I concur with Jesse... > I don't know many employers, at least in the IT industry, that look > at graduate school on your resume. Most of us are interested in code > samples, work performed (and accomplishments), and references.
I think a college degree (even if it's in microbiology or something) is valuable and goes a long way toward impressing potential employers. It shows that you can commit to something, see it through, and (hopefully) pick up important skills as part of your coursework. But a graduate degree or a doctorate? I'm not sure either of those are important in the IT field. Will another two or three years of database theory make you a better DBA? Perhaps. But two or three years of wading knee-deep in optimizing SQL on your Oracle box will absolutely make you a better DBA. As Jesse said, practical experience is more attractive than another diploma on the wall. Moreover, consider the costs you'll incur going to graduate school. If you accumulate, say, $20,000 in student loans to get through the program, will the job you get after school make up that difference in a reasonable time? If you get a job that pays $5,000/year more than you would have *without* the degree, then in four years you've paid for your schooling. But I'm not convinced an employer would compare two candidates side by side and pay $5,000/year more to the one with a masters' just because he has a masters'. More importantly, you've lost two or three years of full-time salary during school, so your "cost" of schooling might be well into six figures. If you like learning and classes and the structured environment of school, see if you can hook up with an employer who will pay for classes. If you like learning and tinkering but don't need the classes and tests, skip the school and poke around the internet reading about new technologies, then apply some of them here or there to experiment-- either at work or as a hobby project. I find that to be rewarding for myself, and it keeps me "on top" of the latest developments in the IT field without requiring me to quit my job, go to class, or pay lots of money. :) $0.02, Jeff
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