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ShowMeDaData t1_j0p587a wrote

Reply to comment by hyemae in Finding a job vs Master's Degree by Chinalover33

It really bothers me that this is such common advice for new grads. While this can be a good path for those with some experience, it's bad for new grads for a few reasons.

Going straight for a graduate degree without working means you won't have practical real world experiences to connect the concepts you learn to. This effectively leads to a all books smarts and no street smarts perspective.

Trying to land a job with a Masters degree and little to no professional work experience leads to being both over and under qualified at the same time. Employers will see you as under qualified for mid level roles because you don't have any work experience, and over qualified for every level roles. Plus if you do manage to get a mid level roles, you'll be behind your peers because you very likely haven't had the opportunity to learn any soft skills yet.

Edit: Skills you typically learn on the job versus in school include but are not limited to: stakeholder management, communication with non-technical audiences, negotiation skills, project management, strategic planning, technical troubleshooting, data visualization for business audiences, and written business communication.

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hyemae t1_j0qrhsr wrote

Usually they gain experience through summer internships. Most of them will do 2-3 summers of internships to get an return offer at the last year of their school.

I did the path you have described. Gained experience and take Master later. It actually put me at a disadvantage as most of the roles that I want to move into requires a Master or MBA. Experience is important but it screens me out right from the start when master is a preferred requirement.

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ShowMeDaData t1_j0rbtjy wrote

When I say get some experience I mean like 2-3 years, and then head school. What kind of roles were you interested in that required a Master's or MBA?

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hyemae t1_j0rh748 wrote

Most PM roles in Google needs Masters from the JD. And I couldn’t pass the screening stage without the Master despite having 10 years of experience. I only started to get call back after I had my Master.

However, my partner who is newly graduated with Master’s without experience, got the call back and went through interview right after graduation with Google.

So I think it’s important to have the paper qualification based on my own experiences.

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ShowMeDaData t1_j0rjhwo wrote

I was at Amazon for 5+ years, advanced degrees were nice to have but experience was a sufficient replacement, for technical roles at least.

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