The Declining Value of a CS Master's Degree (2013)

https://blog.regehr.org/archives/953

by meri_dian • 8 years ago

199 161 8 years ago

blog.regehr.org

vinay4272• 8 years ago

Can we get this tagged with a year (2013)? It's especially relevant because the article links to a previous HN discussion about the article.

willhslade• 8 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5786720

stevenwoo• 8 years ago

The topmost comment about getting a MS to qualify to get a job at IBM - that seems unintentionally funny after the discussion about IBM yesterday, but maybe new MS's are still cheaper than grey haired folks.

sctb• 8 years ago

Thanks! We've updated the headline.

ronnier• 8 years ago

I would only get a masters while working (that’s what I did). I wouldn’t forgo money and experience to get a masters and I wouldn’t go in debt to do it either.

makmanalp• 8 years ago

This: I had the same opportunity, and help with the tuition. All in all this was challenging but a good experience. Then the question is was it worth it? I think it depends: I had a mostly outstanding set of instructors and took a lot of graduate seminar classes where there was a lot of great class discussion among curious and experienced folk. I enjoyed that a lot. I might be able to get this elsewhere, but I suspect it's rare. For the more project-based classes the structure and added motivation was nice and the instruction again helped make the learning process more efficient, but you could, in theory do that yourself too.

---

edit: Another thing is that I had a chance to dip my toes a bit into doing research without being in the PhD long haul. This was also very satisfying: reading papers is no longer intimidating and ended up being very helpful in my area (databases / systems).

Re: classes, yes the basic curricula always seems repetitive for folks who took a CS undergrad, but it's up to you to convince your advisor or graduation committee or whatever that you can and should skip basic requirements and instead tailor your major to more advanced stuff that you want to do.

akurilin2• 8 years ago

The CMU part-time remote MS in Software Engineering was great, definitely extra worth it if you have your company pay for it. Not sure if they still offer it, they might have shut down the Moffett Field version of the program.

capitalsigma2• 8 years ago

What kind of emphasis does the program have, as an MS in software engineering vs CS?

rootusrootus2• 8 years ago

Agreed. I think there may still be some value in the MS, but not enough to delay entering the job market by a couple years and spend a whole bunch more money.

I'm doing mine right now because 1) it is convenient now with online courses, and 2) my company is paying for it. Credit to HN as well because I probably wouldn't have noticed the Georgia Tech OMSCS if someone here had not mentioned it.

I will enjoy having the certificate on my wall as another accomplishment, and GT is even a halfway prestigious school to have a degree from, but I'm under no illusions -- at this point in my career it has no real monetary value. It's purely for my own satisfaction.

DGAP• 8 years ago

I'm currently planning on doing this as a new grad with a non-CS STEM degree, just starting my career in infosec. Seems like an online part-time degree is worth it.

matwood• 8 years ago

I agree. My employer at the time paid for my MS.

I enjoy school, learning, and interacting with teachers and classmates so my personal value was high even if it didn't mean more money.

commandlinefan6• 8 years ago

I would only get a masters while working

Same here. Back in 2004, I found myself surrounded by Indian folks who all has master's degrees from US universities, and here I was with nothing but my lowly little bachelor's degree. Since my employer had a tuition reimbursement program anyway, I went ahead and did a master's program - it was free, and what could the harm possibly be? More education is always better than less education... right? That's what made that Aline Lerner blog post such a gut-punch when it first came out - I had never considered the possibility that somebody could be evaluating me on paper and reject me because I had _too much_ education.

CryoLogic• 8 years ago

There is very little a MS in CS can teach you that a BS in CS with some free time and books can't pick up. Look at this list from UChicago: https://masters.cs.uchicago.edu/page/12-course-ms-specializa...

Basically your masters program is giving you a choice of 9-12 courses split between:

1. Algorithms .

2. Your choice of a primer in Java, C, Python or Swift .

3. Databases, Compilers, Networking, Comp Arch, Functional Programming OS, Distributed Systems .

4. IoS, Product Management, UX, Intro to Software Engineering, Advanced C++, OOP, Android Dev, Web Dev Etc. etc.

I really don't see anything on that list that is worth paying for a years worth of classes for. Half of that list you already take in undergrad, and the other 40% you should be able to pick up with a book and basic experience and not need a class.

Maybe 10% of those classes you would be at an advantage in the classroom?

swiley2• 8 years ago

I intend to start a masters degree a few years after I graduate. My reasoning is that some of the more formal ideas are easier in a classroom setting and it's good to be part of the community that develops around a university. I think there are networking opportunities in places like that which don't exist in the cooperate world.

ianai• 8 years ago

I suggest you do both. Apply to work and grad schools at the same time, as a hedge.

mathattack2• 8 years ago

The program seems aimed at folks without a CS undergrad.

capitalsigma2• 8 years ago

It is, explicitly.

Source: BS from UChicago

closeparen• 8 years ago

Yes, one of the main functions of a masters degree program is to help people who majored in something else change careers mid-life.

oculusthrift• 8 years ago

there's a difference between a MS thats aimed at people who have BS in CS vs those that don't.

esturk• 8 years ago

Graduate courses are geared towards research and the generation of knowledge instead of just a consumer. It's probably the biggest difference most students don't get. Yeah, you can look up anything that someone else has done before but what something original that you can add?

matte_black• 8 years ago

You mean like an NPM package??

enraged_camel2• 8 years ago

>Graduate courses are geared towards research

Nope, only PhD courses. In the US, Master’s programs are widely understood to be “professional” programs, i.e. geared towards private sector.

ianamartin• 8 years ago

This used to be true in the U.S. It's increasingly less so. That's true in a general way for all Master's programs.

Bachelor's degrees are mostly focused on covering all the general stuff that no longer gets taken care of in high school, plus a couple of semesters of consuming the basics of your degree program. The Master's is basically an intro to research + some deeper dives into focused topics.

I think the article is accurate but not particularly useful. The value of all degrees is dropping over time as degrees inflate. It's not specific to comp sci. It's a reflection of our incredibly shitty primary education.

Universities simply don't have a choice. They can't keep the standards of admission they had 20 years ago, let alone 50. They just won't have any students at all. And each link up the chain of education has to pay for the sins that came before. High schools have to deal with kids who can't read. Colleges and Universities have to deal with kids who can't write. Grad programs have to deal with kids who don't know wow to research, and PhD programs have to deal with people who don't know how to produce new insight.

There are some exceptions, of course. But it's a problem the entire academic system is struggling with very badly right now.

FranzFerdiNaN• 8 years ago

You people need a European style masters, which require a Bsc in CS (or closely related like math/physics with a CS minor). Such masters are 2 years of study to prepare you to start a 4-year PhD program (so the Bsc-to-PhD route is 3+2+4 years).

Itaxpica• 8 years ago

That’s the case for most American CS masters; the linked one is specifically for people without a bachelor’s in the field and is by far the less common type (though generally the American bachelors is 4 years, and the American masters is 1-2 years depending on the program and how many classes at a time a student is willing to take).

commandlinefan6• 8 years ago

There is very little a MS in CS can teach you that a BS in CS with some free time and books can't pick up

Well... let's be realistic - this is true of undergraduate CS work, too. If you're going to college to learn how to program computers, you're probably going to be disappointed - the point is more access to experts in the topics who can check your work, offer guidance, and help you get unstuck if you get stuck.

theparanoid• 8 years ago

Regehr is beating around the bush. In my MS it was about 65% Indian BS students and 35% local students (various backgrounds). The local students were working professionals and the Indian students just wanted the credential.

The cause is simple, an MS is very advantageous when applying for an H-1B.

praneshp3• 8 years ago

The cause is simple, an MS is very advantageous when applying for an H1-B.

Not really. It's okay, I guess.

acidity• 8 years ago

As an Indian who did MS in US. The parent is 100% correct.

Teeer2• 8 years ago

It increases your chances in a competitive system. It's good, not "okay, I guess".

cgmg• 8 years ago

The Immigration Act of 1990 limits to 65,000 the number of foreign nationals who may be issued a visa or otherwise provided H-1B status each fiscal year (FY). An additional 20,000 H-1Bs are available to foreign nationals holding a master's or higher degree from U.S. universities.
Those who have the U.S. master's exemption have two chances to be selected in the lottery: first, a lottery is held to award the 20,000 visas available to master's degree holders, and those not selected are then entered in the regular lottery for the other 65,000 visas. Those without a U.S. master's are entered only in the second, regular, lottery.

That is definitely a non-negligible advantage.

meri_dian• 8 years ago

To be fair, I think saying they all "simply wanted the credential" is a bit dismissive of the Indian students. I'm sure many of them are passionate about computer science, and view an American MS as a path to higher learning and understanding in a subject they care about as much as they see it as a useful credential.

x0x0• 8 years ago

Why? It's a stupid hoop we make people jump through to get a job here (well, not a requirement, but it smooths the path. Both for the visa and for being located in the states to interview.) I've interviewed (and hired!) a ton of such folks and don't think most of them got much out of the MS programs they went to. FWIW we would almost certainly have been happy to hire them anyway.

jogjayr• 8 years ago

It's true that an MS is advantageous when applying for an H-1B (albeit an advantage that has been steadily eroding over the years). But equally attractive is the vastly better quality of instruction, facilities, and opportunities available at even the median American university compared to some of the top Indian schools.

mayankkaizen• 8 years ago

Indian here.

I am not sure if you have any idea about the quality of STEM education in India but let me tell you it is far more pathetic than you can even imagine. Even I graduated from such an awful college and I know nothing about any area of CS. Nothing.

I am now 37 year old and working in non-software field but I now sorely miss the opportunity of getting good CS education and I wish I went through a decent college.

While your point may be a valid point (I have never been to US) but I do believe many enroll in those US college for good quality education, at least once. Hell, given a chance, I myself would enroll for such a course just for real education rather than H1B visa.

rootusrootus2• 8 years ago

That's interesting to hear. I have a number of people working for me who are in our Hyderabad office and when they showed me their school on a map, I found it was usually extremely small, hardly looked like a college at all. And there seem to be a lot of schools, pretty much everywhere. I get that India is extremely large to that makes some sense, but it's interesting to hear another perspective from someone who has been through the schooling.

Anecdotally, the people on my team seem quite smart and capable, regardless of whatever quality of education they received, but we did have an intern locally who had a bachelor's from a school in India and was working on his masters at Oregon State University -- he knew so little about how to even use computers, much less write code that wasn't copy/paste from Stack Overflow, I was amazed that he was an actual master's student.

sswaner• 8 years ago

I agree with you and Regehr. As a longtime IT hiring manager I have noticed that candidates with a coursework-only MS do no better in screening interviews than those with a BS degree, but applicants with a research-based MS fared much better. It is rare to be able to see the distinction based on resume alone, but it comes out clearly in interviews when we ask about their Master's work and focus.

Our oldest son earned a Master's degree in CS from the same school where Regehr teaches and did the research path. He now works at Google. His program was the most difficult thing he has ever done and it prepared him well for his career.

bradleyjg• 8 years ago

Not just in the H1B lottery. There’s also the OPT (2 years for STEM) which allows graduates to work in the US while trying for the lottery.

walshemj3• 8 years ago

yes its obvious that there is massive gaming going on you can see this by students doing a Bsc the immediately a MBA (which was originally meant for late 20's mid 30's bog standard managers in big companies)

t1o5• 8 years ago

Although the parent is not 100% correct, the majority of MS students from India and China are in the US for improving their odds of getting the H1B visa. These students either missed the H1B boat while they were working in India or they were not competent enough to be hired from their college campus, or their colleges were not good enough for a company to recruit.

H1B is a quota based lottery system. There is extra quota for MS graduates in US. They also have two chances to get an H1B while being in the US under an OPT work visa after studies. (2 years stayback visa)

Now after graduation, these students go to the body shops which are conveniently setup in those college cities. The body shops are usually run by IT managers in fortune 500 companies who is now a US citizen. (most of them came in the Y2K boat). The IT managers bill the body shops at very high billing rate, thus filling their own coffers.

For example: Take ASU, Arizona State University. Check the demographics of MS students there and the body shops around that area.

You get the idea.

More about the faux consulting companies here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4100451

commandlinefan6• 8 years ago

In my MS it was about 65% Indian BS students and 35% local students

I can top that. When I was doing an MS in CS at UT Arlington between 2005 and 2008, I was one of two US citizens in the entire program.

vinay4272• 8 years ago

Do you have any estimates for what countries or regions the other students in the program were from?

sage76• 8 years ago

Friend was in USF. Class composed entirely of Indians, no exceptions. Not a single US citizen in it.

cantankerous• 8 years ago

If you're going to put the time into a research MS degree, you shouldn't be paying for it. Period.

electricslpnsld• 8 years ago

At my alma mater the CS Masters program is a total cash cow for the department. 23K a semester multiplied by a few hundred students and you're talking a few million a semester.

vikascoder• 8 years ago

The moment I started reading the first paragraph the thought in my head went like, "he is pointing to Online Masters By Georgia Tech..it's definitely OMSCS he is now ranting about". Voila. He was indeed. I have a rigorous bachelor's degree in CS. Thee are many many topics which were never covered in that Undergrad course which are done in the Masters. Yeah it's maybe not useful if you are making a quickfire app for the play store but there are tons of work and research areas and jobs around for which you need the aademic rigor of having studied an MS atleast. Can we have this debate to rest? You are doing well with a BS, good for you! Education is expensive in the US? Dont do it!

Now OMSCS is riling up a few heads here and there which it will. At 7000 USD its a fantastic way for a working professional like me to advance my knowledge. You think these kind of MS courses devalue the degree? These courses are not THAT easy to do and this is 2018, there are fresh disruptive ideas in very field , why not Graduate school ? Hey with enough of these courses you will not need the evil H1B sith lords eating up the jobs here right? Its a Win Win. The market will then decide whos the more worthy MS student they wish to hire.

bitL2• 8 years ago

When you talk to OMSCS students and they tell you that they implemented their own Augmented Reality system from the scratch, used Deep Learning in classifying diseases in X-ray images of chest, programmed a Lunar Lander automated solution using Deep Reinforcement Learning, reconstructed 3D models from a series of photos in a weekend, I would say they are working on way more interesting things than most people get a chance to work on during their whole career. It seems more like you risk by not taking it, even if it is not really research based, though some people told me they have selective research courses as well, working e.g. with inventor of Google Glass etc.

juliusmusseau• 8 years ago

I always thought MS in USA was seen as failed PhD (e.g., did not make it past proposal stage). So perhaps these coursework MS degrees are actually increasing the value of the MS!

cpwright• 8 years ago

Not at all. It's very common to get an M.S. in CS; which is mostly course work to differentiate yourself from a B.S. holder, which because nearly everyone has a degree has less value than in the past.

The reason many M.S.'s are failed Ph.D.s is that is easy to get funding for a Ph.D., but not for an M.S.

asdlfklei• 8 years ago

Stuff like this has me scratching my head.

Here's my situation:

I have a PhD, but in a different, non-CS field.

Due to my research and experience, I have a ton of stats and programming experience across a range of languages, from lisp to C++ to javascript to python, to name just a few. I have published stats papers for example.

However, I kinda find when I'm looking at jobs, there's a heavy focus on CS grads, or people with finance-type degrees, or engineering degrees, or some combination. And to be honest, there are certain things out of a BS in CS that I probably am not that familiar with, especially low-level hardware type stuff, and network stuff.

So, I look at what's out there, and getting a BS in CS seems a little odd, for various reasons, in part because I feel like there's a lot of redundancy with what I have from my career and education already.

A MS in CS, on the other hand, is kinda not so strange to me. I might have to take a couple of preparatory courses, like in OSs, but doesn't seem too grueling to me.

So I read a thing like this, and it comes across as similar to the sort of gatekeeping that I bump into, like if you have a PhD in another field and then get an MS in CS, you aren't a "real" CS grad or something. I've supervised honors CS undergrads, and believe me, I feel pretty confident that my skillset is beyond many of theirs, at least in certain areas. At some point it just seems absurd to me.

I share some of the implicit concerns about cash cow MSs, that seem to be part of the current employment climate, not unique to CS, but a symptom of problems with hiring practices and also contributing to it. But it also seems misguided to me to start arguing that someone who completes a MS in CS isn't as skilled as someone with a BS.

There's just so much gatekeeping and pissing contest stuff that goes on in STEM, and it drives me crazy sometimes. It is maybe possible that that english grad actually understands programming, math, and algorithms at a pretty high level (I'm not an english grad, just making a hypothetical argument).

watwut2• 8 years ago

There's just so much gatekeeping and pissing contest stuff that goes on in STEM, and it drives me crazy sometimes.

That is because too many people are insecure and evaluating who is good and who is bad is very subjective. We like to pretend it is objective, but the older I am the less I believe so. Moreover, programming is not one job, but multiple different jobs that require different skill sets, different aptitudes and different personality types.

Combine that together and you have perfect environment for bullshit gatekeeping and pissing contests.

bitL2• 8 years ago

They are likely intimidated by you; imagine they see skills in your CV than make them feel inferior and likely worried you might either take their job or get promoted higher faster. People are that selfish. Just remove your other field qualifications from your CV, start a "consulting company" in Delaware for 500 bucks for a year, list it as your employer, and you'll be hired.

commandlinefan6• 8 years ago

I like that interpretation, but I don't think that's why people like him are passed over; you're attributing far too much self awareness to the hiring manager types. My own observation is that, among people who can't program, programming is viewed as sort of a semi-skilled bricklayer type task and a CS degree is an expensive vocational training program that covers when to use different sorts of bricks and what color bricks go best with what other color bricks. What they're looking for is not educational experience or ability to grow, but a demonstrated willingness to lay lots of bricks down, really fast.

siberianbear• 8 years ago

I hired software engineers at a big company in Silicon Valley for many years. I interviewed thousands at university career fairs. I hired dozens of summer interns and full-time people.

My take on a master's degree is that I treat it like a year or two of experience: experience that the poor fool didn't get paid for. Of course, a person with an MS is going to be a stronger candidate than one with just a BS, since they've had more experience. But I can take the engineer with the BS and give him the year of experience myself.

Perhaps it's different in Europe: they seem to value high education credentials more. I didn't care about the status of an MS and neither did most of my colleagues.

I think the only reason to do an MS in the USA is if you're a foreigner trying to get residency through an H1B visa. There's a separate quota category for people with an MS degree earned in the USA.

Teeer2• 8 years ago

(2013)

sowhatquestion• 8 years ago

I'm a (primarily backend/API) web developer, with 5 years of experience at this point, and I've been planning to apply to Georgia Tech OMSCS in order to branch out into different specializations like ML and data science. A better foundation in algorithms etc. wouldn't hurt either--my bachelor's is not CS-related.

This article gave me pause, since I've never heard much skepticism expressed about a Comp Sci MS before. Is it really so overrated?

xapata• 8 years ago

Too early to tell, but probably worth the time and effort.

vsd13• 8 years ago

While I do get the sentiment, I'm not sure what's the recommendation. I do think there's more to it than gatekeeping, but what does someone who's REALLY interested in the topic and wants to change fields do? Get a second BS? I'm not familiar enough with education, but I'm under the impression that (at least within STEM -> STEM) it doesn't seem popular.

bootsz4• 8 years ago

I imagine that's probably what the author would argue, but I'm not convinced that should be the only option. You can get a masters in a lot of different fields without needing a bachelors in the same subject. The question is whether CS should be an exception or not. He seems to value the MS more as a research-track degree and not as a professional degree. I'd argue the opposite: If you're research-track you really don't need to be getting an MS, just go straight to the PhD. That's how most top programs operate anyways.

odammit3• 8 years ago

My masters was a waste of time and money - except that it’s been a job requirement for multiple jobs.

None of which asked for proof.

I think my bachelors was too besides the social experience of college (I’m from a small town).

Most of what I learned was already familiar to me from developing as a hobby and I learned way more from studying stuff I was interested in than bubble-sorting and SAP case studying my way into boredom for an extra year.

Myrmornis2• 8 years ago

You did a BS and a Masters and most of what you learned was familiar to you from hobby programming? Maybe you should have taken harder classes.

etxm• 8 years ago

Maybe I read algorithm books for fun and finished all of my college math by 9th grade. But thanks!

Myrmornis2• 8 years ago

Please change the title to have the year in it. This is from 2013.

grzm• 8 years ago

(2013)

Discussion at the time (over 100 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5786720

amriksohata• 8 years ago

UK based here, I have had a mix of friends that got a Bsc and a few that got Masters. In terms of jobs and salary nearly all are on a equal footing. I agree with the guy that said a Master's is more a route into research as few employers specifically seek it or reward it and if they do it's a very small number.

nikanj• 8 years ago

It seems like we've grown to dislike any and all indicators of maturity in a developer. Young people are smarter, plus easier to exploit too. And you don't have to pay them as much, as they don't have advanced degrees.

toolslive• 8 years ago

That's a very US centric view, especially: 'Whereas MS degrees used to be a means for departments to begin vetting future PhD students,...'

This was never the case in Europe, where if you have only a bachelor, people assume something went wrong. The target at university always was a Master's degree. The PhD, something you did for your mother, or if you wanted to pursue an academic career.

besasam3• 8 years ago

if you have only a bachelor, people assume something went wrong. The target at university always was a Master's degree.

What? This is definitely not true in Germany, at least not anymore. Unless you want to go into research or teaching, it's commonplace for graduates to start working right away.

I think a much bigger problem that contributes to the devaluation of university degrees is the fact that students that don't really need a degree still get pushed to attend university - and that's definitely because of current recruiting practices where you really have no chance without at least a Bachelor's. I've met so many people in university who only really wanted to code and got no use out of learning things like automata theory, complexity, higher mathematics. Not saying it isn't important to learn these things, but you gotta differentiate between coders and computer scientists. And if coder positions require a computer science degree, well... Of course you're going to end up devaluing those degrees.

Edit: Adding to this, I attended university for 4 years before switching to a more practice-oriented college. In those 4 years I had one programming lecture (which only introduced three different language paradigms and didn't go into depth) and a system programming lab (admittedly, this was really cool). Everything else was mostly theoretical computer science and mathematics. Now, I chose this university because people told me of its good reputation and I felt like I had to attend a prestigeous school to get a good job, but it didn't really teach me any practical skills at all, so even if I had graduated I would've had a hard time landing that "good job" due to complete lack of experience.

pjmlp2• 8 years ago

Don't forget that a Diplom in Germany is similar to Bachelor + MS in other countries.

I always have to explain that a Licentiate[0] is more akin to MS than Bachelor, which is a bummer on employment forms that don't expose it as option.

After Bologna, Portuguese universities started giving the option for former Licentiates to request their MS title, given the split into 3 + 2.

Which according to my knowledge also happens in other European countries where CS degrees used to be 5 years duration, before Bologna happened.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licentiate_(degree)

orbifold• 8 years ago

If what you are saying is true (bachelors being valued the same) then this is kind of sad. I still believe that the old diploma degrees were one of the competitive advantages that our industry had. And from personal observation I can tell you that all the physics students I knew continued with a masters degree if they could.

jrimbault2• 8 years ago

In the same vein, I suppose in Europe we don't see education as only a mean to an end (a job), but we value education in and of itself.

Also, education itself is much less a business here than in the US.

V-24• 8 years ago

The elephant in the room is that in quite a few European countries [edit] (such as Germany or Scandinavian countries) it's free or really cheap (ie. Italy) [/edit], hence the well-known phenomenon of the "eternal student".

In countries where job market can be tough, such as Southern Europe or Poland - where I'm from, and where I've observed this first-hand (in Italy, too) - going to uni is a common way of deferring the unpleasant clash with economic reality.

It provides an excellent "alibi" for a few years' worth extension of parents' financial support. "We value education in and of itself" attitude certainly comes in handy ;)

fergie• 8 years ago

James Bond's academic nous was famously demonstrated by his First in Oriental Languages from Cambridge. The most common qualification for a career in British government is an Oxbridge undergraduate degree in PPE. A top grade in an undergraduate course from a top university is, and has always been the most "useful" qualification for people with career ambition in the UK.

EnderMB• 8 years ago

I guess it depends on where in Europe you're from. This doesn't seem to be the case in the UK, where a lot of employers really couldn't care less if you're got a Masters of not.

Hell, when I was studying for a masters, I felt that it was essentially a half-way course towards getting someone ready for a career in academia. Others also used it as a way to get a good university name on their CV so big companies would look at their applications.

jk563• 8 years ago

This was never the case in Europe, where if you have only a bachelor, people assume something went wrong.

This was never my impression during my university years, nor in working life (both technical and managerial).

adzicg• 8 years ago

This is not my experience in the UK (not sure if you consider UK part of Europe, though :).

If anything, it was the opposite, people I worked with would consider anything better than Bachelors in CS on a candidate’s CV (eg MS or PhD) as a signal that they wasted too much time in their life before starting with real work in the industry.

[edited for clarity]

wanda• 8 years ago

As a fellow Briton who quit university to become a software developer, I can confirm this. It depends on the field, of course.

andyjohnson0• 8 years ago

people I worked with would consider anything better than Bachelors in CS on a candidate’s CV (eg MS or PhD) as a signal that they wasted too much time in their life

I'm also in the UK, have an MSc (STEM subject), and FWIW have never come across this attitude.

tanilama3• 8 years ago

I doubt that. Bachelor is not sufficient for a lot of areas in CS, like DB/Distributed System/Machine Leanring, etc.

meh2frdf• 8 years ago

You are correct, and as a experienced hiring manager I’ve seen little evidence that a masters adds anything to the effectiveness of an engineer. The only time it will affect my hiring decision is it a masters in CS but their batchelors was non CS, ans it’s basically a conversion, having said that I have a personal contact who did this and from a good uni, the masters really taught him very little.

seanmcdirmid2• 8 years ago

That’s useful signaling for both sides though: higher education isn’t relevant to that specific company and the job would probably be too boring to the higher educated applicant (especially a PhD).

Balero• 8 years ago

Also from the UK, with a Master's. I have not found this to be the case. The majority of people at my university (Russell group) doing CS also got a masters.

kahnpro• 8 years ago

I'm a software dev living in London but from Canada and while I completed most of my bachelor's degree, I never finished.

So far no one (not recruiters nor employers) has so much as even asked me about my education. But I guess I have enough experience now that it really doesn't matter.

Philipp__• 8 years ago

Definitely not true. Depends, if you went with 3 years of studies + 2 on Masters, maybe it is true. But 4 years (and in some cases more) of studies are the "norm".

tauntz• 8 years ago

if you have only a bachelor, people assume something went wrong

I'll throw in my 2 cents - this is not true at all for Estonia for example. It might be in some fields of study that I'm not familiar with but definitely not in CS.

CalRobert• 8 years ago

Or that you understand opportunity cost and wanted to start making stuff instead of burning more life before doing anything useful?

Anyway, I've never had my lack of a Master's come up in Europe. Maybe it's because I'm American.

akerro• 8 years ago

people assume something went wrong.

After I presented my BSc project my supervisor offered me support with PhD in computer vision and AI (area of my work and his specialisation). I had to refuse as during my studies tuition fees for PhD went up over 9x times (and for BSc almost 11x). On my first year I worked with people who paid ~£300 per academic year, on my final year I worked with others who paid almost £10.000 per year. "Something" went wrong.

sarreph• 8 years ago

I don’t understand how the highest voted comment (at this time) in this thread is a user spreading a false notion that ‘if you only have a bachelor [in Europe], people assume something went wrong’.

Do they have sources to back this kind of snooty claim up?

Anecdotally, the only time I’ve come across this attitidude is when individuals heavily-vested in academia are attempting to stake out the moral high ground.

maze-le• 8 years ago

Exactly, I know plenty of people who spent years in academia, just to get their CS Masters degree. In the end of the day it seems harder for them to get decent (entry-level) jobs, because recruiters claim they lack work experience. Its not impossible mind you but on the surface, it seems harder. I wonder if there are recruiters out there, who could maybe explain this attitude?

barry-cotter3• 8 years ago

They’re probably German or Austrian. That’s an accurate description of how stopping with a Bachelor’s is read there. I think the same is true in Switzerland but I’m not sure. It’s probably relevant that prior to the EU’s Bologna Process the lowest university degree was basically equivalent to a Master’s. That’s true for everywhere in continental Europe but German speakers love their Doktortitels more than anywhere else.

arnvald• 8 years ago

Certain countries in Europe (e.g. Italy or Poland) have only adopted concept of bachelor degree in 2000s. Before that you had to study for 5 years and you got master degree. Certain majors still follow that rule (e.g. psychology or law).

I started university in 2007 and among ~180 people studying CS with me, majority continued with full-time master studies immediately, and most of the others did it part-time (either immediately or after 1-2 years break).

These days it's different, it becomes more common to either finish formal education with bachelor degree, take a long break or continue in another, related major. 10 years ago it wasn't the case.

stordoff3• 8 years ago

As far as I am aware, Cambridge didn't even offer a Master's in Computer Science until relatively recently, only the BA (MPhil added in 2009–10, MEng added in 2011–12), so I find it difficult to believe that is the prevailing attitude (at least in the UK).

gaius2• 8 years ago

Oxbridge master's degrees aren't "real" tho' - from time to time there are attempts in Parliament to crack down on them, but too many vested interests have them

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/83...

seanmcdirmid2• 8 years ago

Many European universities often have 3 year undergrads with a 1-2 years masters to make up for that. All USA universities have 4 year undergrad programs and many have 1 year master programs now.

It is safe to say that the systems are a bit incomparable, since a 3 year degree in the states would be just as comparable to an associate’s degree.

gota• 8 years ago

When I read the title I assumed this was going to be a very different piece, as I've recently been discussing with friends and colleagues about how degrees in general are going to be less and less important over time. This is a digression on the topic of the original post, so I'm sorry if I shouldn't be posting it here.

The reasoning goes: the reasons why we need degrees are certification and reputation. By certification I mean that we only let people who we all trust practice medicine, as that kills people directly otherwise. So we restrict the people who can to those with the appropriate degrees.

The second point is more relevant to most other careers. A degree is nothing but a more reputable institution 'lending' reputation to its graduates. The reason this is necessary is because nobody's got the time to verify whether every person knows Computer Science - we're better off just knowing that people from University of X know CS if UoX says so. Even if you're going to personally interview every candidate for a job opening, still relying on degrees helps you filter candidates.

The thing is our interactions are recorded to the level that we can now reason about individuals in a way that was not possible before. Why do I need to trust UoX if I can mine your entire internet presence with reasonably comparable effort?

I thought from the title that, since CS is the field that is making this shift possible, we'd be the first one to suffer this influence.

paublyrne• 8 years ago

I don't think your premise is right. University degrees are not only for certification and reputation. Your specific example of medical practitioners alone goes against it. There is no other practical way for people to learn to practice medicine than in university. You can't really pick it up on your own in your spare time, unlike CS.

As well as being an opportunity for someone to have time and freedom to study for a period of years university also provides a safe world to learn other soft skills and grow as a person. It's not prerequiste to develop those, of course, but it really helps.

wolfgke3• 8 years ago

The reasoning goes: the reasons why we need degrees are certification and reputation. By certification I mean that we only let people who we all trust practice medicine, as that kills people directly otherwise. So we restrict the people who can to those with the appropriate degrees.

That is why in Germany such degree programs (medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, food chemistry, law, pharmacy, teacher's training certificate, forestry) end with Staatsexamen (state examination), which is a special kind of degree that is much more tightly controlled by the state.

rm_-rf_slash• 8 years ago

I’m not sure where I fit into this equation. My employer is paying for me to get a CS M.Eng in ML/AI on the side while I work. I’m learning way more than I would have bothered - or had the hardware and guidance - to learn on my own, like parallel processing, CAD, 3D printing, and eventually robotics.

I don’t have much interest in a CS MS. I don’t really see the point of it. If my degree goes well and after a few more years in the field I decide I want to specialize much further, I’ll just get a Ph.D.

My $.02

k__3• 8 years ago

Still have to write my master thesis.

But I have no hopes of instant value.

I guess it's good to have it when I'm older to get into a management position or something

time0ut• 8 years ago

My MS program was very geared towards giving a foundation to pursue a PhD. There were some aspects of it that were tangentially helpful in my career as a software developer, but it definitely was not the focus. Thinking back I feel like it was that way because that is what all of the professors knew. Few of them had experience outside academia so it makes sense that the program would reflect that. Maybe things were different at other institutions. This was also more than a decade ago, so things could be different now in general.

booleandilemma• 8 years ago

The problem with getting a masters in CS is that people just don’t care.

I’ve had too many technical interviews where the hiring manager will ask me questions about his favorite ORM or dependency injection framework and turn me down if I never used them before.

If I would have known that people in this field are so quick to disregard credentials and previous work experience I would have chosen a different technical subject to major in.

dimman• 8 years ago

In my opinion the biggest issue in general is the distance between ”the educational world and the professional world”. There’s so much more to being a great engineer than knowing the ins and outs of x, y or z. In reality you have to compromise, with everything, almost all the time. They don’t teach you that at school, you learn that while working. People who just graduated (atleast here in Sweden) think they are pro’s when graduating, only to realize they’re real green’ies when they start working. If they don’t realize it right away, they do realize it a couple of years in.

I’ve been working as an embedded software developer for 7+ years at different #1 in their field companies without a degree. I’ve worked with a lot of newly graduates and the above is my experience.

The best technical solution is not always the best solution.

bootsz4• 8 years ago

Wilfra mentions “disdain for people who don’t have a BS CS who want to get an MS CS.” It was certainly not my intent to express disdain for people who follow this path! Many people pull it off admirably. However, it is a difficult path to follow because it skips all of the introductory programming classes

As someone who went this path, I'm troubled by the amount of assumptions and generalization being made here.

To my knowledge any legitimate MS program will require that you have completed an appropriate amount of foundational CS courses before starting the program. I obtained an MSCS after getting a bachelor's in a different field, and I had to take 6 CS classes to satisfy the prerequisites. Including the MS the total amount of coursework I completed was slightly greater than the requirements of the university's Bachelor's degree, plus some graduate-level research.

Granted, this is not as much coursework as someone who obtained both a BS and and MS, but from my understanding if you're not planning to pursue a PhD (or need it for immigration purposes) getting both is usually not a good use of time anyway.

It seems he is trying to specifically criticize programs that fall far short of what I went through, which seems valid. But it would be nice to make that distinction instead of writing us all off as inferior.

commandlinefan6• 8 years ago

require that you have completed an appropriate amount of foundational CS courses

In fact, I went back for an MSCS degree ten years after finishing a BSCS, and even then I was required to take a couple of foundational undergraduate courses before they let me start my graduate coursework, since there had been enough advances in CS theory since I graduated a decade ago that they felt (correctly) that I needed to catch up.

samfisher83• 8 years ago

Its very useful if you want to come into this country. If you are in India its hard to get a job in America. If you come here for a master its much easier to get a job here. The salary difference between there and here can be massive.

ng12• 8 years ago

Yup. I went to a school with a pretty good CS program (not quite top N) and our master's program was almost exclusively international students.

laichzeit0• 8 years ago

I wonder what he would have to say for my example:

I did a 4 year BS CS degree and graduated in 2005. I did calculus, linear algebra, real analysis, mathematical statistics, etc. until 3rd year and then the typical CS curriculum of compilers, distributed systems, programming languages, artificial intelligence, etc.

I've been working in industry for 12 years doing typical systems/software development, but got involved in more "Data Sciency" things in the last 2 years. I liked it so much that I decided I want to change career directions and move away from just "building software" to more "building software that runs on data as the fuel", like machine learning/deep learning/NLP related problems.

So okay, I have no real problem with doing anything that involves manipulating the data, building pipelines, or implementing things in Tensorflow or Gensim, etc it's just programming. Easy, peasy. I also understand most of the mathematics, and what I forgot was not too hard to "re-learn" very quickly.

The problem is it is difficult to apply for jobs as a Data Scientist when you only have a BS CS, even with real world experience. I'm not "formally qualified" as a Data Scientist.

So I enrolled for a 2 year course-based MS (1 year course work, 1 year dissertation). Basically it allows me to slap on my resume that (a) I have done university accredited courses in mathematical optimization, machine and statistical learning, deep learning, ethics, big data, etc. and I suppose the dissertation says that I can do more advanced work on data in an academically rigorous fashion. So basically I'm using the MS to change career trajectories 10 years after doing a BS CS.

I suppose you could do the courses through MOOCs but I appreciate the dissertation part as I am forced to read journal articles and learn how to do things more "rigorously" than I would otherwise in a plain old MOOC.

Isn't this a viable option for pursuing an MS? I don't think it's necessary directly after an undergraduate, but after a decade or so you might want to "specialize" into something that didn't really exist when you did your undergrad. BTW, I did this part time while working (you can kiss away your weekends and evenings).

mr_overalls• 8 years ago

Have you finished the MS yet, and has it improved your job prospects? Also, I'm curious which program you've chosen. The GaTech OMSCS program has gotten a lot of good reviews lately.

mslate• 8 years ago

Tsk tsk—not a single iota of quantitative analysis. How can we know that the value of a CS degree is declining? By what measure of “value”?

This is pure “appeal to authority” as the author is a CS professor-—better to discuss Aline Lerner’s research which he references

justin66• 8 years ago

I was an exception to what regehr said in at least one regard: my public speaking improved pretty dramatically while working toward a coursework-only MS. I don't think it was anything more complicated than just needing to hit a lifetime threshold of presenting in front of people some number of times.

The rest seems pretty valid, although at this stage, I doubt if there's any well-founded way to determine whether a given degree will prove to be worthwhile in a purely financial sense, if there ever was. With rising costs it's probably just somewhat less likely...

inieves• 8 years ago

I think your coursework-only MS needs to be further broken down into those programs that require a BS in CS and those that don’t. There are at least 3 types of MS in that sense. Without this distinction, your article is short-sighted, not realizing that there are actually many rigorous academic MS programs in CS that would not be doable by someone lacking deep knowledge already.

Erosion of the value of the MS is not isolated to CS.

Forget some universities eroding the MS, entire countries are eroding it. If im not mistaken, Italy is a massive supplier of MS degrees.

bootsz4• 8 years ago

I agree, there is definitely a broad spectrum in terms of what amount of background a student needs to be able to complete a given MS program.

But I'm not entirely convinced that it's appropriate to argue that the only "true" MSCS is one that requires a full bachelor's in that subject as prerequisite. That seems... overly restrictive.

What if you got a bachelor's in math or engineering and want to further specialize in CS? Should your only option be to complete another bachelors degree? What if you did a minor in CS? There's lots of people in these categories that can and do get an MSCS, even from very reputable programs.

Obviously coming from a related field will prepare you better than say a liberal arts degree, but where do you draw the line?

In my experience most MS programs have a certain set of prerequisites that generally equate to a minor in CS.

bootsz4• 8 years ago

The crux of the issue here seems to be that the author believes that a "true" MSCS is one that can only be obtained by those who have first completed a bachelor's degree in CS. We might want to consider whether that is a valid definition or not.

This isn't really a brand-new thing either. One of my best instructors was a seasoned industry vet (former senior architect at a major firm, member of W3C and author of several of their proposals, etc.), and he had a bachelor's in Physics followed by an MSCS... from Stanford. Are we to say that his masters is not legitimate or that he is an inferior engineer because he technically did not complete a bachelors in the subject first?

To me it seems to be a problem of defining in general what the purpose of a masters degree should really be. In some fields it is used as an extension of a bachelor's in the same field, while in others it is used to supplement undergraduate education with skills in a different field, typically for the purposes of better rounding out the student's knowledge in preparation for pursuing certain career paths.

For instance, consider a professional degree like the MBA, where you can come in having a bachelor's in literally any subject.

What the author is noticing is that universities are increasingly offering the MSCS as something more like a professional degree instead of solely as an academic-track stepping stone to the PhD. And clearly he does not like this.

This issue seems to highlight the dual-purpose nature of universities as vehicles for training both practitioners as well as researchers. On the practitioner side, I think there is immense value in being able to supplement a bachelor's degree in one subject with a different set of skills obtained in a second degree. E.g., many people take the track of getting a science or engineering bachelors and then an MBA afterwards. The combination of those two disciplines can provide a very powerful skill set.

What seems to be happening is that the increasingly tech-centric nature of our economy is causing the skills offered by CS to start to make a lot of sense for some people as a form of secondary training. Much like business, technology intersects virtually every industry, and those who have training in a specific subject domain in addition to CS can be highly effective problem-solvers, much more so than those trained in just one or the other.

Sure, perhaps we can argue about whether an "MSCS" is really the most appropriate vehicle for such people. But being one of those people myself I will say that my experience does not at all reflect what the author claims (see my other comment re: coursework). The reality is that there are an increasing number of people who want to supplement their undergraduate training with CS, and this is a good thing. The author is correct in noting the distinction between this demographic and those who are on a research/academic track, but I'm just not convinced that we can definitively say that an MSCS must always require a bachelors in CS.

digorithm• 8 years ago

As a soon-to-graduate Masters CS student in a top research university, I'd like to share, for what it seems, a different opinion and experience about this matter.

I came here from a 3rd world country that lacks a good education; Most of my CS experience and knowledge, at that time, came from the Internet, books, and personal projects. After working hard, I was accepted to this university as an MSc student.

I have never learned this amount of quality content as I've been learning in these past 2 years in this MSc program. Deep topics and subjects like programming language theory, low-level knowledge in distributed systems and machine learning, all this being taught by excellent researchers in their respective fields.

This was the first year, the course requirements part of the MSc program. Now I'm halfway through my research, and again, I've been learning tons. I've been writing very interesting code, building amazing things, writing papers, and working on my own ideas. I've never been this close to amazing scientists and engineers. This is priceless, in my opinion.

I've worked in the industry (before the MSc. program), it was super great. But I can confidently say that the MSc. program has made me a better engineer and taught me how to do proper research. I'm sure this may vary from university to university, department to department, and most importantly, from advisor to advisor. But that has been my experience!

The Declining Value of a CS Master's Degree (2013)

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