How does one sort out grad school?

June 18, 2008 1:08 PM

I have been trying to figure out what to do for graduate studies for over a year now. Help!

I have always been somewhat of a dilettante. I own prep books for no less than three graduate exams (the GRE, GMAT, and LSAT). I have, to date, taken zero exams. This is primarily because I keep bouncing back and forth on what I think I want to do.

For a long time I was set on going into business. I studied economics undergrad and I planned to go to a top 10 business school after I had gotten enough work experience. I ended up working for the financial advisory group of a Big Four firm. Today marks my first-year anniversary, in fact. But working here has allowed me to recognize that business might not be for me. What I most enjoy is working on big deals, designing creative solutions for problems, and, of course, the pay.

But I feel that by working in such a competitive corporate environment I am being forced to forsake my intellectual curiosity. For whatever reason I feel I'm not being true to myself. I see myself being happier as a professor--in what discipline I am unsure. (One of my hesitations, however, is that I lack the obsession for a particular discipline; indeed, my interests are more broad.) And so since graduating I have also considered graduate programs in:

-Economics (I don't have the math skills)
-International Relations/Political Science
-Law

After a year of trying to sort my grad school program out I feel I have made no ground. How can I sort out what to do with myself?

posted by prunes to Education (13 answers total)

One of my hesitations, however, is that I lack the obsession for a particular discipline; indeed, my interests are more broad.

That's a valid hesitation. You will spend your life discussing Hemingway's nose hairs, their color, composition, curliness (or lack thereof), relative booger distribution. Did he tweeze them, pluck them, or just let them grow wild? And what effect did his nose-hair grooming technique have on his portrayal of Nick Adams?

You get it. You don't want to be a college professor.
posted by MrMoonPie at 1:17 PM on June 18, 2008

Well, being a professor can mean different things--it can mean focusing mainly on research, mainly on teaching, or some combination of the two. Think about what drives your "intellectual curiosity"--do you think about questions that need to be answered, or knowledge that you would like to share with others (or both/neither)?

Thinking about what kinds of questions/problems interest you most can help narrow down a field, but you also want to consider how you want to use/disseminate that knowledge. Graduate training can also prepare you for consulting, which might be another way to satisfy your curiosity, allow you to solve problems, and keep that nice paycheck.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 1:23 PM on June 18, 2008

I have always been somewhat of a dilettante

This does not bode well for any academic graduate program.

I see myself being happier as a professor

Lots of people think this only because they don't have a clear picture of what that life is like.

Do you enjoy spending a few months putting together a paper and sending it off to journals that routinely reject 80% of their submissions?

Do you enjoy reading 40 versions of the same paper? And that are almost all the same as the 40 versions from last time? And that about a third of the students did positively fuck-all?

Do you enjoy dealing at great length with grade-grubbing pre-meds who made it plain on day 1 that they had no actual interest in your course, but it seemed the easiest way to satisfy a curricular requirement?

Do you enjoy long, long meetings about synergizing assessment tools across disciplinary boundaries to maximize student outcomes?

Do you enjoy navigating office politics that developed over 30 years and whose rocks and shoals you can barely see?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:31 PM on June 18, 2008 [3 favorites]

But I feel that by working in such a competitive corporate environment I am being forced to forsake my intellectual curiosity. For whatever reason I feel I'm not being true to myself.

Okay. That's why they pay you do to it. If it were an ever-increasing tide of self-fulfillment and enjoyment, people would pay to do it on their vacations instead of being paid to do it to fund their vacations.

You should expect that nearly anything that you can be paid to do will have many aspects that are not particularly fulfilling or self-actualizing, or that require that you compromise some part of yourself. Not that all jobs are horrible drudgery or anything, but just that the idea of the career that perfectly expresses your innermost whatever and that really makes you whole is as much of a damaging lie as the idea of [gaspy]THE ONE[/gaspy] in romantic life is.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:37 PM on June 18, 2008

Venture capital? Big deals, creative solutions, sometimes high pay. It's been described as "more balls than brains."
posted by pandanom at 1:41 PM on June 18, 2008

Based on what you've said here, and echoing other posters, you really don't seem to want to go to graduate school. Rather, you seem to not want to continue doing what you're doing now. Better that you find out now that an academic career is not for you (it took me a good six years). I would say that now is the time to start looking at other fields you would like to work in. While this may involve a professional degree or Master's of some sort, what ROU_Xenophobe says about the life of a professor is dead on. For a graduate student, add the fact that you will be doing a lot of the same things for far less money, for professors you may not even like, while they shit on your work. For post-docs, add adjuncting and the job search treadmill with its accompanying anxieties and lack of stability.

If you want to be a professor, you have to be passionate about what you do to put up with the rest of the shit. You don't strike me as having a lot of passion about a particular academic field or subject.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:02 PM on June 18, 2008

I ended up working for the financial advisory group of a Big Four firm. [...] I see myself being happier as a professor--in what discipline I am unsure.

See, I'm thinking of going in the opposite direction, because I'm tired of my students making three times what I make, and I want to own a house some day.
posted by Mike1024 at 2:21 PM on June 18, 2008

You have only been out of college a year? Don't go to grad school yet! Try a different job or pursuing some interests extra-curricularly.

Only go to grad school once you are reasonably sure of the discipline you would like to specialize in. Grad school is a time- energy- and money-intensive commitment. Don't make the commitment until you are certain.
posted by Mr Bunnsy at 2:28 PM on June 18, 2008

On top of what has been mentioned already, when you are envisioning your dream life as a professor, imagine doing so on a salary between $45,000 and $60,000 a year, assuming you are at a pretty decently funded school. And that's after spending seven or more years getting your doctorate. Now, some fields are better paid, and some schools are much better endowed than others, so YMMV quite a bit. I should emphasize that professorial salaries not bad compared to median US household income, but are pretty unimpressive compared to what people earn in the corporate world, and are particularly difficult for those people who are unfortunate enough to have large student loan burdens.

Here's the highlights of the 2007-2008 AAUP faculty salary survey:

* Overall average salaries for full-time faculty rose 3.8% this year, the same as the increase reported last year. But with inflation at 4.1% percent for the year, the purchasing power of faculty salaries has declined for the third time in four years.
* The salaries paid to head football coaches at Division I-A universities are ten times as high as the salaries of senior professors.
* The gap between faculty salaries and salaries paid to administrators continues to grow.

Here are the 2007-08 average salaries for three faculty ranks:

* Full professor $103,521
* Associate professor $73,275
* Assistant professor $61,359
(Source)

My take is that you can find intellectual engagement anywhere -- there are many very dull and unimaginative professors, and many extraordinarily sharp people in business suits. And the routine hassles and paperwork and bureaucratic nonsense will follow you wherever you go. So definitely go to graduate school if it will make you a happy and self-fulfilled person... but don't be surprised to find the people you meet there to have the same flaws and shallowness as the people you are working with now.
posted by Forktine at 2:32 PM on June 18, 2008

To echo some of the other advice - it sounds like you need to wait it out a bit before heading to grad school. I was in a similar situation as you, but was super passionate about what I was doing nights/weekends and sufficiently sick of working at a job that paid really well but wasn't what I loved to drop one life and head back to school (with the goal of becoming a professor.) I agree with what others have said - that they wouldn't pay you to do it if it was fun (hence 'work') - but, if you're really passionate about something else, you should do that. For me, that meant going back to school to get a phd and giving up a bunch of stuff (money, for one thing), BUT, I'm very passionate about my field and know I made the right decision. If you've only been a year out of school, you're probably still adjusting to what that means in terms of lifestyle changes, etc. It's a tough adjustment to be away from the univ - give yourself some time, read some books, etc, and if you find something that really lights your fire and requires grad school, then you'll be in a much better place to succeed than just escaping back to school. You're also probably at a point in your career where stuff is pretty boring - work can get more interesting with experience, promotions, job changes, etc.
posted by drobot at 2:35 PM on June 18, 2008

Not to pile on, but yeah, you really should not go to graduate school. Intellectual curiosity and "dilettante" breadth of interest are great, but they are no substitute for the deep and abiding passion for a specific field of study that is the main thing you need to get through graduate-level specialist training. What you want to find is a more rewarding job. An MBA might help with that, I guess, if the kinds of jobs it would get you would be more fun for you, but so might simply searching for a new workplace and a new set of responsibilities that would engage your brain a little more.
posted by RogerB at 4:22 PM on June 18, 2008

Well, being a professor can mean different things--it can mean focusing mainly on research, mainly on teaching, or some combination of the two.

Keep in mind that at most schools, the decision to award tenure (or not) is based almost entirely on one's publication record. Were you to want to focus mainly on teaching, you'd first have to devote yourself pretty singlemindedly to publishing well enough to get tenure -- and getting tenure in many disciplines is becoming harder as schools increase the ratio of visiting and adjunct positions to tenure-track positions in order to save money.
posted by Cucurbit at 4:38 PM on June 18, 2008

Sounds like you might enjoy being a management consultant or in marketing research and/or strategy. Management consultant needs and MBA, research and strategy requires foundational skills and work experience.

I booked the GMAT and rebooked it three times until i finally decided that i didn't want to write it at all. (So, yes, that means i spent over $300 on booking and rescheduling fees for a test i didn't take.) When i finally made that decision i realized two things: One, i was pretty sure that i was happy with that decision, because i was pretty sure that i didn't want to work for the kind of people who only hired MBAs; and two, I was pretty certain there was no risk because I can always do the degree later on in life, with virtually no harm to my career.

So, moral of the story: If you aren't sure you want to go to grad school, then don't go yet. There's no benefit to wasting your time and effort and money studying something you don't want to do. Do some more work, or take some continuing education classes (so you can 'sample' other academic areas), and know that eventually something will just seem so appealing that the decision won't be hard.
posted by Kololo at 7:48 PM on June 18, 2008