<p>It’s alarming that almost 90% of the engineering students electing to pursue a master at UCLA is taking the “course” path full-time. To receive a MS, the options include:</p>
<p>1) Courses
2) Project
3) Thesis</p>
<p>Option 1 simply requires a student to pass 9 courses (5 graduate level, 4 undergraduate level) with a 3.0 GPA. Not very challenging. Receive a B in every course and you receive a certificate. In my opinion, waste of $ if graduate school will be paid out of your pockets. What you learn in the classroom really has minimal value in industry. It is more of an intellectual training experience.</p>
<p>Option 2 requires a student to take courses and participate in a project assigned by an advisor. It usually involves going into the lab for an extended period (6 months) and performing small experiments (numerical or experimental). The scope is only a fraction of what is required to produce a thesis, but it is still intellectually rewarding. You get to apply what you learn hands-on. If results are good, there is potential to be a 1st or 2nd author in an journal paper. </p>
<p>Option 3 requires a student to take courses, to participate in research with an advisor, and to produce a thesis that is approved by a committee (typically 100 to 200 pages describing results from studies). It may take the to longest time to graduate (2 years of continuous work as opposed to 1 year for Option 1) but it is the most rewarding experience in the MS program. If I were the dean, I would require research and a thesis in order for students to receive their MS. Working in a lab develops the student to be autonomous thinkers, which is a useful training avenue if the student pursues an industry job after taking the MS. My colleagues and I have developed patents and academic journal papers out of this valuable experience. We are now able to perform experiments from scratch, work with lab instrumentation, analyze the data, and tap into novel projects/ideas to pursue. These are tasks that a student doing Option 1 will not be able to experience. I learned far more from the lab/research experience than from the 9 courses that I passed.</p>