Things have been quiet on the project front recently as I have been busy finishing up one of my largest pursuits to date: a master’s degree in Computer Science from Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. I completed my degree part-time while working a full-time engineering job. It took me ten semesters to complete, which roughly translates to four academic years.
The quality of the education at NYU Courant was mostly good. I had some excellent professors who were experts in their respective fields. A few of my favorite classes were Realtime and Big Data Analytics, Operating Systems, and Statistical Natural Language Processing. Sadly, there were also a few classes that had some room for improvement. Some of my worse experiences included poorly organized professors and incredibly bland or irrelevant lectures. Despite those flaws, I felt that overall the program was challenging and interesting.
I met many fantastic people while getting my degree. During my time there I was able to be involved with NYU’s Women in Computing (WinC) group. WinC enabled me to be a part of a community of other women computer science students at all levels. I even gave a few talks on behalf of WinC about my experiences of being a woman in engineering, such as at the NYC Girls Computer Science and Engineering Conference at NYU and at the Women Chartering Technical Career Paths event at the Apple Store in SoHo.
So is it worthwhile to get a master’s degree? There are three things to consider when deciding whether to pursue graduate school: the value of the degree, the financial cost, and the time investment. First and foremost, it’s important to consider how much value the degree will add to your career. As far as technical skills, there are other ways of gaining the same skill set as an advanced degree. Many courses similar to my master’s program requirements can also be taken online through free class sites like Coursera and Udacity. Furthermore, the software industry tends to be a meritocracy in that your previous work experience can outweigh the name on your diploma. This means that a graduate degree may not add a lot of value if you already have an established career. Even with these considerations, having a master’s degree on your resume can open doors to opportunities that might not otherwise be available. Additionally, many companies prefer candidates with advanced degrees, especially at senior levels. The cost is another factor to be considered. My degree was $58,877, not including any books or materials. The financial price of the degree would have been prohibitively expensive if my company had not helped me pay for it. Finally, it’s important to consider how much time you have to invest in graduate school. Pursuing a degree full-time means that you will most likely not be earning wages for two years whereas a part-time program means that you will have limited free time for multiple years and the additional pressure of a career on top of graduate school. I had vastly underestimated how many weekends and late nights I would spend on class assignments. It meant making a lot of personal sacrifices and sitting inside working while everyone else was playing outside in the sunshine.
I’ve considered whether it would have been better to work on my master’s degree right after finishing my bachelor’s degree. I think the years of industry experience had served me well in graduate school. My technical skills were more mature when I started my degree and I had a better idea of what topics I wanted to pursue. It would have been nice to have fully dedicated my time to the master’s program but after a few years of work it’s a hard decision to stop working to go to school full-time. Additionally, as my company was paying for my degree, I did not have the option to take time off. All said and done, I’m glad I decided to go part-time for the degree. A number of times my coursework lined up nicely with my professional work and I was able to apply what I had learned directly to my job.
Despite all of the personal sacrifices, I am still happy with my decision to get a master’s degree. It was quite the achievement but I am also happy that it is finally done. I have been learning what it’s like to have free time again and I am starting to tackle my ever-growing project list.
