Quote:
Originally Posted by TheBear  Most lecturers would have completed a Masters and PhD by the time they take up a long-term teaching position; many engineers in industry would not have put this amount of investment into their education. |
Not necessarily true.
But of course you are therefore saying that experience is not worth the same amount as the extra study. Doing a MSc or PhD is unlikely to find you a better initial job in engineering (indeed a PhD can severly lessen your horizon; fast track to R&D). There is nothing like industrial experience to learn what it is to be an engineer. It is a common proble that engineering graduates are a bit too green when they enter nad it is generally due to too many books and not enough sense.
Its only advantage is for promotion but you still have to be a good engineer for that. Most of the sucessful engineers I know (ended up in management) did MA rather than extra on top of BEng.
I have a MSc in engineer and I can honestly say I do not know what the fuss is about. I have learned more on the job in 6 months than I learned in my MSc. I have seen a lot of crap in MSc and PhD reports and I can say that all those letters do not make you a better engineer or lecturer.