Out of school for a few years, in industry now, considering return to grad school for PhD. Need advice.

[asterisk]

Greetings Everyone,

I am a recent graduate currently working in industry as a shift engineer for a major computer component manufacturer. I was strongly advised to obtain "real world" experience before obtaining an advanced degree by a family member, but lately I have been feeling... unchallenged by day-to-day work and am considering an attempt to return to grad school. I am hoping that in graduate school and afterwards, I will have more opportunity to work on more advanced, in-depth problems, and fewer monotonous tasks than in my current position or one that I could gradually advance to with just a bachelor's degree.

My background:

1. Started as biomedical engineer, completed degree requirements in 2009

2. Stayed extra year at same school to complete chemical engineering 2nd major, completed degree and graduated in 2010 in top 5 ChemE bachelor program.

3. Top grades in BME coursework, average grades in ChemE, overall tech GPA 3.59

4. 2 summer REU's at a lab in Cornell, work focused on microfabrication, similar to current job (1 strong LOR)

5. Some bio lab work for a professor at home university (1 above average - strong (?) LOR for professor in BME program, did very well in his traditionally difficult class also)

6. Also, one summer REU at NIST, and an internship at a medical device manufacturer

7. Unfortunately, no publications as undergrad

8. Currently working since mid 2010 as shift engineer with semiconductor-type fabrication technology, such as photolith, vacuum etch and depositions, SEM, etc. (Probably 1-2 strong industry LOR)

Lately I have been considering returning to graduate school for a doctorate. In my current position I feel that my skills as an engineer are underutilized, and I get few opportunities to apply engineering knowledge to solving problems. My work now is focused on keeping parts moving through various processes in a factory. I would like to have more opportunities to tackle larger problems that require more in-depth thought, and would prefer a job with fewer demands to take care of various day-to-day tasks that I do not find intellectually challenging.

I am wondering:

1. Do I have any chance of being accepted into a decent ChemE or BME graduate program, after being out of school for a few years? By the time I would be potentially entering grad school (Fall 2013), I would have been out 3 years.

2. Are there any particular programs that I would have a better chance of acceptance into, or is there anything I can do to bolster my chances?

3. Am I considering grad school for the right reasons? Would I be better off just sticking with my job in industry, even if I don't find it super-fascinating, possibly just get a masters, and gradually climb to hopefully more interesting challenges? What is the right reason to earn a PhD?

4. I would like to move back towards more biology-related work, and am also fascinated with BioMEMS. Is this a good field to get into?

Thanks everyone, any advice is greatly appreciated!

[ghanada]

Hi asterisk, I don't know if there is a "right" answer for your situation, but I will give you my opinion. For me, I have an undergrad degree in neuroscience, M.S. in EE, and will be starting a BME PhD this fall at University of Michigan so I am in a similar field as you.

Regarding a PhD or not, to me, the rule of thumb is don't do it unless you need it. So I think you really need to sort out exactly what type of job you want and whether that is something you can achieve with your current skills and background or if a PhD is NECESSARY in order to do that. Keep in mind that you just happened to choose 1 particular job for 1 company in 1 specific field of engineering. There are thousands of other jobs with completely different daily duties that you could have gone for, so try and not let your current job completely shape how you see the entire BME or ChemE field. Try and explore other branches and learn more about other jobs that are out there.

With that, I think the #1 differentiating factor with a PhD vs Masters vs BS is research. The PhD is completely founded on the basis of research. You should figure out if research is what you want to do or not. It sounds like you did a few research jobs in undergrad so it seems like you should know whether that is path you want to explore or not. Doing a PhD will require at least 4-5 years of intense 80+ hours per week of research. This includes (but not limited to) reading papers, lots of meetings, countless experiments, meticulous data analysis, tedious powerpoints, non-stop grant writing, traveling to conferences, and massive investment into 1 specific topic of interest to write a extremely comprehensive thesis on. As I have witnessed and been told by many PhD students, if you don't have a crazy passion for research and the that 1 thing you are studying, you will hate grad life and doing the PhD. This is why like half the grad students never finish the degree.

Now, getting a PhD doesn't mean you will be limited to research when you graduate, but that tends to be the most common path for people. For instance, I am 50/50 torn on whether I will stay in academia or goto industry. If I stay in academia I would want to be tenure-track professor, have my own research lab, maybe have a start-up side company on the side, and maybe do some consulting on the side. If I goto industry, I would probably want to be a research director for a start-up or biotech company and basically lead the R&D department. So either way, I know that a PhD is necessary for both of these paths so in my case I consider it necessary. In fact, the work I want to do (neuroengineering) is so new and immature that it is really hard to get into without an advanced degree and almost all industry development is in the start-up sector.

It sounds like you aren't particularly interested in academia. So if you want to do industry, try and find jobs that interest you and reach out to people with those jobs. They will tell you whether an advanced degree is necessary or not. Say you are interested in product development, most industry people I have talked to said a PhD isn't necessary at all and a BS is fine, but a MS would be preferred. I am not super familiar with all fields of industry and all types of positions, but it seems to me that if you goto industry (besides a start-up) than having a PhD wouldn't be necessary unless you are leading research teams.

ok, if you do decide a PhD is right for you, here are my answers to your questions:

1. Being out of school will only HELP your application. Most advanced degrees give favor to older applicants, especially if you work in the field during your time off because it shows you know what you want to do and are committed to the program. I am 29 for reference.

2. Your tech GPA is decent, but you didn't mention your overall GPA which is also important. From my own experiences and from other applicants I have talked to, having above a 3.5 GPA is a good starting point and won't exclude you from any programs, but the best programs tend to accept applicants with around 3.8+. However, your work experience and undergrad research will surely help you out because PhD admissions favors research experience a lot. Study hard for the GRE, try and keep your Q score above 780 and your V above 550. For LOR, I would advise you to use your 2 research letters from professors and 1 industry letter. I would approach your writers no later than late summer/beginning of fall about this and make sure they can write you a STRONG letter of rec. In your SOP, be sure to highlight your research skills and experiences. Also, try and show your job skills are relatable to research skills and how that experience has lead you wanting to do the PhD. Be specific in the types of projects you would want to work with and name a handful of professors that you are interested in and how you would fit into their labs. Also, start contacting potential advisers at all the schools you want to apply to at the end of summer/early fall and tell them about your interest in their labs, your background, and whether or not they are accepting students and would be interested in you. Try to make these e-mails concise but yet specific to each lab or else the professors will know you are just mass e-mailing people and will be less likely to respond. If there is a person you fit really well with and you can make a strong connection with that professor, maintain contact through the application process and that professor should be able to get you admission if they have funding. That is how I got 2 of my acceptances.

3. (answered this already)

4. I don't know a whole lot about BioMEMS, but I know almost every top BME program that I applied to had professors doing work in that field. You might also want to browse professor profiles in the EE dept because I know BioMEMS people tend to be in either BME or EE. In fact, if you are interested in the technical side of BioMEMS at all, I would actually recommend you consider applying for EE PhDs as well. Especially for industry, EE is a more favored degree and will open up more doors. Since you already have a BME/ChemE background, if you were to get an EE PhD you would basically be well qualified or any type of biotech job in industry. This is the reason I specifically did my M.S. in EE even though I knew I would do my PhD in BME.

ok, hope that helps, feel free to message me if you have any questions about the things I said or anything else. I have spent a lot of time in grad school, research, getting advice from a wide variety of sources, and doing lots of apps (I applied to 18 schools, and this is my second round doing apps).

[AbaNader]

I didn't read ghanda's reply but it deserves a thumbs up for length, if nothing else. :-)

[codejunkie]

I didn't read ghanda's reply but it deserves a thumbs up for length, if nothing else. :-)

Easily a 6.

[AbaNader]

Easily a 6.

What?

[GradHooting]

What?

GRE reference

[AbaNader]

GRE reference

Oooh, :-)

[victor.s.andrei]

1. Do I have any chance of being accepted into a decent ChemE or BME graduate program, after being out of school for a few years? By the time I would be potentially entering grad school (Fall 2013), I would have been out 3 years.

Yes. Three years is perfectly fine. Just know that it will be a bit of an adjustment if you go full time.

As for schools, you did REUs at Cornell. I hope you impressed someone there, because you probably have a good chance of getting in there. Same thing for your alma mater. That said, your credentials are pretty impressive, so you should be just fine at most places.

3. Am I considering grad school for the right reasons? Would I be better off just sticking with my job in industry, even if I don't find it super-fascinating, possibly just get a masters, and gradually climb to hopefully more interesting challenges? What is the right reason to earn a PhD?

The only reason to get a PhD is if you want to become a professor. Get the master's otherwise. If you want to do research or tackle cutting edge problems, take lots of seminars, go to conferences, and write a thesis.

Bonus points if you get your employer to pay for your degree while continuing to work, though this may limit your choices of schools.