Communications of the ACM
A Degree Where Techie Meets Business Smarts
Science and technology graduates increasingly are pursuing a hybrid professional science master's degree to broaden their career opportunities.
Credit: Matt Roth/The New York Times
Science and technology graduates increasingly are pursuing a hybrid professional science master's degree, or science M.B.A., to broaden their career opportunities.
Enrollment in professional science master's degree programs increased 23 percent from 2010 to 2013, according to the Council of Graduate Schools, while overall graduate enrollment is growing only in the single digits. Computer and information sciences are the most popular of these degrees, followed by environmental sciences and natural resources, mathematics and statistics, and biotechnology.
"More than 90 percent of professional science master's graduates that we surveyed for 2013 were employed in a job related to their field of study," says Council of Graduate Schools president Debra W. Stewart, noting that students increasingly are pursuing degrees that prepare them for a range of career settings.
Professional science master's degree programs began in the late 1990s, with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and are now offered at almost 140 educational institutions.
At University of Maryland University College, the master's program requires students to complete a project or internship with cross-training in business. The program partners with local companies willing to host student projects, which provides students with real-world work experience and often is beneficial to startups with limited resources.
From The New York Times
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