Really Bad Reasons To Go To Graduate School

Today I am going to do something that will probably upset some of you:  I'm going to appropriate an idea from what "LawProf" posted today.


He wrote about "bad reasons for going to law school."  Most of the reasons he gives, in one way or another, apply to going to graduate school in almost any field that's not STEM.  Unfortunately, they also seem to be the chief reasons why new or recent graduates go to grad or law school.


Here are some of the worst reasons to go to graduate school, especially in the humanities or non-quantitative social sciences, listed in no particular order:

• I can't get a job with my BA in English, History, Philosophy, Sociology, Political Science or fill-in-the-blank.

If you can't get a job with a bachelor's in one of those fields, what makes you think you're going to get one with a master's or PhD in it?  Today, with the Internet, there's no excuse for not knowing about what the dismal prospects are for people with advanced degrees in that field.

• My advisor says I'm the best student he's seen in years and that I could make "major contributions" to my field.

Well, guess what, sweetie.  Every adjunct instructor was told the same thing at some time or another in his or her academic career.  So, for that matter, have any number of baristas and waitresses.  Oh, yeah, I know a couple of cab drivers who were told the same thing.

• Well, I know there aren't a lot of jobs in the field.  But I only have to get one of them.

Believe it or not, a PhD student I met actually said that.  My dear, you also have a billion-to-one chance (or whatever it is) of winning the Lotto jackpot.  But you only have to win it once.

• And I'll be the one to get that job.

If you have such great powers of prediction, you should be picking stocks or something.

• At least I won't have to start paying off my undergraduate loans.

A tumor doesn't shrink when you leave it alone or ignore it.  It doesn't become easier to treat if you wait three, seven or ten years.  Think of a debt as a tumor.  I wish I had.

• They can never take your education away from you.

True enough.   But unused education tends to make people depressed and bitter.  Just think of all of those Ivy League housewives in the 1950's who self-medicated with alcohol and painkillers.  Or--take a look at almost any underemployed person you've ever met.  They make me think of what Caliban says to Prospero:  "You have given me language/And the profit on't is, I can curse."

• No one in my family/community has ever done it before.

And not one of them has six-figure debt, either, unless he or she is a compulsive gambler, philanderer or drug addict--or just monumentally stupid.  Plus, that person has more time for family, friends and almost anything else he or she cares about than you will if you go to graduate school and have to work multiple jobs to pay it off. 

On top of everything, they have, or will have, better pensions than you ever will if you go to graduate school--that is, if you get a pension.

• I want to make a difference in some young person's life.

There are plenty of other ways to do that.  If you really want to teach, why not teach in a public school system?  Even many religious and other private schools pay better, and offer better benefits, than colleges pay to all except the endowed professorships.  


Plus, you'll make far more of a difference by working with some young person before, rather than once, he or she goes to college.  I think about that every time I'm grading college students' papers and finding mistakes I learned not to make when I was in fourth grade.

If you want to "make a difference", here's an even better idea:  Get yourself a good job and do some volunteer work.  Then, at least, the people you try to help and the people who are helping you do it will be grateful to you.  That's more than can be said for all of those self-absorbed kids whose parents dumped them in college because they're unemployable and otherwise unmotivated.  Actually, it's also more than can be said for the parents, who think it's your job to give their kids good grades, no matter how little or how poor work they do.

• I am passionate about (Subject X) and want to devote my life to researching and writing about it.

Ah, we should all be so fortunate. If you go to graduate school, you probably won't get to decide on the topic of your thesis or dissertation:  It is likely to be shaped by the research interests of your professors.  Why do you think some of your professors specialized in things that you simply couldn't imagine anyone having any interest in?  

Also: If you are so passionate about a subject, why can't you research it yourself?  If it doesn't require special equipment or facilities, as most STEM subjects do, you don't need an institution that supports what you do.  Read, find other people who share similar interests, start a blog and write, write, write.  I say that if you can't write about it in a way that would interest your local bus driver or mail carrier, what's the point in doing it?

Part of the problem, as I've said in previous posts, is that the educational cartel teaches people to distrust themselves and to believe that they are incapable of independent thought.  It instills the fear of making mistakes and failing; there is nothing a person with more schooling than intelligence fears more than being embarrassed, which is to say, than suffering a blow to his or her ego. Don't worry, you'll get over it:  When they try to make you feel foolish, they're only showing how insecure they are themselves.  Don't let that get in the way of learning!

That brings me to one more reason:

• If I don't do it, I'm a failure.

To whom?  Where is the failure in understanding that you need to change course and move in a different direction?  I'll tell you:  The failure is in not acting upon such a realization.  

If any of you think of other reasons, please post them!   


Also:  Check out what Professor William Pannapacker, a.k.a., Thomas H Benton, has written on the subject.