The Grad School Grind

How to Pursue Graduate Schools and Professional Degrees

Why should I consider grad school? This is an important question that students need to ask themselves in order to find out if an advanced degree is the right path to take. Furthering your education can bring about many benefits; for example, on the average, students who graduate with master’s degrees earn more money than those with bachelor’s degrees, and it also allows you to keep your training and skills current, making you more marketable for career advancement. No matter what your motives are when pursuing advanced degrees, it is an important decision that requires a good amount of research and planning.

To help you decide if graduate school is right for you it is necessary for you to have your career goal in mind; then you need to ask yourself if or how earning a graduate degree will help you reach this goal. If you are unsure of the answer to this question, graduate school may not be the right path to take until you can figure it out; it would be a shame for you to invest all that time and money to find out that you wanted to do something else. However if you do know the answer to this question you have a good start towards pursuing your advanced degree.

If you are considering going to graduate school you need to ask a number of questions that will help guide you in your decision making process; mainly when, what, and where.

The first question, “when”, regards whether or not you should continue your education right after earning your bachelor’s degree or if you should work a few years before. Again you need to know your career goal as this will help you to answer this question since both routes have different benefits; some occupations require an advanced degree even for “entry level” positions. If you go straight from your bachelor’s to your graduate program you will still have the good study habits and momentum from being a student. On the other hand, going to work for a few years before going to graduate school allows you to better assess your career goals by working in the field for a few years, which could also be beneficial since some graduate programs require work experience. Having this time in between your studies also gives you time to mature, giving you a broader outlook on your studies.

The second question that you need to ask yourself is, “What is the best graduate degree for me?” The two traditional categories of graduate degrees are master’s and doctoral, however many universities offer numerous hybrid-combined degrees and certificate programs as well. Master’s degree programs can be either professional or academic; the professional degrees are designed more for employment or advancement within a given field where as the academic degrees are designed for intellectual growth. Doctoral degrees can also be either professional or academic, with the professional degrees focusing on application of knowledge and skills and the academic degrees focus on advancing knowledge through original research in a given academic field.

Answering the question of where to go to graduate school is just as important as your decision of going to graduate school. To help you answer this question you will need to develop a list of criteria to use when evaluating programs; this will probably include factors such as your academic focus, the programs reputation, the degrees offered, accreditation, the school’s location, and the costs required or the financial aid that is available. By picking the elements of a program that are most important to you will allow you to compare graduate schools, ultimately guiding your decision to find your best fit.

As you can tell, making the decision of going to grad school requires a good deal of self-assessment (i.e. Asking yourself all of these questions), especially if you want to get into a program that you want. If you are seriously considering attending a graduate school, the sooner you start planning the better your chances of finding the right school will be; an upcoming event for you to mark in your calendars is the graduate school fair on October 14^th which will be a great place for you to start your research. For more information visit the BPC Calendar.


Written by: Jon Robben, Business Placement Center