- #1
wukunlin
Gold Member
- 480
- 117
Greetings everyone.
A little about my situation:
I'm a 3rd year student studying in New Zealand, specialising in a 4-year undergrade program on optoelectronics, basically a mixture of computer systems engineering, electrical engineering, physics papers on optics and electronics.
On my next and final year I will be doing a project supported by a local industry which will account for 3/8 of the total grade points of my final year. Other 4th year papers will be:
1 electrical engineering paper on communication systems (analog and digital modulations, waveform coding, data compression, information theory etc)
2 physics papers on lasers and optoelectronics
1 management paper
and then I have to choose one of the 3 following papers: quantum physics, electromagnetism, digital communications
my instincts tell me I will find quantum physics more enjoyable
After my 4th year, if the weighted average of my 3rd and 4th year grades are higher than B- I will be awarded with an Honour's degree
I am thinking about going to US for my master's degree and then getting a job in the semiconductor or computer hardware industry. I have a few questions, and possibly some misconceptions I need to clear up:
1) I read that in US, there are two types of master's degree, research and professional, at this stage academic research really doesn't look appealing to me, does that mean a professional master's degree will be what I should be looking at?
2) My parents say it will be difficult to find scholarship or other types of funding if I'm not planning on doing PhD as well as Masters, is this true in my case?
3) On the subject of PhD's, in terms of probability of finding a job in the industry, will having a master's degree be sufficient? or will it be a good idea to have a phd degree after all?
4) My parents also tell me it is easer to switch from an academic career to an industrial career, but not the other way round, so the safest bet is to start with an academic career. But in my university a lot of my lecturers (especially in engineering courses) talk about their experiences in companies.
5) Is there a lot of applications of optoelectronics/photonics in the semiconductor industry? I think I read somewhere that photonics are used in some wafer manufacturing process.
6) Silicon Valley looks life a nice place to have a job in, but I would like to know some first hand knowledge of people working in companies in the silicon valley (I do realize this is probably a pointless question, work environment vary a lot from company to company)
7) I read some other PF threads, it looked like an academic career primarily involve locking oneself inside their offices working to see their discovering published, look at the post graduate students i know of it does seem to be that way. While there is nothing wrong with working all day on subjects we have special interests in, my ideal job would have lots of team work and a healthy social network.
I apologize for this giant wall of text, I thought I should probably ask when I have a clue on the project I will be doing next year, but I just felt like I need to get these questions off my head.
Any input will be appreciated :)
A little about my situation:
I'm a 3rd year student studying in New Zealand, specialising in a 4-year undergrade program on optoelectronics, basically a mixture of computer systems engineering, electrical engineering, physics papers on optics and electronics.
On my next and final year I will be doing a project supported by a local industry which will account for 3/8 of the total grade points of my final year. Other 4th year papers will be:
1 electrical engineering paper on communication systems (analog and digital modulations, waveform coding, data compression, information theory etc)
2 physics papers on lasers and optoelectronics
1 management paper
and then I have to choose one of the 3 following papers: quantum physics, electromagnetism, digital communications
my instincts tell me I will find quantum physics more enjoyable
After my 4th year, if the weighted average of my 3rd and 4th year grades are higher than B- I will be awarded with an Honour's degree
I am thinking about going to US for my master's degree and then getting a job in the semiconductor or computer hardware industry. I have a few questions, and possibly some misconceptions I need to clear up:
1) I read that in US, there are two types of master's degree, research and professional, at this stage academic research really doesn't look appealing to me, does that mean a professional master's degree will be what I should be looking at?
2) My parents say it will be difficult to find scholarship or other types of funding if I'm not planning on doing PhD as well as Masters, is this true in my case?
3) On the subject of PhD's, in terms of probability of finding a job in the industry, will having a master's degree be sufficient? or will it be a good idea to have a phd degree after all?
4) My parents also tell me it is easer to switch from an academic career to an industrial career, but not the other way round, so the safest bet is to start with an academic career. But in my university a lot of my lecturers (especially in engineering courses) talk about their experiences in companies.
5) Is there a lot of applications of optoelectronics/photonics in the semiconductor industry? I think I read somewhere that photonics are used in some wafer manufacturing process.
6) Silicon Valley looks life a nice place to have a job in, but I would like to know some first hand knowledge of people working in companies in the silicon valley (I do realize this is probably a pointless question, work environment vary a lot from company to company)
7) I read some other PF threads, it looked like an academic career primarily involve locking oneself inside their offices working to see their discovering published, look at the post graduate students i know of it does seem to be that way. While there is nothing wrong with working all day on subjects we have special interests in, my ideal job would have lots of team work and a healthy social network.
I apologize for this giant wall of text, I thought I should probably ask when I have a clue on the project I will be doing next year, but I just felt like I need to get these questions off my head.
Any input will be appreciated :)