Issue

[DaShi]

Skills are fine but, alone, are not enough for many higher paying jobs. Code monkeys are a dime a dozen. Demonstrating that you have value beyond that is what will get you to that next step. Make sure you're clearly showing this in your current job before moving on.

[Uncle Sparky]

I never before realized how similar Tonga's flag was to UAE's.

Thank you for playing. Please pick up your gift package on the way out.

[Hot Mustard]

Anyway, point is -- in this field, if you're working in the real world, a PhD doesn't really do much for you most of the time. I work with a bunch PhD compsci people and at the end of the day, you have no idea if someone has a BSc, MSc, or PhD except if you ask them. People are either good at it or they're not. A PhD just indicates you spent more time in academia in this field.

QFT

I've been working in software engineering for 12 years. I have a Bachelors of Business Administration and a 1yr IT Diploma from one of the many dot-com tech institutes that crashed and burned. I keep passing folks with more field-specific education on the ladder. You get stuff or you don't. What's more, if you get it can you assess it's value vs. cost in your bigger picture. What I often find is the academics want to do very sophisticated things that add no value to the software, to the customers, or to the company (like for instance reducing support calls).

[DriXnaK]

Just so we're clear on something here, in the argument about academia, I have no intention of going into it or becoming one of those. The only reason I'm going to get the M.S. is because as stated before, I'll need it to go do some of the things I want to go do. It's for the resume and to maybe give myself a little bit deeper understanding in some areas. Otherwise, I agree, you either know what you're doing or you don't. I'm actually helping train the new guy we hired in coding and he has a B.S. in CS and a minor in math.

Back to the original topic, here is the requirements from USF for their graduate degree in comp sci:

Entrance requirements for Master's degree

Admission to the Master's degree program is granted by the Dean of the Graduate School upon recommendation by the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the Dean of Engineering.

The applicant must meet the following departmental requirements for admission to the programs with regular status:

The majority of our accepted students have a 4 yr undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Mathematics. Well prepared students in other majors are encouraged to apply.
The applicant must have mathematical preparation equivalent to that obtained from courses in Calculus through Differential Equations; demonstrated knowledge (formal course grades) of computer science and computer engineering, including logic design, computer architecture, data structure, operating systems, and analysis of algorithms. The majority of our accepted students have an undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Mathematics. Well prepared students in other majors are encouraged to apply.

Minimum grade point average (GPA) of B average (or equivalent) for all coursework completed during the last two years of undergraduate program.
Test scores for the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) must be within the five years preceding application to the graduate program.
As a reference, the median GRE scores of recently admitted students were Quantitative of 770 and Verbal+Quantitative of 1220.
The GRE will be waived for MS-degree applicants with an undergraduate degree from an accredited United States university.
Three letters of recommendation.
Statement of purpose.

I guess I'm going to have to sit down with an adviser and find out exactly what I need.

[loinburger]

One last thing. Any need for functional programming capabilities? Like F# or something?

I have never used functional programming in real life, but if you take any AI courses you might have to use Lisp or Scheme.

Lambdas are very useful in C# and are sort-of functional programming constructs (since they originated in Lisp/Scheme). I looked into using F# for one of my projects, but went with C# since nobody else would be able to maintain the F# code.

[DriXnaK]

I actually found a book on functional programming a while back as well as a lambda calculus book but I never really delved into them because I didn't see a use. Guess I'll wait and see what all is going to be expected in preparation to get the masters.

[Hauldren Collider]

I have never used functional programming in real life, but if you take any AI courses you might have to use Lisp or Scheme.

Lambdas are very useful in C# and are sort-of functional programming constructs (since they originated in Lisp/Scheme). I looked into using F# for one of my projects, but went with C# since nobody else would be able to maintain the F# code.

You have to use functional programming if you ever work with XSLT. It's horrible. My impression of functional programming is that it is one of those ivory tower academia things.

[loinburger]

Fortunately all of our Xslt maps run in Biztalk (a Microsoft product), so I can inline C# code instead of mucking about with Xpath crap

[Hauldren Collider]

I absolutely hated using XSLT. I eventually got so frustrated with its statelessness that I used the PHP callback feature in PHP's xslt engine and called PHP methods from the XSLT in order to introduce state. Horrible hack, but it got the program working.