advert said: "Titus will talk about the pros and cons of graduate school, how to choose if graduate school is a good fit for you, and tips for applying to graduate school"
see also:
https://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=GradSchoolOrHell
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Grad school is very dependent on advisor, dept; talk to current grad students beforehand!
A good exp: will train you to tackle unsolved problems, expose you to super smart and often broad array of people, gain you career/lifetime reln with advisor(s). Also, travel and community. Social interactions better at uni than in company; find partners, life friends, etc. Will make you aware of upper limit to engineering vs science (e.g. see #6 and #7 vs the other 6 points in http://ivory.idyll.org/blog/2015-ddd-and-open-science.html)
A bad experience: if none of that is happening, RUN.
Trade off: time/money, short- & medium-term happiness. Also, many faculty are really unaware of real world concerns and tradeoffs.
Note that under no circumstances should you expect to pay any money at all for the privilege of attending grad school for a PhD; this is true in both CS and STEM. MS/professional programs may not provide financial aid, tuition, TAs, etc.
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A good fit: you are interested in lots of things and like the idea of working on totally unsolved problems. A bad fit: you like working 9-5 every day, you don't obsess about problems until they're solved, you're not passionate about any of your work.
Upper limit to tech w/o science; see Moore blog post, above.
Getting in: don't pick an advisor, pick a graduate program- the odds of you ending up with a particular advisor are generally rather low, although somewhat higher in departmenst that admit directly to labs (which is IMO a mistake for the dept, but some do it). In interview be interested. Make sure your cv reflects your full bg. Say you want an academic research career; lie if nec. If you can acquire research experience (at a university or corp) as an undergrad that is a huge, huge plus.
If you can get a fellowship at any time, that is a huge bonus b/c then you will be able to avoid teaching assistantships.
Oddities:
Cs vs science - ms vs phd. A Comp Sci MS will get you better jobs; a PhD renders you fit primarily for research. A science PhD will get you better jobs; an MS renders you fit primarily for teaching.
