Sunday, January 10, 2010

You Know, When The Problem Is A Sucky Economy And Lack Of Jobs, Grad School Won't Help

It's no secret that I am skeptical about graduate school. However, I do wonder what all these people supposedly applying to law and graduate school are thinking. The big legal firms paid the associates they hired to do other things for a year. The legal job market is dismal. And seriously, a master's degree in liberal arts? Grad school is supposed to give you a specialization.

There's a point where more education doesn't help and it just makes you overqualified for the job market. Hello, I am Kerry's MLIS. It would be better to take the money and try to open up your own business.

5 comments:

drwende said...

They're doing it to wait out the economic malaise. The thing with full-time liberal arts grad degrees is that you can often get yourself a teaching assistantship or fellowship that covers tuition and minimal living expenses (and sometimes basic health insurance is thrown in), so that it's not a horrible financial deal.

tracyh said...

Its one thing to go to grad school but LAW SCHOOL?! We have too many lawyers as is.

Kerry said...

Wende, did you hear about the Croxhall paper @ MLA?

Some know that going to grad school, particularly in the humanities, is a bad idea unless you can get full funding, but I just think that there's not enough fellowships to go around and a lot of people pile on the debt to get out of the economy. Long term strategy FAIL.

Genevieve said...

Graphs that back up everything you say:
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/01/07/the-costs-and-benefits-of-grad-school/

modest-goddess said...

My half sister is a medical sonographer, you get do this job with a certificate or an associates degree, she has been doing it 5 years and only recently has considered becoming state certified, she makes $50,000/year in Columbus, Ohio!
Clearly grad school is a rip off. Only way I'd get another grad degree is if it was paid for by my employer (in something useful that was IT or business related). If I had known there were well paying jobs in the medical field that did not subject me to blood and guts I would have gone for it. Right now I have too much debt to consider getting another degree but if I land a position at a community college library with tuition reimbursement I might do it.