Please tell me about graduate and post-grad degrees

In My Humble Opinion
1

(Sorry beforehand if this is a bit long-winded. It’s a stream of consciousness type thing… more just hoping for a loose discussion of what it’s like to pursue an advanced degree, rather than any one specific question.)

So here’s the dealio: I never took education all that seriously until recently, when I had a chance to work alongside research scientists in a nonprofit environment. I’ve always loved science as a layperson, and having seen their work firsthand, I admire them even more.

So now, in my mid-30s, I’m contemplating pursuing a master’s and/or PhD. Here’s the thing, though… that whole “never took education all that seriously” thing? Grad schools don’t seem to like that very much. I only finished my undergrad very recently (after nearly a decade on and off) with something like a 2.0 GPA. Should I just give up now?

My undergrad was in environmental science and I work as a web developer (self-taught). I’ve had a lot of mixed work and volunteer experience with both environmental conservation and technology groups, almost all nonprofits. It’s a strange intersection, perhaps, but one that I’d like to stay within: Ideally I’m looking for a program that would combine climate science/renewables and machine learning, such as using AI to comb through climate data or to help plan renewables policy (I know, that’s assuming we even have a government in 2021, much less one that takes climate seriously). Long story short, I’m passionate about ecology and decent at tech, and really drawn to the idea of evidence-based solutions to social problems.

But what is the process like? I know that usually, programs want a GRE, which I understand to be something like a series of tests for everything from vocabulary to math to chemistry and such. I never had to take the SAT, but I’m confident in my ability to study and learn if need be. And some schools have temporarily suspended GRE requirements due to COVID.

Then what’s life like as a grad student? Poor and overworked, I take it, and even more difficult if I hope to continue my full-time employment alongside it. I’m willing to suck it up and put in the hours, but what’s the day-to-day work like? The only grad student I knew well was getting his master’s in English, and spent many hours a day in front of a computer writing and rewriting parts of his thesis. But that’s a humanities study… what’s it like to pursue an advanced STEM degree? How much of it is data collection, analysis, writing, university politics, sucking up, being treated as a disposable intern, etc.? Any gotchas I should know early on?

Any recommendations for programs, universities, or anything, really? Just trying to get some thoughts about what this process is like, if you’ve gone through something similar. I know a lot of you are really smart people, and I’d appreciate any advice :slight_smile:

Thanks in advance!

2

M.S. in C.S. here. I was only fulltime on the degree for one year, then got a job in the field and finished the degree on a part time basis. Given that you already have an environmental science degree and don’t have formal computer training, I would probably go the C.S. route, maybe with a couple environmental classes to advance your credentials there as well. A lot of the traditional image of the grad student as indentured servant to their advisor/department only comes into play if you have an assistantship and more at the Ph.D. level than M.S. I found the master’s program to be more equivalent to a continuation of upper division undergrad work, but with a lot less handholding. E.g., if the course you’re taking has an A.I. component that presupposes Lisp knowledge, you’ll probably be expected to learn it on your own.

Good luck. You’re starting down this path a bit late, but 60 is the new 40, right?

3

I cant speak to grad school, but yeah, being 60+ feels pretty middle aged to me now. IOW it feels not too late to prep for another (admittedly shortened) career if I otherwise wanted / needed a change.

4

A lot of the sort of… environmental factors are going to be mostly determined by where you go to school. My grad school (UT-Dallas) offered a LOT of evening graduate classes, while my undergrad (Texas A&M) really didn’t have much in the way of night courses at all when I was there. I figure that’s because UTD is the primary STEM-type institution in the midst of the fourth largest metro area in the US, and Texas A&M was at the time, sort of a “destination” school, in that there wasn’t that much going on in the area outside of the university itself, unless you were in agriculture. So people tended to physically go to A&M for school as a primary endeavor, while a lot of people at UTD were doing it while working full time.

As far as the actual educational part goes, it wasn’t too much different than undergrad, except that the emphasis is a lot heavier on projects, papers, etc… and less on quizzes, homework, etc… Kind of like the high school/college difference, only more so. You’re also expected to be a self-starter, and the professors have a lot more respect for you than they do undergraduates.

As far as what degree to choose, I don’t know if I’d go computer science if I wasn’t interested in the nitty gritty of how computers and software actually WORK under the hood. They’re not going to teach you how to use computing resources to accomplish a task in a CS program, they’re going to teach you how that tech works in a very down and dirty kind of way. For example, you might learn the mathematical underpinnings of machine learning and AI, but you won’t necessarily learn how to use it to solve a problem, except insofar as you would need to for a project or something.

If you’re interested more in using them to accomplish some other task/solve other problems, then you’re probably better off studying something like data analytics, where you’ll learn how to organize and analyze data and trends, etc…

5

I have a PhD, and my daughter is a professor, and has two.
First, the GRE is probably a good thing for you to take, since it would give a department a reason to accept you given your spotty undergraduate career.
Second, terminal MS and PhD are two very different animals. There are lots of places to get an MS in almost an advanced undergrad environment, but you’re going to have to pay. PhD involves doing research and in your field you might be able to get an assistantship which pays tuition and some stipend. Not very big.
You can probably get an MS while working, unlikely for a PhD since research takes a lot of time.
Think about what kind of job you want. If you want to work with research scientists in that kind of environment, an MS is probably enough. A PhD is expected to initiate their own research. You should research what jobs are available and what people do, and maybe email a few people with questions. If there are labs near you that you can volunteer at, or work part time, that would be a plus for your application.
Not everyone likes doing research. I loved it, but my wife hated it when she was in a PhD program.
As for area, you might think about machine learning. It covers what you want to do, but it also is a hot topic these days which would help if the environmental labs aren’t hiring. People in the environmental area are likely to consider it black magic, so if you know machine learning and a bit about the subject that would be a real plus.

Good luck!

6

Has any of your volunteer work brought you in contact with scientists or academics? If so, then that is a good place to start. Tell them that you’d like to go to gradschool in that or a related field, and they may be able to help you tremendously. My mother got her PhD in her 40s, and that is how she did it at Texas A&M. She worked with some professors there, and when she said she wanted to pursue a PhD in their area, they made sure she got into the program, because they new her, and thought she would be a successful student.

How broad is your computing experience? If you can honestly say that you’re fluent in Python or other languages used in environmental sciences (I’m not sure what those are), then that may make you stand out from the other candidates who are fresh out of undergrad and have one semester of stats where they used some R.

Look around at environmental sciences (or whatever) programs in the locations you’d consider going to school. Look at the different professors and what they’ve published on recently. Look at the research projects they and their departments are involved in, and when you find ones that look like interesting or good fits, send them and email and explain what your interested in, and ask if you should bother applying.

Once you have some schools in mind, you can look at information about their programs and requirements. That can give you some concrete answers. Some places will be happy to have part time students, others aren’t organized around that style of student.

7

I have a STEM PhD, but it was earned a looong time ago, so keep that in mind.

I agree that taking the GRE is a good idea, mostly because it will level set your expectations for grad school. Remember, scientific research is fundamentally applying math, physics, chemistry, math, biology, math, etc. to scientific questions. You’ll have to come up to speed to progress in any event.

Do you want to become a scientist, or just work in research? There are plenty of people without graduate degrees working in research, but almost all of them are in support roles (which can be satisfying in its own way).

If you want to become a scientist, my path might be edifying.

I earned a bachelor’s in Physics with a less than stellar GPA (I muddled around my first two years, but blossomed in the upper division classes and labs). Looking at the job prospects at the time, I could teach high school science or get an entry level tech job (Physics majors were regarded as highly trainable, but without much in the way of job-ready skills).

So I decided to get a Master’s in engineering (Electrical Engineering). I chose the graduate school based on the non-requirement of a GRE (I was sick and tired of taking tests). I applied, enrolled, and started taking classes. I figured it would take 2-3 years in the nominally 2-year program to earn my degree, mostly because I would need to take some extra classes I missed by not being an engineering undergraduate.

The program required a master’s thesis, which would be performed under the supervision of one of the professors in the department. So, sometime during the first year, I wandered down the row of professor’s offices, reading the bulletin boards with papers, class descriptions, etc. outside of each professor’s office (did I mention it was a looooong time ago?). I noticed that one of the professors was doing research in some solid state devices I had done a lab in my senior year. I had really enjoyed my encounter with the devices, so I knocked on his door and he invited me in. I explained I was looking for a master’s project and he told me he had a couple of topics that were “left over” from previous PhD students. So we shook hands and I was a member of his research group.

In my 3rd year, I started writing up my thesis topic and interviewing at local high tech companies. In one of our meetings, my professor suddenly asked “Have you thought about going for a PhD?” He told me that he had some PhD topics he thought I’d be good at and he could add me to one of his grants as a research assistant, which should cover tuition and living expenses.

So that’s how I became a PhD student and subsequently, durr peccavi (I think that’s how it’s pronounced).

I tell my story to illustrate that there are many paths to a PhD other than undergrad-apply to PhD program-write thesis. When I led a research group in my field, I had one scientist who would humble-brag that he didn’t have an undergraduate degree, just a PhD. He had been an undergraduate, started working in a professor’s research group, and distinguished himself sufficiently that the professor pulled him directly into the PhD program before he finished his senior year.

I would advise one of two paths to environmental scientist for you, depending on the state of your finances:

  1. If you can’t afford grad school without working, find a job with a tech firm or organization doing environmental science or something adjacent, in a support role (and the role doesn’t have to be hands on science). In parallel, enroll in a master’s program. Tech companies like employees who pursue continuing education, they might even help pay. At work, find a senior scientist/engineer at work to mentor you on what it takes to get into research. Finally, after getting your masters, get the company to sponsor your PhD work while they continue to employ you. A lot of PhDs at my company got there PhDs this way.

  2. Enroll in a master’s program in environmental science or something closely aligned. Check out professor’s to supervise your master’s thesis, with an eye to working your way into the group and continuing on to the PhD program. Picking the right university and professor is crucial for this path to work.

One thing to keep in mind is that scientific research is a highly competitive field and everyone who succeeds at it is smart and disciplined. While there are ways to overcome not looking good on paper (as above), you still have to have (and demonstrate) the smarts and aptitude.

Final words: If you want to do research in environmental science, don’t assume computer science, even AI/ML will be the ticket in. Every physics and engineering PhD I’ve encountered in the past 5-10 years has programming, data science, and deep learning skills. These are core skills they learn and apply as a matter of course in grad school.

8

My MS was funded entirely by the company I worked for so not much is relevant to you – except that I finished it just prior to my 50th birthday. Going back as an older adult isn’t really a problem, and in some ways it’s an advantage.

If you want to try setting up AI to work on problems, you can download one for your home computer here. Scroll down a bit, and there’s a selection for beginner’s neural networks and (last time I tried it) they included sample data for it to start with.

9

If you go the PhD route, the school should waive tuition and pay you. If they won’t, that’s a good indication you’re in the wrong place.

If you have relevant technical skills from employment, highlight that in your application. You’ll be competing against applicants who are fresh out of undergrad where they were already performing research in whatever field of study you’re targeting.

For laboratory science, expect 70 hours/week of work, with a few field-specific exceptions.

10

I starting working for the University of [midwestern city] Research Institute in 1996. I had a BSEE. A few years later I wanted to get my MSEE. Because I worked for a university, the tuition was free. And they didn’t even require me to take the GRE.

I attended classes in the evenings, taking just one class at a time. I finally graduated in 2009. The classes were similar to undergrad classes, but the pace was much faster.

11

I know some colleges have programs where you only have to attend classes once a week and get a Masters in 2 years. Is this possible for you?

12

Most grad schools will see a C average and look no further. Most schools allow you to register for any course as a special student. If you take a couple such courses and you get A’s, they will likely accept your explanation that you weren’t serious then but are now. As chair of our grad admissions committee, that is the attitude I took.

At that point, you might feel better about the GRE. I don’t know what they are like today but when I took them 60 years ago, there were verbal aptitude, quantitative aptitude, and subject matter test. Again you must do well to convince them that you are no longer the indifferent student you once were.

Can you work in a full-time job while in grad school? It depends. In many lab sciences you will more-or-less required to work as a lab assistant, long hours and low pay. That’s what grad students are for. I remember once that a proposal to offer an ESL course for foreign students was shot down by the lab departments because they were unwilling to have their students take the time. Non-lab subjects are different. There are fewer jobs as assistants but also the time requirements are far less. I played an awful lot of bridge and go in grad school (I had an NSF fellowship). And, as it happened, the research needed for my thesis was not elaborate, but that was a bit of luck.

13

I’m a professor at an R1 university–which of course means I earned masters and doctoral degrees (elsewhere). I’m in education, so my experience may be different.

The further and longer you are from your undergrad days, the less your undergraduate GPA matters. When I directed our Ph.D. and master’s programs, we looked at the following:

  • Statement of purpose
  • Letters of recommendation
  • GRE
  • Undergrad GPA (we used what is called “upper-division GPA,” typically last two years)
  • Fit with our program
  • Future goals

I agree the best advocate for you would be a faculty member who can speak to your aptitude. And you should definitely talk to the program director that you’re interested in. They will tell you if you have a credible shot at their program.

We have a “non-degree seeking” student option, where essentially you can take two courses without actually applying to the program. You might want to see if this is an option, and if you are able to impress a professor, they could be a good reference for you.