4 ms·

There's a point at where experience starts to matter a lot less. Who cares about 10 vs 12 years of experience? Where as maybe a master's is a small advantage.

by UK-AL 10y ago

ryao 10y ago
I recall reading a study showing that a master's degree hurt total lifetime earnings rather than helping them. Having a few years paying large sums for a boost in initial pay was not worthwhile because experience eventually put the two at parity. This is all from memory though. I do not have a link to reference. However, it does make sense given that the capabilities of people with bachelor's degrees and master's degrees become equal at some point, assuming all other things are equal. I do not think a master's degree is a ticket to a lifetime of greater competence in CS and salaries ought to reflect that. The same could be said for PhDs too given the quality of work that we saw come out of places like Sun. There are plenty of CS people that I believe have only bachelor degrees that are not in any way inferior to holders of PhDs and in some ways, are more capable because their solutions are demonstrated to work in the field. I imagine some of them will receive honorary PhDs for their work. This is not relevant to someone without a bachelor in CS though. I will post my opinion on that separately.
- brianwawok 10y ago
  I got my masters while I worked over 4 years. Not always required to quit work.
  - trentmb 10y ago
    You can often get your employer to foot the bill too.
__s 10y ago
I think at that point the comparison will be _what_ experience is in those 10 vs 12 years
cookiecaper 10y ago
Unless you're doing heavily theoretical work, no one even thinks about your education after you have a few years of real experience under your belt. In practical terms, real experience is many times more valuable than "education". If you're going to look for a job in academia or research, then yeah, the educational background will matter. If you're going to write code that makes things work, it doesn't matter.
codingdave 10y ago
It depends on what those years are -- it is the old cliche that there is a difference between 10 years of experience, and one year of experience repeated 10 times. The same is true for the difference between 10 and 12. If those additional 2 years were more of the same, they matter little. But they also could have been full of significant new work and learning.

There's a point at where experience starts to matter a lot less. Who cares about 10 vs 12 years of experience? Where as maybe a master's is a small advantage.

by UK-AL 10y ago

There's a point at where experience starts to matter a lot less. Who cares about 10 vs 12 years of experience? Where as maybe a master's is a small advantage.

ryao 10y ago

I recall reading a study showing that a master's degree hurt total lifetime earnings rather than helping them. Having a few years paying large sums for a boost in initial pay was not worthwhile because experience eventually put the two at parity. This is all from memory though. I do not have a link to reference. However, it does make sense given that the capabilities of people with bachelor's degrees and master's degrees become equal at some point, assuming all other things are equal. I do not think a master's degree is a ticket to a lifetime of greater competence in CS and salaries ought to reflect that. The same could be said for PhDs too given the quality of work that we saw come out of places like Sun. There are plenty of CS people that I believe have only bachelor degrees that are not in any way inferior to holders of PhDs and in some ways, are more capable because their solutions are demonstrated to work in the field. I imagine some of them will receive honorary PhDs for their work. This is not relevant to someone without a bachelor in CS though. I will post my opinion on that separately.

brianwawok 10y ago
I got my masters while I worked over 4 years. Not always required to quit work.
- trentmb 10y ago
  You can often get your employer to foot the bill too.

__s 10y ago

I think at that point the comparison will be _what_ experience is in those 10 vs 12 years

cookiecaper 10y ago

Unless you're doing heavily theoretical work, no one even thinks about your education after you have a few years of real experience under your belt. In practical terms, real experience is many times more valuable than "education". If you're going to look for a job in academia or research, then yeah, the educational background will matter. If you're going to write code that makes things work, it doesn't matter.

codingdave 10y ago

It depends on what those years are -- it is the old cliche that there is a difference between 10 years of experience, and one year of experience repeated 10 times. The same is true for the difference between 10 and 12. If those additional 2 years were more of the same, they matter little. But they also could have been full of significant new work and learning.