

Ask HN: Further studies with maximum ROI? - luminary

From my personal experience (MMV): You need a PhD these days for even a decent RCG/entry-level position (Google, Intel etc.) in the tech sector. Sad. Couple of years ago, if you had a Master's degree it was like "wow you have a Master's degree!" but now it's a commodity badge. Same thing is happening with the PhD badge. Now, everybody is trying to get a PhD just to secure their career (people have varied opinions on this though). I have met so many students who are doing a PhD just for the sake of hopefully landing up with a decent job offer -- and not at all for the sake of research/"fun." PhD in CS, ECE, EE etc. is popular and everyone is going after them. (I do understand that your research area may be very specific/unique)<p>Now, since everything is slowly going mobile, which areas you all feel a college student should seriously invest/focus for further studies (PhD/Masters) with a maximum possible ROI? I did my Bachelor's in CS and Math and Master's in Engineering Management and planning to do a PhD in HCI (the one with less CS-focus) or Information Management. HCI is going to be huge in the next 5-10 years IMO.
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whatusername
Ignore the ROI. Do it with something that you are likely to want to work on.
(You're in a tech field going for your masters - you'll have a decent
salary/options regardless of what you focus on - it's not like this is Liberal
Arts). So if you enjoy HCI then go do that.

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frossie
Seconded. If you want ROI, work on an open source project that matches the
work you want to do. I'll hire a high-profile civil O/S contributor before I
will hire somebody with a PhD - and I work in a science shop. That should tell
you something. Not everybody hires like Google does.

By all means do a PhD if that's what you want, but don't do it only because
you want a tech sector job.

