-related engineering field plus the right certifications would be optimal -- and the right certifications depends on whether you want to go into IT, software development, software QA, etc. A Master's today is overkill for most tech careers - and if you want to be unemployable in the tech world outside academia, get a PhD. However -- there are newer Master's level degrees like Masters in Information Science and that teach a hybrid of technical and management skills, and prepare people for technology leadership positions -- sort of intermediate between an MBA and an MS in Computer Science. We have a few younger people with those backgrounds in IT at my present company.
Quote:
There aren't that many jobs out there However, I know during the 2007-2011, a lot of college grads avoided the dismal job market and continued acquiring more and more education. So now there is a flood of these highly educated candidates and not enough jobs that actually require those education levels. So you just end up being crowded out of the running for jobs that you'd otherwise be qualified for with a Bachelor's degree or less.
Today, the Bachelor's degree seems to be the equivalent of a high school degree when I was young, and the Master's is becoming the equivalent of a Bachelor's degree.
In my other field, clinical psychology, I got my MA in 2003 and in the following decade there was a flood of second career people coming into the mental health field, many of them from the for-profit schools that were cropping up at the time. But in the mental health professions, the Master's is necessary if you want to do something other than a low-level position with no hope for advancement. So the optimal level of education for employment depends in large part on the field you're going into.
I'm retiring next week from my full time tech career, and returning to the mental health field with what we call a "limited private practice", seeing 10-15 clients a week. I might do some high-end web design work as well. Seeing the struggles many younger people are going through today, I'm happy to be at the end of my career rather than the beginning.
If I had a child, I would tell them to get the least amount of education possible to get the job they want to try out.
Social media entrepreneur (YouTuber, Instagramer, Snapchater, etc...), high school diploma, maybe. Earn up to 6 and 7 figures a year!
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