As one good turn deserves another, I'd like to second what Yanika posted, and go a bit further: I have seen in some postings what I believe to be a fundamental misconception of an MS vs. a PhD, statements along the lines of, "Well, if I spent 2 years on my MS, and have 5 years job experience, then I have the same qualifications and skills as someone who spent 5 years on a PhD and has 2 years job experience, right?" Maybe, maybe not. A PhD is not simply "several more years of doing the same thing as an MS degree." I do sincerely believe that someone with an MS and 5 years experience (using the above example) could indeed be more productive and valuable to an employer than the PhD employee. However, the employer may be looking for someone who has substantial experience doing independent research, from being able to identify a scientific problem, define the boundaries of the problem, establish a research course of action to address answering the problem, conduct the research, recognize when dead ends or wild goose chases are creeping into the research, interpret the results and identify possible sources of error or bias, discuss with peers, and publish the information, results, and conclusions in a scientific paper, all skills that should be learned as part of the PhD degree process (whether they *are* actually learned is another story). While some MS employees may have learned these skills at some point, the chances are greater that a PhD will have them.
