Computer Science Masters

[JC0133]

So I would like some advice as well as some input. Anything you guys can give me, I would greatly appreciate it.

I got my undergrad in Electrical Engineering back in 2005. My favorite classes in college were electronics, logic design, digital systems and every software/programming class I took. I didn't take many programming classes. Maybe 3 at most.

I have been working the past 6 years. 3 years in electrical analysis and design, 2.5 years in software engineering which I really liked. I used mostly in house software to write my code which wasn't to complicated(conditional statements, functions, single dimension arrays, loops) stuff like that. I have decided I really want to go back for my masters.

2 reasons

1. Which is the biggest reason. I enjoy school and learning and 2. Cause my company will pay for it.

I am pretty sure I want to go into computer science but I am considering computer systems/engineering as well.

I need to slim down my areas of interest for grad school.

I am really interested in

Game development/AI
User Interfaces and Graphics
Logic Design/Digital System using HDL(VHDL or Verilog)
Robotics
Software Security Systems

Just want your input/thoughts on these questions

So my questions are

1. How would you rank these in terms of difficult?

2. Which ones are in higher demand in the job market today?

3. Which ones usually have the higher paying salary?

4. Which ones are harder to get jobs for? Ex. I heard getting into game development is tough?

5. Last questions is which ones is more adaptable to my other interests?

Ex. I know I can work AI in game development but I am sure I can do the same in robotics.

 

[velvetpants]

I'm an uneducated fuck, but I think AI and machine learning will be most useful in many different fields.

It's not just used for games and robotics, AI is all over the place, medicine,search engines, ecommerce websites, flight, research, space travel, if you have a navigation system in your car it uses pathfinding algorithms to find the quickest path from A to B.

 

[invidia]

1. Probably VHDL or robotics, but then i have only have experience out of 2 on the list

2. I would assume software security will have the highest demand.

3. Definitely not game dev

4. Game dev is the hardest one to get a job out of all those. Think of it as "getting into hollywood"

5. I would say game dev if you had worked on games in your spare time.


Im not a professional game developer but I have worked on side projects with a few hobbyists and veterans in the industry.

 

[Stuxnet]

Game development pay is shit and your hours are even shittier. Job security is pretty piss poor, too.

I would have to love games more than life itself before I considered working in the industry on a perm basis.

 

[bobross419]

Mod teams or open source projects are probably the way to go if you really love games and want to "program" games.

Work at your own pace? "Check"
Make good money at your day job? "Check"
Actually get the chance to play the games you like? "Check"
Piss all over the fans when they try to pressure you into something you don't want? "Check"

Your work week would still be 60-80 hours when you combine day job + game, but you'd probably end up making more money and being a bit more satisfied with the whole experience.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Software....

10 years in it

You want a field that is constantly changing, where things from 10 years ago matter not. Choose software.

biggest mistake of my life.

Just do structural engineering. Atleast that way, the math doesn't change. Just the tools.

Software is a field for suckers. In 10 years, it is going to be 95%+ made up of kids in high school. It is not like 20 yersa ago when only nerds had computers at home. Today, everyone has them and more and more kids are learning programming. Today's dishwashers are tomorrows software engineers. What you learn in school is tough, don't get me wrong. What you use in the real world though, is far from it. You use 4% of what you learned and it is not AI or anything difficult. All you really need to know is basic optimizations. It takes a very specialized background to warrant job security.

 

[Markbnj]

Software....

10 years in it

You want a field that is constantly changing, where things from 10 years ago matter not. Choose software.

biggest mistake of my life.

Just do structural engineering. Atleast that way, the math doesn't change. Just the tools.

Software is a field for suckers. In 10 years, it is going to be 95%+ made up of kids in high school. It is not like 20 yersa ago when only nerds had computers at home. Today, everyone has them and more and more kids are learning programming. Today's dishwashers are tomorrows software engineers. What you learn in school is tough, don't get me wrong. What you use in the real world though, is far from it. You use 4% of what you learned and it is not AI or anything difficult. All you really need to know is basic optimizations. It takes a very specialized background to warrant job security.

I want to say how wrong this post is, but... but... I can't.

Ok, parts of it are wrong. There is a class of applications that don't require a lot of skill, yeah, and there are a lot of young guys who have learned to toss together web apps. I agree it's hard to find security there, although I will say that when you take into account the whole stack from server and db through the client a lot of these guys can't really hack it. And the minute they have to do anything harder, like create a new data structure, they curl up on the floor in the fetal position.

You shouldn't be in software if you don't love programming. If you do love programming, then there are worse ways to make a living for sure. For some people the constant change is a plus. In terms of job security, it hasn't been a problem for me. If you want to be valuable then be an expert on valuable things.

 

[stevech]

MBA, not engineering.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

I want to say how wrong this post is, but... but... I can't.

Ok, parts of it are wrong. There is a class of applications that don't require a lot of skill, yeah, and there are a lot of young guys who have learned to toss together web apps. I agree it's hard to find security there, although I will say that when you take into account the whole stack from server and db through the client a lot of these guys can't really hack it. And the minute they have to do anything harder, like create a new data structure, they curl up on the floor in the fetal position.

You shouldn't be in software if you don't love programming. If you do love programming, then there are worse ways to make a living for sure. For some people the constant change is a plus. In terms of job security, it hasn't been a problem for me. If you want to be valuable then be an expert on valuable things.

I'll admit that I am biased. The glass is half empty so to speak.

It's easy to love a hobby. When you do something 40 hours a week though, it does not matter how much you like it. You will eventually get bored of it.

My biggest issue is that I am not helping people. Not directly anyway. I'd be much happier as a teacher or working as a nurse. Atleast that way I'd be directly impacting people and get atleast one thank you a day. Software is a very thankless job. I suppose that is true of most engineering though.

 

[EvilManagedCare]

I'll admit that I am biased. The glass is half empty so to speak.

It's easy to love a hobby. When you do something 40 hours a week though, it does not matter how much you like it. You will eventually get bored of it.

My biggest issue is that I am not helping people. Not directly anyway. I'd be much happier as a teacher or working as a nurse. Atleast that way I'd be directly impacting people and get atleast one thank you a day. Software is a very thankless job. I suppose that is true of most engineering though.

LOL I am going from a helping profession to (hopefully) software development after I finish this semester. I am probably jaded and cynical (as one can get working in mental health), but the low salary, impacting and helping gets old as it is just as thankless, believe it or not.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Software is a very thankless job. I suppose that is true of most engineering though.

If you think software is thankless, try being a System Admin.

 

[polarmystery]

MBA, not engineering.

Vehemently disagree with this, but...there is more $ to be had in management. YMMV

 

[purbeast0]

I'll admit that I am biased. The glass is half empty so to speak.

It's easy to love a hobby. When you do something 40 hours a week though, it does not matter how much you like it. You will eventually get bored of it.

My biggest issue is that I am not helping people. Not directly anyway. I'd be much happier as a teacher or working as a nurse. Atleast that way I'd be directly impacting people and get atleast one thank you a day. Software is a very thankless job. I suppose that is true of most engineering though.

i don't know man i've been doing software engineering for the past 7 years and i like it. infact i don't want to become a manager in my career if it's one of the managers who doesn't actually design/program. i enjoy coding. i also enjoy doing GUI design, and enjoy coding it and linking it up to the back ends.

and the software actually DOES help people. i work on a government contract as a sub and the software I write is used world wide by a specific government agency. it is very rewarding to demo what i've worked on to people who will be using it in the field, and see them extremely excited about it.

as far as what you learn in school to what you use in the real world, i agree that what you actually DID in school won't translate necessarily to the real world. however, it definitely DOES get you thinking a certain way and helps you to pick up stuff. basically if you know the concepts of OOP you can pick up a variety of OOP languages and get advanced in them pretty quickly.

 

[Dissipate]

Software....

10 years in it

You want a field that is constantly changing, where things from 10 years ago matter not. Choose software.

biggest mistake of my life.

Just do structural engineering. Atleast that way, the math doesn't change. Just the tools.

Software is a field for suckers. In 10 years, it is going to be 95%+ made up of kids in high school. It is not like 20 yersa ago when only nerds had computers at home. Today, everyone has them and more and more kids are learning programming. Today's dishwashers are tomorrows software engineers. What you learn in school is tough, don't get me wrong. What you use in the real world though, is far from it. You use 4% of what you learned and it is not AI or anything difficult. All you really need to know is basic optimizations. It takes a very specialized background to warrant job security.

To some extent I agree with what you are saying. That's why I think it is best to combine programming skills with some other discipline like business or biology (bioinformatics).

 

[PowerYoga]

Software....

10 years in it

You want a field that is constantly changing, where things from 10 years ago matter not. Choose software.

biggest mistake of my life.

Just do structural engineering. Atleast that way, the math doesn't change. Just the tools.

Software is a field for suckers. In 10 years, it is going to be 95%+ made up of kids in high school. It is not like 20 yersa ago when only nerds had computers at home. Today, everyone has them and more and more kids are learning programming. Today's dishwashers are tomorrows software engineers. What you learn in school is tough, don't get me wrong. What you use in the real world though, is far from it. You use 4% of what you learned and it is not AI or anything difficult. All you really need to know is basic optimizations. It takes a very specialized background to warrant job security.

Would almost agree except cobal, fortran and C/C++ are still being used by so many companies/agencies in the industry. Did you know one of the big airlines (can't tell you which one) just recently "upgraded" their cockpit software from fortran to C++?

 

[hooflung]

Well whatever you decide make sure they give you heaps of Graph Theory. That is the most useful form of mathematics in computer science these days. It is the basis of AI pathing as well as no-SQL databases such as Neo4J.

It is found in things you take for granted

 

[Gibson486]

Would almost agree except cobal, fortran and C/C++ are still being used by so many companies/agencies in the industry. Did you know one of the big airlines (can't tell you which one) just recently "upgraded" their cockpit software from fortran to C++?

That is industrial programming. Different beast from the rest of the industry.