It’s President’s Day, and the majority of Cal Poly’s campus is empty. Jensen Lam, an aerospace engineering master’s student, is in a classroom analyzing particles to prove that 3D lasers are as effective as a class four laser system. Lam has seven days to submit a paper on his experiment for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Aviation (AIAA) student conference, which will be beneficial for his career, his academic life and his personal life.
It isn’t unusual for Lam to spend weekends and breaks in the lab; he spent the entire first week of winter break working on this project.
“Coming in and working during the holidays is not a preference of mine,” Lam said. “But it’s a short term sacrifice for the benefits I can reap from it.”
Lam is a member of Cal Poly’s aerospace engineering blended program. Blended programs are programs where students begin graduate courses as undergraduate students. These students then take an extra year at Cal Poly where they are registered as graduate students. Since traditional master’s programs are two years, joining a blended program cuts the time it takes to get a master’s degree in half.
There are 16 blended programs throughout five colleges at Cal Poly, with the Orfalea College of Business being the only college that doesn’t offer a blended program. Blended students take courses that are offered within the 42 Cal Poly graduate programs.
A higher lifetime income is one benefit of receiving a master’s degree. On average, people in the United States who have a master’s degree earn $81,848 annually and experience a 2.6% unemployment rate, according to a study from Coursera. In comparison, people in the US who have a bachelor’s degree earn $69,368 annually and experience a 3.5% unemployment rate.
People with master’s degrees have access to higher paying entry-level jobs. Lam says that in an aerospace engineering entry-level job, he could earn $70,000 annually. Once he reaches higher level management positions, he could potentially earn between $200,000 to $300,000 yearly.
A lot of jobs now require candidates to have a master’s degree.
“We’re seeing these students go off and be successful in industry, and a lot of industry jobs now require master’s,” Kelly Bodwin, who runs master’s of science, statistics program, said.
Cal Poly students participating in blended programs spend half the amount of money on their master’s than they would in a typical master’s program.
“It made a lot of sense financially and logistically doing one more year versus two,” statistics graduate student Katherine Chan said.
The tuition for a master’s degree at Cal Poly is also lower than the national average, which is $65,134. The cost of a master’s degree for an in-state blended student is between $12,924 and $13,638, and the cost for an out-of-state blended student is between $25,596 and $26,310.
Blended programs are budget neutral to their departments because the students enroll in existing graduate courses, and they are able to share lab equipment with undergraduate students in their department.
“From a budgetary standpoint, [blended programs] are a net gain for the university because they’re running enrollments that are closer to their enrollment caps, rather than having to build something new,” English Department Chair Dustin Stegner said.
As for departments that created their blended and graduate programs at the same time, such as statistics, they were able to add material to existing 400-level classes to make them 500-level classes.
“We upped [the difficulty of the classes] a little bit for them to be a 500-level class,” Bodwin said. “So there weren’t a lot of new classes added, the new class being added was mainly just advising for the thesis project.”
Since many graduate and blended students work as tutors, teaching assistants (TAs) and graders, they provide a service to the university without adding an extra expense to the budget.
“The graduate students’ help helps the campus relieve the pressure of people needing that help on campus and also give those students that experience,” Bodwin said. “So that’s kind of a zero cost, or even a negative cost.”
Aside from fostering professional connections with professors, TAs and graders earn $950 a month to help cover expenses. For students like Lam, this income helps them pay for rent and for food so that they can focus on academics and research opportunities, like AIAA.
“It’s really helpful to give your knowledge to undergraduates and also make some money on the side,” Lam said.