hey tech wait here and welcome to coffee
time with the tech lead today we're
going to talk about grad school is
graduate school worth it now this is a
question that a lot of people have come
here to ask me about and I have gone
through computer science grad school
myself
I actually went over to UC San Diego I
went to UC Berkeley for my undergrad so
I'm going to walk through the entire
grad school program for you such that
you have a clear understanding of what
sort of benefits or disadvantages you
may be getting when you go into grad
school and we'll also talk about the
decision about why I decided to go to
this school versus other schools now one
thing I want to note for you here is
that most of the time is going to depend
on your specific scenario and what
alternatives you have right if you can
get into some amazing grad school
program like say Stanford or Harvard
computer science then yeah by all means
you should probably do that if you can't
get a very good job offer in comparison
or if you can get into a very good
company like say Google or something but
you can't get into a very good grad
program school then you should pick up
that job offer and so what I'm telling
you is that most of the time it seems
that people are trying to avoid having
to put in the work and research to
figure out whether they should even be
trying to apply it to some of these
programs this video by the way is
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description below you know maybe someone
just doesn't want to bother applying to
grad school they're too lazy to do that
they want to save themselves the time of
having to apply it to take the GRE
those tests put in an admissions essay
people just want to feel good about the
choices that they currently have made in
life so the fact is that nobody is
really going to be able to tell you
whether it's worth it to go to grad
school versus whether it's worth it to
take a job if they don't really know
which grad school you can even get in
right you won't know that unless you try
to apply and it seems to me that the
sort of dilemma happens all the time I
get so many questions like this where
somebody may say they're currently on a
certain career track right maybe they're
a tester maybe they're a data scientist
or something and then they want to
switch into software engineering or they
want to switch into product management
or some other thing and then people get
all upset about the current track that
they're on and yet they don't really
quite want to put in the effort to
switch tracks and try to even explore
that they'd rather have somebody like me
just tell them no you're good right your
current track is fine whereas in reality
every track is really fine right
anything is good but it depends on how
far you're willing to push yourself any
career path you can make it work and you
can become very highly successful in
anything but you have to have the
passion to do it and it's also going to
depend on what other alternatives you
left on the table so let's talk
specifically about grad school in
computer science now for me straight out
of college I think if I had an offer to
get into something like Google Microsoft
Amazon Apple something like that I
probably would have just picked up that
offer and I probably still recommend
that path for you if you can get one of
these offers working for a year in the
top tech company you're going to learn a
lot but of course this is going to vary
depending on what your personal goals
are right like if you really want to get
into some advanced area of computer
science like say AI machine learning
computer vision robotics or
bioengineering some of this stuff is
going to require an advanced degree for
you to really dive deeper into some of
these fields for myself I also wanted to
get deeper into computer graphics I
really felt that I didn't know enough
about how to create like a graphics
engine game engine so I liked the idea
of going to grad school so I could focus
more on these topics so if you don't
really know what you're going to do and
you don't really want to pick up any old
random startup job or something like
that where you feel that it's not going
to push you very far then picking up a
grad school program is a good way to
just stop for some additional
time which was essentially what I was
doing the fact is that after say three
or four years in industry your very
first job straight out of college nobody
really cares about right it's just
something in your resume which you may
even remove but a graduate program
degree that's probably something that is
valuable enough that you're going to
leave on your resume forever and it's
going to have good value all the way
throughout your whole career people will
always take a look at you and say oh
yeah this guy at least seems to have a
master's program and I felt this when I
was working at Google as well I felt
like there were more senior
opportunities available to me because
managers recognized that I was the
person on the team who at least had a
graduate degree whereas the other people
on my team didn't necessarily have that
now when they came time to apply to grad
school right out of UC Berkeley I had
had enough of that school really for
myself you know Berkeley is in a fairly
code foggy city with a lot of homeless
people who will actually go and live and
sleep inside the libraries and that just
wasn't my cup of coffee
so for me I wanted to apply to some
different college and experience some
other areas
my siblings were in UC San Diego and San
Diego is right by the beach and they had
the amazing computer science program one
of the best computer graphics programs
actually and I had also applied to UCLA
as well just because they're pretty well
known school and these are kind of my
top choices and I got into both and for
me I ended up choosing UC San Diego
because a lot of my family was there and
the beach just sounded really appealing
to me you know after having spent my
undergrad in code foggy Berkeley I just
wanted a complete change of environment
and I wasn't really looking that forward
to going to a place like UCLA over in
Los Angeles it's just more City space
there so for me I was actually really
looking forward to going to grad school
I knew it was going to be a fun time
it's going to be in a great city I was
going to be able to spend time with my
brother and sister over there their
computer science program was top-notch I
was going to be able to get more into
computer graphics which I really wanted
to and that department had been
renovated all the buildings were brand
new
and I also saw it as a second chance at
college because the first time around in
my undergrad I only focused on studying
and I didn't have any fun I didn't join
any clubs it was just books all the time
and so for me in the second chance at
college I took on some more fun classes
I join
some clubs and organizations that was
more interested in joining your not just
honor societies but yeah I might take a
class in dance hip hop right venture
business mechanics or something like
that just because it sounded interesting
and so that's one thing I was actually
looking forward to a lot that this stuff
often I get questions from people who
seem like they're not really interested
in attending grad school they view it
more as a waste of time something that
has to be done and if you're just going
to struggle through this and you're not
going to enjoy it I would encourage you
to think about perhaps finding a school
a city some environment that actually
gets you more excited because this is
still going to take about one year of
your life if you do the master's
programs right now the ph.d program is
considerably longer and it requires some
real research and generally I don't
recommend PhD programs for normal people
unless you really know what you're doing
right unless you're sure that you really
want to get into this whole academic
side because when you get out of the
ph.d program your career options are
also going to be fairly different right
generally you would be applying for more
research-oriented positions and the
interview process is actually a little
bit different for PhD students as well
so let's take a look at this graduate
program that I specifically did and I'll
tell you one other reason I chose UC San
Diego was because they don't require you
doing actual research to complete your
degree you can really just do a test and
one-quarter of research and that was
sufficient for myself I've never been
all that interested in doing brand new
research spending a lot of time trying
to figure out something new in the field
because my interest has always been more
in that practical application of things
but we can take a look at what we have
here and the first thing you'll notice
right off the bat is that a lot of these
grades I got was just past no pass and
that's a great thing here I was able to
just focus less on grades but I do have
to say that I felt like I struggled
through every single graduate course you
know the graduate courses are pretty
serious work like you really have to put
in some study and they're like probably
twice as difficult as a standard
undergrad course because there's just
less hand-holding from the professor and
the expectations were higher I also was
able to take some undergrad courses and
at this point they just became very easy
for me because I had a lot of background
and understanding of this stuff you can
see that in my first quarter I took
complete
Graphics operating systems faculty
research was a teaching assistant and
took venture mechanics after that took
computer animation principles of
computer architecture computer vision
and the seminar in computer science in
my third quarter I took software systems
design computer graphics to rendering
advanced algorithms design and analysis
and then my last quarter I took
computability and complexity computer
graphics with mesh animation a computer
science and engineering program and and
another TA course and so here I was able
to graduate in one year and really what
this graduate program was focusing on
was it just develops further into the
undergraduate courses right like there
was a graduate version course of
operating systems advanced algorithms
computer architecture in more detail
most of these were taken pass no pass
and the first half of my year I really
enjoyed it and then probably towards the
end of the year I was about ready to get
out I was about done and I wanted to get
into industry and start working now one
of the things I actually enjoyed about
being that graduate student was that I
was treated more closer to like faculty
like there would be a graduate student
lounge with drinks and snacks I would be
available only for the grad students the
professor's would actually take more
time to get to know the graduate
students better I was even actually
hired by one of the professors I feel
that the professor's just put more time
into getting to know their graduate
students I remember when I was there as
a master's student I almost wanted to be
like a PhD student it looked so cool and
they got so much respect but as soon as
I graduated I finished a master's
program I was pretty glad to actually be
out and be done with all of that one fun
way to think about it is it's almost
like a study abroad program where you
choose another city where you would like
to live and experience life in and
continue your studies there and you get
all the credit for that too and it's not
like you're really burning your time
it's just building up additional
experience that is quite valuable could
be quite good to have on your resume
right employers are still going to like
that stuff and you know there's no
strong guarantee that is going to really
pay off and get you a better job but at
the same time it's not going to look
weird on your resume and it's not like
you just picked up some low entry-level
job that was not very good right you
basically just allowed you to buy some
additional time
and during that time you you can
continue to pick up internships you know
like when I was in grad school I picked
up additional internships like at
Microsoft that helped me prepare better
for when I actually finished the program
and got out I do have to mention though
that I did spend one quarter living in
the grad school dormitory housing and my
roommates were some of the most
miserable people I've ever met you know
a lot of these grad school students I
think that they become bitter towards
some point right the PhD students
especially because they just get stuck
in that program for years and you hear
stories where professors will actually
keep the PhD students stuck in that
program so they can get some free labor
so when I look back on my grad school
experience I don't regret it at all
actually I thought it was great I
thought it was fun and it was another
stage in my career development right I
easily could have swapped out that grad
school program and say replace it with
some entry-level job as some startup
somewhere but I'm not sure if that would
have actually been very memorable for me
or very useful at all right I probably
would have removed that job from my
resume as I started building more
experience but this grad school program
is something that I'm just leaving on my
resume so there you go that's my
perspective on graduate programs let me
know what you guys think in the comments
below we'd love to hear if you liked the
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