Work experience and admissions

I've gotten a lot of questions of late about the connection between work experience and graduate school admissions. Would work experience help me get into a good school?

It isn't an easy question to answer. The answer depends a whole lot on the nature of your employment, and the eventual area that you end up specializing in for your MS. For instance if you intend to go into VLSI Design or Computer Architecture and you get a job at Texas Instruments or Intel, working on real computer chips, although may be not precisely in the area that you want to do an MS in, should help you. If you manage to publish a paper or do something noteworthy, you'll have an easier time with admissions. I have a friend who worked at Sasken in DSP and applied for a US patent based on his work. This friend ended up getting into a good school with a fellowship for his PhD. So clearly if you have useful experience, that could help in a professor's research you are likely to get an RA position.

These days though such jobs are hard to come by. There are a lot of employers out there who pay a lot of money to fill in their least wanted positions. Of course as a recent graduate you don't have the ability to demand. There are tonnes of people with a Bachelor's degree and with way more experience. So just choose a job that looks interesting and offers some potential to do some innovative work. Learn from the people around you, make the most of their expertise. Sooner than later life rewards you with a good opportunity. Thomas Jefferson once said, "I am a great believer in luck and I find that the harder I work, the luckier I get."