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re: Is Grad school a waste of time?
Posted on 5/5/20 at 12:47 pm to UGATiger26
Posted on 5/5/20 at 12:47 pm to UGATiger26
quote:
For example, I have no idea what this covid-19 situation is going to do to the job market. If you can get accepted to a good grad program and snag a teaching/research assistantship along with it, that may be a pretty good way to ride out the next couple of years.
I graduated undergrad in 2008. The economy was shite. I had no luck with job interviews and had an opportunity to stay in school and get a Masters degree without spending a dime and with an assistantship.
The degree itself hasn’t done much. But the value was the in opportunity to do real research, the field experience, and learning how to write technical papers, etc. That was massive. I didn’t learn those things very well in undergrad and had I gone straight into the job market, I fear I would have suffered.
This post was edited on 5/5/20 at 12:48 pm
1
Posted on 5/5/20 at 12:49 pm to Sigma
quote:
Chem PhD here
I support manufacturing.
I've worked in upstream Oil and Gas, refining, petrochemical, and pharma.
Left grad with MS. Nobody was getting jobs outta grad school.
It sucks but I think PhDs get unfairly labelled as "odd". And people won't hire them.
Posted on 5/5/20 at 12:57 pm to Pettifogger
quote:
I promote college because society relies on hierarchical standards for jobs/careers, and college is the most common one. If you can get Enterprise to stop requiring a degree to rent cars, then great. Until then, telling people not to go to college is telling them to go tackle the world with a hand tied behind their back.
This is the cornerstone of our student debt crisis.
The fact is that if you don't have a college degree, you can't qualify to get even an entry level job in the modern economy outside retail, manual labor, etc. Even an associates is better than nothing.
Posted on 5/5/20 at 12:57 pm to lnomm34
quote:
The degree itself hasn’t done much. But the value was the in opportunity to do real research, the field experience, and learning how to write technical papers, etc. That was massive. I didn’t learn those things very well in undergrad and had I gone straight into the job market, I fear I would have suffered.
I won't bless all grad schools because a ton of them are useless and lack any intellectual rigor. But I think you raise a good point.
Increasingly, colleges are doing what high schools once did. Providing you some baseline for "real" professional education. Obviously this isn't true for hard sciences and some other fields, but tons and tons of people get an undergrad degree without knowing how to research, how to write, etc. It's depressing. IMO that blame falls to both undergrad institutions and modern public secondary education.
I suspect a lot of us coasted through high school and college, only to get "serious" about education in grad/professional school.
Posted on 5/5/20 at 1:03 pm to volod
quote:
This is the cornerstone of our student debt crisis.
The fact is that if you don't have a college degree, you can't qualify to get even an entry level job in the modern economy outside retail, manual labor, etc. Even an associates is better than nothing.
100% agree.
But while protesting the system is legitimate - what would you tell your kid to do?
There is huge correlation between "you don't need college" folks and people who succeeded in life without college in an era before almost universal college promotion.
If your kid wants to be a welder but has the chops for college - tell them to go to college (cheaply). Let's see if they still want to weld after they go to college. If yes, great. Nothing is stopping you and you've got a fallback. And if the answer is no - isn't that change of heart pretty relevant?
Posted on 5/5/20 at 1:27 pm to El_Tigre94
The world needs grad students. Someone has to do the work that professors get overpaid for and that administrators exploit for the obscene overhead expenses that fund their academic kingdoms.
Posted on 5/5/20 at 1:32 pm to hawkster
(no message)
This post was edited on 9/24/20 at 9:17 pm
Posted on 5/5/20 at 1:53 pm to El_Tigre94
College is way overrated. I've got a BS and MS in engineering and an MBA from top tier universities and I don't see where it made a difference for me.
I could have gotten just as far without incurring over $100k in additional educational costs.
You'll learn more on the job because most of the professors in higher learning have never worked outside of a university setting, i.e., real world experience.
I could have gotten just as far without incurring over $100k in additional educational costs.
You'll learn more on the job because most of the professors in higher learning have never worked outside of a university setting, i.e., real world experience.
Posted on 5/5/20 at 2:17 pm to El_Tigre94
I would echo that it is heavily dependent on if you can get it paid for and if it puts you into a different job/earnings bracket. For what I do a PhD is the price of entry and the pay is increased accordingly. That demand for trained PhDs then also allows for graduate assistantships at colleges that pay for tuition and provide a stipend to live on. So for me it is/was very much worth it.
In contrast, like others have said, a friend got her masters in English and incurred debt to do so and now makes crap money as an associate editor for a university press.
In contrast, like others have said, a friend got her masters in English and incurred debt to do so and now makes crap money as an associate editor for a university press.
Posted on 5/5/20 at 2:24 pm to El_Tigre94
No
Posted on 5/5/20 at 2:28 pm to El_Tigre94
For Engineers, yes.
When you leave school you don't use 80% of what you've been learning about and 80% of the new things you learn will never be taught in school.
When you leave school you don't use 80% of what you've been learning about and 80% of the new things you learn will never be taught in school.
Posted on 5/5/20 at 2:47 pm to lshuge
quote:
College is way overrated. I've got a BS and MS in engineering and an MBA from top tier universities and I don't see where it made a difference for me. I could have gotten just as far without incurring over $100k in additional educational costs.
A BS is needed for any engineering field. Are you saying that you didn’t even need that?
A masters is pretty much useless In engineering. MBA can pay out sometimes.
Was your $100,000 spent on just the MBA or did it include the masters? You should never have to pay for a graduate degree in engineering if you do it right.
That said, it doesn’t really pay to go to graduate school in engineering. Those with a BS can do very well.
Posted on 5/5/20 at 3:35 pm to Privateer 2007
quote:
I support manufacturing.
Do you do testing? In a lab (i.e. wet chem)?
quote:
It sucks but I think PhDs get unfairly labelled as "odd". And people won't hire them.
Maybe in oil and gas, but in pharma it's usually tough to get into management without an MD, PhD, or sometimes MBA.
Posted on 5/5/20 at 3:41 pm to Tiguar
quote:
Some people go to grad school to learn and for a general passion for what they study (research PhDs). It's not a waste for them even though they could come out ahead monetarily doing something else.
my daughter starts a 5 year doctoral program at northeastern this fall, in english literature. thats what she wants to be, be a research doctor of letters. its not what i would have picked, but i'm not her, and its her passion.
all things considered, a funded five year ride with no pressure to earn doesnt sound like a bad deal right now
Posted on 5/5/20 at 6:42 pm to El_Tigre94
I would say no. I went to grad school to pursue a Masters for 3 main reasons.
1. The school paid my tuition for it as well as having salary type pay.
2. I was not ready to start full time work and wanted to 'relax' for a few years.
3. I really was not sure what exactly I wanted to get in for my engineering field of study.
So no it has not been a waste of time. Have had a hell of a lot of fun and figured out what exactly I now want to do for the rest of my life.
1. The school paid my tuition for it as well as having salary type pay.
2. I was not ready to start full time work and wanted to 'relax' for a few years.
3. I really was not sure what exactly I wanted to get in for my engineering field of study.
So no it has not been a waste of time. Have had a hell of a lot of fun and figured out what exactly I now want to do for the rest of my life.
Posted on 5/5/20 at 6:56 pm to Sigma
I do method development, equipment troubleshooting, purchasing, quality control, some environmental and process issues, regulatory work, customer quality issues, stuff like that.
What do you do?
What do you do?
Posted on 5/5/20 at 6:58 pm to El_Tigre94
quote:
For those of you who went to Grad school, I'm curious if you saw a return on your investment. What did you go for? And, did it help you for your future goals?
pretty broad question considering a graduate degree is a pre-requisite to work in some fields. I couldn't do what i do without my grad degree, so yes I would say it helped e achieve my goals. What graduate program are you considering, and what would you like to do for a job? Kind of tough to answer without that information
Posted on 5/5/20 at 7:00 pm to El_Tigre94
I’m currently in grad school now for my Masters in Clinical Mental Health. After I pass the NCE and get my hours in post-grad, I’ll be able to go into private practice as an LPCC. I’ll likely work with a cohort (for billing purposes) or remain with the school system since they have started hiring in Mental Health Practitioners. My salary will get a significant increase and I’ll have the option of either staying school based or not (which is big for me).
Posted on 5/5/20 at 7:16 pm to El_Tigre94
Wasn’t for me. One of the best choices I ever made.
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