Should I go to Graduate School?

For those who are in their last year at college, now comes the time when you have to decide whether to join the workforce or whether to delay the inevitable with 2-5 more years of graduate school. It might sound attractive to postpone stepping outside the comfort of student-ship you’ve been in for so long – but is it really the right choice for you?

*Or considering a drastic career change, or simply want to further your education in your current profession, but that doesn’t work with my intro but know that I’m thinking of you too.

I can’t say for sure. It’s different for everybody. What I can do is provide a few small pieces of unsolicited advice from my personal experience that may help in making that final decision. If you relate to the majority of these statements (or even just one, if you’re into high risk, high reward situations), chances are grad school would be a good place for you.

You enjoy not having a set schedule.

Of course, this will vary based on who your mentor is or what exactly you’re studying, but for the most part grad students do not have a set schedule. We go in when the work needs to be done and stay until it’s finished, which is pretty much a guarantee that it will not be the standard 9-5. I greatly enjoy the flexibility, even though it often means coming in on weekends (those darn cells are so needy). It’s nice to know that I can freely schedule doctors’ appointments (or tattoo appointments…*cough cough*) without it disrupting my work week.

You don’t mind working long hours.

There’s a toxic mindset surrounding grad school that if you aren’t overworking yourself, you aren’t working hard enough. Many are now challenging this belief, but it’s still the prevailing thought about work time in grad school. However, even if you shouldn’t have to work crazy hours to be considered a good grad student, you will have to work hard. You’re working to become an expert in your field, and you will have to put in the time to see the results – probably more so than you did in undergrad.

You’re an independent worker.

Many times, you will be working with others to complete a project. But your main PhD project (or master’s thesis) will mostly rely on you being independent. This means driving the direction of the project and coming up with the steps to achieve the results you want (or more accurate, need) to achieve. Your mentor will likely affect the exact level of independency you’ll need – some offer a lot of direct guidance; others leave basically everything up to you. But both mentors will still require you to do a lot of independent problem solving – a necessity when you’re trying to gain expertise.

You enjoy learning more than necessary.

Most people enjoy learning in some capacity, but not everyone loves to dig deep into what they’re learning about. If you’re the type of person who gets sidetracked and ends up five books/articles away from the one you were originally reading during a homework assignment, chances are grad school is the place for you. Most of the reading you do will be up to you, and the more you “paper hop” as I like to call it (start reading a paper, find a reference that interests you and go read that one, find another interesting reference and read that one, etc. until you’re suddenly 20 papers deep into a topic vastly different from where you started), the faster you’ll gain knowledge in your field. And the easier those pesky committee meetings can seem.

You take constructive criticism well.

This isn’t a necessity, but I think it can drastically help. You’ll be faced with people suggesting how you do your research all the time – lab meetings, conferences, those pesky committee meetings. If you aren’t equipped to handle constructive criticism, it can be hard and seem like an uphill battle, especially when it comes to your mental health. Of course, some mentors can be less constructive and more critical, but for the most part mentors are there to help you succeed and their critiques are more for your benefit than for your suffering. (Again, that’s usually….)

Multitasking is one of your best friends.

As with taking constructive criticism, this isn’t a necessity. However, I think being able to multitask – or at the very least, be efficient – will help you a lot. It will help you get a lot more done in a shorter amount of time, which in turn can help ease the expectation of working crazy long hours – if you can get enough done in a more normal work period, you won’t have to work 12-hour days all the time. Of course, if you aren’t good at multitasking before going to graduate school, it’s a skill you’ll likely pick up along the way.

You’re self-motivated.

This might be one of the most important considerations. It goes along with a couple of my other points as well – working independently, learning more than necessary, etc. Not everyone is self-motivated, and that’s alright. Not all professions require self-motivation. However, grad school will be tough. You don’t really get physically rewarded for [most of] the things you do, beyond getting a good job at the end of it (fingers crossed!). Your rewards come in the form of publishing your results, getting an award at conferences, discussing your research with your peers and just generally being excited about what you’re studying. [Maybe you could argue these are physical rewards]. The job field is competitive, even if you go for a PhD. Many (perhaps most) PhDs don’t end up at jobs that make them wealthy – it’s about the satisfaction of working hard and contributing to a field that you love. Without self-motivation, the grind to get to a satisfying career can weigh you down mentally and physically.

Those are the best characteristics I can think of. Naturally, some of these may be skewed toward graduate school in a STEM field because that’s my experience. But I think if you align with most of these attributes, graduate school would be a good choice for you in any field. It’s difficult work, some weeks (or months…*ahem* me in September this year) just make it seem not worth the struggle, so it really isn’t for everyone.

Even if you look at this list and think, “hmm…that’s not really me, but I would like to try…” go for it! Sometimes all we can do is try – and there’s no shame in deciding part way through that it isn’t really for you. The choice to attend graduate school can be an extremely personal one, so perhaps the very best advice I can give is think about it a lot, reflect on yourself and your goals, and always remember that your decision doesn’t have to be permanent!