Best alternative to grad school
I’ve spent three years writing about how graduate school is a waste of time and money (yes, business school and law school too). So now when radio and TV producers need someone to bitch about graduate school, they call me.
Here I am on NPR today. I don't usually post my interviews, but this one is notable because I completely lost patience for people still defending grad school. It's so clear, even to defenders of grad school, that grad school is a bad financial decision, that this guy has resorted to saying that you need to go to grad school to be a good person. Of course, I went nuts on him.
I think the thing that is pushing me over the edge with graduate school is that people who are thinking straight about schooling are not even considering graduate school. These people are debating if college is a rip off (here’s a great discussion in New York magazine with James Altucher, a venture capitalist in NYC) And people are even debating if high school is useless (here’s a great post by Lisa Nielsen who is with the NYC Department of Education). And anyway, I’m losing interest in the debate about grad school because I’m convinced that the future belongs to home schoolers because they are self-learners.
Also, for those of you who keep telling me that there are some fields you absolutely have to have a degree for, check out the song 99 Problems by Jay-Z. The song includes great legal advice about Miranda rights, racial profiling and search warrants, even though he doesn’t have a law degree or a creative writing certificate to prove his poetic talents.
Click this link for an attorney’s analysis of the advice in the song, but here’s an excerpt, attorney’s advice in italics:
The year is ninety-four, in my trunk is raw
In my rear-view mirror is the motherfuckin’ law
Got two choices y’all, pull over the car or (hmm)
bounce on the Devil, put the pedal to the floor
And I ain’t tryin’ to see no highway chase with Jake
Plus I got a few dollars, I can fight the case
(Not running from the police seems like excellent advice.)
So I, pull over to the side of the road
“Son, do you know why I’m stoppin’ you for?”
Cause I’m young and I’m black and my hat’s real low
Or do I look like a mindreader, sir? I don’t know
Am I under arrest or should I guess some more?
(In general, not volunteering information at a traffic stop is great advice.)
In the comments section on the NPR site, people complain that I'm bitter and angry and offer no alternative to graduate school.
Here's the alternative: Admit that adult life is scary because there is no clear path to success. Grad school is not a quick fix for the fears of adulthood. Instead, be grateful for the chance to be lost — it means you're living your own life, because no one can make choices in the exact same way you can, whether they are right or wrong.
So all there is for adult life is you, following your nose, trying to figure out what brings you joy. Each time I see someone who has done that, in some little way, I feel relief and hope for myself.
Image from Austin Kleon.
I consider the graduate program I chose to be wonderful therapy and an excuse for adventuring for the sake of adventure! Of course, I chose carefully and found myself an interdisciplinary masters that allowed me to learn about a place I was keen on exploring (Alaska). I was a newspaper journalist with an ivy league undergrad education before I went to grad school and was fully aware that I didn’t NEED a graduate degree to continue writing and researching. But the program I found paid my tuition, but gave me a small stipend to live on and I got hooked up with a well-paid internship. I moved into a cabin in the woods with no running water, spent a lot of time reading, being surrounded by interesting people keen on learning and teaching, and I had summers free to adventure/research/explore random jobs with wild abandon… and it’s funny because I am still not finished with my thesis, but grad school gave me the connections and experience to apply for a different kind of jobs than I had in the past. I now have the best job in the world. I still live in a cabin with no running water and still don’t actually have a degree from my graduate experience, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything!
My advice: If you do want to go to grad school, do it, but just do it with a clear head and realistic goals. Don’t spend too much money on it and choose a school in a place you’d choose to vacation.
Anyone ever see this blog? A grad student is in the process of posting 100 reasons not to go to grad school, though specifically in the humanities and social sciences. It’s up to 58 reasons so far, and it’s pretty persuasive.
http://100rsns.blogspot.com/
I think graduate school is appropriate if the degree is gained in addition to practical work experience. I was fortunate enough to have my company pay for my master’s degree in statistics, which I earned while working full time. It was a lot of work and took me five years, but at the end I had no debt and was able to weave what I learned in graduate school with very practical experience from my job. I found that it’s very hard to be a statistician that moves up in a company without a graduate degree, but I was very glad that I was able to attend graduate school the way I did. I hope that if companies value some type of advanced degree or additional training for their employees, they will find ways to help their best employees obtain a graduate degree while they work.
The health care system is broken and the higher educational system is broken … financially. It’s working for now (sort of) but for how much longer? I just don’t think either system is sustainable in its current form. Think back over the last century. The education (and consequently fiscal) requirements (individually and for our society) for a decent job over the last century have been elevated from high school to college and now approaching grad school. I’m all for higher education but the manner in which it’s delivered needs changing to bring more value. Everyone’s finances and grad school funding is different but the loans that many students carry after graduation are astounding. However I will add the grad school should definitely be an option and it works best for those people that really know why they’re there – self-knowledge is the key.
I thought the interview was good as many points were discussed. I thought Peter Temes went over the line when he said – “The best thing you learn as a student is you learn how to listen …” He could have said something more tactful like – “Can I get a word in here edgewise?” or something similar. It was at that point when I knew Penelope had pressed his button. :)
Here’s the thing – until about 20 to 30 years ago, a college degree was what was deemed “needed” to succeed, and then over time that was changed to a graduate degree being the baseline of credentialism needed to succeed. The reason? The job market cannot employ everyone, so the culture shrunk the pool by keeping everyone in school longer on the one end, and then laying off the older workers (or forcing them into “early retirement”) on the other. Thus, the economy only has to generate jobs for people between 25 and 55.
Grad schools is for people with a real “vocation”.
If you would be glad to sleep on someone’s couch in Cambridge as long as you get to do one or more of things like:
* Prove theorems
* Splice Genes
* Try to translate Etruscan inscriptions
then go to grad school.
Otherwise you will are very likely to throw away three to ten years of your life, start your career late and you will be broke.
This especially applies to people who don’t come from well off families.
I have a master’s degree (M.A.). Its cost was about $2,000 and took me two years to complete (this was my decision — many of my fellow grad students chose to take three years, or take 5-6 and get a PhD). My program paid for everything but semester fees, and gave me a stipend to live on. Is this typical? Probably not. But it certainly goes against the idea that all graduate school is a waste of money. Instead, it’s possible that some graduate degrees are not right for everyone, and some graduate degrees occur more debt than they are worth.
Going to graduate school was the best thing that I’ve ever done. Graduate school made me learn how to teach, as my program demanded that we TA a course each semester. Graduate school taught me how to communicate succinctly, in a way that undergraduate work never did. Graduate school taught me to keep learning, and how to research. Research is applicable in the real world. I continuously find studies and trends, and present them to my agency. I keep my agency abreast of new things that are happening, even outside of my field of study.
Did my master’s degree make a difference in getting my job? Yes. Did the degree make a difference in my salary? No. But if you’re only going to graduate school to make more money in the future, you’re going for the wrong reasons.
My master’s degree is in Communication Science. Some (perhaps Penelope as well) deem it “worthless”. But going to graduate school wasn’t just an “escape” from adulthood. Going to graduate school was a deliberate choice that I made to learn more about what interested me. And my degree has paid off handsomely, even though it’s not reflected in a dollar amount. My $2K investment gives me tools that make me successful in my field. It’s not just a benefit to my current job, but it will be a benefit to any further job that I have.
Is graduate school for everyone? Certainly not. Many of my friends couldn’t dream of teaching, doing research or writing (and defending) a thesis. Does graduate school give you building blocks in how to succeed in the real world? Without a doubt.
Heh. Another lie via omission or exaggeration. When does she tell the truth?
You weren’t on NPR. You were on KPCC, an NPR-affiliated public radio station.
*sigh* thank you, Penelope. this is the kick in the butt i needed to drop my psychological baggage and be a self-starter. im so sick of school. i want…nay, will…be an entrepreneur like you.
as for college, i think the pro v. anti camps both have it mistaken. why not do college for just two years? by then, you’ll get the true benefits of without the huge debt. benefits like the experiences, personal growth, critical thinking skills, huge network of friends, football tailgates & games, and the classic toga parties. game the system.
just sayin’.
Grad school may be a waste of money if you are trying to buy an education. But, I got kicked out of my house at age 18 for being gay, and didn’t go to college – barely finished high school. I spent most of my adulthood feeling stupid and embarrassed. I finally went to college at age 38ish, then, went to B-School.
I could not have known how useless the education part was before going. (I just felt that others knew more. Now, I know no one knows anything.)
I am happily paying off the student loans that helped me pay for the rocket boost in confidence. I used to feel stupid, now I know I am among the top in my (very good) school.
I’m sorry to hear that you had such a hard introduction to adulthood Mary. But a competent and compassionate therapist could have helped you work through those inadequacy issues for far less than what you paid for your B-school education.
Penelope, why not respond to your critics at the radio station’s site, rather than simply post here where you know you have a base of supporters? From my perspective, your position appears to consist of self-centered generalizations that are incoherent and unsupported by reasoned analysis. As I recall, your response to an art student planning to enroll in an MFA program was, effectively, if you go to grad school, “you suck.” Do you really think that is the voice of an enlightened counseling professional? Sheesh!
Hey Penelope,
You have to check this out–quick parody video making fun of grad school:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6361570/honest-grad-school-ad
–Tina
Thanks for the kick in the rear, I was looking up MBA programs yesterday because my boss really wants me to have one. I must have been having a brain fart because I’m a “work no longer than 2 years at a place and switch” type of person. I’ve also started up my own consulting company on the side and if that takes off, the boss (um, that would be me), doesn’t give a goats behind if there is MBA after my name (and $80k in school loan debt).
Penelope:
Sad to say that I haven’t been reading your blog for the past 3 years. On the other hand and coincidentally we posted this story today about an alternative to expensive graduate schools: http://www.bartending-school.com/paul-costanzo-happily-bartending-age-60-2
Its quite astounding. I’ve probably got to go through your blog to get the full sense of your arguments–more than what I read in this one post, but I’ll also pass on a pretty amazing anecdotal story from our school:
We got a call from a newly graduated MD. She was starting her career as a doctor. Her pay was miserable. One of her co-workers at her hospital, and someone who is a grad student in the DC area was making lots and lots more than the new Doc. This other person was a graduate of our bartending school and getting a lot of work as a bartender on a regular basis.
Our program is all of 40 hours and costs considerably less than $1,000. It comes with a lot of job placement assistance. Its not an expensive training alternative.
Meanwhile, the newly minted Doc, had a minor car accident, didn’t have cash, had debts up the kazoo….and was asking us about extending payment programs for our little 40 hour program.
Big education programs within this economy are very risky…especially if they come with lots of debt.
Strangely enough I became a professor in a “hard science” to do exactly that: lifelong learning, lifelong challenges to invent and reinvent, constantly learning and studying new things, challenging myself. That is what grad school gave me.
Grad school is indeed a waste of time if all you want to do is bullshit your way through life as a grifter, conning one person after another. You don’t need grad school to be a con artist or a fraud. In fact, grad school is probably going to hinder your success, in that case, because you might accidentally take a philosophy class along the way and learn something about ethical behavior.
I think your “advice” on this blog is only useful if someone is looking for advice on how to become a sociopath.
Penelope,
I’m right there with you. Since 90% of those with MAs don’t work in the field they studied, of what use is it? Oh, right, just for the learning, as in being an educated person. Hah! With all the information available, becoming educated has never been easier for individuals to access.
I think Anya Kamenetz DIY-U covers the territory nicely. It both describes why academic education isn’t paying off and gives alternatives. For all but those fields that insist on undergraduate degrees (medicine comes to mind), the world is changing rapidly. Those who get degrees that don’t enhance their employability and incur debt over $20,000 are coming to look like sheep. Leave them to pay off their masters degrees through the retail and service jobs they could have gotten out of high school. The new economic age requires new learning paradigms.
Like you, I’m ready not to be singing this song anymore. I’ll have enough to do working with those who see the need for solid career planning before leaving high school. Working with those who need to be convinced, though the failures of our education system are all around, is just too draining. Keep the faith, Carol
no, not everybody should go to grad school. It depends what you want to do in your life. But grad school is not just for those who become professors, you learn a lot, and you will be able to do jobs you cannot do without an advanced degree. Like nuclear engineer, or make chips (the ones in your computer), or how to improve internet security, which needs so much high level math that you need an advanced degree. Yep, you might not run your own computer company, but you will still have a great job. You don;t have to own the store to do something worthwhile.
I totally agree that the internet is a wonderful resource of information. Education and learning however do not simply come from amassing information, they come from processing information. Sharing, discussing and learning with fellow students in grad school, college or high school pushes you to much higher levels of understanding than you can achieve alone.
Because not everyone is happy with grad school, and many have a different plan for their life does not make grad school the worst of all choices for everyone.
Sure, many skills you can learn on the job, many skills however can only be acquired in an intense period of learning. Grad school is more than getting a few facts into your head.
I started a business straight out of college. Twelve years later I had a three-year-old and a baby and I hated my educational choices in my rural area, so I decided to open a private school with the kind of curriculum I wanted. I spent the eight months or so waiting for the building to be ready learning everything about curriculum and the kind of learning I wanted my school to offer.
In my town, where I was known to have zero qualifications to run a school, an elderly woman stood up at a town meeting and said “how DARE she open this school.” It was felt to be an affront to the public school, which was held in high regard (though not, of course, by me).
Fast forward a few years and I was hired as an educational consultant for a large educational organization in my state. A year or so after that, I was offered a job teaching education at a community college. When I pointed out to the head of the dept. offering the job that I had no degree in education, she thought I meant master’s. No, no, I said, I have *no* degree in education, whatsoever. She was horrified and retracted the job offer. Which was too bad, because I would have kicked ass at that job.
Education is about gate-keeping, and yes, I know how overused that word is now, but still — it’s true. You have to pay to play, or for God’s sake, ANYONE would be hanging up their shingle.
I consulted for schools, led workshops, gave keynotes at conferences, etc., etc., etc., and since I had hired myself and I (very open-mindedly) didn’t require myself to have a degree in education (and my state, very open-mindedly, didn’t mind either), everyone else just assumed I had “credentials”. I didn’t need the credentials, obviously; they are a separate issue from actually possessing the knowledge. I learned it all on my own, and I mastered it well enough to go on to teach it to professionals. But that just won’t do — educators are, for obvious and self-serving reasons, the first in line to demand that everyone be properly educated to do every job. I just managed to sneak in on the basis of my ability to do the job.
Now I homeschool. Knowing how to learn what you need to know on your own is a super-skill.
I am a surprised about the assumption by Penelope that everybody in grad school is simply served up the knowledge. Grad school needs a large amount of self teaching, reading, finding the right source, and this is combined with the school providing a larger intellectual framework. I would be very disappointed in my students if they only relied on me providing them the material. I give them the tools to work and teach how to use them, they have to do the work.
I’m in graduate school now. I just finished a Masters in Mathematics from a third tier graduate school. They want graduate students partly for teaching assistance, but mainly to sit in the professors classes. It’s making work for the professors, not that they put any time into teaching. Some of the worse teaching I have ever gotten was there. Now I’m in graduate school for Mathematics Education. The College of Education is full of many juveniles. They climbed into the tree house, and now they are going to keep others out. Plus, in education, researchers are reading each others papers, but real teachers aren’t. So, I am looking for a job.
Well Lori “I would be very disappointed in my students if they only relied on me providing them the material. I give them the tools to work and teach how to use them, they have to do the work.” La-ti-da. Do you actually give assignments which allow them to do that? Or are your assignments so constrained, with so many prescribed parameters, that there is little opportunity for individual thinking?
Years ago my uncle had carpal tunnel surgery, with a great big “y” shaped scar on his hand and wrist. While getting his stitches out he asked about doing the other hand. The doctor said to wait a few months. Six months later the same surgery required three incisions for a total of 7 stitches. However, in the college of education such dramatic innovation isn’t going to happen.
yes, indeed, I give them assignments a.k.a. research projects where the outcome is unknown. This means that the constraints are minimal, and they need their own brain to work it out, come up with solutions, develop new ways to get where they want to go, find a way out of it if things do not work. However, without solving problems first where the answer is indeed known, it is not possible to take this next step into the unknown.
Ah, I see, you’re talking to me by mistake…
After six years of grad school in one of the physical sciences (so there was plenty of grant money to pay our graduate assistantships; I accrued no student loans and graduated with no debt and a paid-off car), I skipped the obligatory post-doc and went straight into teaching, and have enjoyed twenty-plus years of relatively interesting, stress-free work that pays roughly double the median income for a family of four in my area. And it’s all on nine-month contracts, so my summers are free to do with as I please. Grad school was very, very good to me. I recommend it to everyone. Admittedly, most of my students are graduate students, so there is a bit of self-interest there.
“I recommend it to everyone.”
Sure, because everyone gets grants for it, no one goes into debt for it, and everyone gets a good job afterwards. Everyone’s just like you and is certain to have the same great experience you did.
Maybe you should consider only recommending it to some, instead of everyone.
I’m an old baby boomer who went to grad school in the 70’s, did the internship bit, then decided to take the M.A. and skip the PhD. I can’t believe that people are going into six figure debt for this nonsense. Outside of Medicine, to a much lesser extent Law, I just can’t see it. To me, it felt like I was back in high school, reading other people’s reading lists. Yet, I taught community college for 22 years with no PhD when PhDs I knew couldn’t get hired. It happened that when an opening developed, I was substitute teaching in an inner city junior high and the Chairperson said “If he can do that, he can do anything.” Although my M.A. at a private college cost less then than it would at a public college today, I would not get that M.A. today. The really great people in my field are mostly in the cemetery. I’m sorry to say that the decline of higher education began with people my age. As for learning advanced subjects, that will all soon be online. Don’t stifle your creativity to tow the party line in a grad school. All you’ll get in most cases is a credential that allows you to teach college, if you’re lucky enough to get a job. I say phooey.
For the most part I agree with your basic assessment. I got an MS 10 years ago. There were only 3 courses that were worth taking and one was dropped form the program because I was the only one to ever take it(it was an elective in another department). Way too many of the courses were just revenue for the university. I had at least 3 required courses that I could have passed with an A on day one.
If a person does go to grad school they need to work full time while they do it. Yes it takes longer but you don’t loose the years of real skill and salary growth.
Folks if you’re going to argue that grad degrees are valuable because certain fields rely heavily on credentials, you need to factor the cost v benefit to individuals who obtain those degrees but are not able to find employment, or are underemployed, in those fields. Because one of the primary drivers of credentialism is specialization, which means that the transferability of graduate degrees in those fields decreases as you go up the ladder. So it’s a sunken cost for this group. Also the marginal value of a graduate degree, for those who do find relevant employment, has been decreasing steadily over the past several decades – go ahead and look it up.
Realistically there is an overproduction of grad degrees in the US, even in the sciences and engineering. This fact is evinced by the employment numbers. The reason that employers increasingly require them is that they come cheap. It’s supply and demand. This is the same phenomenon we’ve seen evolve with undergrad degrees over the past several decades.
Thank you, Penelope Trunk! Once a few million more people figure this out, the world will be a better place.
To that end, here are 100 Reasons NOT to Go to Grad School:
http://100rsns.blogspot.com/
I went to graduate school 20 years ago – the program combined theoretical and practical aspects of my profession (internship combined with class work). It was a ‘paid’ internship which also covered the costs of the masters degree. I had already worked in another engineering profession for four years before going to graduate school – I wanted to move into a completely different engineering field – I used my graduate school experience to bridge to my newer (then) career. It was a great experience and I believe very beneficial for me – I still practice in that profession.
Key for me was knowing exactly what I wanted to do, researching the types of programs available and knowing that a combination of work and school would be the best for me in the end. While I might have been able to find another avenue to pursue my desire, it would have been a lot more difficult and taken more time to reach where I am today.
I stumbled on a few of your columns and I have to say that we have similar attitudes about education. I’m also an ardent observer of history and society, thinking about how generations shape the future.
I’ve viewed education the same as most for most of my life, but recently began examining those traditional views. Public schools are like assembly lines with government mandates loading up more and more “important” things to include in education (which rarely involve the “three Rs”). The spectacle in WI and the battles in NJ sealed my belief that NO ONE can have my son’s best interest in mind more than my husband and I. I’m a Gen Xer planning to homeschool my son. I also have two adult children, one in college and one entering. While I am surrounded by parents who believe they need to go off and incur tons of debt at a big school, partying and having the “college experience” (I guess debt is part of that too), I am sending them to a wonderful community college first. They are getting a quality education covering those basic ‘must have’ classes for much, much less. This will give them two more years of deciding what they want to do and how to make that happen. I see this being a bigger trend too. Putting aside the ‘need’ to go away to an expensive four year school and attending local community college first. Once an option for those who couldn’t get into big name colleges, it’s now the choice for those with fiscal and practicality concerns.
Thanks for your columns, I too see an education revolution coming.
Gina
Deserat said: “Key for me was knowing exactly what I wanted to do, researching the types of programs available and knowing that a combination of work and school would be the best for me in the end.”
Exactly. I have one friend right now who wants to go to law school for all the wrong reasons. She wants a change, can’t think of anything else to do, and isn’t researching programs because she can’t relocate and would have to settle for the one law school near her. I urged her to reconsider, and told her that if she didn’t have a free ride and/or a job waiting on her, she shouldn’t go. Tuition is far too expensive now for people to be using it to “find themselves.”
I’d give that same advice to those wanting to attend any sort of graduate school. I got my PhD 13 years ago in a field where jobs were plentiful, as were grants, internships, fellowships, etc. I knew what I wanted to do – had known since I was 19 – and entered a field where the PhD was required, but I didn’t have to take out any loans, and earned roughly $11-$16K per year while I was a full time student.
You should go to grad school to get a job – period. If you just “love learning”, get a library card.
KS says:
“Exactly. I have one friend right now who wants to go to law school for all the wrong reasons. She wants a change, can’t think of anything else to do, and isn’t researching programs because she can’t relocate and would have to settle for the one law school near her. I urged her to reconsider, and told her that if she didn’t have a free ride and/or a job waiting on her, she shouldn’t go. Tuition is far too expensive now for people to be using it to “find themselves.””
She will find $150,000+ in debt.
I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I went to law school. It worked in the late 1990s, although I ended up with $120,000 in debt. Now? Not so much.
If she’s completely insistent on going to law school, she should keep taking the LSAT until she has a high LSAT score and then scoop up scholarship money from the local school.
Most people will change careers five times in their life.
I find that very difficult to believe. Where did you get that idea?
I’ll call Brave Sierra on that also. We hear that number thrown out all-the-time, but without any evidence to back it. I suspect that number is conflated with employer or work relocation within the same career. Not the same thing at all. I’ve worked 32 years for one company, but in 3 different business units at 3 different locations. Does that count as 3 career changes?
It depends.
I have a Masters in Healthcare Administration. I got a bit out of the program (admittedly, not a ton), but I can’t imagine what students who arrived straight from undergrad, got out of it. Most of the lessons had to do with real world, healthcare scenarios. These people had nothing of value to contribute to the group. Then the foreign students, who could barely speak English. Get them in a group and you could count on them contributing zero.
Like everything else, it depends. My Masters helped me get a position I probably would not have obtained otherwise, so I am glad I have it.
I’m an MD scientist. I think Penelope has it mostly right.
You go to grad school if you really want to. If you really, really want to be a scientist and do your own experiments, and you think you can beat the odds and do, then go to grad school.
With your eyes open, because you might not beat the odds.
Ditto for just about any other graduate endeavor. If romance literature is your passion, fine, go to grad school and study romance literature. Just don’t expect a fine job at a prestigious university teaching romance literature as the pay-off.
And, preferably, don’t run up a lot of debt paying for grad school.
There are some masters programs that directly translate into a job or career you want to have. Fine, go get the masters. Ditto if you want to be a physician or lawyer (eyes open, remember). Get the degree.
But get educated first about what grad school means, how you’re going to pay for it, and what that degree honestly translates into.
A final comment: some of the curmudgeon faculty at my university are very upset about some of the masters’ programs being offered by our institution. Why? Because they see them simply as ways of making money for the university without adding value to our mission.
Enough said.
It really depends. I’m an engineer and a M.S. was an easy way to put myself ahead of the crowd for future employment. My company paid for it and I had a guaranteed payraise upon completion of the degree – so it would have been stupid **not** to pursue, it only cost me time, some of which was comped by my employer since the research I was doing benefited them as well.
I am almost done with my Ph.D. Again, my employer is paying for it although I have no promotion based on it, the degree will open doors in the long term.
I don’t disagree grad school is overkill for most, but for some it is a blessing.
Sure, people can learn on their own, but without structure, community and accountability, many people won’t learn the content or skills that they set out to with the best intentions. People can also lose weight on their own with diet and exercise, but programs like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig remain popular for the same reasons (structure, community and accountability).
For both WW and school, your ultimate ‘results’ depend on what you take from it, and you need to decide whether the extra buttressing is needed and worth the cost.
Yes we can (learn by ourselves) but most of us won’t. It sounded like graduate school is worse than nothing. Yet I have heard countless reports that personal health correlates with the level of education, whatever the field of study. Studying seems to teach you to absorb information. One might expect that to be a helpful quality in an ever-changing job life. Besides, Penelope was too emphatic to sound convincing (cf. “It’s PREPOSTEROUS to…”) Made me skip half of the podcast. Cool and detached is better.
Interesting discussion! I have often thought about going back to school and getting a Master’s in PR to add to my Bachelor of PR, but the main reason I haven’t is I don’t want to put the time and money towards it, esp since it won’t really help me get work in the field unless I want to teach at a University level and I have no interest in that. So, personally I agree that you don’t necessarily need to get a Master’s or PhD, etc, in order to be successful in your field. That being said – I can see why people DO go for them – some ppl DO actually need to have them in order to move up in their field, some ppl like the personal satisfaction that they get from it, some ppl just want to specialize more in one particular area of their field or try out a different field altogether. Sure it costs a lot of money and is a huge time commitment, but that doesn’t mean it’s a “waste of time”. That’s decision that everyone has to make for themselves. Some ppl can afford the time and money it takes, and even if they can’t some ppl really want to, so is that so bad? It’s only a waste of time for you if you are doing it for no reason when you really can’t afford the time or money. I also agree that there is a lot that we can teach ourselves nowadays given the enormous amount of info that is at our fingertips, but some of us are not self-motivated enough to learn complex things on our own. I myself work much better when I am accountable to someone (a prof or boss), have regular assignments with deadlines, and I absorb more being in a physical classroom directly absorbing learning. I would never stick with a learning plan on my own time even if it was for something I really wanted to learn. That’s just me – everybody learns in different ways and I think that’s the real key here.
That other NPR guy is way off base. I went to a top tier law school. I absolutely wish I had gone into nursing school instead. Realized too late that women flock to that field because they can make good money and actually see their kids. I miss mine.
Does a graduate degree get you ahead in the real world? Perhaps the jury is still out, but in the federal government a masters or Ph.d is the key to upward mobility. And if you are female and arrive with a masters in hand, you never have to look over your shoulder because no one is going to catch you. You are golden and will remain so long after people have caught on to your penchant for medocrity.
just one more comment: Penelope is saying that if you are in Grad School you are just a dependent, slaving away for the professor and you don’t get to do your own experiment. Do you have any idea how much knowledge, experience and sweat is needed to design your very own experiment? One which is good enough to get published and recognized? The reason that relatively few people get to do their own is not that they are prevented by some higher power from doing so, but that actually very few people are good at it (and bring the persistence, stubbornness, and intellectual power to do so to the table).
And by the way a PhD is awarded for an independent, new contribution to the field.
I’m an actuary. I sometimes speak at universities about the profession. I also interview job candidates from time to time.
To be an actuary, you have to have a Bachelor’s degree and you have to pass the actuarial exams – which are much, much harder than getting a Bachelor’s degree.
Fortunately, after you pass a couple of actuarial exams, you can usually find work in an actuarial department, and employers will generaly pay for your exams. You still have to put the time in yourself, and it’s a lot of time, but it’s not like paying grad school tuition and not earning a living.
I often meet students or job candidates who have or are pursuing a Master’s degree, and even occasionally a PhD. I think it’s fine that they have an interest in further study, but in my field, I regret to inform them, it does not pay more. It does not make you a top candidate. It doesn’t do anything for you within the confines of this career.
This news is not recieved well by these students/candidates, and understandably so, but it is the reality.
Oh, fortunate me – I’ve got the best of both worlds: Grad school and still lost!
Yay!
Steven spielberg, Steve Jobbs and a lot others dropped out of schools !
I think you should qualify your blanket statement about grad school with something regarding the benefits of useful graduate degrees. I know a lot of people that of their grad degrees in Econ, sociology, literature, etc. Agreed. Absolute waste of time. I utilize both of my degrees everyday at work and the combination of knowing two disciplines that supplement each other can help make you an extremely valuable employee. Case in point: how many people can be an intermediary between IT and finance? Well, someone who has a degree in information systems and one in accounting. Also, shameless plug for the Gators! Thanks for the Ed!
No one has written anything yet about MFAs. I have a BFA in Painting & Drawing and it’s my life’s dream to be a financially self-supporting artist. For most artists, this means gallery representation. Unfortunately, the art world is ridiculously exclusive — even if you meet the right person who introduces you to someone else who introduces you to a gallery owner, you will often not skate by on the quality of your work alone. An MFA is something they actively look for on your artist’s CV. Without it, you are second class. To become first class, you have to fight even harder because no one thinks you are truly serious about being an artist long-term. They have to think you are serious because otherwise no one will want to invest in your work.
I’m currently on the fence about going to grad school. I’m mid-twenties and don’t have kids, so I feel like now is the time, if I’m going to do it. But I would have to take out massive loans and go into serious debt, so I’m not sure it’s worth the investment. For me, it wouldn’t be an escape from adulthood — I like adulthood just fine — because in an MFA program you work, constantly; generally, these are studio based programs, not classroom – you’re nose is not in a book, it’s in the studio, probably with a smear of cadmium red on it.
I know that part of my desire for an MFA is rooted in a childhood-induced, perfectionist need to prove myself to others, so maybe making it without this accreditation would be the ultimate way to overcome that. But then again, more than anything I just want to make painting my career, and not have to work for someone else, and I don’t really care how that happens, I just want it to happen.
If anyone has any comments or experience about the value of an MFA, I’d love to hear it.
Megan, it depends on your goals as an artist. If you want to establish yourself as an “advanced” artist in an international art production center (such as LA or NY), it probably does make sense. (In LA , particularly, the art culture is very much attached to the schools.) If you want to teach at the college level, the MFA is pretty much essential. If your goal is to establish a local market for painting of a more established, conservative stripe, than you may not need the MFA–perhaps there’s another way to carve out the time to focus on painting that the MFA years will provide (you should only go into the MFA program if you are open to significant changes in your work). Also, all MFA programs are not equal: where you go will shape both your ideas about art and the cohort of professional colleagues with whom you enter the profession.
Thanks for your insight BT. You’re right that you should be open to significant changes in your work if you go into an MFA program, and the idea of that makes me uncomfortable. I like how I paint and what I paint, and I feel like I’m making good and steady progress as an artist on my own, by keeping a regular studio practice outside of my full time job. My art is not conservative, except that it’s figurative, realistic, and oil on canvas, all of which are considered quite old-fashioned in the installation/video-heavy, overly-conceptual-at-the-expense-of-aesthetics current state of the art world. My figurative paintings are sometimes not family-friendly, though, so I guess it depends on your idea of conservative.
I have a small collector base, and a growing list of contacts and potential collectors through my job in the arts so I feel like I’m doing okay so far without the degree. I just fear that I will hit a glass ceiling at some point because I don’t have it. My instincts tell me that that by itself is not a valid or solid enough reason to go.
But if I choose not to go, I feel like something else has to change – probably my location. I live in a city of about 2 million people with no REAL art world. I don’t want to live in LA or NY, but I feel like I’m going to have to. I’d live and have a successful career in western Europe if I had it my way. So maybe I should be tailoring my career steps towards what is expected of artists (education wise, etc.) over there…
Megan, as you know, London and Berlin are also centers of art production, assuming you want in to that international “art world,” the world of the Venice Biennale, Artforum magazine, etc. If you become fluent in German and get admitted to school there, I’ve been told there is no tuition charge, even for non-citizens (I’m not 100% sure of that, so please verify that claim before taking any steps in that direction). My advice, though, is not to go into any MFA program unless you are pretty sure of what you want to use it for–the sheepskin alone, even from a prestigious program, doesn’t guarantee you anything. Good results will come from the qualities of your work, your ability to be well-informed, articulate, and an independent thinker; and the group of art professionals and peers who take you seriously because of their experiences with you and your work. In many cases, it will be easier to progress in your career if you settle, for a while at least, in the area where you went to school… so that may be a consideration, too.
One more thought: if you go to a strong MFA program, you should be prepared to put in serious nose-in-book-time, not just hands-on-the-paint. Learning to think about and justify your work in relationship to art history, contemporary practices and theoretical/critical ideas is a big part of what motivates change in your work, and enables you to stake out a position as an artist. It also, like it or not, will educate you about the reasoning that lead to the “current state of the art world” that you describe.
BT, I would hope that anyone who has been through a BFA program worth its salt would emerge with a solid understanding of art history, theory, and how the progression of contemporary art led us to where we are now (as well as how to speak about and justify your work). I get it, and I respect it, and I understand how it informs my own work, but what’s being made and celebrated right now (and I’ve kept abreast, reading and seeing everything I can, and regularly attending contemporary fairs like Basel Miami though they’re very far from me) is just not for me. I’m interested in where art is going next and how I fit into that, and that’s what I hope the community and intense focus of a graduate degree would help accelerate for me.
I know that heavy reading and writing are required in MFA programs, but I originally made that distinction in my first comment to illustrate the difference between an MFA and an MA, for example, which I think we can safely say requires much more reading and writing. I was an exceptional student in art school and enjoyed that aspect of my studies, so I don’t think I’d have a problem there.
Sorry, Megan. I didn’t intend to impugn your education. Good luck to you, whatever course you choose.
Thanks, BT. I didn’t mean to sound defensive. I greatly appreciate the sound and relevant advice you’ve given me. The art world is its own animal, so it’s difficult to find useful advice in forums outside of the art community. Thanks!
Hi Penelope,
I never comment on your blog, though I read your posts regularly.
Thanks for validating my lack of an advanced degree. Almost every friend I have is either getting or has gotten an MBA, JD, MA or MFA. I was starting to feel like I should get a degree just to “keep up,” even though I rarely make decisions for that reason.
I’ve been at the same company for four years but I’ve moved up a few times and keep re-inventing my job. While it’s not my life’s passion it continues to interest me and keep things exciting. And for now that is enough.
Danielle
But since “unhappiness is good for you” (http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2011/04/22/unhappiness-is-good-for-you/), grad school is pretty much perfect.
I tended to hire people with graduate degrees because it made my search easier. Usually, but not always, they were relatively ambitious, relatively focused, and relatively dedicated to the industry they had selected.
The current fad of education is another form of hoarding.
12 years of high school, 4 years for a Bachelor, 3 years
for a Masters, 1 year of time in Kindergarten. Thats 20 years
to just get a job. 2 or 3 years post grad. Thats pushing 23
years in school. I don’t get it?!?!????
I just viewed a 1 hour video ( http://inflation.us/videos.html ) from the National Inflation Association titled ‘College Conspiracy’ dated 5/14/11. I thought it was well composed, thought provoking, and relevant to this post.
Thanks Mark! Decades ago I tried a year of Arts and Sciences. The delivery and pace of the courses were
not compatible to my learning style. I did complete a
2 year Diploma at a community college. I also took a
bunch of post secondary accredited career diplomas
correspondence. I figured this would be a good substitute
for a degree. There were always eccentric people that
spent years at university as professional students. Now
it is necessary to arm your self with double masters, Phds
6 Bachelors etc etc. This seems to be an addiction at an
infinite cost. I’m of the opinion an associate is all society should demand of an individual. If you can’t get airborn with a Bachelors then the problem is something else not the need for more education.
Dave, I’m glad you enjoyed the video. I’m in agreement with much of your comment. However I think there are some professions which require extended education beyond the associate degree (e.g. – medical doctor). It just seems to me that too much weight is assigned to both undergraduate and graduate degrees as training for subsequent jobs. It’s not only the time invested but also the enormous cost to the individual (or society in the form of grants, scholarships, etc.). Somebody is paying. I think we’re all paying to tell you the truth. Colleges and universities can greatly improve their programs IMO by partnering with the private sector directly. Real life experience in the field with mentoring where students get college credit toward their degree. I think this approach would help students more accurately define their career before they graduated with a degree. It may even compress some programs from four years to 2 to 3 years. We won’t know until we are willing to try some alternatives to the present system.