

Ask HN: Should I do a MS to move to the US - tomsornottoms

Hi HN,<p>I&#x27;m a 24 year old programmer who&#x27;s currently settled in the middle east. I finished my studies last year and moved here from my home country to work for a growing ecommerce company.<p>Working in US, at a good startup&#x2F;tech company has long been my dream. However, getting a job in US is extremely hard. I spent the last month applying at a lot of startups but only to get rejected as soon the question of visa was brought up.<p>So instead of trying out this hard to from outside of US, my friends advised me of doing a masters. Fortunately my experience here in the middle east has been quite lucrative and  I have enough money saved to fully sponsor my masters. After having attained 2 degrees and doing numerous courses on Coursera, I&#x27;ve come to realize that you don&#x27;t need a masters to learn or do well in technology. In all honesty, I do see MS as a glorified work visa.<p>Having said that, I wanted to know what HNers think regarding whether it makes sense to spend that much money to move to US. Don&#x27;t get me wrong, I love the idea of spending another year in college learning CS but I&#x27;m not exactly sold whether that is the only way to go about it.<p>What be your advice to someone who wants to get a job in the US?
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aditya
4 ways:

1\. Work for a US company in the Middle East and transfer over on an L1

2\. Apply to US companies and play the H1B lottery

3\. Immigrate to or work for a Canadian company (work visa's are easier)

4\. Get your Master's

Since you specifically asked about #4, I'll address that. You could see your
MS as a glorified work visa but if you go to a top school (Stanford, Caltech,
Berkely, CMU, etc.) you're getting a lot more intangible benefits as your
career progresses. The network you build and the fact that your degree is from
a top school are going to look fantastic on your resume and will qualify you
for much better jobs. The credential still makes a difference for certain
kinds of gigs.

Of course, if you start your own startup that credential is kinda useless but
the network will still help.

So, my advice would be to get into a top school, if you're going to go the #4
route (especially if you can pay your way through, it's much easier) and if
not, it's still not a bad way to come work in the US. There are 20k extra H1B
visa's for MS degree holders which helps with the lottery as well.

Disclaimer: I came to the US to get my Master's 10 years ago and stayed.

