On a related note, if you had the option to attend a pretty good grad school for free, taking two grad classes a semester, (and on top of that, get paid a half-time stipend for 20 hours a week as Teaching Assistant or Research Assistant, which should be enough to live on), would you? Should I do it? I would be finishing a B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics next Spring. It sounds like it would be a great way to challenge my mind while trying to create shareware apps or web apps. Should I do it?
IMHO it is what you make of it. I'd recommend understanding what type of problems are reasonable to be solved in the time you're given, find someone who's working on ones your interested in and see if they need help.
Also, you'll be passing up a lot of potential $$ going to grad school so make sure you understand why your doing it..
I'm enjoying my master's degree quite a bit. My peers are brilliant and my class work is interesting. Also, I am quite impressed by the kinds of companies that came to our career fair and that are giving me a call back. It would be even sweeter if I weren't paying for it.
However, I am not interested in pursuing a PHD. Working on one problem for three years sounds... tedious. Also, I've noticed that my dating market value and social life have declined quite a bit since I left my job. Two years of that ain't bad, but five would be tough.
A PhD is an apprenticeship to become an academic. If you aren't planning to take your career in that direction it's hard to see a reason to do one. It's a negative in the non-academic job market.
Not true in hardware. Look at any job board. All the cool jobs require PhDs or many years of experience. It is very hard to get that experience because not many companies want to take a risk on someone with just a bachelors.
I knew I wanted to go back to grad school during my senior year, but got a job first to rack up some money and experience. There is so much depth to electrical engineering that sometimes even senior level classes feel like they are barely scratching the surface.
As the typical advice goes with this sort of question: make sure you know what you're getting into. It sounds like you have a pretty good deal in terms of funding, but remember that regardless you need to write a dissertation. Now, you could take the funding and leave after you get your masters, but you'd have to decide if you're morally comfortable with misleading the University.
I have actually talked to many professors about this. There is no contract. There is no implicit agreement. People leave all the time for various reasons. Sure, it is kind of crummy to apply for a PhD program knowing you only want a masters, but that is life.
If you leaving early had such a terrible impact on the university, they would make you sign a contract.
1) This special program is for students interested in pursuing the Masters Degree, though it would be completed alongside students pursing a PhD or MS/PhD, and one could switch to the PhD track if they wanted to.
2) Applying to grad schools as a PhD candidate is standard advice given by professors, so that wouldn't be an embarassing thing to do.
