Ask HN: Would graduate school make you more employable or less?
I'm coming up on the time in my college career where it's either time to start looking at grad schools to apply to or looking around for jobs. What are your thoughts on the two options?
Ultimately it really depends on what you're looking to do. do you have enough of a preexisting corpus of projects / experience in the what ever you want to do such that you'll have no difficulty securing work in your area of interest? Would graduate course work and or research either be an intrinsically valuable experience for you with respect to your interests or not?
Tldr: only do a graduate degree if you will enjoy the relatively focused work jointly with how it'll impact your career choices.
That said, we don't know what kind of career or kind of degree you've been preparing for. Going for an M.A. in oh, say, History, probably you should seek the job only because you will not see much of a return on the degree. If it's an M.S./Ph.D in a STEM discipline, you open some doors and you shut a couple (I know of a few instances where a Ph.D. will not get you hired but a B.S./M.S. will).
Might as well apply for both until you figure things out. You may get a sweet deal with only one, and you're no worse off if you have options with both.
The two years for an MS is also typically considered to have a great payoff ratio in terms of both personal and career development, although that's no guarantee that it's 100% always the best use of the time and resources.
That is debatable IMHO. I do not undermine the value of a graduate degree btw. But the pay off part is something I am not always convinced of.