Should I go to graduate school? If not, then what should I do?

Graduate School
1

Hello, everyone! I hope that you’re all doing well!

To give all of you a bit of background information relevant to this situation – I apologize in advance for doing so, but I believe that it’s all relevant – I’m an academic forerunner where my family and a lot of my friends are concerned. To be more specific, I’m a first-generation alumna whose family members and friends have never even applied to graduate school (like I am now). Also, I earned my Bachelor’s degree this past semester, after spending a total of only two years as an undergraduate student. In regards to the latter, I did have a pretty good college experience overall, but I definitely regret two things about it: that I didn’t afford myself the opportunity to write a whole lot of research papers (which has to do with my desire to write a thesis) and that I graduated so early (e.g., I feel like I didn’t do a lot of things, like being in a sorority, for very long).

Anyway, because of my inexperience (because I didn’t really know any better), and because I didn’t want to disappoint any of the people who support me and believe in me by going through any educational delays, I applied to two graduate schools during my last semester of undergraduate study – UF and UCF. (As a side note, I’ve been rejected from the former, and I was invited to interview with the latter. The interview hasn’t taken place yet.)

Yet for the past couple of months, whenever I’ve thought about how I might become a graduate student this fall, anxiety and doubt (due in part to my regrets, I think) begin to linger within me, beneath the surface. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve come to realize that I might have made a grave mistake by applying to graduate school straight out of college. And today, for the first time ever, I actually felt queasy at the thought of attending UCF (as aforementioned, I haven’t been rejected from there yet) this fall.

As a result of all of this, I’d like some brutally honest advice from all of you about what I should do going forward. As the title of this thread suggests, I’m most worried about big-picture stuff for now, like whether I should attend graduate school this upcoming semester (that is, if I were to be accepted to UCF) or not. But I’m definitely also concerned about the “small stuff,” such as:

  1. Whether I should attend my UCF interview or not (if you believe that I shouldn’t go to graduate school right away). i. How I would go about explaining why I didn’t attend UCF after being accepted – again, if that happens – when reapplying to their program (if you think that I should go to the interview). ii. How I should go about cancelling my interview (if you believe that I shouldn’t go to the interview).
  2. Whether it would be wiser to earn another Bachelor’s degree – keeping in mind that I would do so in order to write a whole bunch of research papers whilst being paid to take classes (hopefully) – and/or get a job before applying for graduate school again. i. What sort of job I should get (if you think that I should get one), i.e., a job directly or indirectly related to my interest in the field of high school counseling (e.g., a position with my school’s Upward Bound office; for those of you who are unfamiliar with that program, it’s geared towards first-generation and low-income students).

Thank you all very much for your time and for your prompt as well as informative replies in advance.

2

No one can tell you if going to graduate school is the right thing to do or not or whether you should wait or not. These are all very individual decisions. However, if you have doubts, then you are answering the question yourself, aren’t you? It seems like you have raced through your academics without really taking time to enjoy the experience. Perhaps you need to take some time to figure things out. Graduate school is not going away and when you do go, you need to be fully engaged.

Don’t get another Bachelor’s degree. That serves no real purpose. If you are not ready to go to graduate school now, work for a while and see what you want to do in a couple of years.

To answer your question about UCF. If you are admitted and you really want to go there, you can defer your admission for a year and give yourself some time to figure things out. However, why are you limiting yourself to UCF for the future? Perhaps, a different school will be the right choice for you in a couple of years when you are really ready to go. The decision on whether to go for the interview is really up to you. The experience itself might be valuable but if you are unsure about going to graduate school, it will probably come through in the interview.

3

You wrote so much, yet so much is missing. Mainly what is missing is what career goal would you go to graduate school for and what degree is required to get there? That is the salient point. You only touch on that at the very end of your post.

I don’t want to talk about what you should or shouldn’t have done in undergrad as that is behind you now. To try to cling to undergrad by going back is something you need to get over, that is likely the least productive thing you could do unless you want to become an engineer now or something. Who would pay you to take classes? Because you can’t even get funding for a 2nd BA much less someone paying you too. Many colleges do not even accept students for a 2nd. Usually if one wants to write research papers, one goes to grad school.

Maybe you should follow through with the interview as it gives you time to consider. Don’t worry about how to decline at this point, that is not an issue. Focus on why you might like to do the program and explore if it is the right thing for you. Then you have a couple months to consider if you want to be in school or not in the fall. Meanwhile it seems you need to be testing the job market. You can either do something that enhances your resume for grad school or you can look for anything that interests you.

4

^I was going to say the same thing as @BrownParent. You haven’t given us any information on what your eventual career goals are and what programs you applied to at UCF and UF. The answer is going to be different if you know you want to be a high school guidance counselor and these are M.Ed programs in counseling than if you said you had no idea what you wanted and they’re Liberal Studies MA programs.

I don’t think you should cancel the interview because you are still so uncertain. I think you should go to the interview and see what happens. You usually have to respond to an offer sometime between April 15 and early May, so you don’t have much time to decide - but you will at least have some, and this will allow you to better weigh the pros and cons of going to graduate school now vs. going later.

You definitely shouldn’t consider earning another BA, especially if your reasoning is to “write papers while being paid to take classes.” That’s not how it works. There is almost no funding for a second bachelor’s degree. Besides, why would you want to write a whole bunch of research papers? I think this might be a misinterpretation of what’s needed to get into graduate school. A publication or two (a “research paper”) can make you a very competitive applicant, but they’re not sole-written papers that you write for classes; they are papers that you co-author with a professor doing research. And most graduate school applicants don’t have one.

Personally, to me you sound ripe for the job market. You don’t sound like you know exactly what you want to do and working might help you figure that out. Furthermore, you sound like you still want some time to mature and enjoy yourself a bit, and working before graduate school will help you do that. It doesn’t really matter what kind of job you do - working a job you like and that pays you enough money to pay your bills is the chief concern right now. As you work it, you’ll figure out more about yourself and what you like and don’t like, and that will help you decide on a career.