Get Familiar With Grad School

Some career paths simply require graduate school. For example, If you would like to go into Clinical Healthcare, Legal Practice, or Teaching K-12, graduate school is a necessary part of your educational path. This is an obvious step for success with these examples. 

Would graduate school enhance your career success if you want to go into Marketing or Accounting? It is less guaranteed with these examples, or when a profession values work experience, applied skills, specific certifications, and demonstrated results in industry.

There are several instances in which graduate school is not required to pursue a specific career path, but most of the professionals that work within the field have obtained a specific graduate degree to be a well-prepared and competitive candidate. For example, if you are exploring careers related to Communications + Arts and want to become a museum director in the future, you may find that many of these professionals have a Master of Fine Arts degree, while others have alternative experience.

To learn more, we recommend that you Do Informational Interviews with about 10 individuals who are in the career path that you wish to pursue, and specifically ask about the role of graduate school in their field. If most of the professionals have obtained a graduate degree in the specific discipline you are considering, then it may make sense to move forward.

Graduate school can be a very good investment for changing career direction or gaining momentum toward a specific path. For example, if you have been working in the graphic design field for a while and you decide that you want to go into Finance for your next career move, you may want to consider graduate school as a catalyst for this transition.

In this type of scenario, graduate school may not be required for your new career goals, but it could be a direct and powerful way to jumpstart the process of reinventing your career. At the minimum, it can show future employers that you are committed to a new direction. When applying to graduate school in a different field than your undergraduate education, many applicants take foundational courses at community colleges or universities to gain some knowledge prior to applying.

Some individuals simply love to be in school. This may be more specific than a general love for learning -- as learning through formal schooling is one of many different ways to learn and develop yourself.

Undoubtedly, graduate school is one of the most evident opportunities to continue your role as a student. Though this comes with significant investments, a passion for learning about a specific area of study could provide enough motivation to find value in a graduate degree -- regardless of the anticipated career outcomes.

If this is your motivation, it will be beneficial to highly consider which graduate programs peak your interest and strategize your potential career options for after obtaining your graduate degree.

In certain instances, you may find motivation to pursue graduate school for other incentives or perks. While this should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, examples of this may include International Students in regards to visas, Military-Related Students in regards to educational benefits, and Undocumented Students in regards to status.

Other considerations could include strategic timing as related to deferment of student loan payments, striking a deal with family members who want to financially support your pursuit of a graduate degree early in your career, or "waiting out" an economic recession in school until a job market improves.

There are two main levels of graduate degrees: master and doctorate. The degree level you need depends on what you want to do with that degree; sometimes, a master’s degree is all you need to pursue your career goals, other times a doctorate is needed.

Master’s degrees tend to be less extensive than doctorates, and usually take around two years to complete in most fields, while some may only take one year and others may take three years.

Doctorate degrees, on the other hand, usually involve more extensive training and research than master’s degrees, and tend to take around four to seven years to complete. In most but not all fields, the doctorate tends to be the terminal degree, meaning the highest degree possible in that area.

One of the most useful ways to understand the differences between graduate degrees is through the distinction between academic degrees and professional degrees. Academic degrees are obtained as a product of knowledge generation (i.e., research), whereas professional degrees simply prepare you for a certain type of work within industry. 

For example, using this same nomenclature, a Ph.D. in Statistics is an academic degree, while an M.D. is a professional degree. An individual earning a Ph.D. in Statistics may pursue a career as a statistician for a financial firm, a technical writer for a software company, a statistics professor at a university, or various other options. Instead of preparing for a specific job, their degree was focused on making new developments in the academic discipline of statistics, which could then be transferred to a number of different professions with some level of breadth. 

An M.D. degree, on the other hand, is meant to prepare a student specifically to become a medical doctor. Professional degrees are often required for acquiring licensure to practice in their respective professional fields, whereas academic degrees are usually not.

The type of degree you pursue will be largely based on what you want to get out of the degree. Are you looking to get training for a very specific job (i.e., law, medicine, business, etc.), or are you more interested in pushing the cutting edge of a research discipline? Choose intentionally, because your experience in a professional program versus an academic research program can be vastly different.

The format of graduate programs can vary quite a bit, from traditional in-person experiences, to fully online experiences, to some hybrid of both of these formats. The type of program that works best will depend somewhat on the field that interests you and the specific educational needs you have. 

For example, while a graduate program in business may work well in a fully online format, a program in clinical nursing may not work as well due to the need for hands-on clinical experiences. Are you highly motivated by group interaction and want a lot of in-person time with your peers and your professors? A traditional program may be best for you. Alternatively with online programs, you might value flexibility and low cost more, and be able to stay self motivated at a distance.

Whatever the case may be, use your best judgment when selecting a format for a graduate program. 

Some programs are more flexible in terms of timing than others. You may see programs described as part-time, weekend, or night programs, and others described as full-time. These are simply designators about the specific timing and the amount of time that a particular program will require. Some graduate programs offer classes at flexible hours of the day, in which you may be able to concurrently work a full-time job while obtaining your degree.

More often in recent years, an increasing number of graduate programs are being modified to fit around the lives of their students, especially online and part-time programs. Many other programs, however, are designed to require your full attention, and should be treated like full-time jobs.