People seek careers in science or engineering for many reasons. Some have specific goals: they wish to cure diseases or combat hunger or reduce pollution; or they dream of developing the next laser, transistor, or vehicle for space travel; or they imagine building companies that capitalize on new engineering capabilities. Some choose careers in science or engineering because they are curious about the natural world. Others are motivated by the excitement and beauty of the intellectual world and hope to formulate theories that will lead to new ways of thinking about the world. Still others imagine educating people about science or engineering in schools or through the media; they want to provide counsel or shape public policies on issues of direct relevance to science or engineering. Each of these motivations is legitimate, each is valuable, and each flows naturally from an education in science and engineering. (Careers in Science and Engineering: A Student Planning Guide to Grad School and Beyond.)

Graduate studies can be an important part of an engineer's career building plan. For example, in the early stages of your career, a Master's degree can make you more competitive for key positions and better salaries. If you are entering the work force or contemplating a job change, find out about employer support for graduate course work and proximity to graduate schools when evaluating job offers. Within the first year or two on the job, step back and assess your interests; perhaps graduate studies could help you to move to the next level or into specific jobs.

You may still be in college. At some point in your college career, you must decide what you would like to do after graduation, whether to enter the work force or attend graduate school (You may also decide to go to graduate school after working for a few years). Consider the pros and cons of the options of full-time graduate study and full-time employment immediately after completing your undergraduate studies:

If you want to continue to apply the engineering knowledge from your undergraduate degree in the field of engineering, you can go on to specialize in a particular technical area. Graduate studies in other areas open up career options in other fields, such as law, medicine or public policy, in which your background in engineering is particularly useful. This module will focus on graduate studies in engineering, although the decision making process introduced here can be applied to other disciplines, as well as any other important decision involving a variety of factors.

Since many engineering jobs are available for engineers with graduate degrees, it is interesting to note that in 2005, 76,003 engineering students graduated with a bachelor's degree. At the same time, 41,067 students graduated with a master's degree in engineering, and only 7,276 students graduated with a doctoral degree in engineering.

In general, graduate enrollments increase in hard economic times, and decrease in "boom" times, when engineering students finishing bachelor's degrees are receiving lucrative offers. But forget about the job market for a moment, because regardless of where it's at, there are many good reasons to go, or not to go, to graduate school. This module will provide you with the information and tools to consider and use before making that important decision.

The information in this module is collected from a variety of sources, most notably, the Sloan Foundation's Cornerstone Series, NAE publication Careers in Science and Engineering: A Student Planning Guide to Grad School and Beyond and articles found on the Graduating Engineer Online.