- candybar is offering an honest opinion. even if you don't agree, it's good to get a wide range of opinions. I think most people in tech realize that CMU is elite. you're talking as if they're some sort of degree mill

- for most fields, the best reason to go to for a master's is to pivot. your career is moving in one direction, and you want to move in another direction. some people get a MS while working full-time, which is an option that won't set you back in terms of work experience

- I think there are some other benefits to an MS: you're interested in research, your current skillset isn't suited to getting the type of job you want, or you just really like school and you want to put off the real world another year or 2 (life's too short...). there are other nice things, like getting to try out some internships without committing to a company for 1yr+, networking with people who can refer you to a job, starting a business with classmates, and getting to create some projects.

others know more about how salaries work, but they are largely tied to your work experience. even if you go straight through and have a great bachelors+masters, you're still considered someone with 0 experience.

going back to school was one of the best things that's ever happened to me, but I was in a position where I needed to pivot very badly so it was a no-brainer for me. I'm naturally going to have a very rosy perception of graduate school but the others are right. if you can get into CMU, then I have to imagine you're qualified enough to get an excellent entry level position doing real work, getting real-world experience. if you go to CMU, you'll have paid 60k and lost 1.5 yrs of work experience for that opportunity. it would have to elevate your career significantly for that to be worth it. you can always re-evaluate in a few years.

Sorry, was a bit confused: I was talking about them as a degree mill or candybar was?

Yeah, I'm a non-CS undergrad and think I'm pivoting in some sense but also want to move in the ML direction. Tbh, I have more math coursework than CS and haven't built a ton of stuff on my own. Though I suppose some co's may be interested in me...

@jjshabado, I can't seem to reply to your PM. Do you mind PM'ing your email and I'll shoot you a line there? Thanks again!

You remind me of something I forgot to say. You don't mention anything about yourself outside of some vague interest in machine learning and money, which I ignored because everyone's interested in ML and money these days. You may want to be specific about what's important to you. As in, what your end goals are as opposed to subgoals that you fancy a means to an end. You may also want to present more information about the programs involved and how you came to these three choices in the first place. Life is not a quiz show.

truth

I hear what you're saying - many technologists know CMU's undergraduate CS program is elite. But technologists are not the ones he's trying to impress with a degree. And I'm not making stuff up - CMU's even mentioned here:

http://blog.alinelerner.com/how-diff...to-recruiting/

Most programmers don't work in a bubble where everyone knows CMU's CS program is elite. I mean, do you guys happen to know which schools have the best MPH and MSW programs in the US? Me neither. People are going to rely heavily on generalities about these programs as opposed to the specifics and the generalities are not great - CMU is a good, but not elite institution and CS Masters programs are generally not trustworthy. Either way, this doesn't matter because his credentials on paper are likely to be quite strong anyway and won't be strongly affected by which school he chooses. So what appears to be going on is that he wants to impress himself. And that's a very unproductive way to spend money.

What's worse, stipend vs no-stipend almost certainly implies research opportunities vs not having research opportunities. In one instance, you're being admitted as part of the CS department - in the other you're being treated as a paying customer.

I would say that candybar isn't someone I'd ignore lightly and not someone who deserves to be shut-up, but considering OP is possibly a throwaway account, he may have an ax to grind and there is history here I nor anyone else knows about.

I can't offer any input on the situation. I don't see any reason to discourage OP's goals.

I don't know candybar fwiw

good read. thanks for the link. a lot of it rings true to me. it is a bit extreme in some cases* but it's hard to argue with the main points. whether or not CMU is elite is simply a matter of perception.

* e.g. that graduate courses are somehow less rigorous or that many people don't know how to code... roughly 90% of my classmates are from India or China. all of them that I have talked to were CS undergrad in their home countries, and they go to grad school to get a visa so they can live here and interview for jobs in the US. I think this is commonplace

yeah, pretty sure you wouldn't have dismissed his comments if you did.

@anoncsguy, your PM ability looks like it's turned on now. Let me know if it still doesn't work.

I generally agree with candy bar about schools. In my case It's not even that I don't recognize good schools it's that I don't think it's super relevant. It's a very small plus, but in no way the biggest factor when I'm looking at a resume.

I think the optimal route for anything programming related is BA->job or HS->job if you are mature enough. It's a very unique field in that regard, pure skill is valued higher than in other fields (where heuristics like degree are worth more) so accelerated learning is very valuable. I'd argue that the university system suboptimal for that and work mixed with selfstudy is a lot better (specifically because you want to be around smarter programmers as much as possible) + earning potential is pretty high to boot so compound interest FTW

I'd only recommend a PhD if you are sure you want to end up in academics. If you get a graduate degree make it a masters and plan on getting jobs/sideprojects en masse to go with it.

Yeah that's one of the situations where a masters makes sense. But 100% do as much applied, practical work as possible. Ideally get some programming internships and work on side projects (+post them on github). "Just" the MA will be pretty wasteful (imo).

Is this true for the 'data science' and ML type jobs too though? I always assumed that was only true of software engineering. ML especially seems like something you need an academic background in? Or am I wrong and the 'real world' data jobs are just normal devs parsing csv files and using some ML library?

In the real world 'data science'* jobs are typically half way between cutting edge research and parsing csv files.

It's rarely about research but often about figuring out which existing algorithms, techniques make sense for specific/custom use cases.

* 'data science' is a very non-specific job description these days so take everything with a grain of salt. There are data scientists at some of the big social networking sites doing crazy research and there are data scientists at crappy startups doing log parsing to figure out how often a customer converts.

I am currently doing my phd in CS in scandinavia; best job i've had by far. A couple of my collegues work on ML, very math heavy stuff, mainly on malware detection. Another one works on computer vision, which is all optimized algorithms from what i gather.
Anyway, i have a paid position, decent pay (4-5k per month), and my superviser lets me pursue my interests as long as i can document progress. I am not getting rich, but I am enjoying the work, and we have a nice work environment.

I would not have chosen differently. I have also done some industry cerifications while researching.

Fwiw I definetly recommend grad school.

This ain't politics unchained, guy

Paying for 1 over a free ride at 2 seems idiotic to me, especially given what you are getting your degree in.

Elab?

I'm with candybar on this one.

From my personal experience, I went to two (at least at the time) very prestigious universities for my under- and postgrad parts in CS. When I started interviewing for jobs after completion, I very rarely was told "we see you went to a great university, tell us more about that/your thesis/whatever."
Instead, they were most interested in the part time jobs and projects I have done next to my studies.

I'll qualify that with the fact that I did not study or work in the US. So, if you want to use that as an argument that my point of view does not count, feel free to do so.

The prestige of the school matters most when it comes to getting the interview, not getting the job (at least anecdotally)