Is education after obtaining a bachelor’s degree for you?
By Stephen Hoshaw
As college students, we are constantly planning for our careers. For some, the careers we seek may require more background than a four year school experience offers. Many universities offer a solution to this by providing a post-bachelor’s degree program. However, in our changing economic climate, it is hard to gauge what can be the most useful to our future careers.
The site gradschooltips.com provides some broad tips to students looking at attending a graduate school. They give three pointers on why you may want to attend such a program: “A junior or senior in college wanting to do advanced work in a subject, a profession that requires specialized training such as medicine, law, or social work, a career that has climaxed and requires advanced education to jump start it.” These tips are important to consider, but as the next site describes, graduate school could be the wrong thing to do for your line of work.
This article (from Penelope Truth, a blog devoted to work advice) outlines a few reasons why you may want to delay attending a graduate program. Her “top eight” list gives students a clear view on some important points regarding further education. Some important ideas she brings are: “Grad school pointlessly delays adulthood.” and “Graduate school forces you to overinvest: It’s too high a risk.” In an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education, Thomas Benton warns about the same risks of attending graduate school.
While all of Penelope’s thoughts are important, it may be in your best interest to personalize the decision for yourself. A piece from Petersons.com gives a more balanced approach to deciding if you should go to graduate school and gives you the chance to make this decision for yourself. They provide 20 reasons to go, as well as the 15 biggest reasons you might not want to go. This gives students an evenly weighted collection of ideas.
If you find yourself in the market for attending a graduate school, you can find a great listing of the top programs in the nation here, from U.S. News.
Sources:
Don’t try to dodge the recession with grad school
Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go
A Guide for Potential Grad Students: Should You Go To Gradschool?
[...] after graduation look to grad school as their next step. Stephen touched on this issue in his post “Graduate School: An Individual Decision.” Before deciding if grad school is the right move for you, it’s important to review the pros and [...]