Thinking about doing a masters - Is it worth it?

I have seen a course at the Open University on computer forensics and it seems like really interesting field to go into. I have seen lots of these vacancies at the police and it pay starts from around £25k which is a lot more than I am earning with my current IT support business.

The snag is I won't be able to get any funding so I need to take a careers loan to pay for it, is this a huge risk.

Some people tell me a masters is worth its weight in gold, others say don't bother but I do really miss studying.

 

Depends if they would actually be likely to hire you at £25k fresh out of the course. Worth more if its from a respected uni in that field too, of course.

My brother has a masters 1st in computer science from Warwick and has nearly completed a second masters in natural language processing at Sheffield, he also spent 2 years teaching English in Japan. He has just accepted a job in Cambridge for £26k. The problem he has been finding is not really that he couldn't get a job, but it was hard to find one he really wanted to do, or it had to pay really well. This one doesn't really fit that criteria to be honest but it will fill the gap until he gets a job at Google!

So yeah if you can come right out the course and get a job at £25k you are doing well! A masters doesn't give you a golden ticket to employment.

 

Have a chat to the potential employers your thinking of, and see if they rate a masters as a worth while course of study, may not make a difference, may take you in slightly higher......

If you like studying, and it sounds as if your somewhat interested in the subject, no harm in just doing the course for yourself, as long as you can pay off the loan okay.

 

England is strange for higher level qualifications. I've seen very few companies that seem to really care about MAs or MSCs.
Interesting that if you live in say Singapore, your salary is actually higher in some companies if you have an MA.
Quite simply, there's more emphasis on experience and job related courses than theoretical qualifications in England.

 

I think that's the sensible way tbh, most degrees are pretty pointless and just show that a person can maintain a certain vague level of interest and concentration for 3+ years, little more. Obviously there are exceptions but I think that's generally true, it's just potentially a ticket to a better job than not having one.

I couldn't be arsed with a masters myself, but if it gets you into the job you really want then perhaps it's worth a shot, but you've gotta be sure that it'll get you in there and that this is what you want to do, cos otherwise it's a complete waste of time and money.

With a degree in computing surely you can earn 25k without having to do further study? If not, then train as a lorry driver, I've heard there's good money to be made shifting fuel around .

 

I don't know the specific ins and outs of this....but would say....ingeneral with big risk/life changing decisions ....sleep on it!

Stuff changes so fast in life nothings guarenteed for too long.

Knowledge (IMO) is never a waste though.

AS Simon, I think, said believe these bg hitting salaries when you see them ....you could endup on £15000/year with masiive debt to clear. yOu don't know which way this recession is heading.




"This one doesn't really fit that criteria to be honest but it will fill the gap until he gets a job at Google!"

...which means he is thee for the next 15 years

 

Have you applied David? Job application at Google is indeed complex! He has done all the interviews and stuff (lots of them!) and they really liked him, but they have a lot of applicants at the moment. It was suggested by the person there helping with his application, that he wait a good few months at least and then he would be more likely to land a job there.

It seems they kind of apply within themselfs at Google. He has seen all the people there, but then once they have judged him as a good candidate, they pass the application on to the 'big boys' who make the final call. So it is this second stage where they are now waiting for a better time to pass his application on to the big boys as someone they think would be good to have at Google.

The new job he just accepted is to do with finding patterns and language in lots of code and noise or something. Apparently they get a lot of contracts from the military!



Back on topic AT. Are there not more recognised universities you could do this course at than Open Uni? The place you do the masters at is almost more important than the results you get!

 

No of course I haven't.

I'm just saying that stop gap jobs have the nasty habit of being permanent ones!

There I do speak from experience.

 

OK, I don't know much about your particular field, but I can tell you this, in education employment from most Uni's after PGCE is over 95%, from the open university it was under 30% a year or so ago.
You might find AT that you can get funding for a masters from the most unlikely of places. My brother did one in computing at Huddersfield, and the EU paid for it. He then got a job almost straight away at what is now Fujitsu.
Have a really good look round before you jump, and look at all the uni's and see what they're currently offering.

 

I don't know about doing a masters, but from what I hear, computer forensics is a good area to move into at the moment. I've heard that there are quite a few freelance guys doing work for the force - more by word of mouth from one force to the other than by specific qualification. It's an unregulated area so anyone can call themselves a computer forensics expert, qualification or not.

 

AT, you may not need a masters but you do need a good mind so do yourself a favour and have a think about;

Hiring now.