More than once, the question of whether going to grad school was a good idea has wandered into my mind. By spending a year and a half in grad school, I ended up behind my peers who haven’t gone for more education financially and career-wise. I don’t think career-wise is that much of a difference, but financially that’s at least $100k which is quite significant.
But, I’ve come to the realization that it would have been hard to get to my current situation at IBM without going to grad school. So it seems to have worked out for me. Although I’m still not sure if it’s worth the investment.
Generally though, I still think grad school is a bad idea. I share a lot of the beliefs of this article on the problems of going to grad school, but hadn’t thought of this point in the age of change®:
8. Graduate school forces you to overinvest: It’s too high risk.
In a world where people did not change careers, grad school made sense. Today, grad school is antiquated. You invest three to six extra years in school in order to get your dream career. But the problem is that not only are the old dream careers deteriorating, but even if you have a dream career, it won’t last. You’ll want to change because you can. Because that’s normal for today’s workplace. People who are in their twenties today will change careers about four times in their life. Which means that grad school is a steep investment for such a short period of time. The grad school model needs to change to adapt to the new workplace. Until then. Stay away.
I think the idea of more education = success is too firmly engrained in immigrant minds. This leads to the though that more degrees, certifications, or titles will help, when that’s not always the case anymore.
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