The Hardest Question: Are you sure grad school is right for you?

Before delving any further into the realm of locating, securing, and spending money for your graduate work, I am going to suggest that you take a moment to ask yourself an uncomfortable question: "Is graduate school right for me?"  If you've made it to my blog, you may already be enrolled in a graduate program, or maybe you're so incredibly determined to get your master's or PhD that this question is irrelevant to you.  If you're anything like the majority of prospective graduate students, however, there may be some lingering doubts about whether this is the right choice.

I am by no means trying to scare anyone away from pursuing their goals, but if you've taken the time to do the budgetting outlined in my last post, you'll have a clear idea of just how great the monetary cost associated with graduate education can be.  And what's more, this process doesn't even begin to address the massive amount of time, energy, and dedication required to complete your graduate degree.

Instead of launching into the specific factors to consider before deciding to apply for grad school, I'm going to let others speak for me.  Warning away potential young students seems to be the favorite pastime of people who have already run the gauntlet, and there is no shortage of articles and blog posts about why you shouldn't go to graduate school (which I think is a good indication that their advice should be taken with at least a grain of salt).  I am just going to link to a select few, but the first one has a plethora of links to articles and pages with similar viewpoints in its sidebar. So without further ado:

The Pessimistic View

100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School

Don't try to dodge the recession with grad school

The Realistic (or at least less opinionated) View

Bad Reasons to go to Grad School

The Impossible Decision (in The New Yorker)

The Optimistic View

5 Reasons Why You Should Go to Grad School

4 Reasons You Shouldn't Put Off Graduate School

As I said before, I don't want to drive anyone away from going to grad school.  Really, after reading the above articles, as well as many of the pages they link to, my final conclusion is pretty obvious (and pretty ambiguous): It really depends on the person, their field, and their motivations for wanting to go to grad school.  The process may not benefit you at all, and in fact may be a really negative thing for you in the long run, or, it could be just the opposite.  I have found the process to be very fulfilling, enjoyable, and valuable.  My intent in writing this is for people to be able to make informed, intelligent decisions when making choices that may greatly affect their personal and professional lives.

Also, just in case any of you are impatiently waiting for me to get to the good stuff, I will tell you now that my next post will actually address the topic of finding funding for grad school.  There were just a couple of topics I wanted to get out of the way first, before getting into the specifics.

Happy reading,

 Casey