Engineering major top ranked school vs. lower rank but masters in 5

I think far fewer people complete these programs than start them due to the time commitment. It can suck up a lot of your free time for the 3-5 years it takes to finish.

Good schools such as USC and Stanford offer a part-time remote learning MS degree where you take one course per term. Engineering courses will often take 7-10 hours per week (or more) outside of the 3 hours/wk of class. This comes on top of a fulltime job that in itself may involve more than 40 hours/wk. Many weekdays all you do is work all day and then come home to spend the rest of the evening studying, and if you don’t finish it then you’ll also lose a block of time on the weekend. Rinse and repeat. It’s no wonder a lot of people don’t see it thru to the end.

My advice has been to do the one extra year after undergrad, earn the MS and be done with it.

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