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I'm a senior studying computer science right now, and am now at the painful crossroads between moving on to conduct research in grad school or getting myself a nice software development job for cash money. I can say right now that my main goal right now is to one day conduct research in real-time computer graphics. I also have research experience, a good GPA, etc. that should get me into a respectable grad school. However, I'm just afraid that, once I get my Ph.D, or even in the six years leading up to it, I may have a change of heart; I'm already a bit unsure as it is. If I opt out of a life in academia, will it be absolutely impossible to get into the industry? This is why I'm also playing with the idea of getting a job first and working for a year or two to get some practical experience. I have had an internship, but it was just one summer and hardly counts for much. There is also the issue of not being able to pull out and jump back into academia after living in the "real world". Anyone have any input, or a similar experience?
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 23:28 |
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| # ? Nov 21, 2009 07:02 |
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Yes, getting more education and training will make it more difficult to find a job. Wait, what? Are you serious?
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 23:36 |
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giogadi posted:I'm a senior studying computer science right now, and am now at the painful crossroads between moving on to conduct research in grad school or getting myself a nice software development job for cash money. I've never heard of someone with a PhD in the IT field. With that much time invested you can join a profession that pays well out of college. Make sure you do those internships you're talking about. Regardless of whether you're aiming to join the programming or sysadmin side of the field, employers will be very reluctant to hire something without experience for anything other than entry-level work.
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| # ? Nov 06, 2009 23:39 |
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If you're considering it and still in school mode, do it. It's much harder to go back to school after you've been working than it is to just go straight into grad school after undergrad. At the very least, you can walk away with an MS in 2-3 years. If you want to continue on to finish the PhD, you'll know at that point. The MS, at the very least, is definitely something you'll want. It's an instant $15-$20000 starting salary bump over a BS in CS. I'm working on a PhD in CS right now, and it's pretty awesome. You'll decide if you really want to make research your life by the time you get your masters. Pivotal Lever posted:Yes, getting more education and training will make it more difficult to find a job. It's not quite that simple. PhDs are overqualified for a lot of jobs, and companies see "PhD" on a resume and know that they'll have to offer you a larger salary. In economic downtimes, this is not a good thing for PhDs. Unless you're working in academia, it can be tough to find a decent job as a PhD depending on the economy. Fangs404 fucked around with this message at Nov 06, 2009 around 23:45 |
| # ? Nov 06, 2009 23:40 |
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Great, an actual Ph.D. CS person. How far into it are you, and how difficult have you found it? Were you as unsure of yourself as I am when you were applying?
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 00:07 |
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giogadi posted:Great, an actual Ph.D. CS person. How far into it are you, and how difficult have you found it? Were you as unsure of yourself as I am when you were applying? I'm a 2nd year. It can be really tough and sleepless at times, but there can also be a decent amount of downtime. Unlike undergrad, classes aren't the focus anymore. You'll take 3 classes a semester, and grad classes have less homework than undergrad classes. Although there are fewer assignments, the assignments you do get are harder and take longer to complete, so it's a tradeoff. It's not busy work like a lot of undergrad classes. The majority of your time will be spent on your research (which is the fun part anyway). Classes suck, but you'll be done with them right around your 3rd year. I was definitely unsure. I didn't know whether I wanted the MS or the PhD, and multiple sources told me that if I wasn't decided that I should apply for the PhD program. It's typically a lot easier to move from a PhD to a MS than it is to go from a MS to a PhD. Plus, as a PhD student, you'll get funding (if you don't get funding, don't go to that school), and your schooling will be paid for you (no loans!). You'll likely work as an RA or a TA, but it's not bad, and it sure as hell beats having to deal with loans. You'll also get priority for TA positions over MS students. I finally decided on the PhD when I attended my first conference back in February. I realized just how much there is that we don't know and how much work there is to be done. It was exciting, and the prospect of getting to work on things that I want, getting to direct the research myself, and going on school-funded trips all over the world (my conference was in Vienna, Austria, and I was there for 10 days, and I didn't pay a dime except for booze and souvenirs) for the rest of my working life is a helluva deal. I just love academia, and I don't want to leave. Fangs404 fucked around with this message at Nov 07, 2009 around 00:18 |
| # ? Nov 07, 2009 00:13 |
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Fangs404 posted:I'm a 2nd year. It can be really tough and sleepless at times, but there can also be a decent amount of downtime. Unlike undergrad, classes aren't the focus anymore. You'll take 3 classes a semester, and grad classes have less homework than undergrad classes. Although there are fewer assignments, the assignments you do get are harder and take longer to complete, so it's a tradeoff. It's not busy work like a lot of undergrad classes. The majority of your time will be spent on your research (which is the fun part anyway). Classes suck, but you'll be done with them right around your 3rd year. Right, so the main point of it all is research - is that as stressful as I'm imagining it? My current research I'm doing as an undergrad is driving me kinda nuts, as invigorating as it is. I feel like any moment I spend not working on my thesis is wasted time - and I'm afraid of grad school being six years of this feeling. Do you find enough time to just relax?
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 00:20 |
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giogadi posted:Right, so the main point of it all is research - is that as stressful as I'm imagining it? My current research I'm doing as an undergrad is driving me kinda nuts, as invigorating as it is. I feel like any moment I spend not working on my thesis is wasted time - and I'm afraid of grad school being six years of this feeling. Do you find enough time to just relax? It can be stressful. Meeting deadlines (turning in papers/abstracts/posters to journals/conferences) can be pretty stressful and will make you lose sleep. We had a 3 week period back in August where we had a different prospective funding company visiting us every week. They were all looking for something different, and it was a lot of work preparing demos/presentations for each one. However, in between those deadlines, there is plenty of downtime. I still go out to bars and see all the home football games (I'm at Iowa, so this year in particular is a blast). Remember that you'll be directing your own research. The PhD is a very self-motivating degree. That's why some people finish in 5 years, and some people will finish in 9. It just depends on your personality (and how hard your advisor pushes you). It's not like an RA, though, where there's someone leading the research that needs your result by such-and-such time. It's your research, so you get the results when you finish them.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 00:30 |
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CannedMeat posted:I've never heard of someone with a PhD in the IT field. With that much time invested you can join a profession that pays well out of college. CS PhD's don't do IT as we think of it. (Systems Admin stuff), but work at Bell Labs, Alcatel Lucent, places like that and design the poo poo we'll be administering in 10 years.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 00:50 |
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Another CS PhD student here and I just want to says Fangs404 is pretty much dead on about everything. With a PhD you are almost certainly making yourself unhirable for code monkey type positions, but it sounds like that not what you want to do anyways. Your options are pretty much either professor or private research and you'll find out if you want to do those things over the course of the program. Getting a job now will probably make it very difficult to go back to school, and if you keep the job while going to school it will extend the process by a lot. So your best bet is to go now if you even think you want to. Do what Fangs said, apply as a PhD so you can get funding (and don't go to a school that won't give it to you). If it turns out you don't like it, you can leave when you get your masters and still be fairly marketable. If you have any other questions I'd be happy to answer them. edit: VVVVV Yeah, I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it definitely restricts your options. Not every company wants to pay for a PhD when they could have a BS or MS doing the same thing. eelmonger fucked around with this message at Nov 07, 2009 around 02:38 |
| # ? Nov 07, 2009 02:12 |
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eelmonger posted:Another CS PhD student here and I just want to says Fangs404 is pretty much dead on about everything.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 02:21 |
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Sorry to ask such a stupid question but this seems like a good place to ask what do CS PhD's research exactly?
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 04:21 |
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Ezekiel_980 posted:Sorry to ask such a stupid question but this seems like a good place to ask what do CS PhD's research exactly? From a very basic perspective, it's pretty much any of the fields you find on Wikipedia's Computer Science entry. It can be anywhere from completely theoretical work into the mathematics that are behind all of computer science (logic, automata, graph theory) down to very specific applications of software algorithms (operating systems, networks, graphics, robots, security, AI). edit: Personally, I have a Master of Human-Computer Interaction, which in some ways fell under my school's Computer Science department. Even the field of HCI has many different areas of study, but most of the research revolves around: new forms of input, new forms of output, new ways of understanding how computers can be easier, or, of course, robots. x-virge fucked around with this message at Nov 07, 2009 around 04:56 |
| # ? Nov 07, 2009 04:49 |
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If you've done enough original research to be a sound employee, look at the private sector. IT doctorates are having a hard time even finding work IN academia. Edit: Durf
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 05:54 |
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The only thing I can say about having a PhD is that my ex girlfriend's father has a PhD in computer science and has been unemployed in Massachusetts from 2004 to about 2006 when we broke up for just the reason that he's overqualified and they'd have to pay him way too much for the jobs out there. This might be the counterexample to never having enough education, but I'd say it's a outlier and not the norm.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 06:16 |
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Isn't the point of a doctoral thesis that you will have advanced a realm of knowledge in some way? Surely being a groundbreaker in an field would make you a valuable addition to anyone that works in that field.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 09:54 |
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A couple of data points from here in the UK: my friend and I both have PhDs and it didn't negatively impact our search for development jobs in the slightest - in fact, we both found our jobs a day or two after submitting our CVs to recruiters. I started off on a comically low wage, though, and it's not hugely better now, but we can probably safely blame that on my lack of ambition  My friend is earning significantly more.Probably early next year I'll start looking around for something better - we'll see whether it works for or against me then.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 10:16 |
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Carnivean posted:Isn't the point of a doctoral thesis that you will have advanced a realm of knowledge in some way? Surely being a groundbreaker in an field would make you a valuable addition to anyone that works in that field. The problem right now is that academic computer science is becoming increasingly removed from what the vast majority of developers in the field do on a day to day basis. This is a problem throughout post-secondary CS education, but obviously becomes increasingly pronounced as you get beyond undergrad and into post-graduate and doctoral programs. It's not that either of them are doing things wrong, per se, but it's pretty much akin to getting a PHD in material sciences to become a carpenter. It certainly won't make you a worse carpenter, but outside of a few outlying cases, it's not particularly helpful, and the two things are really just related on the surface. That being said, I've encountered a lot of different opinions about post-grad degrees as someone who's been involved in hiring decisions at a few software development companies. A very small proportion of people view them as a benefit large enough to influence a hiring decision, and if they do, it's typically a generalized respect for going through a doctoral program, and not anything specific to CS. Even these people would generally prefer experience over a PHD. An even smaller proportion think of them as a negative influence - these people exist, but they are exceedingly rare and will only be relevant for your first job out of school - if you can demonstrate at all that you can function in the real world, you'll be OK in their books. For the vast majority of people, it hardly registers, and certainly would not have a major influence on a hiring decision or bump up a starting salary. The $15-20K bump in salary that was mentioned above would absolutely not happen. I should qualify that this viewpoint comes from the start-up web development world - I really can't speak for other areas of the industry, where traditional CS knowledge might be more useful. My personal opinion is go for it if you want to keep the option of working in research or academia open - a PHD certainly won't hurt you in the real world and you can close some doors on the academia side if you don't pursue it.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 13:29 |
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Go for it! Most programs give you a free MS along the way, anyway. In the case that someone does lure you away with a nice salary, your time spent will at least give you a MS. As Fangs404 said, the PhD route won't cost you either. As far as closing doors--I can only speak from within school, but the temptation to leave for a nice salary is huge. There are masses of recruiters for advanced degrees too: Microsoft Research, Yahoo! Research, Google, etc.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 13:30 |
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enki42 posted:The problem right now is that academic computer science is becoming increasingly removed from what the vast majority of developers in the field do on a day to day basis. I was thinking more granular. Surely if you've advanced in a very specific area, people working in or with that specific area would want you. But then I don't have a clue what a PhD in CS actually does.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 14:05 |
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DOOMocrat posted:If you've done enough original research to be a sound employee, look at the private sector. IT doctorates are having a hard time even finding work IN academia. Larger corporations definitely have an research division for doing work that hopefully winds up in shipping product. Microsoft has the largest CS research institution in the world. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/ Coffee Jones fucked around with this message at Nov 07, 2009 around 15:52 |
| # ? Nov 07, 2009 15:49 |
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las nalgas
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Carnivean posted:Isn't the point of a doctoral thesis that you will have advanced a realm of knowledge in some way? Surely being a groundbreaker in an field would make you a valuable addition to anyone that works in that field. Most computer science PhDs have zero practical computer skills just by virtue of being over the age of 27.
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 16:41 |
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enki42 posted:It's not that either of them are doing things wrong, per se, but it's pretty much akin to getting a PHD in material sciences to become a carpenter. It certainly won't make you a worse carpenter, but outside of a few outlying cases, it's not particularly helpful, and the two things are really just related on the surface. Putting this in my "analogies to use" folder. 
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| # ? Nov 07, 2009 16:46 |
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enki42 posted:For the vast majority of people, it hardly registers, and certainly would not have a major influence on a hiring decision or bump up a starting salary. The $15-20K bump in salary that was mentioned above would absolutely not happen. I was going to say that this mythical bump in salary for having an education just doesn't really exist at entry level. Education doesn't translate to a good job straight out, but later on if you are actually smart it is just a huge bonus. I do however know a bunch of really smart ex-microsoft guys that get paid massively to do contract work developing, they have their PhD's and they apply their knowledge at a level that I would never be able to. Steve Slavery fucked around with this message at Nov 07, 2009 around 18:41 |
| # ? Nov 07, 2009 18:37 |
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The thing about those ex Microsoft guys is that they've (probably) seen many many projects and have all kinds of shipped product on their CV, whether they're development or management. But this sort of knowledge comes only through hard earned experience.
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 01:49 |
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Veritron posted:Most computer science PhDs have zero practical computer skills just by virtue of being over the age of 27. I don't understand what you mean by this. What counts as practical computer skills and why do people over the age of 27 not have them?
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 05:19 |
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x-virge posted:edit: Personally, I have a Master of Human-Computer Interaction, which in some ways fell under my school's Computer Science department. Even the field of HCI has many different areas of study, but most of the research revolves around: new forms of input, new forms of output, new ways of understanding how computers can be easier, or, of course, robots. Did you go to CMU by any chance? I've been considering their HCI master's program. (Registered for an HCI class there this semester actually... I pay Pitt tuition to take class at CMU... cross registration is a beautiful thing) If not, where are you? I haven't heard of any other specific HCI programs except Iowa State, the rest are all CS masters and you do a thesis on HCI. (Probably would take a couple years off to work first since you can't get funding for a professional masters)
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 06:06 |
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Ezekiel_980 posted:Sorry to ask such a stupid question but this seems like a good place to ask what do CS PhD's research exactly? This is UC Berkeley's research page, it should give you a good idea of the state of the art: http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Research/Projects/
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 06:27 |
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GregNorc posted:Did you go to CMU by any chance? I've been considering their HCI master's program. (Registered for an HCI class there this semester actually... I pay Pitt tuition to take class at CMU... cross registration is a beautiful thing) Yeah, I did. Feel free to PM me. quote:I haven't heard of any other specific HCI programs except Iowa State, the rest are all CS masters and you do a thesis on HCI. Yeah, exactly! None of the Stanford people around the Bay seem to understand how different that really is. There are a handful of other places that have dedicated HCI programs; Georgia Tech is the only one off the top of my head.
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 06:37 |
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Contra Duck posted:I don't understand what you mean by this. What counts as practical computer skills and why do people over the age of 27 not have them? While it probably wouldn't take them long to learn, I doubt that the average PhD would be able to reset a password in AD, or similar, because they've never been in a position to do it. Hence they don't have the practical experience. You'd expect someone that you're paying 15-20K extra to be able to drop straight into doing that, and with a PhD you wouldn't.
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 08:02 |
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Carnivean posted:While it probably wouldn't take them long to learn, I doubt that the average PhD would be able to reset a password in AD, or similar, because they've never been in a position to do it. Hence they don't have the practical experience. You'd expect someone that you're paying 15-20K extra to be able to drop straight into doing that, and with a PhD you wouldn't. A CS PhD isn't applying for sysadmin work though. If they're not going into research roles they're looking for development jobs, and all the CS PhDs I've known have been excellent developers with stacks of worthwhile practical experience.
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 08:41 |
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Contra Duck posted:A CS PhD isn't applying for sysadmin work though. If they're not going into research roles they're looking for development jobs, and all the CS PhDs I've known have been excellent developers with stacks of worthwhile practical experience. While you are correct, research does, as the previous claim was made, not provide you with practical experience, for a vast majority of positions.
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 08:55 |
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Carnivean posted:While you are correct, research does, as the previous claim was made, not provide you with practical experience, for a vast majority of positions. Then I suppose the claim is true but worthless. Would you say a person who has worked as a developer in industry for the past 5 years have no practical experience because they've never done sysadmin work? Would you say that a person who's been a sysadmin for 5 years has no practical experience because they've never worked as a lumberjack? Getting a PhD opens up a whole new segment of the industry that regular IT schlubs never get to see. Yes, as a PhD you don't have much practical experience configuring WAS servers, but that's not important because your job is writing google wave or developing the next iPhone interface. PhDs give you a stack of practical, relevant experience for these kinds of jobs, and its these kinds of jobs where you get your extra 15-20k.
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 11:42 |
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Veritron posted:Most computer science PhDs have zero practical computer skills just by virtue of being over the age of 27. Basically, the statement only holds when you're the one defining "practical". Whether it's that you just think research is less practical, or you don't understand even the basics of what they do, I can't say. In any case, as Contra Duck alluded to, advanced degrees are more for computer scientist positions, rather than computer programmer or sys admin work[1]. spinflip fucked around with this message at Nov 08, 2009 around 12:42 |
| # ? Nov 08, 2009 12:06 |
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Contra Duck posted:PhDs give you a stack of practical, relevant experience for these kinds of jobs, and its these kinds of jobs where you get your extra 15-20k. See that's what I claimed, except without asserting the pay thing, which is bogus, because you're comparing apples to oranges. spinflip posted:Whether it's that you just think research is less practical, or you don't understand even the basics of what they do, I can't say. I'd say your reading comprehension or your memory skills are lacking.
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 12:28 |
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Carnivean posted:I'd say your reading comprehension or your memory skills are lacking. I apologize, it's early in the morning . I should have quoted Veritron, not you.
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 12:40 |
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The PhDs I've worked with spend their time designing algorithms and technology to do things like entropy based predictive caching (don't ask me how that works because I'm not entirely sure), low level database IO optimization, and high speed distributed processing. These guys essentially take something that currently exists and make it do something we never thought it could. In some cases they even come up with something that didn't exist before and make us wonder how we lived so long without it. They write the code that makes searching the entire internet seem trivial and quick, they make processing millions of credit card transactions seem simple. They take theoretical science and math and apply it to problems that even the most seasoned developers could never do. This isn't to say that you have to be a PhD to do this or that if you are a PhD this is what you'll be doing. I'm just saying that if you're very smart and you like the idea of solving problems in a beautiful and effective way there will be jobs for you to do. Now if you'd rather do boring repetitive and generally thoughtless programming you shouldn't bother. But if you get excited when you come up with a way to apply complex math to solve a complex programming problem elegantly, go for it.
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 12:54 |
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Carnivean posted:While you are correct, research does, as the previous claim was made, not provide you with practical experience, for a vast majority of positions.
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 19:58 |
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Plorkyeran posted:Nothing gives you practical experience for a vast majority of positions if you include positions in completely different but vaguely related fields. You mean they don't teach PhD's how to administer Windows Server 2008 or configure an Oracle database?!?! 
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 20:51 |
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I think getting a Ph.D will make you unhireable for most software development positions. If you can get a job at IBM, Google, Microsoft, or any of the other big companies with actual research divisions, then it won't be a problem. However, if you don't think you can get a job with one of those companies, you'll likely not be able to find anyone willing to pay you more for your Ph.D, and there are probably quite a few companies that will just turn you down outright because they'll think you're out of their price range for entry level developers.
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| # ? Nov 08, 2009 21:23 |
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