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The only reason I said anything about teaching was to eliminate the "Well, if you want to teach, you have to go to grad school" argument. I kind of understand

The only reason I said anything about teaching was to eliminate the "Well, if you want to teach, you have to go to grad school" argument. I kind of understand that and figured I'd trim that discussion. I understand what you mean by the crapshoot part, but, given the choice between a top tier company and a middle tier grad school, I'd go with the top tier company every time. Between top tier grad school and middle tier company, I'd choose the grad school. Maybe this is a little shallow of me, but it seems like a reasonable heuristic, all other things being equal.

jefflinwood 16y ago
Looking at your resume, you've got decent experience with both undergraduate research, TA'ing, small companies and a large company. I had similar experiences at CMU when I went there (for ChemE, not CS), and I decided that entering industry (in 99, a great year to get hired) was better. If I'd graduated in 2001 or 2002, I'd probably have stayed in grad school. How is recruiting looking at CMU this year? Do you have solid job offers already? Does the professor you've been doing research with have any suggestions about where to apply to grad school? A friend of mine graduated with a CS PhD last year, and he just took an interesting job working on the key algorithms behind one of the "big names" in tech today. But other opportunities he was offered were the same as he would have gotten with 10 years of software development experience. I'll also say this - if you don't get your PhD now, it's a lot harder to go back and do it when you have a mortgage and other commitments.