Make your master's degree count!

In the modern world today, master’s degrees are starting to become quite common. I am a firm believer that everyone will eventually have to earn a master’s degree, or similar postgraduate training. However, plenty of people still perceive a master’s degree as just a title and only a means to get promoted.

Successful graduate students will all walk out of the program with the same diploma and title but different people will go through the training differently. A good graduate student will earn the degree. A better student will earn the degree and become an expert in his or her specialization. An even better student, in my opinion, will not just want to earn the degree and become an expert on a specific topic, but also focus on acquiring different skills and techniques that will enhance his or her analytical and decision-making capabilities. By doing this, he or she will not only be prepared to be able to solve problems in a specific discipline in the future; he or she will be better prepared to handle future challenges in general.

That was the attitude I had when I did my graduate studies. Especially since I took the BS-straight-to-MS program (I earned my MS degree in 56 weeks!), I had a feeling that some people would question my qualifications, in spite of the MS degree. Will my fast-track MS degree be regarded as at par with the regular MS degrees?

To make sure that my MS degree would count, I made sure that I would get something out of it, other than just the title and a thesis. I needed something I can bring with me when I enter the industry or when I pursue a research career on a new field. When I took a course on Energy Systems Modeling, I made sure that I was able to get the gist of modeling and be able to apply it to other phenomena and systems other than energy. In one course, I got to do a little bit of optimization. I took this opportunity to understand optimization well, and, again, made sure that I will be able to apply it to other cases. Finally, when I did my thesis, I learned about design of experiments (DOE), statistical analysis of data, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. In a nutshell, I can say that I gave as much effort on acquiring new skills and tools as with earning new knowledge.

Now, I have a full-time R&D job and my main task is to develop manufacturing equipment for a renewable energy technology. My MS thesis was on microalgal biofuels — miles away from my current research area. However, the adjustment was not difficult for me since my degree was in mechanical engineering and as I mentioned before, I brought plenty of skills and tools with me.

According to one American technology company R&D director, some R&D companies had just recently changed their hiring strategies. Companies usually are very particular about an applicant’s area of expertise. During the application process, the companies let applicants undergo a series of interviews and exams to measure if they fit the job they are applying for. However, based on experience, after completing the specific project they hired the expert for, they have difficulty assigning the expert to a different project especially if it is outside of his or her expertise already. Now, rather than hiring people who are guaranteed to be experts in particular fields, they hire talents — people whom they can train and who can work on diverse research projects. Put simply, what I understand is that I got hired not for what I know, but for what I can do and will still be able to do in the future.

I reiterate that, eventually, anyone seeking a competitive career edge will have to earn a master’s degree. Today, competition in industry is getting fiercer and fiercer. For people who are looking for high-level, high-impact careers, I believe that earning a master’s degree is a must. When you do, I suggest that you focus on earning skills and tools as much as on gaining specialized knowledge. These skills and tools will provide you flexibility, and that is certainly an advantage nowadays. Make sure that your master’s degree will count.

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Neil Stephen A. Lopez received both of his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from De La Salle University, becoming the first graduate of the BS/MS honor’s program in mechanical engineering. He graduated magna cum laude and received the gold medal for outstanding master’s thesis. His research interests include energy systems modeling, and sustainable power generation. His master’s thesis was on the optimization of downstream processing of microalgae biomass for biofuel production. In 2009, he did a one-year internship as a research assistant at Florida State University’s Institute for Energy Systems, Economic and Sustainability. He is also the recipient of multiple awards from the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). He was part of BPI’s first batch of Outstanding Expat Pinoy Children Awardees, and was a DOST-ERDT scholar and an awardee of the BPI-DOST Science Awards for 2012. He may be contacted via e-mail ([email protected]. ).