Benefits/ Warnings of 5 year BS/MS program

[dhudson]

My ds is considering getting a 5 year BS/MS degrees in Comp Sci through CU Boulder, where he is a freshman now. He met with an advisor today to start mapping out his plan because he also wants a Cognitive Science Certificate, which will be added classes as well.

 

He is smart, pretty driven and knows what he wants to do but we don't have any experience with knowing whether it's a good plan to do the 5 year plan or for him to go to a separate Grad School.

 

Anyone have ideas, experiences, opinions?

[Gwen in VA]

You might want to think about his final career goals.

 

If he is heading into academia, I suspect going the BS/MS route is THE way to go. Then he can apply to grad school for his Ph.D. with some VERY advanced classwork already under his belt.

 

If he is heading into industry, he might want to investigate whether having a MS in comp sci is helpful or not. I have heard that it is not, but YMMV and I suspect there is a broad spectrum of opinions on that one.

[dhudson]

He wants to go into research so I think academia is his main route to do that. He does not want to be a programmer, per se. He has interned with the Scratch team at MIT for years and has been offered an internship at the Lifelong Kindergarten Lab at MIT this summer.

[TechWife]

Has he talked to his connections at MIT to see what they would recommend? 

[daijobu]

He should ask around.  Sometimes a master's is a pre-professional degree, while those who are going into academia go straight from BS to PhD programs.  But I doubt having an MS will hinder an application to a PhD program, except to delay his entry by a year.  But he should really ask around because it varies by department.  

[G5052]

Yes, you need to ask around more.

 

When I was working on my BS, they had a BS/MS program,but they were telling us to go straight from a BS to a PhD if our goal was academia or research.

 

I nearly ran out of money near the end of my BS as it was, and I wanted to get some work experience before really committing to that many years of study. So I stopped after my BS degrees and worked for a year in research, and then started on my PhD while working. My graduate school also said that you might as well apply as a PhD student if that was your final goal.

 

As it turned out, I ended up with an MS and a lot of extra credits because of dissertation problems. I was so burned out that I stopped there and took a sabbatical that took me in a different direction, and I never went back to research or finished my PhD. Looking back, research really wasn't my "thing," although I did some good work during those years.

[dhudson]

Has he talked to his connections at MIT to see what they would recommend?

That's a great idea. I think you are completely right about asking them.

 

I also didn't realize you could go from a Bachelors to PhD program. This is why I love this group.

[Butler]

A big downside to a BS/MS program is that the masters portion won't be funded (usually). If he applies to a separate Masters in computer science there is a high likelihood that it will be. (Although funding likelhood is much higher with a PhD program). In the US it is common to go straight from Bachelors to PhD. If he intends to pursue a career in academia this is the preferred route. It is also usually recommended that a student attend a different school for graduate than undergraduate. (Allows for more exposure to ideas, professors, etc.)