importance of work experience

[nic_t12]

i'm wondering about the importance of work experience vs. research experience. i left school two years ago with a MS and got a job in the industry. now i have applied for PhD cos i thought it would be better in the long run.

 

the job i'm doing is exactly what i will be doing in grad school, except it will be more research-oriented, but in the industry it is more tailored to certain products. but i use exactly the same design tools and knowledge. one of my project is almost R&D oriented and i could potentially write a journal paper out of it. as a matter of fact, most of my co-workers have PhD from the field that I'm applying to. the company i work for is a great one, i know many berkeley/stanford/UCLA PhD grads work here. will my work experience in this case benefit me in the application?

 

am very much stressed out about the application and so anxious to hear anything.

[Vincenzo]

Your work experience will be a benefit similar to that of research experience (sans publications, I'm guessing) because it so closely ties in with your PhD field. It will probably be seen as a concrete commitment to the field you want to be part of and I'm sure it will give you a leg up. Not to mention, it will help if some of the PhDs you work with are also known to folks on the admissions committees (which seems likely given that you're in the Bay Area, working with folks that graduated from schools in the area, and [i assume] are applying to those same schools).

 

That being said, yours is a special case because your work experience is so directly applicable. What I've been told (being someone who has a lot of work experience) is that in general the adcoms don't care much for prior unrelated industry work, regardless of your level of operation (unless you won some recognizable awards or the like). Such experience can help to show maturity or technical ability, blah blah, but if it's outside the applicant's proposed area of research it won't carry much weight.

[nic_t12]

Your work experience will be a benefit similar to that of research experience (sans publications, I'm guessing) because it so closely ties in with your PhD field. It will probably be seen as a concrete commitment to the field you want to be part of and I'm sure it will give you a leg up. Not to mention, it will help if some of the PhDs you work with are also known to folks on the admissions committees (which seems likely given that you're in the Bay Area, working with folks that graduated from schools in the area, and [i assume] are applying to those same schools).

 

That being said, yours is a special case because your work experience is so directly applicable. What I've been told (being someone who has a lot of work experience) is that in general the adcoms don't care much for prior unrelated industry work, regardless of your level of operation (unless you won some recognizable awards or the like). Such experience can help to show maturity or technical ability, blah blah, but if it's outside the applicant's proposed area of research it won't carry much weight.

 

thanks for the reply, it does calm me down a bit. was very worried about quiting job and going back to grad school. my MS advisor is pretty well-known in this field, was planning to work with him for PhD, but turns out he's retiring (so i have to reapply again...) i contacted some professors a while back, the most positive response i've gotten back is a professor told me "you have a reasnable chacne of admission, but final decision will depend on the applicant pool they receive this year." so i'm kinda in a panic state like everyone else, cos it will be a disaster if i dont get into any school, and lose job at the same time.