This question came in:
This is xxx, a first year graduate student in Materials Sci & Engineering, MIT. I am very glad to hear your talk, and have dinner with you today. You talk is extremely encouraging. I have a few confusions during my MIT study, and hope to hear advices from you.
From Peking Univ. to MIT, from undergraduate to graduate, the life is very different. When I was an undergraduate student, I could take a lot of courses, but now, as a graduate student, my main task is to do research. Courses and research, which one do you think is more important when you went to the industry? And do you think Ph. D. is much more helpful compared with Master degree, if one wants to go to industry after graduation?
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The short answer is that of course Ph.D. is more helpful in industry, especially in Material Science if you want to do advanced technical work. And it is essential if you want to go into Academia. On the other hand if you are more interested in practical work or work in product design, then a Master should be sufficient. However, there will be compensation/pay differences.
I think perhaps your question is more than just Ph.D. vs. Master. You may want to think about what is your true interest -- it is research or more practical applications.
Thank you very much, Dr. Chen! I really agree with you on the point that finding out what we really want and what our interests are important. What I worries all the time is that I find that I don't have enough interest in research but I don't know what I am interested in. Do you have some suggestion about how to find out personal interest and reestablish confidence if I find that I can't do well in research and gradually I lose my interest in research?
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