Deciding whether to go to grad school? Here are 3 tips.
By the time I finished college, all my close friends were in grad school, thinking about grad school or applying to grad school. We were nerds who liked to read and write and do math — a motley collective of “conscientious and diligent” students. We loved school, we thought. Why not stay forever? This week, I reflected on grad school decisions with several recent graduates, including some who did not go to grad school and others who did. This is an excerpt of Renee Yaseen’s Post Grad column. Read the rest for free on washingtonpost.com, or sign up to get the full edition sent to your inbox twice a week.
You can also follow Renee on Instagram at @washpostgrad.
If you went to graduate school, was it worth it? Why or why not?
Below are two reader responses to our question of the week that stood out. To get our complete collection of reader responses each week, sign up to get the full edition of Post Grad.
It took me 18 years to finish my PhD. … Every time I got discouraged, I discovered that I would be thinking about my topic and field obsessively no matter what else I was doing or working at. I had to realize that this would either become my job or my all-consuming hobby. I now teach graduate students in a master’s program that leads to certification and jobs, but every so often I run across a student who wants to go on for a PhD. I ask them, ‘What burning question do you have? Would you still be obsessed with this question if you were not in school? Would you still want to find out everything about the topic even if there were no money in it?’ I think that most master’s degrees are worth it, for a variety of reasons — employment, higher salary, connections, concentration and synergy of topics in a single field. Go on to the PhD only if it’s your passion.” — Robin B., 67
“I worked in my field for 15 years after undergrad before applying to fully funded graduate programs in my early 40s, and that experience has given me considerable advantages now as a grad student. Not only do I know exactly what I want to do and where in the field I fit, I’ll already have an extended network and a sharpened skill set right out of the program.” — Evan G., 41
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2yThanks for sharing...at 57 on my doctoral journey...fastrack in 3 yrs...1.5 years to go...wish I would have completed it sooner...but I'm wiser, more disciplined, more focused and definitely more humbled in my mature years.
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