I've just graduated from my foundation degree and am about to start the third year to gain a full bachelors and I'm doing a bit of future planning.

 

The same place that I'm doing my degree offers a masters in Web and Cloud Computing, and I'm wondering if it's worth doing?

 

It's £6,000 and I don't want to waste it if it's not going to benefit my career.

 

At the moment I'm a pretty successful freelancer, but plan to work as a php developer after I finish the third year.

 

Anyone done a masters? Do you think it's worth it?

 

Cheers

A degree always looks good on paper.. and is attractive to some employees in reputed firms

 

According to me you should go with the degree provided .. you learn something and utilize your knowledge whether u continue freelancing or get a job

 

A degree is never a waste

My degree was a waste of sorts. although I will agree I did learn some useful things but my time could have been used more productively and saved me a big debt in the process.

 

As far as topics related to web design I'd look very closely at what the course entails, nearly all web based degrees do not cover the more recent web technologies - ones that are used widely in the industry and are required for a job. So if you did do the masters expect to have to do a load of extra learning on top to have a decent chance of employment afterwards.

 

I've mentioned on previous posts that we often get interns where I work (final year students) and every single one of them says they learn more in the month or so at our agency than they did in the previous years at uni and there amazed at how out of date their course is,

 

I'd recommend a degree / masters for say computer science as a lot of those principles will not change as most of it is low level computing. For web based degrees though I would have to say industry experience is a far better use of your time. & I am yet to see a university that offers better more upto date material than say CodeSchool for example - and that also costs a fraction of the price.

Edited July 26, 201412 yr by rbrtsmith

My degree was a waste of time in that most if not all the technologies we used/learned about were outdated by time we got around to graduating. I spent the majority of my 3rd & 4th year producing Flash based work which looking back on now was completely pointless but this was in a time before iPhones and a proper mobile web and admittedly things have changed.

 

If I had the chance to go back and either go through 4 years of university or have 4 years of design agency/work experience instead… I know which would have been of more benefit - and it wouldn't be the degree.

I got through the first year of an MSc in Computer Science before I got a job as a graduate trainee. It was helpful for me because my degree was in a non-IT subject.

 

If your undergraduate degree is is related to web development and you've already been freelancing for a while I'm not sure what the benefit of a masters would be, unless you want to teach or do academic research.

that is a great idea

Edited July 31, 201412 yr by Leejhone