Why Go to Graduate School?
During my graduate program, I finally fell in love with school. That's right. It took more than four years after high-school, but it happened to me.
It's not that my undergraduate program was so terrible, but the problem was that it was so busy. I hardly had time to digest and assimilate the content into my own framework for how the various principles connected and integrated across the different domains. Partly that was my fault but partly that is the way the system works. There is a lot of content that needs to be compressed and delivered to the student in four years. In fact, the number of necessary engineering principles that a university feels obligated to impart to students increases every year. If they didn't, the graduating engineers would be slowly more unequipped to compete in an ever-changing and advancing world.
As a result, I often took six courses all in the same semester in order to graduate in four years. During that time, almost every hour of every week was dedicated to doing homework assignments, writing lab reports, reading textbooks, and studying for exams. Thus, by necessity, I wasn't very social - not that I didn't want to be or that my personality is introverted, but I simply felt I didn’t have the time. Could I have been more efficient? Sure. But I had to learn how to learn and that can take time and effort. Finally, although I sometimes found the time, I regret not serving on engineering club committees, volunteering in research groups, and meeting with professors as much as I wanted. Again, I just felt I didn't have time.
Don't be like me. There is a lesson in that.
However, all that changed in grad school. I was finally able to pursue topics I had placed on the back burner. I registered for only 2 or 3 classes at a time. I worked on a real project side-by-side with a PhD student and my advisor analyzing data from a sounding rocket that actually flew through the aurora borealis. I met with professors and joined clubs, and even had time for social things. It was so refreshing, different, and more enjoyable that I went on to obtain two more graduate degrees. I couldn’t get enough.
My view now is that an undergraduate degree is like boot camp. It's necessary, hard, tiring, and some of our friends might even quit, but those that make it out on the other side are stronger and better able to make a difference and take on more important roles and positions. There is an instant respect when two engineers meet each other knowing that both successfully passed through a gauntlet of tough times.
So, should you go to grad school? My short answer to you is yes, but my real answer would carefully consider a bunch of additional factors. In that vein, the following list presents a few personal thoughts on why one should seriously consider continuing their education after the undergraduate degree. You can likely find a number of additional points on other lists throughout the internet but these are the ones I’d share with you if we were talking.
Increased Compensation A masters or doctorate degree can open up job opportunities that pay better. It's not wise to always make decisions based solely on money, but let's just get this advantage out of the way, and state that people still need to provide for their needs and at that same time pursue a level of happiness which research has found is correlated with salary up to a point. In recent years, that point has been found to be somewhere near $75,000 annually. An advanced degree can help reach that salary. Society compensates individuals in non-linear ways and not always in equal proportions to their contributions, but a general trend is that more education results in higher salaries. We all know someone who struggles to stay gainfully employed despite an advanced degree (so one can always throw that counter example my way too) but I know even more people who are indeed brilliant contributors to society but are unfortunately underpaid because they lack the credentials. Interestingly, the world currently pays what it thinks your worth, not always what you are worth. I don’t always agree with that but that’s something to be aware of.
Job Satisfaction Along with opening up the increased compensation doors, an advanced degree can open up the doors to higher job satisfaction. With a graduate degree, what you likely will end up doing in your vocation can sometimes be more challenging, engaging, exciting, and dynamic, which has been linked to job satisfaction. This doesn't mean that work after an undergraduate degree will be mindless and boring. However, certain leadership positions, research positions, decisional-making positions, and management positions are reserved for someone with an advanced degree. You might not seek any of those roles, but maybe you should keep the doors to those positions open. Setting up limits or boundaries on yourself is not always the best idea, especially during times of uncertainty and changing societal dynamics. To gain some perspective on this element, consider talking with or even interviewing a few people with advanced degrees and your dream job. Ask them if they like what they do and focus on questions regarding what their graduate degree did to help them land their job (and your dream job).
Time to Learn As mentioned above, I felt rushed during my undergraduate degree to learn the material as fast as I could and be able to successfully regurgitate it on an exam. I honestly didn't want to forget the content but it was hard to maintain it as so much was coming down the pipeline and I had to move quickly onto the next topic. I would have loved to reread some textbook sections and take time to code, visualization, and play with an equation or two on a computer but time was limited. In contrast, in grad school, I felt I could take the time to really understand a topic. Occasionally, I let myself dive deep into the literature reading both textbooks and journal articles on a single narrow topic. Studying for a full week or two on one small topic can be enthralling. This unfortunately never happened during my undergraduate program where time to make connections was scarce. On the other hand, during grad school, I felt I finally could review material and even go outside the course content a little to learn principles at a deeper level that stayed at a superficial level before grad school.
Explore and Research What You Want Often, graduate students have more say on the topic they research compared to undergraduate projects. Yes, the graduate advisor might have funding for a particular project or area and require that the student research in that general area, but the graduate student often has additional freedoms. For example, after an undergraduate degree you will likely know what topics you enjoy more than others. If you choose a graduate program, advisor, or topic near that area your chances of exploring what you want are much higher. Additionally, some or even all of the courses you select as part of a graduate program can be left to the student. Diving deep into that machine learning or big data course you've always wanted to take, but never had a chance to, is usually possible. Also, since I had freedom to pursue subtopics within my research topic as directed by my advisor, I was free to explore areas he was unfamiliar with but still interesting to me. Thus, while researching, if I came across a topic that was unnecessary or not as interesting, I could move on or consume it at my own pace, and not worry about stuffing something into my head that I was only marginally interested in. Invariably, during undergrad there is always at least one course a student despises because of the content (and not necessarily due to the instructor). I had mine. I'm sure you've had yours. This is less likely to occur during grad school because you can often choose more of your courses instead of the predefined sequence and course order for an undergraduate curriculum.
Personal Development I was fortunate to attend a number of conferences and visit various sponsors and research labs during my graduate program. This allowed me to write papers, give oral presentations, and interact with sponsors from both government and industry. Essentially, I was able to develop various skills that are not always acquired during undergraduate programs. True, there are oral presentations, term papers, and many activities that prepare the engineer during an undergraduate degree, but these communication and soft skills take time to develop and giving yourself more time and opportunities to acquire those skills is advantageous. Similar arguments can be made for other skills developed in grad school such as working on teams, leadership, mentorship, networking, writing, proposing, and even teaching. I chose to be a teaching assist for a number of semesters while also working as a PhD student. Not only did I want to assess if I enjoyed teaching but it concurrently helped me learn the material better and it provided thousands of personal interactions (i.e. email, face-to-face, phone, in-person groups) with both students and the instructor, during which I could practice various communication skills. Beyond the academic domain, I was also able to recover some of my physical health since I had a little more time to engage in recreation activities in the gym and in the outdoors. Ultimately, I was more balanced. Yes, I should have maintained that during undergrad but I didn't. Thus, the personal development during grad school, at least for me, extends beyond the engineering, technical, and communication skills mentioned above to physical, emotional, and even social domains.
Opportunities to Work on Something New and Challenging Grad School isn’t easy. By definition, it should be challenging and push you in many different ways. Generating something truly novel and useful is harder than you think. Many wonderful things have already been researched and developed. I remember when I thought one of my ideas was pure genius. I looked into it a little more and realized other had spent entire careers and decades exploring and developing my idea. Well, back to the drawing board. But that’s also what I enjoy - the challenge. Research is hard. It’s hard to find unique and publishable ideas that no has thought of before. If the idea was easy, it would have been thought of and applied a long time ago. The problems researchers are facing today are challenging. There is of course a lot of failure but the occasional successes are very satisfying. If you want to be challenged your whole life intellectually, going to grad school is one way to put you on that path. Being the first to discover a new continent would be amazing, and graduate researchers get a taste of that, if not continually in their later careers, at least in graduate school.
There are likewise a few reasons to NOT go to graduate school. But I’ll save that for my next article. In the meantime, seriously consider the above points as you approach grad school application dates during the next couple of months.
