DISTANCE LEARNING | CONTINUING EDUCATION | ONLINE DEGREES

By now, you’ve probably realized that getting a graduate degree is no small task. Perhaps, for this reason, those who stick with it and earn these degrees are given special deference.

Getting a master’s or doctorate degree is an accomplishment worthy of praise. It means that you have been exposed to and trained in a higher level of analysis and problem-solving than your bachelor-holding counterparts. Also, you have a higher level of expertise. Your professors, classmates, and materials were all of a higher caliber than those in the undergraduate programs. Many of your classmates may have real, bona fide job experience in your area of study. Let there be no doubt: you earn every square inch of that diploma.

Grad studies are hard. Professors will call you at random to answer difficult, complex, maybe even impossible, questions. You simply cannot wing it. The tests are cheat-proof. And guess what? Your classmates will be brilliant, too. You most likely will have gone from being the only shark in a small pond to being one shark in a shark tank full of man-eaters.

The following three questions are designed to test your resolve and fit for graduate studies:

1. Can you read, comprehend, and analyze large amounts of information?

Yes, you probably read a lot during your undergrad education. You may have read monsters like Dante’s Divine Comedy, which can weigh in at more than 1,400 pages. Or you may have been assigned three chapters of work per class period. If you did, the amount that you will read in a graduate program will not be too different. However, the understanding you will be expected to have of the material will be much higher.

In many MBA or law programs, for example, students are assigned multiple case studies daily. These cases will range from ten to fifty pages each. In addition to simply reading them, however, students are expected to synthesize the information and formulate a strong solution to the problem at hand. In class, students will be asked, often at random, to state and protect their solutions. With the whole room gunning for you, you’d better know your facts well. No one gets top grades for merely reading- A’s are reserved for those who can present and defend successful solutions.

If you are lacking in this department, does that mean you should forget about grad school? Not exactly. Many resources are available to get prospective grad students up to par with their voracious peers. Kaplan and Princeton Review, among others, offer great courses to get you ready.

2. Are your study skills and habits up to par?

Intellectual ability aside, many students struggle with maintaining good study habits. They sit down to read fifty-something pages about the intricacies of a FIFO accounting system over those of a LIFO system. But they get distracted, sometimes by roommates, sometimes by a butterfly on the window sill, sometimes by the Xbox 360 calling from the corner of the room. Next thing they know, four hours have flown by and it’s time to head to the barbecue. I mean, let’s face it: a vast number of us are just not as disciplined as we’d like to be.

With the armfuls of work you will be asked to juggle in a grad school program, strong study skills and habits are a must. Especially during the first year of most programs, you will need the strength to shun the video game console or the invitation to catch a movie and keep your nose in the books.

The blessed few of us who know when to say no to study temptations have my admiration and respect. The rest of us, however, who struggle with diligent study can have hope. There are resources to help. Many of them are designed to be taken the summer before you enter your program to give you the skills you will need to survive that crucial first year.

3. Do you have a great deal of interest in your prospective field of study?

When you enter a grad program in a given field, you become immersed in that topic. You eat, sleep, drink, and breathe that topic. When you’re waking thoughts are not plagued by thoughts of that topic, it haunts your dreams. And you generally associate only with others who are immersed in that topic. Therefore, knowing this, it is of the utmost importance that you choose to study something that will not sicken you after the first week.

Many prospective grad students can’t see this seemingly fundamental concept for the green in their eyes. Their thinking is this simplistic: "Lawyers make a lot of money. I want to make a lot of money. Therefore, I will go to law school to become a lawyer." They do not consider that students of the law must have an almost insane appreciation for semantics and the complexities of language. They must love to argue and debate. They must find meaning in reading the driest, most dense documents to glean out the crucial issues that will allow them to defend their position. Not surprisingly, these same students may find themselves paying the exorbitant fees of the first year of law school before they finally realize that they just plain don’t like studying the law and drop out.

Do yourself a favor and choose a graduate program that you can really get excited about. Take a moment or two and put aside all of the dollar figures. Do some research on the field you are considering. Know what interests you and know what turns you off. Taking this simple step will save you a lot of time, effort, and money in the long run.

So, are you ready for grad school? If you are, congratulations! You are set to broaden your horizons and take your career to the next level. If you’re not, you can do a lot to get ready.

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.

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.