Finished undergrad... Coming back to do a Masters in few years?

Dave!

Hey folks,

Just wondering if I can get some thoughts/experiences on this

I've recently finished a BA in Computer Science and History.

There's a few things that I'm quite interested in and would like to study further (politics, cognitive science/psychology, digital media), and there are plenty of postgraduate courses that cover them.

However I really don't want to do it now. I'm burned out from college and feel I would lose motivation shortly after starting. I want to do the travelling thing, work for a while, etc.

I know most people would recommend getting a Masters out of the way straight after undergrad, but it's not for me !

Anyways I was wondering if people could give me their experiences of coming back to do a Masters after a few years' break. I'd be talking about working for 7 or 8 months then travelling for a year or two (supplemented with more work...), and doing it in some way when I come back.

The options would be:

1. Part-time while working: Is this really taxing? One course said that it was 2 evenings a week, which isn't too bad. Obviously you'd be doing assignments on top of that, but the hours aren't too bad. I'd hopefully be able to move out while doing this.

2. Live with the folks and do it full-time: I'd say it would suck having to move back in after 2/3 years of independence. Obviously this would be the most efficient way of doing it though as it gets it out of the way in 1 year and wouldn't cost as much.

3. Pretty unlikely, but when I'm done travelling come back and work full-time for a couple of years, saving as much as possible, and then I could rent somewhere cheap and do the course full-time in one year. Is this feasible? Not sure how much money I'd need to save for this.
The alternative I suppose would be to get a loan and do the same thing.


Anyways any thoughts appreciated.

Dave

taram

I only took a break of a year so maybe not the best person to answer but here goes:

I moved back with my parents for the year out, worked every hour I could, and now am doing my masters, and shouldn't go into debt. Mostly doing that so when I finish I can start saving again for my wedding, and was lucky that my parents charged low rent, and I cut out everything else that could be cut. I'm only here a week so also maybe not greatest answer in the world, but I can honestly say I couldn't have done a masters last year. I would have picked a subject I wasn't truely interested in, I would have started off in debt, I would have probably gone back to my undergrad college for simplicities sake and lived at home (it was hard enough being there just relaxing after work, can't imagine doing assignments there). Take the time to really research what you want to do, and where to do it, and enjoy the time away from the books! I didn't travel as much as I should have this year, but did a lot in the years previous, it'll always be worth it, and better do it now than in a few years with mortgage/kids/etc!

My best friend did masters straight after, found it simple as pie, a class mate did too and he dropped out, hating the subject. At the end of the day, it's your choice, while I'm not saying get into debt, if anyone was ever going to take a loan, your education would be worth it

Dave!

Thanks taram !

Yeah that's one of the reasons I'm not going straight into it: I want to be sure of the subject I want to study. There are several that I 'possibly' want to study, so I think in a few years I'll be more certain I went straight from school to my undergrad, and realised half way through that I wasn't very fond of the course and didn't put enough thought into deciding.

Now I always tell people that they should take a year out between school and college, do some temping or just work part-time, maybe go away for a while, and really think about what you want to do ! Cos so many people don't put alot of effort into their course, or drop out after a few months, cos they're not as interested in it as they thought.

tallaght01

I'm doing a masters degree, and I'm about 6 years out of uni now.

If I'd done it straight after college I wouldn't have done this particular masters. But I've now got a lot of on the job experience, and that was how I knew this course was the right one for me.

There's a good few people on the course who are just out of uni, and (by and large) those of us with experience do much better than the younger ones, in terms of grades.

It's just natural, that I know a lot of the stuff already, but the masters goes into it in a lot more detail. that makes life easier than being new to the area, and having to learn everything by scratch.

40% of one of the modules I'm doing now involves planning a real-world response to a particular problem. I have done stuff like that a load of times. While I wasn't leading these projects when I was at work, i was heavily involved in them. So, I reckon i'm at a big advantage.

Having said that, my sis has just graduated law and is doing a masters while working, and she finds it ok, even though she doesn't have much workplace law experience.

But i would definitely say that waiting will do you no harm, and will probably be beneficial.

livinginkorea

I agree with Tallagh. If your heart isn't in it then why do it?

Distance Learning is always an option too, depending on where you are and what you want to do your MA in. Worth thinking about down the road especially if you can get some experience in that area.