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MAKING THE DECISION Preparation for Graduate School A baccalaureate degree with solid grades in virtually any field serves as a prerequisite to a professional degree program (although those in engineering or science fields require mathematics and science courses at the undergraduate level). For some programs it is probably wise to stop after you get your undergraduate degree and spend some time in a job before applying to graduate school. Good work, experience, positive recommendations from employers, encouraging evaluations from faculty, and solid academics are all indicators that you would do well in graduate or professional school. Your score on a standardized test like the LSAT (Law School Admissions Test), MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test), GMAT (Graduate Management Aptitude Test), or GRE (Graduate Record Examination) may also be an important indicator of a successful graduate career, although good scores alone are not complete measures. Admission to a doctoral program generally requires a baccalaureate degree in a closely related field. You need to have a good grounding in the subject before you begin in advanced study. The master’s degree can be a way to prepare for the doctorate, particularly if you want to make a significant change in academic field from your undergraduate program. For programs where you would build on an undergraduate major in a field that is changing rapidly (such as computer science or biological science), you should seriously consider going directly to graduate school to keep up with the most advances in the field.
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Career Options with a Graduate Degree The decision to go to graduate school is usually a crucial point in a career path. Sometimes the acquisition of a graduate degree is required to continue in a field. On other occasions, the advanced degree provides you with additional credentials to leverage your advancement in your field. Or it could allow you to switch occupations and even careers. A master’s degree in a specific field usually gives you advanced career opportunities in that field, although many graduate degree-holders parlay their new credentials into positions in related fields or even some that are quite different than the degree itself. Some industries are inflexible when it comes to the kind of advanced degree-holders they employ; retraining cross-over workers, even those with master’s degree, is not as efficient as hiring those who are educated specifically for the industry. In other industries, there may be state or federal regulations requiring that hiring be done only “in field.” In still others, there may be such a high number of people vying for positions, that only the most stellar of those with an unrelated degree escape the first “cut.” There are industries, however, that are more and more interested in diversification of their workforce’s education, and so different educational backgrounds are appealing. All of these things are considerations for you as you decide if a graduate degree is what you need to advance or change you career. Certainly a professional degree is more specifically targeted toward advancement along a particular career track. The J. D. is almost always a prerequisite to sitting for a bar examination and practicing law in most states, for example. The education and experience that lead to M.D. and D.D.S. degrees are necessary for careers as medical doctors or dentists. The Ph.D. and Ed.D. are teaching and research degrees, and they provide a wide range of options both in college and university teaching and in corporations, government services, and administration. The doctorate gives a person skills for independent thinking and problem solving-a high level of ability to address problems and develop solutions. It requires a high degree of initiative, independence, and self-discipline. For people who are interested in ideas, creative thinking, and problem solving, the doctorate offers great challenges and great rewards. The traditional career for recipients of the Ph.D. is college teaching. But in many fields, particularly in science, people with doctoral degrees find employment with corporations where research and development of new products or services are important or with government agencies where the skill to analyze large amounts of complex data is essential. Statisticians work for the Census Bureau. Psychologists may work for advertising firms, historians for museums. Chemists, engineers, and physicists may work in science-based industries or government-funded research laboratories. The doctoral degree opens a wide variety of career options.
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The first step is to make an honest evaluation of your own strengths, both intellectually and in terms of personality. What do you enjoy doing and why? Are you intellectually curious? Do you enjoy arguing about ideas? Are you introverted? Extroverted? Do you like to teach other people about things? Are you naturally bright? Do you succeed through hard work and attention to detail? Although there is no ideal profile for a graduate student, intelligence, initiative, and self-discipline are crucial qualities for success. Strong motivation and persistence are very important. The ability to establish good working relationships with other people is also important, since your career in graduate school depends heavily on following the guidance of your faculty mentors and benefiting from the support of other students in you program. The next step is an evaluation of your career objectives. The professional degree will advance your career in a particular are, especially is you have some work experience related to that profession. It is a relatively short-term investment of time and money that leads generally to increased salary, greater mobility, more responsibility, and greater job security. The master’s degree in a research area can do the same, depending on your job situation. The doctorate is a serious commitment to a lifetime of teaching and research. It involves a significant commitment of time and money, but it ultimately offers the greatest degree of freedom and flexibility to pursue your own interests and shape your own career. A career in college or university teaching offers the opportunity to explore new ideas and to work with students. It keeps you constantly involved in learning and growing intellectually. Teaching is a very people-intensive activity. It involves the exchange of ideas, and the satisfaction of seeing students come to understand things they didn’t understand before. If you have had the experience of the light bulb going on over your head when you have just learned something, you can appreciate the satisfaction of the person who showed you how to turn on the light. Getting a graduate degree equips you for intellectual entrepreneurship. The term “entrepreneur” is widely used in the world of business. It describes someone with the ability to turn an idea into a useful service or product that has a wide market. In the academic world, you as an entrepreneur can get financial support for ideas and produce new knowledge. If you teach at a research university that offers Ph.D. degrees, you can teach graduate students to do their own research. You can get grants from your own institutions, foundations, or government agencies to help support your own research and that of your students. In the world of business and government, you have the skills to develop new products or evaluate and change existing policies to get things done in a better way. You can deal with complex problems and come up with solutions. Your work may lead to patents on new inventions. Or it may lead to changes in policies and established practices. Whatever career you may want to pursue, an advanced degree may make you more effective an marketable.
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