[ILUG] Phd/Masters or Job

[Jeroen Massar]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Christian Kortenhorst wrote:
| Hey all
|
| Have been offered to apply for PHD in Dit Kevin St on a few different
areas
| of computing but wondering do i want to spend another 4 years in
college or
| go out and work for myself, do not plan on working for a company.
|
| At present I work for myself doing some small business technical jobs
and am
| happy with what i make and that i can get a lot more work when i finish
| college. I do not plan to work for a company because i like being my own
| boss and working the hours needed to get jobs finished.
|
| Can anyone give me any advice or what they have done?

A masters is a minimum that you should try and get as it just sticks
your head above the rest of the troupe. And it is generally only one
year extra anyway.

Depending on the type of company, it might be 'nice' to your customers
to be able to call yourself 'Dr', for the rest it doesn't matter too
much, either you work for X years for a company doing your Phd research
and you get a reasonable salary (+experience) in the paper in the end
that is valid and useful for the rest of your life, or you start working
directly get a bit more salary than a Phd student, but that only for a
few years, after which the Phd students has a life-time Dr title and
will earn quite a bit more than you, and depending on what you like will
most likely have a nicer job.

In your case the Phd might not give something extra, it is mostly a
research thing anyway and if you are going to work for a company they
might think that you are too expensive for them because of it (this as
generally every paper gives you a bit more money as a base salary and
then on top of that comes experience).

Experience is of course the most important thing. But if you really are
going to work for your own you actually never would need any education
at all, except that it does give you a nice guideline. Though it of
course also depends quite a bit what kind of learner you are and what
kind of business you are in. You will want to have business 101 stuff
already of course ;)

It all depends on the person of course. Having a Phd doesn't mean that
the person is at all any good in anything even the subject he got the
Phd for, same goes for any education....

Greets,
~ Jeroen
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFHvp9QKaooUjM+fCMRAgwXAJ96xvD/Xsk3l9+BI+KV4yXDN78pTACfQhJ3
Y5JwLT/KUNtZ1gMZTb55mBo=
=x3YS
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----