Hey everyone, I am at a point in my life where I need to decide if I go to graduate school or not. Here is my background:
Undergraduate from UC Santa Cruz getting a B.S. in Computer Engineering with a concentration in systems programming with a 2.96 GPA (so far).
Had an internship once at Northrup Grumman during the summer of my freshman year of my undergraduate career. It was relatively informal, only requiring low-skill work.
Have had a minimum wage job for a little bit. (If it counts for anything)
The more and more I purse the degree the more I find that I enjoy programming and my computer science classes more than the hardware ones. I actually started as an electrical engineer and switched majors to computer engineering. I couldn’t make the switch all the way to computer science as that would require quite a few more classes and I wouldn’t want the many classes geared toward computer/electrical engineering to go to waste.
Quite frankly, I wasn’t trying nearly as hard as I should have been for most of my undergraduate career. This school year, on the contrary, has been quite a change and I am confident in my abilities to continue to do well. Not to mention that I am interested in learning more.
I am thinking about applying to graduate school in California for an M.S. in Computer Science, but I am late for many of them whose deadlines were in December/January. Lots of the Cal State Universities have open applications until the beginning of April though. Some of the schools I was thinking of applying to include: SDSJ, Cal state long beach, Cal State Fullerton, Cal State San Diego, Chapman University and perhaps others. I sort of set the bar to these mid-low tier schools because of my lack of experience and sub-par grades.
A couple of questions now arise:
Do I even bother trying to get an M.S. from any of these schools due to there lack of prestige? Would it actual be counterproductive (as I would be going from a mid-tier school to a mid to low tier one ) to do so, and if so should I just be looking for a job now? I don’t really have many connections at the moment, and I see the M.S. Degree a chance to increase my standing as far as education in computer science, GPA potential, and future connections but I am unsure if its the right choice.
Do I have a fair chance at getting into these schools or should I be setting the bar higher or lower? My GPA would probably be where it is now or about a 3 at submission time. I haven’t taken the official GRE yet, but I am confident that I can achieve scores around or higher than: Quantitative: 165 Analytical: 155 and an Essay of 4.5.
Will employers and others care if I get a masters from mid-low tier school? Can this be outweighed by doing very well and completing research or achieving some job experience?
Ultimately I know this is a decision only I can make, but I am hoping to get some feedback from others who might know more than me. On that note, it seems quite difficult to find any numbers on acceptance rates for graduate schools, making it hard to gauge where I sit amongst the pack.
Anyways, thank you for taking the time to read this long-winded post.
Your professors and major advisor should be able to advise you on the difficulty of admissions at your targets. The career center on your campus can advise you on employability with your major, and may also have comparative information for MS degrees.
For specific employment stats, you need to check with each target institution. Both the departments, and the career centers should have information for you.
There are companies out there that will subsidize the cost for you to take job related classes while you work for them. While working in Sunnyvale I went part-time to Santa Clara U. and picked up an M.S. in Computer Science.
So my suggestion to you is this: stop worrying about prestige of your school. Try to find a job at an employer that will pay for extra training. If after you’ve worked for a bit, you still think you need more schooling, take some extra classes. If you still want to go to grad school full time, go for it knowing the extra work experience on your resume will enhance your grad school application.
Seconding what @jrm815 said. Besides work experience, you might have the opportunity to publish papers and give presentations at professional conferences. Two things that would also make your grad school application stronger.
Depends what you want to do. But i think as a hiring manager that most grad programs are substantive enough to show your skill and effort regardless of the school. Just dont spend a huge amount on this, look more carefully at public schools.
Why not both do a job search and apply to schools that you can attend with your gpa.
Note likely at a lower tier school, you can get a better gpa. Then put the grad school gpa prominently on your resume, can leave off the undergrad one if much higher in grad school. Note employers know that engineers at top schools will not necessarily have such high gpa. Problem for internships, less of a problem later in life.
I would say do not let things like deadlines determine where you apply to school. A year really isn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things. If you waited just a year, you could apply to the schools you really wanted to apply to instead of forcing yourself to apply to whatever’s left over. (The bigger concern is your GPA).
But the better question is why do you feel like you need an MS in computer science? Your BS is in computer engineering. It’s different, but it’s not so different that you couldn’t start looking for jobs in what you want and learn on the job, or at least start with a related job and then move into something you wanted through some lateral career moves. For example, you could apply to some software jobs right now and I bet you could get some - people with BAs in non-computer related fields who know program and basic algorithms/data structures get them relatively often. If someone with a BA in English who went through a General Assembly boot camp for six weeks can get a software development job I am sure that you can.
Or you may find that you start out in hardware, maybe take a couple of the classes you are missing part-time (with your company paying for them, of course) and then move into a software job in a year or two.
Computer science/engineering is a field where your professional experience and connections matter a whole lot more than graduate work. So start networking, and start applying. Join professional organizations (many have student memberships), go to small regional conferences or networking dinners, look on Indeed or Dice and start looking at positions that interest you.
