A Master's Degree seems most useful in two cases:
1. to change field if you made a mistake with your Bachelor's, or
2. to enter the US after getting a Bachelor's in your home country.
Biggest Offender in Outsize Debt: Master’s Degrees
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Re: Biggest Offender in Outsize Debt: Master’s Degrees
#142This is what happens when there's 0 pressure on universities to price their programs competitively. If the government is backing every loan, the schools get paid up front, and the risk is then transferred to the gov to collect, why WOULDN'T a university charge as high a tuition as possible and hop on the gravy train? Their non-profit status hasn't even done much to keep costs low, as they can just keep hiring tons of…
This is why I'm so skeptical of the "free college" rhetoric from Elizabeth Warren and the like... The underlying problem is the giant wealth transfer to colleges, and the progressive fixes seem to be to transfer even more wealth to them.
Like the giant wealth transfer to elementary and high schools...?
As the child of a couple teachers, I can tell you they're both still waiting on this wealth transfer you speak of.
Re: Biggest Offender in Outsize Debt: Master’s Degrees
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't tell if you meant for this to be sarcastic or not.
Lots of government-sponsored social programs manage on shoe-string budgets. In the US, it really comes down to how Republicans feel about a program. The programs they hate are often forced to run at maximum efficiency because they face an large amount of scrutiny and budget instability. It's the programs that Republican fail to scrutinize that become symbols of waste and mismanagement. The biggest and most obvious ca…
This is a really interesting train of thought. Why do you think the Republicans are so effective at driving efficiency in the government? It seems like they're fantastic watch dogs of social programs, do you think the Democrats could become watch dogs of the other programs?
Re: Biggest Offender in Outsize Debt: Master’s Degrees
#144In engineering the quip was always "if you're paying for graduate school you're doing it wrong" ... to even get in the door for most hardware jobs fresh out of school you need a MS. A PhD may be preferred, and will start with a higher salary -- but put in ~5yrs instead of 2. As long as the tuition is covered and you make money as a TA or RA in a low-cost of living area you should come out ahead in the engineering fie…
I did undergrad research in school (CS, moved on to industry after I got my BS) and I heard the same thing; all of the grad students I worked with (Masters as well as PhDs) were paid by grants and the like. I went to a large state university that was pretty good at CS but not elite, yet all the people I worked with managed to not go into debt to get their advanced degrees. It's anecdotal I know, but I thought it was…
It’s not anecdotal. Some schools even don’t accept you if you don’t have a scholarship for a PhD.
Re: Biggest Offender in Outsize Debt: Master’s Degrees
#145Who the hell pays for an MS? At least back when I was in engineering grad school, everyone was covered by RA or TA grants, in addition to being paid by those. Of course in-state tuition at KU in 1996 was under $100/credit-hour, so if I did pay, those 9 credits/semester would be under $1k total.
I’m confused as well, I’ve known a few MS CS students who didn’t do the RA TA Route, but were paying out of pocket. I never asked why because it seemed to be an infringement on their privacy.
RA TA requires you are a slave of the professor. If you just want that degree by taking classes and doing a small project then you gotta pay up. Trafeoff
Re: Biggest Offender in Outsize Debt: Master’s Degrees
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but do other places have the complication of having to replace systems that are sucking billions of dollars out of students to line the pockets of university presidents? This is what makes me skeptical. A solution in the United States for our education, healthcare, or other problems has to involve removing the leeches from the system. But political bribery is legal in the US, and the leeches have more than enoug…
Canada did switch from "for profit" health care to universal one in the 60's. Of course the doctors were furious, but it worked, eventually. Same thing for electricity in Quebec in the 40's. Same thing from prying the education system out of the church hands in the 60's. In all the case of electricity, it is hugely profitable for the government and used to balance the budget. I went to university and turned a good pr…
Unfortunately for America, the grift is part of the system. American colleges aren't expensive because they've been investing in the organization, often they budget for a worse university. Each year, more money is allocated to administrators who aren't involved in teaching at the expense of instructional material/quality.
Moving to a university as a center for education means ending the iron rice bowl for overeducated good thinkers. Good luck.
Re: Biggest Offender in Outsize Debt: Master’s Degrees
#147I went back for my masters in CS after being a civil engineer for two years and learning cs my free time. These articles panning formal education don't fully grasp how difficult it is to get your foot in the door as a non-cs person whose also working full time. I also wanted to do something more technical than just web dev, which most career changers seem to land up in. Being a grad student opened a lot of doors into…
I’m a CE too and almost done with my PE. I want to stay engaged with learning after I’m done. And CS is definitely something I want to do afterwards but don’t really want to pursue a Master’s or any schooling. Can you recommend any CS books you loved? Anything iOS related would be great but I’ll take any recommendations from a fellow CE.
CE here with only FE (only 25) I taught myself programming in my free time as I work for a state DOT with a decent amount of free time. One of the cool things about CS (specifically data engineering/science) is it sort of is / will be permeating every technical field so you can sort of combine the two.
If your asking about the order I learned things I got pretty good with python for 2 years, tinkered with web stuff intermittently, then started programming in go and that is easily my favorite. I always always focused on geospatial programming which is at least tangentially related to CE.
The cool thing is you can start to see problems and build stuff to fix it in your free time, for example, this is something I built that gives mile points out in the field locally (no service needed), when normally a $800+ DMI is used to the same thing at a much hackier level.
TL:DR; Depending on what your wanting, I don't think you need to go to school to get competent at CS (although I'm sure I lack some fundamentals), just sort of hack on problems that interest you. Also I have had job offers for software / data engineering positions so I am employable in the field as well I guess.
Re: Biggest Offender in Outsize Debt: Master’s Degrees
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
School vouchers. Still bad for college: why give free money to the richest of society?
Because they will stay in our country and help us develop the most productive economy on earth. imo.
Thats usually critiqued as "trickle down economics", curiously by the same group that advocates free college.
Re: Biggest Offender in Outsize Debt: Master’s Degrees
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or to do exactly as the OP said: this is what we’ll pay per student.
School vouchers. Still bad for college: why give free money to the richest of society?
Because relatively speaking, there’s not that many of them and it’s only fair. The rich get Medicare, right?
Re: Biggest Offender in Outsize Debt: Master’s Degrees
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is why I'm so skeptical of the "free college" rhetoric from Elizabeth Warren and the like... The underlying problem is the giant wealth transfer to colleges, and the progressive fixes seem to be to transfer even more wealth to them.
Like the giant wealth transfer to elementary and high schools...? As the child of a couple teachers, I can tell you they're both still waiting on this wealth transfer you speak of.
This is a non-sequitur. The wealth transfer isn't going to teachers, it's going to administrators, stakeholders, and shareholders. Essentially the wealth is being transferred to the corporation, not the employees.