Should I get a second BS or go for MS?

Engineer80
Wed, 06 Mar 2019 16:18:14 +0000

@eyemgh - I have a long record of telling it like it is. As one who taught in both engineering and ET programs, and have had the opportunity to advise students regarding career choices I tell them the truth. The dean of the aforementioned school who defended their misleading students regarding opportunities in ET as opposed to engineering was not telling the truth and called him out on it. I completely understand from reading this thread that the original commenter desires to do technical work but not necessarily engineering work. As I said before there is nothing wrong with that. I don’t think anyone commenting here is suggesting that he/she pursue engineering if he/she isn’t up to the challenge. I too advised students who were in similar positions and interested in doing technical work to go into the ET program, but in that case they had the benefit of the full disclosure as to the relationship between ET and engineering. I am certain that you appreciate the difference between engineering technicians and engineers.

When I began my career some 40 years ago most of the engineering technicians in my organization had 2 year degrees from community colleges. They didn’t burden themselves with four years of college and student loans and were perfectly capable of doing their jobs. ET became more prevalent later on, but it begs the question why does one need a four year degree to do technician/engineering support work? IMO they really don’t.

The OP asks if he/she should get a second BS or for MS. MS in what? An engineering graduate school is very unlikely to accept a student with a bachelor’s degree in a field far removed from engineering (criminal justice) into its master’s program in engineering. Most engineering graduate schools require applicants to have an undergraduate engineering degree, or at least one in a closely related field such as math, physics, etc. A master’s degree in engineering also is not a substitute or superseeds a bachelor’s degree in engineering, since it is usually specialized in a subspecialty of engineering and doesn’t contain the underlying foundational science, non-disciplinary specific engineering, lab, and engineering design courses that a regular undergrad engineering program does. It does not by itself prepare one to be a qualified and fully trained engineer, rather, it builds upon the foundation that would be gained in the undergraduate engineering program.

In the original post the OP indicated he would like to study mechanical engineering. He/she made no mention of ET as opposed to engineering. If he/she wants to do engineering work, then starting anew in an ME program is the best course. Yes, the OP will have to take all the math, physics, chemistry, et al from scratch. If he/she is more suited to technical work as discussed earlier, the bachelor’s degree in ET would be a better bet.