navyasw02

Wait... the engineer's degree is $43k more than the MS??!?!?!? That's insane, no wonder people dont do it.

The Engineer's degree doesn't count at all towards the PhD unfortunately. It is a terminal degree, not a stepping stone. If you want to get a PhD, you have to complete the full PhD coursework requirements of whatever institution you're attending.

If it doesn't require extra money, do it if the extra time is worth it. I'll be done with my engineer's degree in 3 weeks, not sure how useful it will be, but it didnt cost me anything.

Again, are you talking the Engineer's Degree or a M.Eng. Different things again. MS is basically the same as a M. Eng Engineers Degree is a MS plus a few extra classes and a beefier thesis in most case. Technically, the Engineer's Degree is the terminal degree for engineers, but most schools dont offer this. See the wikipedia entry on it for more info.

If you're pretty confident that they'll offer you a job, why dont you see 1. if you need the degree a few months into the job and 2. try to negotiate for your company to pay for it when they offer you the position. That'd be the best of both worlds right there.

Possibly. I'm not trying to be rude here, but if this is something you want to do then why dont you research it yourself instead of asking people? The best way to know for sure is if you look at some BSME or BSEE programs and compare your current transcripts to the course curriculum and requirements. Asking people can't do that for you.

Nope. Even if you had completed your BS in CS, there's enough required courses in the ME curriculum that will probably take you two years minimum to complete. I imagine EE is the same.

When you say M. Eng, do you mean a MS or are you talking about the Engineer's Degree which is different?

Looks good, BUT like you said, you dont have any OR stuff on your transcript. I wouldn't necessarily say that's a killer though. Do you by any chance have time left to take any optimization classes or does your coursework have any of those subjects in it? Also, what's your plan for PhD research?

The FE/EIT wont help for beans when applying for grad school. That said, TAKE THE EXAM!!! Take it straight out of college while everything is fresh so that's one less hurdle you have to jump through for your PE application. You may never want or need to get registered as a PE, but trust me, all my friends who are trying to get their PE's and didnt take their FE earlier all said they wish they had done it sooner. In CA, that can make the difference between getting your PE in just a few months when you meet the requirements to waiting over a year and a half in some cases because you have to sign up for the FE, wait for the results to come (which in CA means AFTER the PE application deadline), apply for the PE on the next cycle (basically 1 year from when you took the FE), and then finally taking the PE. Bottom line - TAKE THE EXAM! It's easy and worth it.

Yea that was a fun area. My wife went to Northeastern and lived farther down Huntington in Jamaica Plain. Pretty sketchy area, but was pretty convenient for getting around town. Honestly, grad school is about a thousand times easier than undergrad and the hardest thing is getting in. Maybe it's just that I'm 30 and not 21, but I haven't really been overworked. This is my second time through grad school and both times were equally easy. I remember putting in a lot of effort to get a 2.5 GPA in college, but I graduated with a 3.75 when I finished my Masters in Engineering Management and I've got a 3.75 now with only 4 courses left for the Engineer's Degree. Undergrad placed a lot more emphasis on learning the fundamentals. Grad school is about expanding on what you already know. The bad thing is though that if you don't have the foundations down, they don't wait around for you to get it. There were a few times for some of my Fluids classes I had to meet with profs, but it ultimately came down to me learning it on my own, verifying what I figured out with my prof, getting the thumbs up, and moving along my merry way. Putting in effort in undergrad will pay dividends even if you don't see the material again for 10 or more years.

I'm going to Naval Postgrad School in Monterey. Wentworth is right by Northeastern right? I remember passing it a few times when my wife lived in Boston.

When I applied to MIT a few years back, the guy I talked to said roughly 700+ Q, 600+ V, 3.3 GPA or higher undergrad. Short answer to whether you can get into MIT or others like it is "Maybe", but you definitely wont get in if you dont apply. Just shoot an application out there as your reach school and give it a shot.

I'm almost done with my MS in Mechanical Engineering and the Engineer's Degree (also Mechanical). I decided to do it because it didnt cost me anything extra financially or with any extra time. I'm still curious as how it will actually help in the business world since nobody knows what it is, but I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Not as long as you only do one at a time. If you feel good about your academic profile, it might be worthwhile to trim the list down and save money on applications. If you're just trying to cast a wide net just to get accepted then go for it.