Distance MS and Full time MS - Pros - Cons

Many of us often come across this situation while we are in B.Tech/B.E or even post B.Tech/B.E.

Shall I enroll for MS in Abroad? Shall I do distance MS?  Is it really required to do MS at all?

To answer that there are various ways one has to approach this thought.

Pros/cons of MS abroad:

1. If you do MS abroad, you get to stay in abroad post MS. You can enjoy bachelor life to the max whilst your stay in abroad . Of course you can earn a good amount of money($). You will also get a bonus title(FOREIGN RETURN) when you are ready for marriage. Many consider that as a pre-req to give their daughter/son

2. If your parents are wealthy enough to spend all 30+Laks on your MS expenses, then you are a LUCKY BOY. Trust me. Post MS, you get to earn a lot of money just for yourself :D

3. The experience you get doing MS abroad is priceless( in terms of Learning and in terms of places you get to Visit). Students who are not into the habit of coding during B.Tech/B.E days, are forced to code while they are doing MS. So, they learn enormous amount of technologies.

3. MS abroad is the easiest way to settle abroad.

4. If you have opted for Education Loan for your MS, it will come up to minimum 30+Lakhs for 2 years. So, you would end up clearing that in around 2 years post MS. If post clearing your Edu Loans you decide to come back to India, then you would effectively end up getting + or - two lakhs extra than your fellow classmates who will be working in India after their B.Tech.(Considering your classmates didn't do MS abroad). So, you might have to question yourself, was it really worth spending 30+Lakhs on MS and end up clearing the educational loan by working 2+ years in US and return back to India with actually no difference between you and your non-MS counter parts.

             If your intent of doing MS in US is not money or if you wanted to stay in US,  then point 3 is not valid for you.

Pros/Cons of doing Distance MS

1. If your intent is value add post distance MS, then you might consider not doing distance MS You have to switch to previous paragraph for details.

2. Doing distance MS is any day better than not doing MS at all. This gives you a self satisfaction that you did MS at-least. I preferred distance MS mainly because I fell under previous paragraphs point 4 bracket.

Hope this helps your thought process!


PS : This post is for CS students only.  If you are really strong in coding during B.Tech/B.E days, then you can get good job with brilliant pay.

MS - Completed (2010 - 2012)

Its been two years Since I blogged. Yes, I completed MS from BITS, Pilani in System Software stream. It was a dissertation semester. Semester involves the following steps :

1. Selecting a project
2. Submit the project's technical overview before the deadline. Once done after few weeks you will be allotted a Professor(Mentor) for your dissertation. 
3. Submit the project updates to your Professor(Mentor) before the deadline.
4. Submit the soft-copy of the completed PPT to your Professor(Mentor) and choose the location of presentation of dissertation.
5. Final demo at your selected BITS Campus.

My location was BITS, Goa. Two other friends of mine(Avinash and Abhijit) also got the same site for their dissertation. We did plan well during our Goa visit. We reached BITS Goa, a day before. We rented vehicles and visited several beaches, ate outside.

All 3 of us had presentations at different time-slots and under different Professors. It was a great experience overall. 

If your project is not at all acceptable and needs to be redone. Then, the mentor will tell you on the same day of presentation. Then, the candidate has to enroll again for the final semester and Repeat Steps 1-5. But 95 out of 100 students will clear the dissertation.


We got the results after 2 months from the day of project presentation. We obtained our MS Degree certificates after 4 months from the day of project presentation.