[rp1]

I find a lot of masters students who didn't study computer science as an undergrad are woefully unprepared for the realities of the job. A lot of masters programs (even from top-tier schools like UPenn) seem to split students into groups frequently. If everyone knows how to program already, great, but there is a lot of benefit to new programs in doing stuff like `printf("hello world")` that won't ever get covered in a masters program. Put simply, a masters program is not the place you want to learn programming basics.

When you get a masters, you need a good idea of what you want to achieve. "Breaking into the software industry" isn't concrete enough, but even with that goal, I'm sure your masters has helped get you past resume screening. If you don't have a specific, advanced topic you'd like to tackle during your masters, you're going to waste a lot of time and money.

[codingcall]

I totally agree