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Ask HN: Further studies with maximum ROI?

2 points by luminary ↗ HN
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)

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.

3 comments

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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.
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.