I currently have been offered a PhD position at Washington University in St Louis for Computer Science, with a 35k-30k stipend, I also have been offered a Software Engineering Position that pays 140k. I am having a really tough time deciding between these two awesome choices. I like school but Amazon is in a cool city (Seattle), and would probably be a cool experience. I worked with my would be advisor during an REU I attended last summer and he is a great professor doing, top notch research. Does anyone have any advice?
PhD here. You should only go to grad school now if you have a burning desire to do so. That option will not go away; in fact, with a year or two of work experience, your grad school options will be even greater.
PhD tracks are not just advanced college. It is more like being junior faculty (and when I say junior, I mean REALLY junior - you are at the bottom of the totem pole in priority in the department). And $35k a year will feel very low to you. You have to really love what you are doing in order to tolerate the sacrifices you will be making.
In a nutshell, if you have to ask the question at all, the answer is take the job. Grad school can wait until you can’t imagine doing anything else.
Most people who start PhD programs do not finish. Not because it is too intellectually demanding, but because it is not at all a fun experience. Of the class of 18 people I started with, 2 got their PhDs. It’s a long road, and only the most motivated finish (because there is no pot of gold at the end of that rainbow).
“$35k a year will feel very low to you”
It will feel an awful lot lower once you’ve got used to earning $140K per year and acquired spending habits commensurate with your salary. Conversely the stipend may feel relatively generous if you’ve been living as an undergrad on less than that.
I can’t imagine going back to do a full time PhD after working for a few years. A shorter professional degree perhaps, but not a PhD.
@Twoin18 The majority of those in PhD programs do not go straight from undergrad. I did, but I was only 1 or the 3 of the total 18. It was a mistake for me to do that. Would have had better focus and direction after working a bit. And the temporary poverty never feels good. If he expects to potentially go back, he can temper his lifestyle while working and save a fair amount. My oldest did and it made a world of difference while in grad school.
However, if you do take the job, avoiding “acquiring spending habits commensurate with your salary” (i.e. living like a middle or lower income person despite a high income) will benefit you in many ways.
- You will retain the choice of going into lower income directions, such as doing a PhD.
- You will start your savings and investment early, so that compound interest has longer to work in your favor, allowing you to join the capitalist class quicker.
- You are more likely to be able to afford your kids' college and your own retirement, and more likely to be able to retire early by choice or if forced out due to age or seniority discrimination.
Take the money and run! Even working 1 year and living low and savings think how much of an advantage you will be at knowing there is some money in the bank.
Something tells me once your making that type of money going back to a PhD program would be very hard. But who knows… What do you hope to accomplish in the PhD program that you can’t contribute to from the outside? Maybe you can work with the professor with some type of initiative through Amazon?
One more vote for industry. Unless you want to go the research route for your full career, a PhD just really doesn’t seem worth it. It’s years and years that won’t translate to a significantly higher earning potential. Plus, what if the industry market changes by the time you get out of the PhD? You can always go back to it, as mentioned.
If I may read into things a bit, it sounds like you don’t really want to leave school a ton - is that accurate and if so why not?
As a WashU parent, I would advise that you take the Amazon offer in a heartbeat. You will be going to be cheap labor for essentially 5 years and there is no guarantee that you will be able to get an academic position once you graduate.
With a few years at Amazon under your belt, you might be able to get a Masters in CS from UDub paid for by them. Or even an MBA if you are management material.
The only reason to get a CS PhD is if your goal is tenured academia.
A goal can be to be part of a research team . My son returned to academia cuz he didn’t want to remain a programmer. And yes, obtaining a PhD is VERY arduous.
@Hamurtle @PengsPhils @bookworm thats what I am interested in, does PhD lead to more interesting work and make it so you dont have a ceiling on promotions? PhD also has summers off and a flexible work schedule. Do people who go off to get them enjoy them?
I don’t think the potential advisor at Wash U would say he has the summers off. True there are no classes to teach but work with students in the lab continues and the need to get grants to keep funding the students is a year round commitment. Academics do have more control over where and when they work, that is true.
30 years ago I had a very relaxing 3 years doing a PhD (in math) and got a 30% boost in salary in my first job due to having a PhD. I enjoyed it enormously and had many enjoyable summer holidays and plenty of time to row crew.
But sadly I think that’s very much the exception rather than the rule nowadays, especially in the US (and outside of math I think it’s very hard to get a PhD without doing a lot of time consuming work). And from what I’ve seen in Silicon Valley a PhD can limit rather than expand your opportunities by pigeonholing you as an engineer rather than a manager.
So I’m not sure you could expect it to be either a particularly enjoyable experience or one that would benefit your career significantly (unless it’s in something that turns out to be hugely in demand - for example the CMU autonomous vehicle researchers have mostly done very well for themselves).
@statecollegekid A PhD is not a magical salary ticket. Any advantage it offers in industry will be slim if it even exists at all.
In terms of academia and research, it’s very case by case but generally you’re cheap labor for your advisor. People typically go for a PhD because they love the research topic or want to be a professor, not the journey on the way.
Absolutely an option, but one with similar pay to your offer now and a smaller job market than software engineering.
spring of 2018 you were studying film but developed an interest in CS according to http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/2083532-transfer-to-nyu-tisch-or-stay-at-oberlin-college.html
The job market is really strong for CS so this has worked out well in terms of finding employment. But before you sign up for several years getting a PhD I suggest getting some experience in the field to make sure its really right for you. My vote is take the Amazon job if its the best one offered (you should keep interviewing!)
Or you can split the difference. Many colleges offer a 1-year MS in CS. You’ll gain additional skills and can focus on an area of CS that really interests you.
I agree with most of the comments above. You should ONLY go for the Ph.D. if you are interested in doing research and possibly working in academia or at a government laboratory. If you are doing the Ph.D. just to get a better salary, don’t! The Ph.D. does not qualify you for a lot more and if you are starting at $140k with a B.S. you will be significantly higher than that in the 3-5 years it takes to get a Ph.D. Those earnings will never be recovered.
I would even say that the M.S. will be superfluous once you have work experience, however, you can make that choice later on and with a much better perspective on what it could mean for your career.
One final thing is that if you find that working in industry is not all that you want in life, you will be free to return for a Ph.D. later and with that industry experience you will be a valuable prospect. At that point, you will have balanced the loss in salary with the desire to do the Ph.D. and your decision will be a lot easier. Easier still if you are able to save a lot of our salary and have the freedom to choose what you want to do with the rest of your life.
Good Luck!