Graduate Degree Or Certification?
Q: What's more valuable to companies, a Master of Comp. Engineering degree or a company certification (Oracle, MS, etc..) ? I'm a Computer Engineering graduate student (w/ a BS in Computer Science) and I was looking for salary information and where the hot jobs are, and with every search I execute, I kept getting pages on how MS certifications are paying $70,000+. That's when I asked myself if an ME degree is worth all the money I'm paying for it. At the end, my degree will have cost me $15,000. Will the $15,000 be worth it? I think it will, but I'd like to see what you guys think.
A: 1. Certifications do NOT guarantee jobs. They most certainly won't guarantee $70K in this difficult job market. Don't get sucked in by the marketing hype. Certs do help here and there but they are no magic bullet. 2. Grad degrees do NOT guarantee jobs. However, a grad degree is a credential you can use for a decade or more while certifications evaporate in a year or two. This makes sense because certifications are all about practial applications of a specific version of a particular technology while a grad degree has a more long-term focus. (long-term meaning more theory, broader viewpoint, not centered on a specific vendor, technology or language, etc. ) Clearly, the grad degree is a much better long-term investment. HOWEVER . . . I also have to point out that I don't often come across a requirement for a graduate degree in the run-of-the-mill corporate IT job reqs. That doesn't mean grad degrees aren't valuable but it does mean