Should I go to graduate school?

A three step guide to answering a nagging question

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

As a professor who mainly teaches undergraduates, “should I go to graduate school?” is one of the most common questions I hear from students. Unlike obtaining a bachelor’s degree, which is now the minimum bar for many industries in America, a graduate degree still has a certain heft to it, especially a terminal one. Many jobs require advanced degrees, especially in industries like healthcare. At the same time, graduate degrees are very expensive in both money and time.

There are a lot of tradeoffs to consider, and it’s easy to lose the forest for the trees. To that end, one can boil down the graduate school issue by answering three questions.

1)      Question one: What specific and known career goal do I want to achieve?

This seems obvious, but every person pursuing graduate school should have a specific career goal. A shocking number of students attend grad school simply because they don’t have a solid career plan and it’s something to do. This is a terrible idea. For those on the GI bill or with a trust fund, then grad school might not be too expensive from a monetary standpoint. Regardless of one’s financial situation, however, it will still have a high time cost. This is not something to be trifled with. Even an accelerated MBA that takes 15 months will be a lot of work and may require you to live somewhere you wouldn’t have otherwise. Don’t go to grad school just because it’s something to do!

The first part of this question refers to a specific role, not a general career. Do not go to law school because you “want to be a lawyer”. This is a bad idea, as thousands of unemployed law school grads will tell you. Instead, go to law school because you want to be a patent lawyer that focuses on mobile phone technology, or something equally as specific.

Once you’ve determined a specific career field, do research. A lot of research. If you decide you want to be a materials engineer that works in biomedical startups, great! That is a fascinating industry with a lot of dynamism and options. But now you need to learn what the job entails. What is the career outlook for the next 5, 10, and 20 years? How many jobs are expected to be created? Where are most biomedical startups located? How many hours does a typical materials engineer work a week? What does a typical day actually look like? What about a typical week? Will the salary allow you to live the lifestyle you want? It is important to get a sense of what a lifetime of working in this field will look like day-in and day-out.

It’s also important to have an honest conversation with yourself about what lifestyle you want to live and if that career will allow you to live it. Even a dream job will turn into a nightmare if you can’t afford the hobbies and leisure activities that are important to you. A job is just that, your life is more important.

Talking to graduate schools are ok for this. Blogs are better. Best is talking to people who actually work those jobs. Talk to friends of friends of friends. Go on LinkedIn and find material engineers who work for biomedical startups. Send emails, make phone calls, or even show up at a nearby office. Try to shadow for a day. Build a repository of information about what this specific job entails, and make sure it’s something you want to do. Everybody loves being an expert, so once you’ve been introduced to someone they will usually talk your ear off. 

To be clear, I am not saying you need to be 100% set on your career goal. Part of grad school is learning about different career paths and becoming much more knowledgeable about the field you are studying. Many graduate students decide along the way that their original career goal is no longer the best for them. That’s fine! The point is to at least have one concrete and informed goal that you believe will be fulfilling before embarking on an expensive program.

If you don’t have a specific and known goal, then do not go to graduate school. It’s as simple as that. Spend more time in your current career and continue to research other options. Once you do have a specific and known career goal, then it’s time to move to the second question.

2)      Question two: Is graduate school the best way to achieve my goal?

For some fields this is a no-brainer. Say you want to work in healthcare, and after a suitable amount of research decide your career goal is to be a nurse anesthetist at a large urban hospital. You understand that the job has decent hours, is highly paid, is available in every city, is competitive, and can be very stressful. It also requires a graduate degree. So it’s time to apply.

For many professions, this will be the case. A graduate degree will either be required de jure or de facto. In the business world, however, graduate degrees will often not be a requirement, especially MBAs. That doesn’t mean an MBA is a bad degree, it simply means that an MBA is one of several paths to achieve various career goals in corporate America.

If you fall into this second camp, where a graduate degree is one valid option among several, then it's time to do more research. Again, the best source for this will be to talk to individuals in the relevant industry. Find out how necessary a graduate degree is. Could you instead just work for a year and be in the same position?  Will a master's degree give you a large, permanent pay bump and fast-track you for promotion? Answers will vary between industries and organizations. This takes time, but it's crucial to do the legwork before making such a large commitment.

If the answer to question 2 is no, don’t go to graduate school. Instead, pursue the path that is the best way to achieve your goal. If the answer to question 2 is yes, then it’s time to apply to some schools! Choosing which graduate schools to apply to is the subject of many, many, other articles so I’ll refrain from giving advice here. But get to work throwing applications in the mail and crossing your fingers.

Once you’ve applied to a graduate school and been accepted it’s time to do an honesty check in answering the third question.

3)      Question three: Will the graduate school I was accepted to put me in a good position to achieve my goal?

This question requires a very honest assessment. There are a lot of graduate programs out there offering degrees that are not going to deliver for their students. Let's say you decide to be a sociology professor at a research-focused university. You've done your homework and understand that this job is highly competitive, has relatively low pay, high prestige, and a unique working environment. It obviously requires a graduate degree. You apply to several programs and only get into your safety PhD program that is ranked 90^th. While it isn’t impossible to become a sociology professor at a research university after attending a low-ranked program, it is highly unlikely. Even graduates from top-ranked programs have a hard time finding tenure-track positions in sociology. An honest assessment would show that landing a tenure-track job from a mediocre program is not the best way to achieve your goal. The best (and realistically, only) way to become a sociology professor at a research university is to attend a top PhD program. Thus, do not attend the program ranked 90^th. Instead, determine the weaknesses of your application and get to work strengthening your profile so that a top program will accept you.

Also remember to look carefully at the placement outcomes of recent graduates. What employers hire them after graduation? What is the average salary? Where do most live? Only attend a program if the typical outcome is something you’d be happy with. Remember, most people who attend graduate school are going to be passionate about their field, so expecting to achieve an above-average outcome may not be realistic. Unlike many undergraduate programs, the typical graduate student is both driven and talented. Working harder or smarter will often be enough to just achieve average. Do not look at the best placements and view that as a likely outcome. Set the average outcome as the expected outcome.

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There are of course many other things one can consider when deciding to attend graduate school. The state of the national economy, the career path of a spouse, family plans, etc. That said, these three questions will get you 90% of the way there. If you 1) have a defined and known career goal that 2) will be best achieved by a graduate degree and 3) is achievable through the graduate program you have been accepted to, then it's time to head back to campus and hit the books! Of course there is no way to guarantee success, but by making an informed decision you will be on track to achieve your goals.