Master degrees - are they worth it?

bakes0310

bakes0310

bakes0310

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I'm in the middle of a level 6 diploma and if I pass it this year I can sign up to do a masters degree. I personally know 1 person who has done it and he said it didn't seem worth it in his job, or at least in the company he is at. I know someone who thinks it would be great idea and says it will be great for my career.

I'm 38 and started quite late in my career at 35. I'm in a advisory role and with some pretty good qualifications (especially the one I'm in the middle of now). I can't seem to find evidence that it would be worth two years of my time. Surely the university would have ditched the course years ago if it was a waste of time.

Could anyone shed some light on this, anyone here done a masters and did it help your career?
 
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dave28 said:
If you have no plan for what you would need it for then surely not worth it
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Higher salary is the aim so I don't have to struggle each month. But if I pass my diploma I'll be qualified to get 2 positions higher than I am now, of course I'll need experience but I'll be academically qualified.

My intentions is Im hoping the masters would make me more intelligent and give me the skills to be better at my job.
 
Take a look at job ads and see if they are asking for an MSc. If they aren't, then it's unlikely to help you that much.

My view is it would be better to get into a job and gain experience. It also allows you to start earning and save money for further education if necessary down the line. If you then find out an MSc would really help you, then you can always do it later. Generally I say further education is only worth it if it's specifically required for a role, e.g. doctor, lawyer.
 
It’s a total gamble as to whether it will ‘pay off’ financially. It might help you get a foot in the door somewhere by standing out and it obviously is better having more ammo for your CV, on the other hand a recruiter might just not like the sound of your name and it’ll make no difference.

With that in mind, I’d think about whether you’d enjoy it / whether you’d grow personally from doing it. If ‘no’, it might not be worth the punt.
 
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bakes0310 said:
I'm in the middle of a level 6 diploma and if I pass it this year I can sign up to do a masters degree.
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Could anyone shed some light on this, anyone here done a masters and did it help your career?
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That's going to really depend on your own industry and potential career paths not whatever other people have done in completely different careers.

Nitefly said:
It’s a total gamble as to whether it will ‘pay off’ financially.
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^^^ It sounds like this may be the case, it could be a bit of a gamble if looking at it from purely a financial perspective. Maybe it will help with some recruiters or employers.

Do you have an undergrad degree @bakes0310 ?

It looks like you're doing some sort of 500-hour vocational course at level 6 (or 3rd year undergrad) and 500 hours roughly corresponds to 50 credits.

A full undergrad degree is 120 credits at each of levels 4, 5 and 6 so 3600 hours of total study. Whereas a master's is 180 credits/1800 study hours at level 7.

So just keep in mind that if you were to undertake a master's degree say part-time over 2 years then you're looking at nearly twice the workload each year and (in theory at least) at a higher level. Are there options to take a postgraduate certificate or a diploma - those are 60 credits or 120 credits at level 7 respectively so 1/3 or 2/3rds of a master's - maybe they're flexible and you can take one of those and later top up*.

On the other hand, if you don't have any degree, if your other qualifications were just whatever you left school/6th form college with then maybe it would be nice to get a degree regardless and perhaps having a degree may be helpful in general in that situation. Did the person who you know who did it and didn't find it useful already have a BSc or BA?

*(For example teachers get a level 7 certificate or diploma as part of their professional training (PGCE or PGDE) and can add on more credits/dissertation as required to turn it into a full master's degree)
 
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bakes0310 said:
Higher salary is the aim so I don't have to struggle each month. But if I pass my diploma I'll be qualified to get 2 positions higher than I am now, of course I'll need experience but I'll be academically qualified.

My intentions is Im hoping the masters would make me more intelligent and give me the skills to be better at my job.
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An MSc won't make you more intelligent. I completed an MSc in my mid-30s and I was IMO less intelligent during/after that than I was in my teens. It's more about demonstrating prowess and the enjoyment of learning new stuff than raising your intellect.

To answer your question, I don't think it helped me much in my career, but I'm glad I did it. I underperformed at undergraduate level and knew I was capable of a lot more so I wanted to get an MSc as much as anything so people didn't just look at my degree classification and go "meh", having a masters helps me mask that a bit.

radderfire said:
My view is it would be better to get into a job and gain experience. It also allows you to start earning and save money for further education if necessary down the line. If you then find out an MSc would really help you, then you can always do it later.
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Keep in mind the OP is 38 and already has experience / earnings; given the fact that even if they started now they'd be in their 40s when they graduate I'd argue that delaying education much further won't help much because it reduces the length of time they have left in their career to exploit the qualification. They can leverage a masters a lot more starting early 40s compared to early 50s for example.
 
If your employer is paying for you to do the NEBOSH MSc, then it's probably worth having as opposed to not having but I'm not sure it holds enough recognition/value over and above the NEBOSH Diploma to be worth spending your own money on it, I'm not convinced you'd see a return in your earnings - personally it feels like a little bit of a money making exercise for them compared to a 'normal' academic MSc.
 
Kenai said:
If your employer is paying for you to do the NEBOSH MSc, then it's probably worth having as opposed to not having but I'm not sure it holds enough recognition/value over and above the NEBOSH Diploma to be worth spending your own money on it, I'm not convinced you'd see a return in your earnings - personally it feels like a little bit of a money making exercise for them compared to a 'normal' academic MSc.
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Yeah that's my feelings on it too. The nebosh diploma is good enough to get me up to senior roles so I don't think Ill have any benefits for me I think I'm better off getting the diploma and concentrate on getting more experience and my chartership status.
I've also struggled finding jobs that require the masters aswell.
 
bakes0310 said:
Yeah that's my feelings on it too. The nebosh diploma is good enough to get me up to senior roles so I don't think Ill have any benefits for me I think I'm better off getting the diploma and concentrate on getting more experience and my chartership status.
I've also struggled finding jobs that require the masters aswell.
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I work in health and safety for a big consultancy. There are some of my colleagues that have gone down the Uni route and then masters route , and then there are some of us who have just done the diploma. We are all the same level on the same pay etc.

Health and safety isn’t rocket science and definitely doesn’t need a MSc to do it properly.

I would only consider doing it if the company your working for are paying for it, and will give you time off to study, if not I wouldn’t bother personally.

Your better off gaining chartered status and going into specialists areas of health and safety such as DSEAR or advanced fire risk assessments.

Also just to mention many people higher up than me , don’t have masters in health and safety they are people managers , they have MBAs and HR qualifications.
 
Consider looking forward, could it become a requirement in the future? I know nothing of your industry. But I know I'm seeing higher degree qualifications up to masters in my own.

Having said that I don't think I could go back and do anymore college courses. Just had enough of it.
 
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My question would be what doors does this qualification open for you? Is it likely to lead to a better paying position? That will tell you if there's any value to doing it.

I'm coming towards the end of a masters course, but I've been doing it around my full-time job so no need to reduce hours or take a sabbatical from work. It's a specialist MBA aligned to the industry and position that I'm working in. From a financial perspective the course has already paid for itself even before I've qualified as I was able to demonstrate how it will improve my performance and negotiate a higher salary. In the future it will open up mid/senior management positions as well which will be a significant pay bump. So for me it was a no-brainer.
 
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I found mine beneficial because it allowed me to mature as a learner and gave me some more time to get work experience under my belt. But it depends what field and what other opportunities you have available to you.
 
It depends on if the role you want requires it - my last two jobs had a requirement for a Masters - you wouldn't even get through the AI sift without one (I only have a Ph.D and no Masters as it happens but the higher qual supersedes the lower).
 
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drakioned said:
I have a MSc. I don’t remember anything from it.
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Surely you've kept the skills and behaviours (rigour, research ability, confidence, communication skills etc) you developed during it and utilise those in your work though?

It's like with my Ph.D - no one cares about the actual topic, it's all the 'soft skills' that go with it that are valuable to employers.
 
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