The master's degree has historically been viewed as either a stepping-stone to the Ph.D. or a consolation prize for students who drop out of doctorate programs. That perception is not quite accurate for engineering. Given the shortage of research jobs for Ph.D. scientists and engineers, and changes occurring in the universities, with substantial increases in the numbers of adjunct professors, the master's degree is increasingly seen as a practical and respectable degree. There is a growing recognition that a master's degree offers access to a breadth of exciting and lucrative careers in an economy that rests increasingly on technology. A master's degree also opens up opportunities: an employer will assume that an engineer with a graduate degree can be an independent worker, and may give him or her higher-level responsibilities.

The movement toward a professionally-oriented master's degree began in the late 1980s, and master's level education is now the fastest growing sector of higher education. Comparable to an MBA or a law degree, but with a technical component, master's degrees can prepare you for a career outside of academia: for example, managing industrial research projects, dealing with intellectual property rights, or working as a liaison between a company's R&D and business operations. The master of arts (M.A.) or master of science (M.S.) can be an entry point for new and better job opportunities in business, industry, government, and education, as well as in engineering. In education, for instance, it can open doors to teaching, administration and staff positions in elementary and secondary schools, community colleges and other institutions of higher learning.

Master's programs fall into three categories, each of which opens up various career options for you:

	Those that deepen your engineering knowledge beyond what can be learned in a four-year course of study, but stay within the same discipline.
	Those that fuse your engineering knowledge with other technical fields at a level of depth and complexity hard to achieve in an undergraduate curriculum; in many cases, the fusion may be with computer or information sciences.
	Those that build on your study in engineering with knowledge and training in management, law, or other professional domains.

A course of study at the master's level can be in an emerging or interdisciplinary field, such as biotechnology, or it may apply scientific training to some non-technical application, such as financial mathematics. Multidisciplinary M.S. degree programs prepare you for work in fields such as consulting, banking, insurance, research management and technology transfer.

Consider a master's degree if you:

	Want a technical career in an industry not normally seen as technology-based, such as finance or film
	Are a senior or recent graduate who wants to go into management rather than research and teaching
	Graduated one to five years ago and are looking for career advancement
	Are a mid-career professional who would like to cross over to a new technical field
	Are ambitious, but desire greater flexibility or more rapid entry into the workforce than the Ph.D. offers

A new breed of master's programs is emerging: the professional science master's. There are about 50 professional science master's (PSM) degree programs in science and mathematics in the U.S., according to Sheila Tobias, an adviser to the Alfred R Sloan Foundation, which is funding the startup of such programs at five universities. These programs consist of two years of training in an emerging or interdisciplinary area. Many include internships and "cross-training" in business and communications. Additional information about the programs supported by the Sloan Foundation can be found at www.sciencemasters.com.