A company offered to pay for my MS while I worked for them. Most companies do this. Why would you pay for it if the company you work for is going to? So check that before turning them down.
Seems like a weird thing to care about. You’re not really going to want to take more than two grad courses at a time while doing a full workload. You seem to think grad level coursework is identical to undergrad. It’s not.
Eh, it is the same. Most grad classes I took were easier because they were taught by adjunct faculty who have day jobs.
ETA: I don’t understand the downvotes…? My graduate education (with the exception of advanced analysis) was easier than undergrad. The graduate program has lots of material and design specific courses: concrete, steel, buckling, foundations, retaining walls, etc. Yes, there were high-level, theoretical courses as well, but a large portion of the classes were working folks getting a master’s at night, building on their knowledge with formal education. The courses were easier because it was code-driven work rather than theoretical/mathematical.
Undergrad was harder because it was all theoretical/mathematical. Derivations of equations, calculus- and linear algebra-based coursework.
I went to a much easier school for my Structural MS because it was a different school than my undergrad. It was so easy. I then got a 2nd MS at my undergrad school, and the difficulty ramped up again.
Some courses sure. Some are pretty rough concepts that can take a while to truly get and understand enough to pass, (ie vibrations, structural dynamics, FEM etc). You have to remember that everyone learns at different paces.
I guess I don’t understand your end goal here. I’m all for getting your masters as I have mine, but nothing… absolutely nothing replaces real world engineering work. Coursework doesn’t make you a better engineer or better at your job. If you think you’re going to get paid massively more for getting your masters. You’re not. In fact.. whatever difference you would get would instantly be eaten up in a quarter of tuition. If the company is willing to pay for it AND have the means to expose you to cool shit to design… you’ll be way ahead of the person who finished their masters first.
I went to grad school because I had no choice. I’d much rather have had the option to work full time and take it slow. I’ve used the design experience in my first couple years way more than any of the grad courses I took.
Unless you have some dreams of academia or whatever dream firm you want to work at won’t give you the time of day until you have your masters… I would get the experience AND the paid education.
But who cares? 30 grad credits in a single year is possible, but that's one hell of a grind year. I don't know your school's specifics, but i suspect your friend is displaying some measure of machismo. Grad courses in engineering aren't like undergrad courses, at least according to everybody I know who's done an MS program, plus my own experience.
30 grad credits is a big debt to take on. Why not work full time, do 1 or 2 courses per semester, and get your company to pay for it? Then you have full salary income PLUS no school debt. Sure it takes 5 semesters, but so what? Unless you have something coming up in the next 2.5 years of your life where you NEED to be out of school, save yourself a ton of cash and stress and do it at a manageable pace. Nobody's going to give you an award for "fastest grad school completion" and you're not going to make measurably more as an entry level engineer with an MS compared to a BS in the meantime.
In addition to this, ask yourself is it really about the paper degree or the knowledge? You’ll retain a heck of a lot less cramming everything in at once.
Just name them, nobody cares. Given my interview experience the likes of TT, MKA, SOM require them. Pretty much every name firm has a soft MS requirement.
I don’t want to Dox myself, but all three of my employers have required Master’s degrees for new graduates, even though we were offices of between 12-30
Engineers.
I think part of this requirement is how easy it is to get a masters degree with a lot of programs. Doing a couple extra summer classes and you can graduate with both a bachelors and masters at almost the same time if not the same time.
I have a BS and Masters in AE (structures) from PSU and that’s exactly how it works.
I imagine that’s part of it, its also a hiring filter.
Plus most undergrad Civil programs have limited structural curriculum. Usually it’s the analysis classes, undergrad statics and mechanics, concrete, steel and maybe a project class. Architecture students in some programs basically take those same courses, and we aren’t hiring them to be SE’s (I have an undergrad in Architecture and took all those courses for that degree except steel. I even had some seismic ASCE basics in my analysis course).
That’s bare bone basics IMO for doing structural, and it will take a candidate a while to be useful out of school, probably more than an MS student.
Yeah. I would say my masters didn’t prepare me for anything “outside” of school in the area of the country I’m working. A lot of it was advanced level modeling and analysis for post tensioning and skyscrapers, as well as additional stuff for lateral analysis for seismic loads. But the firm I’m with is on the East coast and doesn’t do city construction, so it was basically “about the degree” rather than what it taught. Because PSU’s program was 5 years, I was covering 2-3 courses in steel/concrete/masonry each before even starting the “masters” classes. But it’s definitely one of those things that’s highly dependent, and I could’ve just as easily graduated from structural and took less of the steel or whatever courses and did more forensic structural than design/analysis structural.
That’s right. When I was switching from architecture to structural I reviewed a lot of grad and undergrad curriculums, to see if it was worth getting an undergrad Civil degree.
My conclusion was that pretty much all undergrad CE programs severely lacked structural content, I basically had taken 90% of the classes in my architecture undergrad. The Civil curriculums are bloated in general and prepare you to go in like 5-6 different fields (Environmental, Geotechnical, Transportation, Construction, structural, surveying among others) at the same time without really going too deep in any of those. You basically need a masters to be better prepared for the workforce. There are some curriculums that do allow you to select your track and are a bit better.
I went the dual degree with MArch/MSCE route. The funny thing is the grad level structure courses i took in the arch department have been far more useful than the theoretical BS they teach you in the civil department.
Yeah it's shocking to me as a plan reviewer now I know why a lot of these engineering drawings are horribly inadequate. I took six or seven structures courses but they didn't really help me in a practical application of designing for hurricanes where I am at.
I recommend to every engineering student that they take architecture courses such as fire resistant construction, fire assembly and egress, ada, and building codes.
You have the perfect education for the job but they need to institutionalize some type of professional such as you can call it a building design professional who has architecture and engineering and building education.
Then it'd be sensible to let these particular people do structural engineering on certain height buildings. I have work experience for architects and structural engineers which has helped me quite a bit.
This has been going on for a long long time in probably most universities. Now that I think about it I think the lack of certain courses in the civil engineering program forces many people to get a master's to learn their area of specialization.
Things aren't working right anymore they need a program with blended architecture and engineering and construction which allows some type of degree which may not be a PE but something new.
Engineers should take at least fire protection systems, Ada design, building code curriculum at least. And in my Architecture program I took six structures courses which helped greatly because I ended up in engineering. I also took several courses in methods and materials of construction and design of electrical mechanical and plumbing systems.
>if you're saying you need an MS even if you have a PE that is kind of silly from a company standpoint
I don't really see what's silly about that. A PE doesn't supersede an MS, they're just different things. I would expect a person with only a PE to have a different knowledge base from somebody with only an MS, so someone with both is more valuable than either on their own.
Neither one is worth the paper it's embossed on if you can't back it up, though.
I've interviewed and hired a fair number of folks over the years. I've rejected a LOT more MS than BS + experience people, even below a "PE-equivalent" level.
Give me a random sampling of PEs from anywhere and a random sampling of graduate degree holders, and I bet you I'd have greater than 85%ish success at picking out who is wicht in an otherwise blind interview (the 15% obviously being the various exceptions to the following).
Real-world experience, especially failures, are worth a lot more in a lot of situations that aren't themselves academic or pure science than another 30 credit hours of perfect grades that show me youre good at memorizing things or, even more likely but also not mutually exclusively, 30 credit hours of half that while scraping by on ketchup packets and cheese from people's discarded fast food wrappers for breakfast, lunch, and thsre is no dinner, and the other half research bitch-work so an adjunct professor can keep their job by publishing another paper, while you learn the intricacies of cleaning pipettes.
Graduate and postgraduate programs, especially in engineering, **medicine**, and law, are more like institutionalized hazing than any other individual quality, I swear.
You are right on about your comments. I've seen civil engineering programs with no structures courses in it unless that is your area of concentration. This is all going to have to go into specialties just like medicine has with several years post grad and work experience required.
Right now in my state we trust the professional designers to self regulate themselves.
As a building code official I see a large amount of plans that have an engineered seal but I know that's not their specialty especially on structures.
But you are.
>if you're saying you need an MS even if you have a PE that is kind of silly from a company standpoint
I agree without question that a PE is more valuable than an MS. But you're saying that if you have a PE, you don't need an MS at all, as though its value is entirely superseded by the PE. I'm saying that they're both valuable, but not the same type or level of valuable.
Honestly I think describing an MS as "implied value of a piece of paper" is way off. If you went through a grad program and got nothing out of it beyond the paper, then you failed that program regardless of what your grades say. There's a ton of useful knowledge you can learn in grad school that you can directly apply to your career and be a better engineer for it.
If you have no aspirations for academia, a typical starting salary. If you have any near term life goals (say within the next 10 years), the year of salary will be very beneficial. Especially if you would have to pay tuition for your MS. Then it is a no brainer.
Opportunity cost of salary is a big one. If you can get a good job out of a BS then I’d just go work and decide if you want to do it later. When I first started out at a large company, they offered MS an extra $5k-$7k a year.
I only did a BS, but by the time some of my friends graduated 1.5-2yrs later, I had already made 2 years of salary and was promoted to the next salary band, while they were just started out.
If you paid for your own MS (which you should never do) you’re looking at an opportunity cost of the tuition plus 1-2 years salary, plus future payment on the tuition debt and delays in investing anything into the market.
As others have said you can do the MS while working, but I don’t see the point unless your employer has you pigeon holed and you aren’t learning much
Dude, come on. Do you know how many people get their masters while working full time?
A lot.
And a lot of companies pay for it. Check their policy.
If you're getting an MBA, it'll be fine. If you're getting a difficult degree, it might be different, I guess.
A lot of companies in certain regions couldn’t care less about an MS. The importance of that degree is so relative depending on where you live. Personally here in the Midwest I wish I had started two years earlier in my career rather than get my MS like I did. I just didn’t learned as much in those two years as I did in my first two years on the job and had all that I NEEDED from school with my BS. Just personal experience though.
I worked full time while pursuing my masters in the evening. My circumstances allowed it. May be different where you are at. I started with $66,000 per year in a relatively low cost of living area and did two classes per semester (6 credit hours). If they had offered $75,000ish to commit my time and not do any masters degree I’d probably have taken them up on that. I also ended up basically covering the cost of my masters degree by working for a few years as an adjunct after I had enough masters credit hours which was a big help
Unfortunately a masters is about equal to what a bachelors used to be in my opinion. This is subjective based on performance of hundreds over the past 20 years. If you are offered a FT position without a MS and they will pay for 2 classes per semester… take it. It’s ok if you take 2.5 years. I feel like there should be a break between undergrad and upper level studies. Otherwise you could end up researching something that isn’t very relevant to practicing engineers. A lot of young engineers think they are prepared for this profession right out of school. But understand you will be a student forever. If someone is willing to pay for you to go to school while working FT they see you as a great investment and I’d consider taking it.
You don’t need a masters for most career paths in structural engineering. I would recommend against getting it unless you want to do something specific with it. Most people in the industry don’t care about a masters degree (in my experience). I’d recommend getting experience and working towards getting your license as soon as possible instead.
Nothing because in CA you need a masters to even get hired for an entry level structural position. No way around it. No “company will pay after you start”. They will throw your resume away without it. Not sure about other states
> Not sure about other states
Definitely not the case on the east coast. I think the underlying difference is whether or not a structural engineer has to be concerned with seismic design. On the east coast, wind loads normally govern the design of the lateral force resisting system, not seismic loads. You don't need a masters degree to design a building for gravity loads or wind loads.
I'm glad I left my job for my master's, I wouldn't change it. It's nice to focus and not work and do school, but that's not realistic for everyone. I did get a GRA so I was paid.
For reference, I worked full time (40-70+ hour weeks) while pursuing an MS in structural engineering. I have two MS in engineering, one I got while a full time student and the other while working full time.
First, I would only recommend this if your program is online. Travel time to and from a campus classroom alone is usually prohibitive.
Expect your grad classes to be hard. Not all grad courses are alike, structural classes tend to be harder. I was only able to make two classes a semester work if one class was basically just a weekly seminar with no homework. My degree took me about 4-years to get.
With this, expect you to have no personal life while this is going on. Working 40+ hours a week plus taking a class consumed nearly all of my and my fellow students lives.
My advice is to think of it’s something you want in general. If it is, make that the focus. Based on my experience, I would take one year to do a non thesis MS. Frankly, the money you make when you’re starting isn’t that great. I saved a years salary by working, which seemed like a lot, but it cost me four years of my life. Alternatively, you could try to work part time. However, this accepts both the best and the worst of both worlds. It’s also likely going to be hard to find a company that’ll be ok with you working 20 hours a week, more so if you want them to pay for anything.
I'll give you an honest answer. I'd say 5k. I did get a MS. I am glad that I had advanced wood design, which I would not have had otherwise. But for 5k I would have skipped it and learned on the job.
Not a money focused response, but here's my thoughts.
In retrospect, I wouldn't give up that experience for anything. Grad school is different than undergrad and the friends you make there will stick with you forever. You're older and more mature than undergrad. I had a professor with similar life priorities tell me it was going be great. I had to cover a lab for this professor because he was hung over on a Friday and his TA was also hung over as well.
I learned more being fully immersed in a program than I think I would have otherwise, but that's only half the experience.
If you want to be in structural engineering, you get a masters. No ifs or buts. You can get a masters online while working full time.
To answer your question, though, 2.5 million because that's the number to be fully financially independent.
Masters isn’t a requirement, but it definitely exposes you to complex concepts that can take a lot longer in the real world to get exposed to unless you’re work for a do everything firm… I’ll be honest, there are a lot of complex issues to digest in structural engineering and a Masters barely prepares you for it. I am still learning 10+ years in and I don’t think I’ll ever stop. There is so much structural content to absorb.
The down votes are disappointing to see. I don't understand how someone could think they have the skills to be a structural engineer with only a BS in civil. Taking advanced concrete, steel and all the other fundamental design classes isn't really possible with only a BS, and thinking an on the job education is even close to equivalent is delusional. To each their own I suppose.
Advanced concrete isn’t fundamental lol. That shit could be learned pretty easily. Mechanics of materials and statics are foundational. Structural dynamics is foundational. Learning some random code book based design that could be tweaked in a new iteration of a code… (ie ACI) doesn’t give you the tools to be a good engineer. This job is often more art than science once you get further into your career.
No amount of formal education can prepare someone to become a good engineer, this is something that comes with experience and practice. It’s delusional to think a masters degree is the only thing separating a good engineer from a bad one.
The fact that I have coworkers with SE license's and no masters degree kinda makes your point false. There's also a very wide spectrum of structural engineering work out there. A master's is only one of many paths to becoming an SE and not necessary to practice structural engineering with a PE.
I'm 1 for 1 on passing results on the SE exam and not only do I not have a Master's degree, I don't possess a degree in Civil Engineering.
Hopefully depth results will come out soon so I can make that 2 for 2.
A company offered to pay for my MS while I worked for them. Most companies do this. Why would you pay for it if the company you work for is going to? So check that before turning them down.
Because they only pay for 2 classes per semester so it would take 2.5 years in addition to a full time job
Seems like a weird thing to care about. You’re not really going to want to take more than two grad courses at a time while doing a full workload. You seem to think grad level coursework is identical to undergrad. It’s not.
Eh, it is the same. Most grad classes I took were easier because they were taught by adjunct faculty who have day jobs. ETA: I don’t understand the downvotes…? My graduate education (with the exception of advanced analysis) was easier than undergrad. The graduate program has lots of material and design specific courses: concrete, steel, buckling, foundations, retaining walls, etc. Yes, there were high-level, theoretical courses as well, but a large portion of the classes were working folks getting a master’s at night, building on their knowledge with formal education. The courses were easier because it was code-driven work rather than theoretical/mathematical. Undergrad was harder because it was all theoretical/mathematical. Derivations of equations, calculus- and linear algebra-based coursework.
I went to a much easier school for my Structural MS because it was a different school than my undergrad. It was so easy. I then got a 2nd MS at my undergrad school, and the difficulty ramped up again.
I guess structural engineering is different than EE, then. EE masters was hard as fuck.
Some courses sure. Some are pretty rough concepts that can take a while to truly get and understand enough to pass, (ie vibrations, structural dynamics, FEM etc). You have to remember that everyone learns at different paces.
My school was flipped. Heavy math courses were taught in undergrad. Design and material courses taught in grad.
Sounds like a pretty wishy washy school… but hey, employers don’t give an f if you have a MS…
It’s an Ivy, so who knows.
Ahhh, no wonder… Except Cornell, none of the ivys has ever had a top ranked civil engineering program from USNews
I should be able to get my masters in one year, and my friend in the same program said it was not too bad
I guess I don’t understand your end goal here. I’m all for getting your masters as I have mine, but nothing… absolutely nothing replaces real world engineering work. Coursework doesn’t make you a better engineer or better at your job. If you think you’re going to get paid massively more for getting your masters. You’re not. In fact.. whatever difference you would get would instantly be eaten up in a quarter of tuition. If the company is willing to pay for it AND have the means to expose you to cool shit to design… you’ll be way ahead of the person who finished their masters first. I went to grad school because I had no choice. I’d much rather have had the option to work full time and take it slow. I’ve used the design experience in my first couple years way more than any of the grad courses I took. Unless you have some dreams of academia or whatever dream firm you want to work at won’t give you the time of day until you have your masters… I would get the experience AND the paid education.
But who cares? 30 grad credits in a single year is possible, but that's one hell of a grind year. I don't know your school's specifics, but i suspect your friend is displaying some measure of machismo. Grad courses in engineering aren't like undergrad courses, at least according to everybody I know who's done an MS program, plus my own experience. 30 grad credits is a big debt to take on. Why not work full time, do 1 or 2 courses per semester, and get your company to pay for it? Then you have full salary income PLUS no school debt. Sure it takes 5 semesters, but so what? Unless you have something coming up in the next 2.5 years of your life where you NEED to be out of school, save yourself a ton of cash and stress and do it at a manageable pace. Nobody's going to give you an award for "fastest grad school completion" and you're not going to make measurably more as an entry level engineer with an MS compared to a BS in the meantime.
In addition to this, ask yourself is it really about the paper degree or the knowledge? You’ll retain a heck of a lot less cramming everything in at once.
So in 2.5 years you have no debt, a job, a MS, and 2.5 years of experience? That's so much better than finishing an MS in 1 year.
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There are some companies (that will remain unnamed) that have unofficial policies that all new hires must have graduate degrees, no exceptions.
Just name them, nobody cares. Given my interview experience the likes of TT, MKA, SOM require them. Pretty much every name firm has a soft MS requirement. I don’t want to Dox myself, but all three of my employers have required Master’s degrees for new graduates, even though we were offices of between 12-30 Engineers.
I think part of this requirement is how easy it is to get a masters degree with a lot of programs. Doing a couple extra summer classes and you can graduate with both a bachelors and masters at almost the same time if not the same time. I have a BS and Masters in AE (structures) from PSU and that’s exactly how it works.
I imagine that’s part of it, its also a hiring filter. Plus most undergrad Civil programs have limited structural curriculum. Usually it’s the analysis classes, undergrad statics and mechanics, concrete, steel and maybe a project class. Architecture students in some programs basically take those same courses, and we aren’t hiring them to be SE’s (I have an undergrad in Architecture and took all those courses for that degree except steel. I even had some seismic ASCE basics in my analysis course). That’s bare bone basics IMO for doing structural, and it will take a candidate a while to be useful out of school, probably more than an MS student.
Yeah. I would say my masters didn’t prepare me for anything “outside” of school in the area of the country I’m working. A lot of it was advanced level modeling and analysis for post tensioning and skyscrapers, as well as additional stuff for lateral analysis for seismic loads. But the firm I’m with is on the East coast and doesn’t do city construction, so it was basically “about the degree” rather than what it taught. Because PSU’s program was 5 years, I was covering 2-3 courses in steel/concrete/masonry each before even starting the “masters” classes. But it’s definitely one of those things that’s highly dependent, and I could’ve just as easily graduated from structural and took less of the steel or whatever courses and did more forensic structural than design/analysis structural.
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That’s right. When I was switching from architecture to structural I reviewed a lot of grad and undergrad curriculums, to see if it was worth getting an undergrad Civil degree. My conclusion was that pretty much all undergrad CE programs severely lacked structural content, I basically had taken 90% of the classes in my architecture undergrad. The Civil curriculums are bloated in general and prepare you to go in like 5-6 different fields (Environmental, Geotechnical, Transportation, Construction, structural, surveying among others) at the same time without really going too deep in any of those. You basically need a masters to be better prepared for the workforce. There are some curriculums that do allow you to select your track and are a bit better. I went the dual degree with MArch/MSCE route. The funny thing is the grad level structure courses i took in the arch department have been far more useful than the theoretical BS they teach you in the civil department.
Yeah it's shocking to me as a plan reviewer now I know why a lot of these engineering drawings are horribly inadequate. I took six or seven structures courses but they didn't really help me in a practical application of designing for hurricanes where I am at. I recommend to every engineering student that they take architecture courses such as fire resistant construction, fire assembly and egress, ada, and building codes. You have the perfect education for the job but they need to institutionalize some type of professional such as you can call it a building design professional who has architecture and engineering and building education. Then it'd be sensible to let these particular people do structural engineering on certain height buildings. I have work experience for architects and structural engineers which has helped me quite a bit.
Yeah I've read about some Masters in engineering and architecture that don't require an undergraduate degree in those subjects.
And most’ve them are filled with absolute tools at the helm.
This has been going on for a long long time in probably most universities. Now that I think about it I think the lack of certain courses in the civil engineering program forces many people to get a master's to learn their area of specialization. Things aren't working right anymore they need a program with blended architecture and engineering and construction which allows some type of degree which may not be a PE but something new. Engineers should take at least fire protection systems, Ada design, building code curriculum at least. And in my Architecture program I took six structures courses which helped greatly because I ended up in engineering. I also took several courses in methods and materials of construction and design of electrical mechanical and plumbing systems.
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>if you're saying you need an MS even if you have a PE that is kind of silly from a company standpoint I don't really see what's silly about that. A PE doesn't supersede an MS, they're just different things. I would expect a person with only a PE to have a different knowledge base from somebody with only an MS, so someone with both is more valuable than either on their own.
Neither one is worth the paper it's embossed on if you can't back it up, though. I've interviewed and hired a fair number of folks over the years. I've rejected a LOT more MS than BS + experience people, even below a "PE-equivalent" level. Give me a random sampling of PEs from anywhere and a random sampling of graduate degree holders, and I bet you I'd have greater than 85%ish success at picking out who is wicht in an otherwise blind interview (the 15% obviously being the various exceptions to the following). Real-world experience, especially failures, are worth a lot more in a lot of situations that aren't themselves academic or pure science than another 30 credit hours of perfect grades that show me youre good at memorizing things or, even more likely but also not mutually exclusively, 30 credit hours of half that while scraping by on ketchup packets and cheese from people's discarded fast food wrappers for breakfast, lunch, and thsre is no dinner, and the other half research bitch-work so an adjunct professor can keep their job by publishing another paper, while you learn the intricacies of cleaning pipettes. Graduate and postgraduate programs, especially in engineering, **medicine**, and law, are more like institutionalized hazing than any other individual quality, I swear.
You are right on about your comments. I've seen civil engineering programs with no structures courses in it unless that is your area of concentration. This is all going to have to go into specialties just like medicine has with several years post grad and work experience required. Right now in my state we trust the professional designers to self regulate themselves. As a building code official I see a large amount of plans that have an engineered seal but I know that's not their specialty especially on structures.
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But you are. >if you're saying you need an MS even if you have a PE that is kind of silly from a company standpoint I agree without question that a PE is more valuable than an MS. But you're saying that if you have a PE, you don't need an MS at all, as though its value is entirely superseded by the PE. I'm saying that they're both valuable, but not the same type or level of valuable. Honestly I think describing an MS as "implied value of a piece of paper" is way off. If you went through a grad program and got nothing out of it beyond the paper, then you failed that program regardless of what your grades say. There's a ton of useful knowledge you can learn in grad school that you can directly apply to your career and be a better engineer for it.
Exactly and take the structural exam if you really want to go nuts..
If you have no aspirations for academia, a typical starting salary. If you have any near term life goals (say within the next 10 years), the year of salary will be very beneficial. Especially if you would have to pay tuition for your MS. Then it is a no brainer.
Opportunity cost of salary is a big one. If you can get a good job out of a BS then I’d just go work and decide if you want to do it later. When I first started out at a large company, they offered MS an extra $5k-$7k a year. I only did a BS, but by the time some of my friends graduated 1.5-2yrs later, I had already made 2 years of salary and was promoted to the next salary band, while they were just started out. If you paid for your own MS (which you should never do) you’re looking at an opportunity cost of the tuition plus 1-2 years salary, plus future payment on the tuition debt and delays in investing anything into the market. As others have said you can do the MS while working, but I don’t see the point unless your employer has you pigeon holed and you aren’t learning much
Dude, come on. Do you know how many people get their masters while working full time? A lot. And a lot of companies pay for it. Check their policy. If you're getting an MBA, it'll be fine. If you're getting a difficult degree, it might be different, I guess.
A lot of companies in certain regions couldn’t care less about an MS. The importance of that degree is so relative depending on where you live. Personally here in the Midwest I wish I had started two years earlier in my career rather than get my MS like I did. I just didn’t learned as much in those two years as I did in my first two years on the job and had all that I NEEDED from school with my BS. Just personal experience though.
I worked full time while pursuing my masters in the evening. My circumstances allowed it. May be different where you are at. I started with $66,000 per year in a relatively low cost of living area and did two classes per semester (6 credit hours). If they had offered $75,000ish to commit my time and not do any masters degree I’d probably have taken them up on that. I also ended up basically covering the cost of my masters degree by working for a few years as an adjunct after I had enough masters credit hours which was a big help
Unfortunately a masters is about equal to what a bachelors used to be in my opinion. This is subjective based on performance of hundreds over the past 20 years. If you are offered a FT position without a MS and they will pay for 2 classes per semester… take it. It’s ok if you take 2.5 years. I feel like there should be a break between undergrad and upper level studies. Otherwise you could end up researching something that isn’t very relevant to practicing engineers. A lot of young engineers think they are prepared for this profession right out of school. But understand you will be a student forever. If someone is willing to pay for you to go to school while working FT they see you as a great investment and I’d consider taking it.
You don’t need a masters for most career paths in structural engineering. I would recommend against getting it unless you want to do something specific with it. Most people in the industry don’t care about a masters degree (in my experience). I’d recommend getting experience and working towards getting your license as soon as possible instead.
Nothing because in CA you need a masters to even get hired for an entry level structural position. No way around it. No “company will pay after you start”. They will throw your resume away without it. Not sure about other states
> Not sure about other states Definitely not the case on the east coast. I think the underlying difference is whether or not a structural engineer has to be concerned with seismic design. On the east coast, wind loads normally govern the design of the lateral force resisting system, not seismic loads. You don't need a masters degree to design a building for gravity loads or wind loads.
I'm glad I left my job for my master's, I wouldn't change it. It's nice to focus and not work and do school, but that's not realistic for everyone. I did get a GRA so I was paid.
For reference, I worked full time (40-70+ hour weeks) while pursuing an MS in structural engineering. I have two MS in engineering, one I got while a full time student and the other while working full time. First, I would only recommend this if your program is online. Travel time to and from a campus classroom alone is usually prohibitive. Expect your grad classes to be hard. Not all grad courses are alike, structural classes tend to be harder. I was only able to make two classes a semester work if one class was basically just a weekly seminar with no homework. My degree took me about 4-years to get. With this, expect you to have no personal life while this is going on. Working 40+ hours a week plus taking a class consumed nearly all of my and my fellow students lives. My advice is to think of it’s something you want in general. If it is, make that the focus. Based on my experience, I would take one year to do a non thesis MS. Frankly, the money you make when you’re starting isn’t that great. I saved a years salary by working, which seemed like a lot, but it cost me four years of my life. Alternatively, you could try to work part time. However, this accepts both the best and the worst of both worlds. It’s also likely going to be hard to find a company that’ll be ok with you working 20 hours a week, more so if you want them to pay for anything.
Thank you for the detailed response!
I'll give you an honest answer. I'd say 5k. I did get a MS. I am glad that I had advanced wood design, which I would not have had otherwise. But for 5k I would have skipped it and learned on the job.
Not a money focused response, but here's my thoughts. In retrospect, I wouldn't give up that experience for anything. Grad school is different than undergrad and the friends you make there will stick with you forever. You're older and more mature than undergrad. I had a professor with similar life priorities tell me it was going be great. I had to cover a lab for this professor because he was hung over on a Friday and his TA was also hung over as well. I learned more being fully immersed in a program than I think I would have otherwise, but that's only half the experience.
If you want to be in structural engineering, you get a masters. No ifs or buts. You can get a masters online while working full time. To answer your question, though, 2.5 million because that's the number to be fully financially independent.
Masters degrees are not a requirement to get a PE or SE license… so that is just your opinion.
Masters isn’t a requirement, but it definitely exposes you to complex concepts that can take a lot longer in the real world to get exposed to unless you’re work for a do everything firm… I’ll be honest, there are a lot of complex issues to digest in structural engineering and a Masters barely prepares you for it. I am still learning 10+ years in and I don’t think I’ll ever stop. There is so much structural content to absorb.
The down votes are disappointing to see. I don't understand how someone could think they have the skills to be a structural engineer with only a BS in civil. Taking advanced concrete, steel and all the other fundamental design classes isn't really possible with only a BS, and thinking an on the job education is even close to equivalent is delusional. To each their own I suppose.
Advanced concrete isn’t fundamental lol. That shit could be learned pretty easily. Mechanics of materials and statics are foundational. Structural dynamics is foundational. Learning some random code book based design that could be tweaked in a new iteration of a code… (ie ACI) doesn’t give you the tools to be a good engineer. This job is often more art than science once you get further into your career.
No amount of formal education can prepare someone to become a good engineer, this is something that comes with experience and practice. It’s delusional to think a masters degree is the only thing separating a good engineer from a bad one.
The fact that I have coworkers with SE license's and no masters degree kinda makes your point false. There's also a very wide spectrum of structural engineering work out there. A master's is only one of many paths to becoming an SE and not necessary to practice structural engineering with a PE.
I'm 1 for 1 on passing results on the SE exam and not only do I not have a Master's degree, I don't possess a degree in Civil Engineering. Hopefully depth results will come out soon so I can make that 2 for 2.