If I studied economics during my undergrad,having a finance work background, I really into high tech innovations , but have no background of either computer science or engineering, what programs I might choose for a master degree or PHD program that I can learn and know about those tech innovations? Thanks a lot!!
Do you just want to know about technological innovations, or do you actually want to work in the field of tech innovation? Because if you just want to know, there are less time-consuming and expensive ways to learn - you can read books, read articles on the Internet, attend lectures, maybe even audit a class here and there. You certainly don’t need a master’s or PhD program to learn about innovations in technology.
Now if you want to work in tech - either developing tech or working in a tech career - there’s a couple different ways you can do that, and that depends on what you want to do in tech.
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Tech companies hire people with finance backgrounds. They need people to crunch their numbers and make sure they’re making enough money. So you could try to move laterally into a tech company’s finance department.
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If you want to be a software developer, one potential method of entry is by doing one of those 6-8+ week software development crash courses. General Assembly teaches them, as well as many other companies. Many of them have partnerships with tech firms to help you get hired after finishing. You’ll learn basic software development and many people with non-CS backgrounds go into the field after doing one of these accelerated programs.
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If you want a program that’s sort of “tech light” - that will expose you to technology innovations without necessarily requiring a whole bunch of prerequisite coursework - there are lots of programs like information systems or business analytics or such that may not require a lot of CS or engineering pre-knowledge. However, before you do one of these programs I would ask sharp questions about career placement of graduates. What do they go onto do after they graduate?
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If you want a straight-up CS or engineering MS, you’ll need to go back and do some prerequisite coursework. With engineering, it almost might make more sense to do a second bachelor’s - one of the very few fields in which a 2nd BS degree makes some sense.
You likely don’t need a PhD unless you really, really want to do high-level research as a research leader.
Google it. There are degrees in technology innovations.
Can’t you do a masters degree in something you have no experience with? I don’t think everybody doing comp sci masters necessarily had that same degree for undergrad. Some people would be trying to expand their horizons after getting a bachelors degree they decided they didn’t like.
If I studied economics during my undergrad years,having a finance work background, and I really into high tech innovations , but have no background of either computer science or engineering, what programs I might choose for a master degree or PHD program that I can learn and know about those tech innovations? Thanks a lot!!
^No, not really. Graduate programs are called graduate for a reason - they are intended to build upon undergraduate knowledge and foundations, and intended to signify to employers that you have a higher and deeper level of understanding in a specific area than someone with a bachelor’s degree in the area. If they simply let anyone who was interested study the area, they’d have to dumb down the course requirements and the degree wouldn’t signify that anymore.
So yes, I’d wager that most people with a master’s in CS had an undergrad degree in CS or a closely-related area. The alternative is - if you wanted to expand your horizons - start by taking undergrad-level courses in the field to prepare yourself.
Hi Juillet:
Really appreciate your thoughtful answers! I totally agree that if I want to just know tech innovations, I can read article and learn them online. The thing is that I really hope I can land a job with innovations and creativity involved, like all those tech companies with all those cutting edge technology and products. However I dont believe I have the ability to learn all the coding and programing again since I really hope I can create somethong good or get involved with a company which is doing something innovative. And for my currrent degree and work expereicne, is very hard to land any jobs relate to those areas, that’s why i am thinking may be go back to school to learn somthing close to that area might help. But I’m still not sure how I can get there or what programs I should choose, since I’m definitely not a CS person and at the same time I love those tech innovations and creativities very much. sounds contradictary ha.
Tech companies require people of different job functions to be able to do the innovations they do. For example, Google isn’t comprised solely of software engineers and their managers. There are finance people, marketing, sales, operations, legal, program management, product management, etc. and almost none of those people have CS degrees but they work for Google and in a way help create cool stuff. So what we are all trying to figure out from you, is do you want to be directly creating stuff at a tech company or do you want to support the people who create the stuff?
Yeah, I think with your current education you should look into finance, marketing, or business program management roles at tech companies. But also you need to think deeply about what it is you actually want to do. Simply liking “tech innovations” is a really, really vague thing, and if you get an interview somewhere you’re going to be asked what attracts you to the field and why you want the job.