Grad School Survival Guide

Grad school isn't for everybody. In fact, it's often pretty tough to tell whether or not you'll benefit, in the long run, from hitting the books any more than you did for your undergrad.

Part of the dilemma is that there are no guarantees: post-grad degrees are no insurance of a brighter future or even a more financially comfortable one. And if you think the fact you love school is a good rule of thumb, think again: will your beloved field of study still be like a red, red rose after numerous years and mountains of debt? A few weeks back, the Georgia Straight reported that in B.C. alone, tuition fees have hiked 92.5 per cent since the 2001-2002 school year.

So now that exams are over and done with and the carefree days of summer are here, it's the perfect time to pose the question: is grad school worth it? In short (unlike your future thesis): yes and no.

Bachelor's in cab-driving

According to Meghan Gallant, the president of the University of Manitoba Graduate Students' Association, students interested in going into research for either academics or industry can get a big boost from graduate studies. Gallant said that many employers hunt out staff with Master's or PhD.

"I think that students are noticing that they need to come back for that second degree a lot more often," she said.

A recent Statistics Canada study shows why. In 2001, nearly one out of every five people in the workforce who had a university education worked in a job that required, at most, a high school education at some point during the year.

Students with Master's or Doctoral degrees, however, were far less likely to work at a job for which they were overqualified; people with only bachelor's degrees, on the other hand, were "twice as likely to remain overqualified" than those who had higher degrees.

Ivory tenement

Even though graduate work tends to pave the way to better careers, the job market for academics is actually dwindling. According to The Chronicle, a Modern Language Association journal out of the United States, only 42 per cent of recent English graduate students found tenure-track jobs. The National Association of Graduate-Professional Students, on the other hand, did a study of 32,000 PhD students in 2000 that showed an overwhelming majority felt adequately prepared to find a job after graduation. That perception may no longer be accurate.

Andrew Potter, a regular contributor to Maclean's magazine, wrote an article last June called "What do you want a PhD for ?," in which he outlined the trials and tribulations of grad school. He wrote that the demand for graduate degrees in the humanities, such as the PhD he has in philosophy, is very low, noting that for every "decent" job that comes up in philosophy, there are about 100 applicants looking to land it.

However, Gallant observed that in many cases graduate students are not so career-driven. "Sometimes it's just that you enjoy studying in your field and want to pursue in more depth something you started as an undergraduate. It becomes very specialized in a master's degree and even more so in a PhD."

Frauds and eggheads

To complete a graduate degree is one thing if your career goals require it. But what if, like Gallant suggests, you simply get a buzz out of studying in your field? What if you simply enjoy studying in and of itself?

George Toles had the kind of undergraduate experience that made him want to take his interest in English to the next level.

He describes an effervescent academic world at the University of Buffalo, where the doors of every office in the English department would come alive with laughter and serious discussion. A world where "extraordinarily creative and revolutionary critics" with differing ideas would talk and debate freely. A world where professors cared about individual students.

"It just seemed to be the best place in the world to be and the most ideal thing in the world to be hooked into," recalled Toles, now a film studies prof at the University of Manitoba.

Unfortunately, Toles's own graduate career did not live up to the ideal, enlightened environment he had witnessed at the University of Buffalo. He says his grad school was "traditional," "conservative" and "demanding," a place governed by a definite hierarchy where teachers and students were in competition with each other. Moreover, Toles felt that he could never know enough about the right thing.

"People just feel they've got to prove something to their fellow students and the professor. And maybe on both sides of the table everybody suspects that they're a fraud," he said.

"I had the hardest time adjusting to the alteration to the rules of the game. Graduate school, I think, is often, for any thinking or sensitive or relatively non-careerist type, a living hell," Toles said, laughing.

'Bothered' enough to bother

Maclean's columnist Andrew Potter, like Toles, enjoyed his undergrad years so much that he decided to go on to do graduate work in philosophy.

In an interview with The Manitoban, Potter explained that while enjoying what you study is a definite prerequisite for going into grad studies, it probably shouldn't be the sole determining factor. In fact, Potter said that very few people are given the opportunity, once out of school, to work at what they love.

"It's not sufficient to love something to want to make it your career. I've got a friend who started doing yoga and she loves doing yoga. And she quit her job as a schoolteacher because she wants to be a yoga teacher. And now she's making eight bucks a week or something."

Potter continued, "if you want to go to graduate school just because you enjoy going to school, well, you know, grow up . . . . If you are genuinely bothered by problems and you think you have the character to do it, then by all means go."

Rob Ross, who is now working on his master's degree at the University of Manitoba, was bothered enough by something that he decided to make it his thesis. His decision to go into graduate studies was based on an interest in his neighbourhood.

"After undergrad, I took a year off and tried to figure out what to do with myself, and I came to the conclusion that I really wanted to write about my neighbourhood, this part of Winnipeg, and figured the best way of doing it would be doing it as a Master's thesis. Then I could do it and get a degree at the same time."

Ross said he is fully enjoying the challenge of grad school and is so passionate about it that he hopes of going on to get his PhD and one day, getting into the "university teaching world."

Know when to fold 'em

It's Ross's passion for his thesis that is likely to result in success. In his article for Maclean's, Potter looks specifically at the reasons why it often takes so long for students to make it through grad school, if they make it at all, using his own experience as an example.

Like many students, Potter writes that he got side-tracked with other school-related activities like "teaching, reading, coursework, student unions, journalism, university service."

This lack of focus may be behind the alarmingly low completion rates for PhD students in Canada. Only 45 per cent of students will finish their doctoral degrees in the humanities, while 55 per cent do in the social sciences.

Perhaps low completion rates also have to do with the enormous amount of time it takes to finish such degrees. According to a study by the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies published in 2003 and revised in 2004, the median time it took to complete a master's degree in the humanities was six semesters. The study also indicated that there are two key times frames when people decide to drop out.

"One group decides, often for good reasons, to leave relatively early; the other group who appears to run out of steam or money leaves without a degree after as many as eight or more years of studying."

Hence the term "professional student," which is slang for someone who lingers on in university for an excruciatingly long amount of time, either because they are comfortable there or feel stuck trying to finish.

Enlightened masochism

Finishing graduate school, said Potter, has less to do with smarts than it has to do with being able to stick it out. It took him "six years and a bit" to complete his graduate degree, not including his four years of undergrad work.

"People make the mistake, I think, of assuming that success in graduate school and academia is a function of intelligence and dedication and not a function of character, and it's far more a function of character."

What one really needs in order to be a success as a grad student is the ability to enjoy being alone for long stretches of time, he believes.

"The people I went to graduate school with were very gregarious people . . . It's almost like the school took some of the most happy-go-lucky people and sort of told them to go and be alone for ten years."

Toles agrees. "Like so many others, and maybe more than most, I felt that I was quickly turning into a nightmare version of myself. I think for about three years I would describe myself, quite charitably, as an asshole."

It takes "thick skin and a lot of self-discipline" to get through, said Toles, "and hopefully a desire to do something with the degree that matters to you, rather than just thinking that this will lead to a financially rewarding post eventually."

Rye on the prize

Despite a less-than-perfect grad-school experience, Toles says he would never give up the job he found as a result of it.

"I did know and have been fortunate to know from very early on that teaching was an all-important aspiration. And I've never for one second regretted that aspect of my job choice."

Ross takes a slightly different tack. He fully recommends higher study because of the small class sizes and the unique experience of being able to get to know everybody. He also said that he enjoys the competitive nature of the classes. "Once a week you get these presentations in every class, you see what all these people have put into their work and stuff. And you're going, 'Oh my God, I really have to work really hard now.'"

There are definitive differences between undergrad and graduate classes. With the latter, said Ross "there's much more emphasis on oral presentation, which can be a shock for someone who got away with sitting at the back of the classroom, not saying a word, while still getting a good mark in their undergraduate studies."

When asked what makes for a successful graduate student, he laughed.

"A successful graduate student. I'll have to take a quote from another student and say, self-medication. Ample and generous self-medication."

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