3 ms·

I have an M.S. and work with a group of colleagues who mostly have M.S.s or PhDs. I'd say in general, the value of an M.S./M.A. is far below that of a B.S./B.A

by bane 12y ago

I have an M.S. and work with a group of colleagues who mostly have M.S.s or PhDs. I'd say in general, the value of an M.S./M.A. is far below that of a B.S./B.A. It's more valuable than had I gone and gotten an A.S./A.A. even though the A.S./A.A. would have been more work. I can't say I regret getting it, because it checked some boxes for me that let me move up the corporate ladder without as much fuss. It's kind of like getting a "free" extra 2-3 years of work experience and tends to move you up a hair in seniority, but that's about it. I seem to get management tasks a little bit faster than my non-M.S./M.A. peers. It seems to be that the next most valuable degree is a PhD, but with few exceptions, it's not nearly as valuable in industry as one might think. I'm not even sure if it's really worth it in terms of ROI, whereas I'm highly confident that a B.S./B.A. will generally earn you more than without. So in that case an M.S./M.A. is just a stepping stone towards that. And that makes the PhD even harder to justify. The people I know who seem to do the best have both a PhD and and MBA, which aligns them well with executive and senior executive placement in high-tech industry. It doesn't really even seem to matter what the PhD is in. An alternative that also seems popular among executive recruiters is J.D. & M.B.A.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
A PhD is more of a life fulfillment thing, it's not about money. There are some jobs you can only get with a PhD, even if those jobs don't pay more than normal ones, the work can be more satisfying to those who aren't cut out for dev work. A PhD MBA sounds...very weird.
- eitally 12y ago
  It does sound weird, but there are quite a few joint PhD/MBA programs out there at esteemed universities (Yale, Stanford, UVA, Harvard, MIT, ...), and this (concurrent achievement) is the only scenario where it may make sense.
- bane 12y ago
  You see a lot of people with PhDs and MBAs on the side outside of the typical HN startups space. You might be surprised at how many PhDs also have an MBA, but just don't advertise it since their other credentials are more important. For example, it's not uncommon for a researcher to come up with some great idea at a lab somewhere, quit, form a company (with him as CEO) and license the tech away from his former employers. In order to give the investors more of a warm fuzzy feeling about the competency of the guy running the company, they'll often have him do an executive MBA program while the company is still early stages. In megacorp-land, PhDs for senior execs are reasonably common as well, and it's desired that they also have excellent business education -- so you'll see lots of MBAs in executive resumes that they picked up somewhere during their careers. I haven't usually seen it as part of the education progression, it's treated more like a specialized certificate or accreditation program when people are moving out of researchy roles and into business ones.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    The MBA title in tech already receive some scorn (deserved and not); a PhD with an MBA might be seen as overly pretentious! My guess is that many PhDs with MBAs probably don't advertise the MBA so much.
emirozer 12y ago
I would say that for this particular crowd(hn) mba is one time waste of a degree. One can use the same amount of money to start a business instead of a MBA. By doing this, at worst case, you will lose the MBA money but gain far valuable information + experience compared to a degree. Although i guess one big trade-off is that its far more stressful :)
- tluyben2 12y ago
  I guess that depends on where the MBA is from? Here (EU) some of my friends have a MBA from one of the well known business schools; they didn't learn much outside drinking a lot and playing poker, but the contacts they got from it help them making money doing hardly anything (compared to what I do anyway).
- bane 12y ago
  My anecdotal experience so far is that it seems to hurt in early-stage startups. But it can be helpful in more established companies. I've worked with quite a few MBAs in both environments and it's usually been pretty painful in the small startups. In one case, I worked at a small startup with a VP with an MBA and a CEO without. The CEO was brought in to pivot the company, and for the first couple years it was going really well - from -15% growth to +30-40%. He ended up getting rid of the VP for all the kinds of reasons MBAs don't do well in this kind of company. But then the CEO decided to go get his MBA, and a year into it started making really terrible typical MBA style "let's squeeze blood from this stone" decisions and the company was vapor within a year.
zatkin 12y ago
What did you get your degrees in?
100timesthis 12y ago
I did an M.s.c and offered me a Phd, that I refused, and it was one of the best decisions in my life. Maybe because I work on research in industry doing things that I find very interesting but I really don't think that the phd would have added any value. I see my friends doing it and wasting a lot of time writing papers, spending months looking for funds (mostly postdoc) for a low pay. There probably are phds that give you an unique experience, but in general I don't see how they are worth the investiment. If someone can change my opinion on phds please do so.
- therobot24 12y ago
  I started with the same attitude - i was relatively tech savvy and felt ahead of the curve coming out of my bachelors. Even when i was working in industry it seemed like a PhD was too much time to invest in details when i thought i already grasped the big picture. I was so so wrong. Now at the tail end of my PhD, remembering my earlier years is like looking back at a bad hair-style - how could i have been so stupid. If you view a PhD as writing papers, low pay/lobbying for funding, a few classes, and a big project then you are missing what's between the lines. The biggest thing i've gotten out of my PhD is learning how dumb i was and how dumb i am now. A PhD is definitely not for everyone, and maybe a M.S.C. is enough. Though just as an anecdote, i'm currently at a top university (think MIT, CMU, Stanford, etc...you may be able to figure out where in my previous comments, i can't remember if i've listed it) and in every single machine learning, computer science, and engineering class i've taken the projects/papers/presentations from the masters students is largely very poor quality. I'm definitely not saying they're bad students, or whatever, most are probably overworked from taking too many classes each semester, but it was very surprising for me to see such a low level of polish (and sometimes effort) being put into their work. And if their work is any indication of what they're taking away from their M.S., then the M.S. is definitely not enough.
auxym 12y ago
I just graduated with an M.Sc.A. I feel the biggest thing I got out of it was the ability to take a vague project idea, and properly make it into something tangible, by myself. Analyzing previous work, modeling, designing building and testing protos. The specific tech skills I learned along the way are mostly moot. So, I guess it was more of the "learning to learn" thing that undergrad engineering degrees are supposed to be. I can't say I regret it, mainly because trying out research/academia is something I wanted to do. The opportunity cost is definitely high though, around 100-120k in lost salary alone, plus the salary I'm expecting now, out of school, is likely not very much above a new B.Eng. grad. Had I gone to work out of undergrad, I'd have enough experience to get PE and pull a much nicer figure. My only expectation is that it might help pull a job more tech/R&D oriented that is generally given to more experienced people, but even that is far from a given.
- bane 12y ago
  > I feel the biggest thing I got out of it was the ability to take a vague project idea, and properly make it into something tangible, by myself. Yeah, I agree with that. In my program at least, the assignments were heavily structured around teamwork. And they were just large enough that one person couldn't just do the whole thing. So it really forced you to work on soft skills. I had already been in the workforce for quite a while when I got my M.S., so I'm sure it colors my feelings about it. I had already been working on team projects, so I didn't get much out of those aspects of it. But I did learn how to work with younger people who hadn't had the same experience, and that has proven more and more valuable the older I get (and relatively the bigger the delta between me and new hires). I could take or leave the technical and functional things I studied. I think I got a new appreciation for UML, I now merely hate it instead of loathe it. But I honestly couldn't point to any class I took that I felt I really learned something from other than the soft skills.
bonesmoses 12y ago
It's interesting watching this from a somewhat detached perspective. I only have a B.S., but I did it back in the late 90's. In my industry, it seems like the average level of education is an M.S. based on my coworkers. However, I garnered enough industry experience to remain essentially immune to that metric. So I feel no pressure to go back to school, yet I see that most of our incoming hires have an M.S. Regarding a Ph.D., unless you're in an industry that needs it, it's still vast overkill. I have a couple friends who opted to be ABD to increase their career prospects. But those decisions were made 5 years ago, so it may be less relevant. Sadly, all I have are anecdotes instead of solid numbers. It seems right, though.

by bane 12y ago

seanmcdirmid 12y ago

A PhD is more of a life fulfillment thing, it's not about money. There are some jobs you can only get with a PhD, even if those jobs don't pay more than normal ones, the work can be more satisfying to those who aren't cut out for dev work. A PhD MBA sounds...very weird.

eitally 12y ago
It does sound weird, but there are quite a few joint PhD/MBA programs out there at esteemed universities (Yale, Stanford, UVA, Harvard, MIT, ...), and this (concurrent achievement) is the only scenario where it may make sense.
bane 12y ago
You see a lot of people with PhDs and MBAs on the side outside of the typical HN startups space. You might be surprised at how many PhDs also have an MBA, but just don't advertise it since their other credentials are more important. For example, it's not uncommon for a researcher to come up with some great idea at a lab somewhere, quit, form a company (with him as CEO) and license the tech away from his former employers. In order to give the investors more of a warm fuzzy feeling about the competency of the guy running the company, they'll often have him do an executive MBA program while the company is still early stages. In megacorp-land, PhDs for senior execs are reasonably common as well, and it's desired that they also have excellent business education -- so you'll see lots of MBAs in executive resumes that they picked up somewhere during their careers. I haven't usually seen it as part of the education progression, it's treated more like a specialized certificate or accreditation program when people are moving out of researchy roles and into business ones.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  The MBA title in tech already receive some scorn (deserved and not); a PhD with an MBA might be seen as overly pretentious! My guess is that many PhDs with MBAs probably don't advertise the MBA so much.

emirozer 12y ago

I would say that for this particular crowd(hn) mba is one time waste of a degree. One can use the same amount of money to start a business instead of a MBA. By doing this, at worst case, you will lose the MBA money but gain far valuable information + experience compared to a degree. Although i guess one big trade-off is that its far more stressful :)

tluyben2 12y ago
I guess that depends on where the MBA is from? Here (EU) some of my friends have a MBA from one of the well known business schools; they didn't learn much outside drinking a lot and playing poker, but the contacts they got from it help them making money doing hardly anything (compared to what I do anyway).
bane 12y ago
My anecdotal experience so far is that it seems to hurt in early-stage startups. But it can be helpful in more established companies. I've worked with quite a few MBAs in both environments and it's usually been pretty painful in the small startups. In one case, I worked at a small startup with a VP with an MBA and a CEO without. The CEO was brought in to pivot the company, and for the first couple years it was going really well - from -15% growth to +30-40%. He ended up getting rid of the VP for all the kinds of reasons MBAs don't do well in this kind of company. But then the CEO decided to go get his MBA, and a year into it started making really terrible typical MBA style "let's squeeze blood from this stone" decisions and the company was vapor within a year.

zatkin 12y ago

What did you get your degrees in?

100timesthis 12y ago

I did an M.s.c and offered me a Phd, that I refused, and it was one of the best decisions in my life. Maybe because I work on research in industry doing things that I find very interesting but I really don't think that the phd would have added any value. I see my friends doing it and wasting a lot of time writing papers, spending months looking for funds (mostly postdoc) for a low pay. There probably are phds that give you an unique experience, but in general I don't see how they are worth the investiment. If someone can change my opinion on phds please do so.

therobot24 12y ago
I started with the same attitude - i was relatively tech savvy and felt ahead of the curve coming out of my bachelors. Even when i was working in industry it seemed like a PhD was too much time to invest in details when i thought i already grasped the big picture. I was so so wrong. Now at the tail end of my PhD, remembering my earlier years is like looking back at a bad hair-style - how could i have been so stupid. If you view a PhD as writing papers, low pay/lobbying for funding, a few classes, and a big project then you are missing what's between the lines. The biggest thing i've gotten out of my PhD is learning how dumb i was and how dumb i am now. A PhD is definitely not for everyone, and maybe a M.S.C. is enough. Though just as an anecdote, i'm currently at a top university (think MIT, CMU, Stanford, etc...you may be able to figure out where in my previous comments, i can't remember if i've listed it) and in every single machine learning, computer science, and engineering class i've taken the projects/papers/presentations from the masters students is largely very poor quality. I'm definitely not saying they're bad students, or whatever, most are probably overworked from taking too many classes each semester, but it was very surprising for me to see such a low level of polish (and sometimes effort) being put into their work. And if their work is any indication of what they're taking away from their M.S., then the M.S. is definitely not enough.

auxym 12y ago

I just graduated with an M.Sc.A. I feel the biggest thing I got out of it was the ability to take a vague project idea, and properly make it into something tangible, by myself. Analyzing previous work, modeling, designing building and testing protos. The specific tech skills I learned along the way are mostly moot. So, I guess it was more of the "learning to learn" thing that undergrad engineering degrees are supposed to be. I can't say I regret it, mainly because trying out research/academia is something I wanted to do. The opportunity cost is definitely high though, around 100-120k in lost salary alone, plus the salary I'm expecting now, out of school, is likely not very much above a new B.Eng. grad. Had I gone to work out of undergrad, I'd have enough experience to get PE and pull a much nicer figure. My only expectation is that it might help pull a job more tech/R&D oriented that is generally given to more experienced people, but even that is far from a given.

bane 12y ago
> I feel the biggest thing I got out of it was the ability to take a vague project idea, and properly make it into something tangible, by myself. Yeah, I agree with that. In my program at least, the assignments were heavily structured around teamwork. And they were just large enough that one person couldn't just do the whole thing. So it really forced you to work on soft skills. I had already been in the workforce for quite a while when I got my M.S., so I'm sure it colors my feelings about it. I had already been working on team projects, so I didn't get much out of those aspects of it. But I did learn how to work with younger people who hadn't had the same experience, and that has proven more and more valuable the older I get (and relatively the bigger the delta between me and new hires). I could take or leave the technical and functional things I studied. I think I got a new appreciation for UML, I now merely hate it instead of loathe it. But I honestly couldn't point to any class I took that I felt I really learned something from other than the soft skills.

bonesmoses 12y ago

It's interesting watching this from a somewhat detached perspective. I only have a B.S., but I did it back in the late 90's. In my industry, it seems like the average level of education is an M.S. based on my coworkers. However, I garnered enough industry experience to remain essentially immune to that metric. So I feel no pressure to go back to school, yet I see that most of our incoming hires have an M.S. Regarding a Ph.D., unless you're in an industry that needs it, it's still vast overkill. I have a couple friends who opted to be ABD to increase their career prospects. But those decisions were made 5 years ago, so it may be less relevant. Sadly, all I have are anecdotes instead of solid numbers. It seems right, though.