Why do students from India go for Masters courses like MS in IS, IN, MIS and SE, in the US?

My post will be more inclined to IS (Information Security) and MIS (Management of Information Systems) perpective. I would like to understand why exactly do so many students go in for these programs ?- The reason is very simple. 1.   Both the domain have high projected job growth and median salary. http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/cyber-security.asp http://study.com/articles/Salary_and_Job_Information_for_MIS_Majors.html 2.   People with an interest in Ethical Hacking will not be able to find a decent Masters in India. (Except a few institutes like IIIT Hyderabad,Delhi and a few more.) 3.   MIS is more business oriented. How do you expect an MBA grad with no knowledge of IT to lead a project team in an IT firm? 4.   MIS also helps you to go up the corporate ladder. If you are working in an IT firm for 2+ years, you will understand what I mean. Since I am considering higher technical post-graduate education in the US, I am not able to determine exactly the value add of a course which is neither completely technical, nor can be considered an MBA-equivalent. - It actually depends on the industry requirement and your goal. It is of no use studying Finance and HR courses in MBA when your target is to be a Product Manager, Project Manager or CIO/CTO.          Hence first decide what you love to do, based on that, take your decision,  Is it             a) Excessive curiosity, clear technical know-how and a knack to find faults in programs -- Information Security is good for You            b) Managing projects, interacting with people, understanding human behaviour, leading a team -- MIS is good for you Should I also apply to a few such courses/universities as well ? What does the career profile of such (IS/IN/MIS/SE) students look like after 5, 10, 20 years and do they go for further higher education afterwards too ? - Already answered WARNING: PERSONAL SUGGESTION- MS in MIS is of not for you if you are planning to enhance your career as an engineer in the systems software domain.         You may need information security knowledge for systems software domain(as hardware security is a new trend in Intel now), but the MS in IS is not for you as it is totally different. What are their typical job roles in the industry after graduation. -Partially Answered. For more reference, please check this links http://study.com/articles/Salary_and_Job_Information_for_MIS_Majors.html   (Already posted above... but it covers this question as well) http://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/off-topic/the-top-10-highest-paying-jobs-in-information-security-part-1/ How exactly do they compete/size-up for jobs with the non-thesis grad students in CS or ECE departments? IS and MIS compared to CS or ECE are of different breed. You cannot compare a shark with an eel just because both are fish. In Information Security domain, jobs are growing day by day as one security breach may cost a company in millions, along with bad reputation. All countries are now gearing up for Cyber-warfare and hence demand in this field is huge. But skilled workforce is not inadequate. Plain CS grads are not preferred for this. http://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/latest-security-news/u-s-federal-cyber-security-workforce-is-inadequate-says-report/ I would suggest you check the course curriculum. Higher education abroad is expensive abroad, and is it worth investing in a non-traditional interdisciplinary course. - There is no guarantee even in investing traditional interdisciplinary course. BEST OF LUCK for your future endeavours.  :D

A2A. You are asking a question without stating your goals, and frankly, it does not matter what programs are in the abstract if they do not help you to meet your goals.Based on your preference of "Systems Software and Computer Architecture," you are talking about a Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or Software Engineering programs that are offered as either specializations in a given department or a separate department. Usually Systems is an Computer Science specialization, and Computer Architecture is CPE or EE specialization. Some universities like MIT and Berkeley have EECS departments that offers both specializations, and some universities like Stanford have separate CS and EE Departments. Which department you would apply depends how the university is organized. You are training to be a Software and/or Hardware Engineering.IS (Information Security), IN (Information Networking), MIS (Management of Information Systems) are technical administrative degrees that manage software not develop it. The MS emphasis is more technical where the MBA is managerial.  To see exactly where the different between these degrees and an engineering degree such as MSCS, you would need to look at specific programs.Why US? I believe it is access to the US job market is why Indian students choose to study in the US. Of the top 100 CS Departments, 36 are in the US, see http://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/computer-science.

While in India the PG choice is CSE or MCA (except for the lucky few who secure ranks for the national institutes). Generally, the selection abroad (at almost any university) is much more diverse. Traditional CS in foreign universities is more theoretically oriented, while these other courses are more practically/application oriented. Some students may prefer the practical style of learning. If it is "worth it," is up to yourself, your interest and skills, whether you will be able to land a job afterwards.

Yeah, ask me. In University of Edinburgh, and won't be able to pass. Why? Because, I made a mistake in choosing wrong subjects. I selected machine learning courses, but forgot that I have been trained in software engineering, not in machine learning.We Indians tend to go by society perceptions more instead of our own strength. This is the reason. No subjects are bad, it is just that if we have done something for many years, they seem to be easy. May be, if all of us had soviet union style of education, then, for us, machine learning etc would not have been tough.We are paid to do a job, not to learn a job.

Thanks for A2A!I’ll try to answer most of the concerns you have mentioned above in your question,1.Why many students go for MS in IS/IN/MIS/SE ?I don’t have any stats but then I kind of feel a lot of people go for CS equally. In fact, I see many people taking up CS because they think MIS/SE/IN/IS are meant for people with poor profiles.2. What value add does these Techno Management courses have?IS/IN/MIS/SE are not always techno management. The curriculum varies from university to university depending on the department that offers these courses. For example, TAMU has a management oriented MIS while UCinn had a technical MIS program. Besides, as far as I know, Information Security/Information Networking don’t fall in the techno management category. All these courses in my opinion are professional courses more suited for people with relevant experience around 2–4 years to progress ahead in their career.3. What are the job prospects for these courses? How do they stack up with CS?I don’t know about IS/IN but at least with respect to MIS, people get into analytics, consulting, project management, software development etc. SE should get you a technical role again.If your ultimate goal is software development, CS grads will obviously be given a higher preference and these MIS/SE/IS/IN grads have to compete with CS grads in getting a developer role.In my case, I wanna explore consulting roles and hence MIS would give me a shot at that. Besides, I know people with pretty good profiles taking up these unconventional courses. Think what your absolute destination would be and make a reasonable decision.Hope this helps! All the very best!