Grad School- worth it?
Before I started my *real* job, I got a MA (UMD) & did some PhD coursework (UMN), as well as work in various university teaching/research/admin positions. I also was privileged enough to teach undergraduate courses this past year at UMD (programming & cartography), primarily because the full-time faculty were dedicated to the MPS in GIS program. I value the university's role in providing a base of GIS knowledge and skills. Still, the NY Times has a nice discussion on the value of grad school, and I think it's appropriate to view the MS/GIS programs in this light.
My personal thoughts echo the respondents. I'm in the DC/Baltimore area. They're local programs at UMD (~40-50 students/yr), UMBC (a guess at ~40/yr) and Salisbury University (a guess at ~20-30/yr), plus the GIS-oriented graduates of GMU, Towson, Penn State, just to name a few places with a local impact. I feel that the DC market is probably *the* biggest for GIS in the US (thank you, feds + sophisticated locals), but can we really readily absorb the production of bachelor's (conservatively, let's say 200) *and* 80+ MAs specializing in GIS (not to mention the people with GIS skills but not an explicit degree in it). If we can absorb that many MS students, is the payoff differential between a BS + 2-3 yrs experience and a MS anywhere near 7K/yr yet (that just might make the MA cost-efficient over 4 years, if you get funding)? I don't think so- from talking around, I've heard the usual horror stories of students being hired post-MA to do basic technician-level tasks; also, it takes some planning on an organization's part to integrate the combination of advanced skills and shallow experience that a former graduate student probably has.
The above being said, I think that a professional MA (or graduate certificate) has a major role in GIS- there simply isn't enough time or courses in an undergraduate curriculum to provide the breadth or depth of skills necessary to adequately grok certain topics (programming from a non-CS background, for example). Some of these topics are better learned either in a class or class/work setting (programming being very much the latter).
I just don't want potential students to go into debt and find that it takes more than 5 years to recoup a $50,000 MS (in-state full-time and bare-bones living)- it's hard on the beginning side of a degree to fairly estimate the expected payoff.
My personal thoughts echo the respondents. I'm in the DC/Baltimore area. They're local programs at UMD (~40-50 students/yr), UMBC (a guess at ~40/yr) and Salisbury University (a guess at ~20-30/yr), plus the GIS-oriented graduates of GMU, Towson, Penn State, just to name a few places with a local impact. I feel that the DC market is probably *the* biggest for GIS in the US (thank you, feds + sophisticated locals), but can we really readily absorb the production of bachelor's (conservatively, let's say 200) *and* 80+ MAs specializing in GIS (not to mention the people with GIS skills but not an explicit degree in it). If we can absorb that many MS students, is the payoff differential between a BS + 2-3 yrs experience and a MS anywhere near 7K/yr yet (that just might make the MA cost-efficient over 4 years, if you get funding)? I don't think so- from talking around, I've heard the usual horror stories of students being hired post-MA to do basic technician-level tasks; also, it takes some planning on an organization's part to integrate the combination of advanced skills and shallow experience that a former graduate student probably has.
The above being said, I think that a professional MA (or graduate certificate) has a major role in GIS- there simply isn't enough time or courses in an undergraduate curriculum to provide the breadth or depth of skills necessary to adequately grok certain topics (programming from a non-CS background, for example). Some of these topics are better learned either in a class or class/work setting (programming being very much the latter).
I just don't want potential students to go into debt and find that it takes more than 5 years to recoup a $50,000 MS (in-state full-time and bare-bones living)- it's hard on the beginning side of a degree to fairly estimate the expected payoff.
posted by James Tedrick at
6:16 PM
2 Comments:
James,
Good questions. I'm in a very different boat - after spending over a decade in the software biz, I went back to school to finish my BS (math), MS (GIS), and now working on my PhD (Geography). I find, after developing real experience, is that the university education is extremely valuable. If fills the gaps that result from the more organic experiences.
But this is where most recent grads get confused. They think: I have an MS - I should be in a high level position. Sure, I now have gaps filled by my formal education, but it's still those low-level experiences I developed over years of grunt work that make me effective in high level positions. I am able to draw on elements of my degree but also able to avoid the pitfalls of getting lost in the academic approach to things.
For instance, I know when it's time to just jump in and start writing code and not worry too much about design details - or even more abstract concepts.
One develops experience based on low-level tasks.
The GIS industry is much like the CompSci biz about 10-15 years ago. People with real-world experience generally don't have degrees in GIS. The degree programs have only recently come into existence. This is why online MS/MA in GIS programs have been so successful. For every young, 20-something studying GIS as an undergrad, there are probably three 40- or 50- somethings who have been doing GIS for 20+ years and want a degree to fill out their knowledge. The 20-something needs to understand that they are going to get stuck with the entry level jobs - and that's good because that's where they'll develop experience.
Sorry for the rambling post...
I pretty much agree with you, I'm just more worried about the way the universities sell the Master's as the gateway to the higher end job/pay and that often the people who enroll don't know enough to question that assumption. As you indicated, GIS is still a maturing market; there hasn't been really enough time for job market feedback to filter back (a third of my course lectures at times involved me describing how the programming/cart skills are actually used at work :) ).
One of my profs at UMD joked that the PhD program was a career move down- she had been a lawyer before a professor. When I went through grad school, I did it with the intention to become a professor (I enjoy teaching); I picked up the GIS/programming skills because I ended up in jobs/research areas that used them. The professional Master's are different- they're being sold as either a gateway to a job or as a concrete improvement.
Maybe one of the reasons for misplaced expectations is that the importance of data collection/QC/QA is largely missing from GIS programs- many people don't even expect this type of work.
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