Work now or go to graduate school? This checklist can help you decide

How much education do you need, in terms of securing the professional destiny that’s right for you? That’s a tantalizing question within our family – and perhaps yours as well.

In this week’s newsletter, I’d like to share some fresh thinking on this topic, inspired by recent reporting trips to Texas and Washington, D.C. Let’s start with the big picture from our nation’s capital, drawing on a panel discussion about the merits of going to graduate school. (It was hosted by Phi Beta Kappa, the academic honor society.)

We heard from Miriam Ingber, associate dean of Yale Law School, as well as from Dorothy Biberman, who works with schools of public health, and Briana Suarez, who works with schools of international relations.?

All three appreciate what an extra diploma on the wall can do for you. But they were refreshingly candid about situations where you might be better off, at least for now, by putting your college education to work right away. Here are three takeaways that I’m glad to highlight.

First, focus on the specific career that you truly want. It’s easy to go off track, Ingber pointed out, by regarding grad school as a loose extension of your college days – learning new things, getting good grades, and postponing everything that comes with leaving academia and starting a career. That’s not a winning strategy.?

As Ingber points out, “you go to law school to be trained to be a lawyer,” If you’re still hazy about your destination, don’t lock yourself into a costly, multiyear pursuit of a mirage.??

Hesitant or certain, there’s lots to gain from work experience first. A post-college stint as a paralegal can teach you a lot about what law is like; working abroad may crystallize your thinking about how to make the most of a degree in international relations. If pay is decent, you’ll also save up some needed cash to help cover your grad-student expenses.

Arriving at graduate school a year or two later can bring with greater maturity, as well as clearer plan for putting your next degree to work. .

Third, notice the economic backdrop but don’t obsess about it.? There’s a folk saying that recessions are the optimal time for pursuing extra education. If the overall labor market is poor, you don’t forgo as much by being out of the workforce then. And, with luck, you’ll graduate just as the economy improves.

Perhaps. Graduate-school enrollment did pick up in the 2008-10 economic downturn, and those extra degrees may have been boons once the U.S. recovered. But each economic cycle is different. And inflation is today’s No. 1 stressor, while the strengths and weaknesses of the labor market are much harder to parse.

Here at LinkedIn, we focus a lot on the ways that online courses, certifications and shorter, non-degree programs can improve your prospects, without the hefty costs and time commitments of a full-fledged graduate program. That’s particularly true in tech fields, ranging from software development to user research and product management.

I’m open to all points of view. Early in my own career, I toyed with the idea of getting an MBA, but shunted that aside as on-the-job experience kept improving my prospects with just a bachelor’s degree. No regrets there. Other family members have thrived with everything ranging from a Ph.D. to a unfinished college experience that morphed into an exciting career.

But I’ll close with an unexpected insight that I picked up in May while doing some Texas in-depth reporting at Prairie View A&M, a leading historically Black university. (You can read that article here.)

The epiphany came over lunch with Benjamin Yiapan, a PVAMU graduate who was about to embark on Ph.D. studies in English at the University of Texas.

Sometimes, that extra degree really will open doors. Yiapan had returned to college in his thirties, after a lot of diverse work experience. He came out of Prairie View with an eagerness to teach at the university level, and a desire to write scholarly books that would stretch public awareness of themes that won’t be fully explored otherwise. He was especially passionate about a desire to chronicle the Black experience during COVID.

With a Ph.D., all those options are wide open. WIth just a college degree, his teaching ambitions most likely would be limited to K-12.