Rethinking Grad School
I love school; everyone who knows me can tell you how pissed I am that being a professional student isn’t a marketable skill. I stretched out my college career for as long as possible, and only stopped when I looked around and saw what my perfectionist tendencies and my exemplary GPA were doing to my family (it turns out it’s not possible, for me, anyway, to be a straight-A student and a good mother and wife).
As much as I adore school and wish it to be the answer to all professional and career-related bumps, quandaries and questions, I must say that I agree with Penelope Trunk’s post: Seven Reasons Why Graduate School Is Outdated. I do think that getting a graduate degree is necessary for some individuals and for the pursuit of some professions. But I also understand that the professional world is changing, the cost of higher education is rising, and it’s not a small thing to spend tens of thousands of dollars to get a degree you may not necessarily need or ever really use.
People don’t stay in the same career for fifty years like our grandparents did. There’s a lot of motion in the workplace and along the career path. Everything looks to be in a pretty constant state of flux, and the people who seem to be adapting the best are the ones who are capable of learning as they go and switching lanes mid-stride.
Getting a huge dose of education at the beginning of the journey and then staying the course throughout the length of one’s career trajectory is fine if you actually stay in that particular field of interest and skill. But what if the subject matter that most interests you when you’re 22 isn’t what you want to continue working in when you’re 35?
I don’t think graduate school is outdated in all areas; I’d say it’s fairly necessary in several fields. I do agree with Trunk’s point that one should not use graduate school as a way to discover what one wants to be when one grows up, and one should perhaps rethink the idea of getting an incredibly expensive degree in an area one sort of thinks maybe they might want to earn a living at some day.
I’m not telling people to decrease their educational goals and aspirations, and I’m not trying to put undue amounts of pressure on anyone currently trying to decide what they want to be when they grow up. I’m just pointing out that Ms. Penelope Trunk made some excellent points regarding the possibly outdated graduate degree. I was in such disbelief that I actually agreed with what she was saying (being super pro-education) that I felt it was necessary to bring attention to her line of reasoning.
Posted by Alexa Harrington
In some disciplines graduate shul is a necessity unless you want to be a minion. A bachelor’s degree in chemistry or physics qualifies you to be a technician. A master’s degree gets you a reasonable future job in industry. But to be a practicing chemist or physicist, a PhD is the entry degree with a PostDoc increasing a requirement for academia.
I agree that “yes” is not the answer for everyone considering a graduate degree, but earning a graduate degree is still worth the time, expense, and effort required for many people. However, I do want to take issue with your statement that because folks are now more likely to change careers than were those who came before them a graduate degree might lose its value to them.
In fact, unless we’re talking about a professional school degree, I would contend that those likely to change careers might be better served by graduate study than those who stay put. Similarly, continuing education, because the world is changing faster than ever before, has become more and more important to working professionals in virtually all fields.
I’m a huge believer in education in all its forms and levels, graduate or otherwise. The reason I wrote the post was because I was so surprised that I was mostly in agreement with Penelope’s thoughts on the subject. I’ve seen a number of people (friends and friends of friends) work for years and spend inordinate amounts of money to earn one or more graduate degrees, only to find that (a) their Master’s or their PhD wasn’t necessary for the job they ultimately settle into, or (b) they end up pursuing a career in a direction entirely other than that for which they were so highly educated.
I’m absolutely not saying that we’ve somehow reached the end of days as far as graduate degrees go; I’m just pointing out that it’s a lot of time and money to spend on something that might not be the direction one continues to move in, nor is it a guarantee of a career or a job once you’ve graduated. I think (read: fervently hope) that graduate degrees will always be necessary for many fields, but I do agree with Ms. Trunk that the days of immersing oneself in years of not-entirely-necessary higher education may soon be outdated.