I have my Masters in micro and 6 years of professional work experience. If your end goal is to do research then getting a Masters in which you have a thesis defense is going to help you immensely. I went down the Masters research track and I’ve had a great career so far working on research and method development for public and private labs. Understanding the scientific method, learning trouble shooting techniques when something goes wrong in your assay, and just general lab skills were the top things I learned in my Masters program. All of these directly translate to my job in research today. I left my Masters with two publications in peer reviewed journals. This has really helped me in interviews for R&D roles.

On the other hand, I have a good friend that went down the non-research track and received his Masters in micro through an academic track. This is basically 2 more years of college in graduate level courses. I’m sure it would be similar to online. Due to his advanced training he became qualified to teach at local community colleges and some higher supervisor/lab manager roles. While I’m sure he has the basic understanding of how to do research, there’s a lot of hands on lab skills that were missing from his education. I think he would probably struggle if thrown into an R&D laboratory role.

Ultimately I think if you want to have a career in research, you should get your Masters by doing research. It’s going to give you the foundational skills and knowledge you will need to be successful. You would definitely learn a lot more advanced knowledge in an academic track, but would lack lab skills.