Grad School or no Grad School? ; Thats the Dilema…
“I need more money. Should I go to grad school?” That’s a question that I face quite often. Maybe because I went for a master’s degree and make a decent living, people seem to think I have the answer to this dilemma; but I don’t.
I went to grad school, and about 90% of my friends went through it as well, but under the inevitable idea of going back for a PHD so I can teach at college level, I start wondering if having a post graduate degree really makes any kind of difference in your professional life.
I look at the most successful man I know, and though he started grad school, life gave him a series of opportunities that he wisely took and left his post graduate education as a future goal. These days he makes roughly 5 times my salary, has traveled all around the world doing one of the things he does best, runs a successful company, and in short, has the best professional life I’ve ever seen.
There is NO doubt that holding a post graduate degree gives you some kind of confidence, makes you look responsible, if nothing else, and usually (not always) gives you some kind of advantage over the ones who don’t; but yet I can’t answer the question based on success.
Since success it’s not easily measurable, I will go for knowledge. I went through Grad School and I can honestly say that even though I learned A LOT about how things SHOULD be, I learned nothing about how things really are. And this seems to be the norm around the people I’ve shared professional experiences with. Text books are NO substitute for good old fashion experience.
So by this point I may seem that I’m rambling more than making a point (stop shaking your head in sign of approval), but I do have a point, and that is that we are all a special case, but there is some order of things to follow, that no Masters or PhD will fill for you, and here my list of recommendations by rewards:
SALARY – If you want to grow financially, don’t expect to become a lifer in any company, the average salary increase it’s a miserable 2% (inflation is more than that these days). If you want more money, move to a company that is willing to hire you for more (the amount you really deserve, maybe?). I know it’s tough to get out of your comfort zone, but if you are 30 years old and are still on your first job, chances are you are not making what you deserve. Hell, if you are 25 and has only been in one company chances are it’s about time you move.
EXPERIENCE – Useful experience comes out of facing different challenges among the years. My 1st job out of college, taught me to supervise employees under me, the second to make Marketing campaigns with limited budget (none), the fourth taught me that I didn’t know everything I needed to know, but that the answer is always around and how to look for it, the fifth taught me to deal with a big budget, and so on and so forth. My point is that you need DIFFERENT experiences to make yourself a well balanced professional. Stay in only one place or spend all your life in college and your resume will say: “Useful for One, and only ONE thing.” Believe me, no one wants that.
RESPECT – Another one of those attributes that are extremely hard to measure; so I will tell you how to gain MY respect. If I see you have a post graduate degree you will give me something to talk about, no question about it, but it will also make me worried of how much time you have spent “really working”; but respect can NEVER be earned by a piece of paper. You will gain my respect by working back to back with me in whatever I need from you in the professional world. Jess (co-writer of this blog) gained my respect from day one, mostly because I saw that she was going to be beneficial for my goals at work. She became a friend for other reasons but the respect she earned was not in her resume but in her first day at work, when I realized I had a well rounded professional working with me.
PROFESSIONAL GROWTH – A degree is without doubt one way to grow, but your professional life is full of more than knowledge, it’s about the people you know, what they think of you and what you think of them. Your skills, your experience and your wisdom.
I’m not trying to give you a recommendation here, but to make you get to a conclusion of your own. Should you go to grad school? YES, by all means, if you have the money and the time, please learn more, meet more people with your same interests, broaden your horizons; but don’t do it for the wrong reasons, or expecting your professional life to be more than it is just because you spent a year or two going to class.
My only recommendation is to look at what have you been doing professionally, and see where it could be improved (maybe take some of the things above into consideration). The only thing I will try to make a point of is that IN MY OPINION, you should NEVER quit working to go to Grad School. Those years of experience will benefit your professional life way more than your diploma will.
-Frank.
August 17th, 2009 at 11:28 AM
Good advice, from someone who knows to someone who’s been trying to decide on the grad school idea!!!
August 17th, 2009 at 12:50 PM
Some opinions on the same topic:
1) Be free! As you suggest on your article, study because you really want to do it and because you enjoy it. Do not do it because of financial gain: the moment you go to school you have just had a financial loss (tuition), and you never know if you will recoup that over your life (in comparison to the alternative career without the degree and sans the years without salary). However, if you did it because you enjoy studying, enjoy reading, enjoy lectures, etc… then the worst that could happen is that you went on a very expensive but fun couple of years.
2) MBAs are good if you are already a manager (as in: with 5 employees) and you want to jump into the Vice President or Executive Vice President roles. Getting an MBA will not make you a manager automatically. I still don’t know what does… but it is not the degree.
3) Go to the best schools… or just go to the school of life. I do not believe in half measures. Same thing for education. I have learned that a degree from a challenging and/or recognized institution opens a lot more doors than just a degree. It may be more worthy to learn new skills on your own than to pay for a less than stellar education.
August 18th, 2009 at 10:00 AM
Frank, I started grad school and quit a about half way through. Yes, having the prestige that comes with a grad degree would be nice, but I left becuase I didn’t feel I was learning anything. I learned more from working and making mistakes, and from reading professional blogs and books – then applying those ideas to real life situations. I know that in my field (communications) a grad degree isn’t going to add to my salary – so why bother. I know people who have no work expereince but have a grad degree, and you know what, I make more then them. Some of these people don’t even have a job because employeers value experience over education. that being said, if you can manage to work full time and go to grad school at night, in that case it might be worth it. That way you are getting both the experience and the education. But if you have to choose one over the other, go with the expereince – )that is education in and of itself!) and then try to learn all you can from you job and on your own.