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Graduate School For The Unemployed?

johncarney:

Education is overrated by the educated. Don’t do it.

You see this kind of article any time the job market gets soft, and there’s definitely some merit to the argument. If you don’t know what you want to do, going to graduate school not only isn’t going to fix that, it may well exacerbate it. That said, the tone of the article (and the blog post that inspired it) is so dismissive towards graduate school that it goes well beyond sound advice.

Graduate school isn’t a safe haven for bad economic times, but there are lots of legitimate reasons to go. Obviously if you want to teach you need it, but in science if you want to do ANYTHING serious you need a graduate degree. And while law school may not be recommended by lawyers, if you really want to practice law and you’ve just been laid off from another job, why isn’t now as good a time as any for it. Medical school is, and always has been, pretty deeply flawed, but telling people not to go because the system is broken is like telling people not to use your toilet because it’s broken and then being perplexed as to why it hasn’t magically fixed itself.

So yes, if you just want a safe place to hang out, grad school isn’t that (trust me on that one…), but if you have something you want to do and a graduate degree is a way to get there, go for it! With all of it’s hassles and bullshit there is a lot to be learned from grad school, and there are plenty of good reasons to go.

Source: johncarney