Grad School Issue

[Tomorrow]

I was thinking either a Masters in ME, Law, or MBA at a school in CO.

Unless there's something very specific you want to do, and an MS in ME is absolutely required to do it, I don't recommend that degree. I've seen a small handful of EE positions ask for a Master's degree, but only two that require a Master's in ME - and they might actually over look the Master's if you have a P.E. license.

MBA would be a good choice to go with ME; Law could be good, but not as diverse as the business degree.

 

[63dot]

About the law though, I think you should be aware that it isn't for everyone. Talk to lawyers in your family and ask them to be blunt. Most of what you do isn't going to be glamorous or exciting, and if you don't enjoy writing, it can be rough.

Get a practice LSAT book and try out the Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension sections of the test. They give you at least some idea of the logical skills you'll be using, and if you don't care for it, proceed cautiously.

Also, for the OP, read through the UCC (Contracts), articles about easements, negligence, and tax code. You can see stuff like this in print in law school study aids such as Gilberts or Emanuel. If this interests you, then the law may be for you. If you like the action of TV shows like JAG, the quips of Judge Judy, or the flash of Boston Legal, then you will HATE the law as the former list is the majority of what law school will be like. Lots of reading and writing and most of it very dry. And like the job market in general, the more dry and boring, the higher the pay. The LSAT can show if you have logical reasoning, which actually helps in seeing how there is almost no logic in the law. Learn to think logically, find out what areas of the brain they are, and then bury them for three years. What seems logical or fair, if that steers your moral compass, stay far away from law school.

In the MBA arena, MBAs who work in Hollywood or as sports agents generally make the smallest salaries (unless you are one of the very few big ones), but MBAs who have their specialization in taxation, accounting, or operations management (the dry and boring ones) have a much higher than normal MBA salary.

But if you want to make a difference for mankind, you can enter the ranks of MBAs or lawyers and be the head of a soup kitchen, local environmental action group, or legal aid. This usually won't give you a lot of money, but for having a piece of paper with the letters JD or MBA on it, you will make the most difference in society and make a real mark in the world. One MBA alumni outlined in the school paper was a big shot in finance, but then made a change for a lower paying, more socially satisfying job where he could help others. He came to the realization that he could make a million a year, die early in his 50s, and all that he would be remembered for would be one line on his tombstone: "and he worked very, very hard".

 

[Signal-11]

Perhaps you should keep in mind that stories like that are few and far between. There's nothing wrong with having goals or at the very least knowing what makes you happy. School is not a cure for uncertainty; it merely prolongs the point at which you must ask yourself what it is you truly enjoy doing.

What if learning is what you enjoy doing? Your view ignores that education can be an end and not just a means. And no, I don't think stories like this are few and far between. Even if they are, it's because old people and society actively discourage young people from exploring and expanding their horizons. This thread is proof.

3 years can be a long time if you find you don't truly want to be a lawyer. More to the point, most graduate schools do not want a student who is simply there because they're tired of their current job. A passion or purpose is usually something most schools want to see, and law schools in particular don't like to hear that your only reason for applying was that you didn't know what else to do.

Who says if Dukebound chooses to do this that he doesn't really want to do it? If your worldview is such that you can't imagine a person with multiple passions in different fields and furthermore don't see how grad schools find candidates with attributes like this more attractive, then we're probably not going to see eye to eye on this.

Perhaps you have access to unlimited financial resources and time, but most of us like to carefully weigh the opportunity cost of one choice in life over another, especially when it is a choice of this magnitude.

This is 1-3 years we're talking about. It's not as if DB is talking about med school and a neurosurgery residency here. 2/3 degrees he's talking about are generalist degrees applicable in many walks of life.

Note, however, that this isn't what Duke is asking. No one is suggesting the OP doesn't pursue other career interests, however his questions are very open-ended and vague, signaling that he himself doesn't know what he wants. Perhaps engineering isn't for him or maybe he has another passion, fine. That doesn't mean the default option is to enroll in grad school. That is, however, how the information has been presented to us, and hence our response.

What Duke was asking about was tuition, and yes, it was vague. I have no doubt that Duke has yet to figure it out but in my opinion, there's nothing wrong with that. My objection is that everyone gives the same advice, which isn't really advice at all. "Figure out what you want to do before you do it." What is that? I presume Dukebound is 23-24? That's young enough not to have amassed too much debt and a bunch of commitments. Single, no family yet. What better time than to do something with for which he hasn't yet determined a purpose? You don't want to be doing that when you're 33-34 and have a wife, a kid, two car payments, and a mortgage.

 

[63dot]

What Duke was asking about was tuition, and yes, it was vague. I have no doubt that Duke has yet to figure it out but in my opinion, there's nothing wrong with that. My objection is that everyone gives the same advice, which isn't really advice at all. "Figure out what you want to do before you do it." What is that? I presume Dukebound is 23-24? That's young enough not to have amassed too much debt and a bunch of commitments. Single, no family yet. What better time than to do something with for which he hasn't yet determined a purpose? You don't want to be doing that when you're 33-34 and have a wife, a kid, two car payments, and a mortgage.

That's true. Let's say Duke goes for "some" grad degree in his 20s and finishes by age 25, and assuming he's single, then it's still not a bad move. The most debt he will probably have is undergrad plus some grad school, but certainly it's not as bad as what many ten and fifteen years older than him did which is buy real estate during its peak.

Even if Duke is $100 thousand in debt and still does not know what he wants to do, and has some advanced degree which he finds of no use to him, it's much better than having your house in the Bay Area go from $450 thousand to just over $100 thousand or your portfolio take an 89% percent dive. Even less desirable areas like Sacramento have suffered an average of a 53% percent loss in value and those houses were considered "low" at their peak and not subject to any possible downturn. And in the next state, Las Vegas, well we won't even go there as to how bad people took a hit.

You could easily lose your house, or value of your portfolio, but no one can take away your degrees, experience, and all other forms of education and that's a good thing. So that's a plus that will stay will you for life to balance out the "debt" many day traders and real estate investors took on for life.

 

[CalBoy]

What if learning is what you enjoy doing?

I haven't spoken to that issue, and frankly neither have you. More to the point, the OP has never mentioned that that's what he wants.

If you want to discuss the merits of perpetual higher education, then I suggest that you start a new thread about that because that's not what this thread is about.

Your view ignores that education can be an end and not just a means. And no, I don't think stories like this are few and far between. Even if they are, it's because old people and society actively discourage young people from exploring and expanding their horizons. This thread is proof.

I haven't given you my "views" on anything other than the OP being cautious given his current frame of mind.

Again, if you want to start a separate discussion about the nature of education and the multi-generational attempts to suppress one's dreams, then fine by me. It really has no bearing in this thread because no one told the OP to not pursue what he wants; we're merely concerned as to what that truly is.

My objection is that everyone gives the same advice, which isn't really advice at all. "Figure out what you want to do before you do it." What is that? I presume Dukebound is 23-24? That's young enough not to have amassed too much debt and a bunch of commitments. Single, no family yet. What better time than to do something with for which he hasn't yet determined a purpose? You don't want to be doing that when you're 33-34 and have a wife, a kid, two car payments, and a mortgage.

"Everyone" gives this advice because it's earned this right through the elegant wisdom it offers.

No one in this thread has asked the OP to detail every possible direction for his academic and professional careers. Our advice has been tailored for the OP because the only clear thing that can be seen here is that dukebound85 isn't satisfied with his current job (and not very pleased with NY either, I might add). In the past he's started threads indicating this, and more recently a thread about joining the military. What I, and likely many others, see is dissatisfaction with his current environment. The solution to that isn't always graduate school, and that's the only point I have.

 

[obeygiant]

You should reconsider the cost/benefits of Grad School. It'll be about $50,000 which will be approximately $500 a month for the next 20 years if you pay back the government. Unless your line of work requires a Masters Degree, I would reconsider.


http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/student-debt-fools-gold/