Is a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering Better Than a Bachelor’s?

While a bach­e­lor’s in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing can lead to some very sat­is­fy­ing and high-pay­ing jobs, earn­ing an advanced degree is always worth the effort as it can result in an increased salary and help you gain access to jobs that you would­n’t get with a bach­e­lor’s degree in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing. How­ev­er, you need to weigh the cost of the degree against your increased earn­ing poten­tial before return­ing to school, and eval­u­ate why you want to get a mas­ter’s degree in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing. Do you even­tu­al­ly want to earn a Ph.D. to work in acad­e­mia, or are you look­ing to gain knowl­edge in a spe­cial­ized area of mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing? Or are you seek­ing to improve your earn­ing pow­er? These are con­sid­er­a­tions that can help make get­ting a mas­ter’s degree in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing worth it.

Is a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering Worth it?

One thing to con­sid­er when com­par­ing mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing bach­e­lor’s vs mas­ter’s degrees is the fact that engi­neer­ing is a field that puts a high val­ue on expe­ri­ence. Going direct­ly from an under­grad­u­ate degree pro­gram in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing to a mas­ter’s degree pro­gram may not imme­di­ate­ly work in your favor. It’s worth get­ting a job in the mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing field for a year or two, then tak­ing an online degree pro­gram for a mas­ter’s in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing to keep build­ing your expe­ri­ence and earn an advanced degree.

You may run into peo­ple with a bach­e­lor’s of mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing that has the opin­ion that get­ting a mas­ter’s degree isn’t worth it, and that expe­ri­ence is all you need to get ahead. There is some truth to this opin­ion, as there are employ­ers who pri­or­i­tize expe­ri­ence over edu­ca­tion. But there are also employ­ers who rec­og­nize the fact that a mas­ter’s degree shows you’ve made the effort to become more than pro­fi­cient in a par­tic­u­lar engi­neer­ing dis­ci­pline. Ulti­mate­ly, get­ting a mas­ter’s degree in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing, along with gain­ing prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence, helps you get bet­ter jobs and high­er com­pen­sa­tion soon­er than you would get with a bach­e­lor’s in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing and experience.

What Can You do With a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering Degree?

The most sim­ple way to explain mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing is that it’s the design­ing or improve­ment of a phys­i­cal object that helps peo­ple in their every­day lives. A mechan­i­cal engi­neer can find work in the auto­mo­tive indus­try where they find ways to improve exist­ing inter­nal com­bus­tion engine tech­nol­o­gy or cre­ate elec­tric vehi­cles from the ground up. Anoth­er area where mechan­i­cal engi­neers find employ­ment is design­ing and build­ing machin­ery and equip­ment for pro­duc­tion lines that are need­ed to make parts of a prod­uct, get a prod­uct into its pack­age, and enclose the pack­age so it can be sort­ed for ship­ping. Just about every­thing that peo­ple use on a dai­ly basis was designed and made through mechan­i­cal engineering.

Some of the jobs for a mechan­i­cal engi­neer include:

• Kine­mat­ics
• Mate­r­i­al science
• Flu­id mechanics
• Man­u­fac­tur­ing
• Machine design
• Robot­ics design
• Auto­mo­tive engineering
• HVAC engi­neer

As pre­vi­ous­ly not­ed, the field of mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing is a vast one, and it’s impor­tant to gain work expe­ri­ence after earn­ing a bach­e­lor’s degree. Once you’ve fig­ured out where you shine best in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing, you can return to school and earn your mas­ter’s in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing in your pre­ferred dis­ci­pline. You gain more sat­is­fac­tion out of your career when you work in an area of mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing that you enjoy, and also improve your earn­ings poten­tial because your focus helps you become great at what you do.

How Much Can I Make With a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering?

Accord­ing to the Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics, the medi­an pay for a mechan­i­cal engi­neer with a bach­e­lor’s degree was $90,160 per year in 2020. When com­par­ing a mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing salary of bach­e­lors vs mas­ters, it’s obvi­ous that the aver­age com­pen­sa­tion for hav­ing a bach­e­lor’s degree in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing is on the high side. Some­one who is just start­ing their career in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing is going to earn less than some­one who has expe­ri­ence in their role, but even then, the low­est start­ing salary is around $50,000 per year and ris­es quick­ly from there as expe­ri­ence is gained.

Job growth for the field of mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing is expect­ed to rise 7% from 2020 to 2030, which is the same as the aver­age pro­ject­ed growth for all indus­tries. A major­i­ty of the open­ings are expect­ed to come from the need to replace retir­ing work­ers as opposed to indus­try growth.

The role of a mechan­i­cal engi­neer is one that soci­ety and indus­try will always need to help make dai­ly life bet­ter. There will always be employ­ment for some­one who has a bach­e­lor’s or mas­ter’s in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing, regard­less of pre­dict­ed job out­looks for the field.

Relat­ed Rankings:

25 Best Bach­e­lor’s in Mechan­i­cal Engineering

5 Best Online Bach­e­lor’s in Mechan­i­cal Engineering

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Mechan­i­cal Engineering

What Can I Do with a Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing Degree?