Graduate school from a mid-low tier school worth it?

ComputerSciencer
Sun, 04 Feb 2018 02:18:17 +0000

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:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.