
Ask HN: Bored of enterprise CRUD – should I do a masters? - jbreckmckye
I&#x27;ve worked as a web developer for about five years, coming from a background in UX design, and feel I lack intellectual stimulation. My degree is completely non-technical (English lit, Cambridge). Would a masters in  computer science unlock more interesting work?<p>I am specifically interested in the MSc in Computing Science offered by Imperial College London. It&#x27;s open to non-tech graduates and looks like it offers a lot more than your usual conversion course -with modules in ML, AI, CV and graphics programming.<p>But would it be a good investment? I want to do something more technical than shuffle strings about web interfaces. I feel like I&#x27;ve learned all I can in that domain: I&#x27;ve done high performance distributed systems, I&#x27;ve done web graphics (inc WebGL), I must have written twenty JS&#x2F;TS Single Page Apps, including Angular and Redux and vanilla stacks and all the rest.<p>I&#x27;m bored. And I feel jealous of my colleagues in data science and computer vision. I feel jealous of the C++ embedded systems contractor we brought in a little while ago. I&#x27;m jealous because I want to do something hard, and because I don&#x27;t like working on commodity software, where you&#x27;re addressing straightforward technical problems in a micromanaged environment. What&#x27;s my best way out of that?
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viraptor
Unless you're interested in academia, research, or a big-corp position that
filters by education, I don't believe MSc will unlock anything for you. Your
experience should be good enough on its own after 5+ years.

If you want to learn any specific tech, you can read papers and play with the
code on your own. If you want something more structured, you can pick up the
course resources. I understand this may not apply to you because of learning
style preferences, but I wouldn't recommend doing an MSc if you're interested
in just the tech skills. (I've got a masters deg.)

Escaping the micromanagement he'll send a bit orthogonal to technologies. You
could look for smaller, or more reasonable places to do that. You don't need
to change your skillset.

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indogooner
Having a masters will definitely unlock more opportunities for you (both
academia and industry) but there are other ways of achieving it. You can take
courses online and see how you like the courses (don't have to go full
throttle just check if you find it interesting enough). If you find it right
fit you can go for full-fledged masters program. You can also earn
certificates and try for a position in a startup which is willing to bet on
you solving hard problems for them.

I have a masters degree and while I enjoyed my masters work I learnt a lot
more in same period (~1.5 yrs) in industry. YMMV as I have always learnt more
outside classroom by self-learning/hands-on. Btw I have seen a lot of higher
degree holders also work on CRUD apps at BigCos. Those jobs will always
outnumber niche jobs.

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dsacco
I don't recommend a Master's degree unless you'd like one to pursue a research
position in academia or an industry lab (Microsoft Research, IBM Research,
Google Brain, FAIR, etc). Master's degrees come in two varieties: research
degrees (Master's degrees with fewer courses and a thesis) and professional
degrees (Master's degrees which are just coursework). Professional Master's
degrees are not _categorically_ different from Bachelor's degrees. You'll
learn material you don't know that's more advanced than undergraduate
material, but it won't really be anything you couldn't have learned on your
own.

On the other hand, a research Master's degree provides you with meaningful
experience in how to do scholarly work. This is categorically different from
what you're already used to. There is also advanced coursework involved, but
the salient achievement of the degree is a thesis. This process will
thoroughly acquaint you with the research frontier of various topics and the
way you can independently conduct your own research. In computer science it's
not uncommon to accomplish a novel research contribution through a Master's
thesis.

Research is extraordinarily difficult to teach yourself (it's usually a major
red flag for someone in isolation to attempt research that's disconnected from
the rest of the field). However, you're already an autodidact given your
undergraduate concentration. You have the requisite educational maturity to
teach yourself more advanced subject matter if you can find the right material
and impose the structure on yourself. For this reason, a purely coursework-
based Master's degree would not provide you with anything you cannot
fundamentally do yourself for free and while still working full time.

Examine your goals closely before you formulate a path forward and decide on
it. Do you want to do research? Do you want jobs which mostly look for MSc or
PhD candidates? What does the work of those jobs look like - do they emphasize
the research component of past experience, or are they just looking for
someone with advanced knowledge in a domain? How much free time do you have to
devote to this, and are you willing to take a (potentially significant) cut in
your salary to do it?

The other thing you should be aware of is that Master's degrees are very
expensive despite the fact that they're only one - two years consisting of six
- eight courses. If you are willing to engage in research, you could try to be
admitted to a PhD program instead. You would most likely earn an MSc on the
way to the PhD without having to pay for it, because PhD programs are (almost
always) fully funded. This also leaves your future options more open,
regardless of whether or not you ultimately finish the full PhD.

~~~
ccajas
>I don't recommend a Master's degree unless you'd like one to pursue a
research position in academia or an industry lab

Even if their Bachelor's degree is unrelated to the one they want to get, like
the OP? I'm on a similar boat, unrelated degree, but doing programming work
and don't want to be stuck doing the mundane forever.

People keep telling me conflicting advice. Get a MS if you have a bachelor's
already. Get a BS in CS, your degree is unrelated. Or DON'T get another
degree, and learn what you need online. For me I have an end goal in wanting
to partake in space exploration because I really like the mission of some
companies and agencies to put people on Mars and possibly beyond.

That's not a hop, skip and jump away but I want to know if it's really worth
for more than a research. Especially if you consider there are career-oriented
MS degrees, like the programs at DePaul for example. What is your opinion on
career-focused MS degrees like that one?

~~~
dsacco
First and foremost, I don't think a second Bachelor's degree is rational in
any scenario. If you are going to spend the money to augment your education
with another degree, make it a Master's degree.

I think there's an argument for doing a professional Master's degree if your
undergraduate degree is in an unrelated discipline. I still believe a research
Master's degree is a more valuable use of time, but a one-year professional
Master's degree could also be valuable in that scenario.

However, the caveat is that since you won't be learning anything you can't
learn on your own, you should probably go into this for the signaling effect.
Large tech companies don't require undergraduate degrees in a specific
discipline (or any undergraduate degree at all for that matter), which means
the university name is the thing you're paying for that you can't do on your
own. In consideration of this I wouldn't do a Master's degree unless it was
from a top 20 or so school.

