What does an engineering PhD get you?

furyshade · 03-30-2008, 01:24 PM

i've been accepted to USC viterbi school of engineering for EE and plan to attend. i know they have a "progressive degree program" which allows you to get a BS and MS combined in 5 years total, which i hope to do. my question is what does an engineering PhD get you, aside from the ability to be a professor? right now i think id really like to pursue a PhD but i know that is from a naive standpoint, so i wanted to learn more about it. does PhD change a lot compared to a masters in getting a job outside of universities? does it matter a huge amount for salary? any contribution is appreciated, thanks.

ish718 · 03-30-2008, 02:25 PM

I think the PhD is good for high level research & design positions, I'm sure the pay is a higher but maybe not significantly higher.

furyshade · 03-30-2008, 02:40 PM

well wonder is if the pay is actually higher since you have that 4-6 years where you would be getting paid otherwise but are getting the degree, so in reality does the pay compensate for that?

merper68 · 03-30-2008, 04:23 PM

It does not. PhD actually makes you lose earning potential on average compared to a Master's degree. It's only recommended if your career goals are to be a researcher or a professor.

furyshade · 03-30-2008, 04:26 PM

thanks for the info, im sure ill learn a lot more about this in the next years.

mydegisunacred · 03-30-2008, 05:36 PM

Dont worry about this til you've learned the college ropes and see what it's all about

sakky · 03-31-2008, 02:37 AM

Quote:

my question is what does an engineering PhD get you, aside from the ability to be a professor? right now i think id really like to pursue a PhD but i know that is from a naive standpoint, so i wanted to learn more about it. does PhD change a lot compared to a masters in getting a job outside of universities? does it matter a huge amount for salary? any contribution is appreciated, thanks.

You should only pursue a PhD if you are actually interested in research and discovering something new. If you don't care about that - and most engineers don't - then a master's degree will more than suffice. In fact, you'll probably end up making more with a master's overall because you won't have had to spend so much time in school pursuing the PhD.

However, pursuing the PhD, at least in its initial stages, may be highly beneficial to some people. For example, it is a cost-effective way to get a master's, as most PhD programs will pay you a stipend while you're in the program, and you can use that financing to just pick up a master's and then leave. (Many people do just that - heck, I know a guy who picked up two master's degrees at MIT while on a PhD stipend, and then immediately left the PhD program for a very nice job). A PhD program may also provide you with a powerful entrepreneurial opportunity. That is precisely what happened to the founders of Google: the original Google algorithm and search engine was their PhD dissertation project, and they decided to use it not to graduate but instead to start a company and make money. Many engineering PhD programs at the top schools are replete with students who are perennially considering dropping out to start companies based on their research. To use MIT as an example again, there is one rather infamous guy who hung around in the graduate program for nearly 15 years without ever graduating (although I think he finally was awarded a master's degree recently). Instead, he just used his time to continually start new business ventures. {I'm sure this guy's stipend ran out at some point, but I"m not privy to the details.}

But the point is, the PhD itself is probably appropriate only to those who truly care about research, but the PhD process may be useful to a broader category of people.