My son got into Carnegie Mellon CS Graduate program (MS). It’s very expensive. I can afford probably one year fee. I will try to arrange for second year too.
Question is it worth the money spent there for Masters in CS. He will graduate from UC Irvine majoring in both CS and Mathematics.
He has offers from UC Irvine, San Diego, Ann Arbon Michigan, UT Austin, and few other colleges. Worth noting, he didn’t make it to Stanford and UC Berkeley and Urbana Champaign (though he got here for his undergrad CS) Awaiting one last college UCLA.
Any parental advice or latest MS CS graduates would be really helpfull. Need some inputs for me as a parent to discuss with my son.
There are several questions to ask. Which schools offer the course work in the area that interests him the most? How much debt will he have to carry at each of the schools he’s been admitted to? Are any of them thesis based?
Terminal MS degrees are BIG money makers. My feeling is that particularly for CS and Engineering, they don’t offer enough advantage to offset the price.
Our son turned down Stanford to stay at Cal Poly for his MS in ME. CP was funded, thesis based and could be completed in one year. Stanford was not funded, not thesis based, and two years, costing a year of missed wages. In the end it just didn’t make any financial sense. I’m very confident that he’d be no better off had he chosen Stanford.
At this point, I honestly have no answers. Which is one of the reasons for starting this thread.
As I mentioned he is in UC Irvine, and will finish by June this year. Has an internship at Amazon Seattle. He has been interning at Amazon for last 2 years (summer) during 2nd and 3rd year summer. Similarly he got internship for 4th year which will happen in June this year.
The few friends I know suggested that MS at this point for him is of not much utility, though they suggest that MS is required in future because of his academic interest as well as future skill development. They say its not time worth spent doing MS, instead work experience for 2-4 years will give him the access to latest industry needs and then he can decide whether to do MS full time, as a sabatical from work, as a part of company sponsorship or part time classes.
They say its not worth it to loose almost 2 years salary and pay for college without any aid or scholarship. We will in bay area (SFO), and its not cheaper to live here.
Sir, I really dont know what thesis based is, I will discuss with him and update here. I am not CS wise qualified in his area though I work in IT industry but entirely in a different vertical of IT industry.
OK, I got the basis for thesis and project now. I will discuss with him soon. He is doing some research for his Honors program at UCI, hence busy to talk.
I’m not sure I’m reading this right, but does he have an interest in being in academia? If so, he may want to consider eventually going directly into a doctoral program and skipping the terminal MS.
No that part is sure. He is not interested in going into academia at all. He is sure to be a part of the IT industry work force.
One of the reasons the people I talked to dissuaded him from getting his MS in CS right now after college, though they advised him of the significance MS in CS either part time or in any other form after getting some initial work experience.
If your son wants to be in industry, why not start working and save up for grad school later? He can try to find a company that has tuition reimbursement but he may also find that the MS isn’t necessary.
Agree with the others - when I read this, I think - at least CMU (as great as it is) is not the right school.
Because after you pay the first year, then what? And why should you be put in that position.
I won’t say he shouldn’t or shouldn’t continue schooling (although I’m a fan of working first, like MBAs do) - but in general, no one should spend beyond their means.
My son is finishing up his first year at CMU CS. He has a CS undergrad degree at University of Washington. We moved to Seattle after he decided to go to UW and bought a house near the campus. We’ve saved enough since he was an instate for 3 years and he’d lived at home. He could also stay at UW for one more year for a master’s degree. Other than the waived tuitions, he’d also get stipends. I felt it was time for him to go out of his comfort zone even though he didn’t want to. We finally persuaded him to go to CMU. I still think it’s a good move. The courses at CMU are harder and he has learned more.
Programmer here. It doesn’t look you can afford Carnegie. When it comes to computers and technology, prestige doesn’t matter. It looks like he has plenty of options, just choose a school you can afford.