Advice for a Young Grad School Applicant?

Thomas_1
Sat, 14 Sep 2013 20:35:28 +0000

Don’t listen to your parents. Take a gap year, or two, or three. Go travel. Go work. Regardless of how that affects your chances for graduate school, it’s the best thing you can do for your life. It’ll give you a new perspective, and you’ll get to see the real world.

Do you really want to spend all of the best years of your life in school? You may regret it later on.

I took a gap year after high school, and two years after my undergrad. I traveled a lot, worked, started a company, failed a lot, met tons of people, lived in other countries. Best thing I ever did. When I talk incoming PhD students right from undergrad it’s easy to see that most of them have no perspective of what really matters in life, or they want to do with it. The conversations I have with people who have worked or traveled are so different, and so much more interesting and insightful.

Universities offer amazing resources and by taking a gap year you will be able get much more out of graduate school than you would otherwise. Life is not about academics.

Edit regarding the financing issue: Who cares? Sorry if this sounds harsh, but grow up and take your life in your own hands. You don’t need your parents’ money. There are miliions of people who make it without their parents help (me included). Many PhD programs offer fully funded positions anyway.