DISTANCE LEARNING | CONTINUING EDUCATION | ONLINE DEGREES

Four years of undergraduate education can feel like a lifetime. With all of the debt, near poverty, and long hours studying it can take to accomplish this feat, that graduation cap can fill more like a millstone around your neck. Regardless, it is usually with much relief that college graduates receive their diplomas and head off into the real world. So, given the difficulty of earning a bachelors degree, it’s no wonder that those graduates approach the prospect of graduate school with more than a little apprehension.

However, if you’ve done your homework and covered your bases, grad school can be a very rewarding investment. In a marketplace bursting with bachelors degree holders, a master’s, juris doctor, or doctorate degree can really make you stand out and take your career to the next level. Indeed, many companies require that their upper level managers hold post-graduate degrees. In almost any field, adding a graduate degree to your education can be a huge step toward future solidarity.

So, the question is, are you ready for graduate school? The following are three questions to ask yourself. If you can honestly say that you’ve got these nailed down, it may be time to start thinking about going back to school:

1. Do you have, or can you make, time to go back to school?

Grad school takes time. A lot of time. You are expected to study more, to know the material better, to compete with other students in many cases, and to spend more time getting to know professors. On top of that, you will want to spend time networking, making new contacts, and hunting down the best internships and jobs. Grad students are very, very busy people.

So, naturally, you will want to take a look at your obligations and ask yourself if you can fit graduate school into your busy life. If your program requires that you not work, can you make such an adjustment? If you have family or work duties, would you be able to adjust those to give school enough attention?

2. Are you in a stable enough financial position to go back to school?

After living in poverty for four years and getting their first real paying job, college graduates go on that shopping spree they’ve been dreaming of. They buy some decent clothes, get a good car, buy a house, and fill it with nice stuff. They take trips to Aruba and Greece. Then they get a raise, and they buy more stuff. Another raise comes and they have to buy a bigger house in which to fit all of their stuff. Eventually, they find themselves with a ton of financial obligations (car, house, timeshare, etc.).

Their ability to meet these obligations and be contributing members of society relies on them having income. Which brings me finally to my point. Going to grad school often means giving up some, if not all, of your ability to work. Meaning, you can’t go back to school without putting yourself in financial jeopardy.

If you are in this position (i.e. numerous loans hanging over your head), you might want to work on getting rid of a substantial amount of debt before going back to school. This will make it much easier to focus on your studies once you are back in school.

3. Is this the best time in your career?

Contrary to some advertisements, the present is not always the best time to go back for that graduate degree. Those debating whether to return to the classroom should look at where they are currently in their career. In many cases, waiting to develop your career further may be better than going straight into a masters program.

Lou, for example, had finished his bachelor’s degree a year previous and had just been promoted to a leadership position at his company. Lou was getting impatient to earn his MBA degree and start earning the big bucks. Even though it would mean cutting his managerial experience short, he applied anyway. The admissions committee expressed doubts about his lack of work experience, but Lou begged, pleaded, and eventually prevailed. He got into the program and all was well.

Unfortunately, a few months later, when Lou began applying for internships, he began receiving rejection after rejection. When he asked the folks in the career center, they kept pointing to his lack of work experience. It seemed not even a prestigious MBA degree could convince recruiters that he had the right stuff- they wanted to see real-world experience. Lou ended up settling for an internship that was similar to the job he had left.

As in so many things, timing matters in careers and getting an education. Some degrees, like a juris doctor, MISM, or a MAcc, are designed to be started right after a bachelor’s degree. Other degrees, like MBAs and MPAs, are meaningless without solid work experience to back them up.

About the author

Marcus Varner earned his BA in English from Brigham Young University with a Creative Writing emphasis. He is currently in his second year at BYU’s lauded MBA program studying Marketing. He blogs, writes fiction and screenplays, loves movies, and can’t resist playing superheroes with his kids.

Tags: advice, college, Education, graduate school, law school, MBA, university

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 at 2:51 pm and is filed under Careers, Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.