Employment Report: Master of Science Graduates

A career path is exactly that—a journey. The MS degree is another stop along the way.

Our MS students have a huge variety in their employment backgrounds, and we see this reflected in their employment report. Some are co-terms, overlapping their bachelor's and master's studies, and taking advantage of an additional summer to expand their internship exploration. Others have had 2-10 years of work experience, and are looking to move their careers to the next level and/or in a different direction. Some stay with the companies they already work for and study part time while continuing to work full or slightly reduced time, ready to move up the ranks after graduation.

Internships remain as important as they were during the undergraduate and early career years

Our MS students investigate opportunities to combine their advanced education with their existing work experience to tackle new challenges in focused areas.

Where MS grads interned

Bar chart showing most masters students interned at engineering & technology organizations, followed by financial organizations — Primary industry of organizations that MS graduates interned at, by their area of concentration in MS&E. Data includes graduates from the most recent academic year (2022-23) collected via a voluntary survey; n=38.

What MS grads did during their internships

Bar chart showing most masters students interned as financial analysts, followed by software & machine learning engineers and operations, strategy, & supply chain professionals — Internship role types of MS graduates, by their area of concentration in MS&E. Data includes graduates from the most recent academic year (2022-23) collected via a voluntary survey; n=38.

Organizations MS grads interned with

Engineering & Technology

3i Inc
Amazon
Caldera
Celo
Convex Labs
Domino Data Lab
Lazada
Lyft
Microsoft
Mobi Systems
Muon Space
Novanta
Nutanix
Raptor Maps
Salesforce
Samsung

Internship role titles for MS grads

Data Science

Data Scientist Intern

Engineer, non-software

Mechanical Engineering Intern

Engineer, software & ML

Growth Engineer
Growth Machine Learning Engineer Intern
Smart Contract Engineer
Software Development Engineer Intern
Software Engineer

Research

Quantitative Researcher Intern
Research Assistant

Moving into a full-time career

Bar chart showing 24% "yes", 55% "no", and 21% "not applicable" — Did MS graduates accept a full-time employment offer from an organization they had previously interned with? (*n/a reasons include founding own company, graduate studies, returning to an organization where they had been employed full-time previously, and still looking for work). Data from the 2022-23 academic year collected via a voluntary survey; n=29.

While internships continue to be a path to a full-time job, this is less pronounced at the master's degree level than the undergraduate level. Perhaps because master's students tend to have more variety of experience under their belt than undergraduates, many MS grads start their full-time careers with different organizations or in another industry than where they interned.

The exploration that our MS graduates have done both academically and in their internship experiences is reflected in the broad range of responses that we see in our employment data. While our a majority of alumni are in three main organization types, there is variety within those too. We recommend listening to our podcasts and reading our featured Stories and Voices for examples of the career journeys that our alumni have started and experienced. Current students and alumni can also attend our career events with quarterly informal "Career Chat" conversations.

Where MS grads go

Bar chart showing most masters students go on to work at engineering & technology organizations, followed by financial organizations, after graduation — Primary industry of the organizations MS grads joined after graduation, by their area of concentration in MS&E. Data includes graduates from the last 4 academic years (2019-20 thru 2022-23) collected via a voluntary survey; n=136.

What MS grads do

Bar chart showing most masters students hold product/program/project manager roles, followed by financial analyst and software/ML engineer roles, after graduation — Types of roles that MS grads received after graduation, by their area of concentration in MS&E. Data includes graduates from the last 4 academic years (2019-20 thru 2022-23) collected via a voluntary survey; n=136.