I am no expert. Taking 2.5 years for a Master's thesis seems long to me, so I would wonder what took you so long. Eg, the MS for CS at Illinois, currently ranked #5, at <a href="https://cs.illinois.edu/prospective-students/graduate-students/ms-phd-programs/ms-and-phd-degree-requirements" rel="nofollow">https://cs.illinois.edu/prospective-students/graduate-studen...</a> , is a three semester program, so four semesters is already on the long side, much less five. Cornell, ranked #6, is a two or three semester program, suggests <a href="http://www.cs.cornell.edu/masters/academics/faq" rel="nofollow">http://www.cs.cornell.edu/masters/academics/faq</a> .<p>If you answer that it's because you didn't think you understood machine learning well enough, with that being your field of interest, I would wonder why you didn't start with a focus on that topic. Did you only realize that was your interest as the end of your studies? Otherwise, why didn't you start with that topic coming in, including research in the topic? On the other hand, if you've been doing ML for two years, and think you don't know enough about it, perhaps you really should be in the PhD program, since one extra semester isn't all that much time to really understand the topic.<p>So as a potential employer, I would be wondering if you really were interested in the topic, and what took you so long to graduate with a Master's degree, and if you understood the point of a MS degree.<p>(I can understand if you use it as a delaying tactic for visa purposes to get a job, but you haven't said that you've even started looking for a job.)