Why graduate school was the right call for me

For a bit on my background, I actually attended grad school twice. I earned a Master of Science degree in Kinesiology, which is the study of exercise science. Then, a few years later, I went back to grad school and earned another Master’s degree in Public Health. So I have the less-common experience of deciding to pursue two separate Master’s degrees. And I have the experience of believing I made the right choice in doing so in both instances, despite the challenges that pursuit had introduced to my life.

At the end of the day, both degrees provided me with something unique that I valued intrinsically, and something that allowed me to do more of the things I cared about externally.

In my case, I knew I wanted to pursue an MS in Kinesiology because I wanted to get better at helping people with fitness. I wanted to understand the nuances of exercise science more fully, and I intrinsically cared about being more effective. It felt like a Master’s degree, and all that came with it, would have helped me with that end.

But, I also cared about what a Master’s degree in Kinesiology would allow me to do that I otherwise would not have been prepared for. It allowed me to do work in research that could help people. I didn’t necessarily need a PhD to do the type of research I was interested in; a Master’s was enough.

It more or less opened up opportunities for me to make advancements in biomechanics research for various private companies, which allowed them to make products that legitimately helped people. At the end of the day, I had a two-pronged reason to pursue my MS, which made it pretty easy to stay motivated throughout.

After I earned my MS, I worked in the fitness industry for a bit. I gradually started to realize that I really cared about work that directly impacts a large number of people all at once. I’d found that the type of work that was most meaningful to me involved reaching millions of people rather than working one-on-one with someone in a very deep and highly personalized way.

Both types of work have their value, and I do value both. I still do one-on-one work in some instances. But I realized that I wanted to get better at working with the public. I also realized that having a Master’s in Public Health focused on health communication and health behavior change would allow me to do higher-level communications work that I personally cared about. So, similar to my MS, the MPH had an intrinsic benefit for me, while also giving me access to more real-world opportunities.

Graduate school can be a lot. There are plenty of challenges that all add up. It’s a lot easier to make it through if you pursue something that you find both internal and external value in.

Common grad school challenges

Everyone’s situation will differ. But, there are certain challenges that you’re decently likely to run into if you enter a Master’s program. Those challenges all interact with each other and compound, since your life while in grad school will likely be largely characterized by the limitations, needs, and demands the program places on you.

When deciding if a program is right for you, it’s valuable to weigh what you’ll gain from it and how much you care about that gain against what the program will actually turn your life into. If it’s the challenges and downsides are worth what you feel you can gain, both in terms of what you intrinsically care about and what the degree opens up for you in the real world, then go for it.

Balancing school and work

Although it largely depends on your socioeconomic status and financial resources, many graduate students do end up working while pursuing their Master’s degree. It’s at a higher rate, and for more hours, than the average undergraduate student for two reasons.

Firstly, many people’s life circumstances change enough by the time they hit grad school that they are largely responsible for personally earning the money they need to pay their bills and simply make it through each year.

Secondly, it is uncommon for schools to give generous financial aid for Master’s programs. Students who do receive support from a school are typically offered an assistantship of some sort. The graduate student would help with teaching, research, or whatever else the university needs in exchange for the university covering some percentage of that student’s tuition and providing that student with a small stipend to help them pay their bills while in school. Even people who could technically save up enough money to make it through graduate school will end up working anyway because of the tuition benefits that come with assistantships.

I worked full-time during both of my graduate programs. It can be a lot to balance since you have to meet the demands of the program and of your work. It can be challenging because you essentially have to switch modes daily. Which can make your everyday life feel overwhelming.

As soon as you finish one thing, your brain needs to switch modes and focus on the other half of your professional life.

Managing more time-consuming work than typical undergraduate education

It often gets memed quite a bit, but graduate programs often come with an absurd amount of reading. In addition to reading chapters in books, doing regular assignments, doing projects, and studying for tests, professors often assign a large number of research articles. The articles are selected intentionally to cover topics that you wouldn’t yet have an in-depth understanding of.

Due to the way they’re written and their general density, reading research articles is pretty slow even when you’re already comfortable with the material. If you’re reading papers on topics you’re not very familiar with and are trying to fully understand the deeper points and logic of the research, then it takes even longer still.

Many upcoming graduate students underestimate how long readings actually take. It leads to classes taking up a pretty big chunk of your week.

But, even still, academic demands in Master’s programs typically extend beyond the classroom. Most programs require students to complete some form of thesis or capstone project, but individual programs do vary.

The scope of everyone’s project is different, but it can easily amount to hundreds of hours of dedicated work spent outside of the classroom, on top of everything else.

Many graduate students don’t feel like they have the mental and emotional bandwidth to have hobbies like they used to before they started graduate school. Even maintaining friendships can become difficult in many grad programs, since even if you technically have space to make time for someone you care about in your day on paper, that doesn’t mean you have the space mentally and emotionally.

Navigating the pressures of a highly independent learning environment

The part of graduate school academic work that is often seen as most intimidating, and trips the most people up, is the independent work component. If your program requires a thesis, you’d essentially be conducting novel research while working alongside an experienced faculty advisor.

You would be responsible for independently planning the project, implementing it, and evaluating it. Your advisor’s role is to provide you with support and help you out along the way, so you’re not totally in the dark. But the pressure of doing something really hard that you’ve probably never done before is still there.

It’s common for Master’s students to feel overwhelmed by the scope of the independent work they’re expected to do. A thesis is a one to two-year-long project that involves a massive amount of time and concerted effort.

It’s feasible to handle if you are able to sustain work on it throughout your program, but it can feel almost impossible to complete if you regularly procrastinate. Since the work is so independent, it’s very easy to accidentally fall too far behind to graduate on time.

It can be stressful because your success is dependent on your ability to push yourself to consistently do something hard when no one is forcing you. But it’s not just that. Theses are very open-ended, and that can lead to a sense that there’s always something else you have to do. You’re never truly done with your 1-2 year-long project on any given workday, because you can technically almost always do more.

I’ve known many graduate students who live in a state of perpetual anxiety because they feel like they always have to be “on.” It’s unfortunately a pretty common experience in Master’s programs due to how theses and many independent projects are structured, and compounded with other graduate student responsibilities. It’s hard to keep track of everything you have to do, so a lot of people just learn to constantly scan for what they might have missed or forgotten, and for whatever other work they eventually have to handle.

Being temporarily locked out of other opportunities

I don’t see people talk about this all too much, but if you enter a Master’s program and end up dealing with everything that comes with it, you’re also choosing not to do other things with your life during the period in which you’re enrolled. If a job opportunity comes up that you really care about, you can’t just take it unless you drop out. If you’re in a relationship and your partner suddenly has to move across the country for work, you can’t just go with them unless you drop out. If you, on a whim, wish you could just spend a week doing nothing and having fun with your friends, you might not have that luxury due to everything you’ve already committed to in your graduate program.

All of that might not sound all too bad at first, especially because you’ll only be in the program for a year or two, depending on your specific Master’s. But after wear and tear from the program builds up, it can be hard to come to terms with the reality that you can’t simply just decide to do something you would’ve felt free to do before the program started.

It can make you feel sort of trapped. Even if it is temporary.

Final thoughts: Decide if, for you, the intrinsic and external benefits are worth the cost of the lived experience

Even though grad school can come with plenty of challenges, that doesn’t mean it’s the wrong call for you. Plenty of people go to grad school, accept and overcome those challenges, and do not regret that decision.

Taking myself as an example, I would definitely have regretted not having gone to two separate Master’s programs. Both ended up being very important to me in retrospect.

If you’re able to look at what your lived experience will likely become as a Master’s student, and you think you’d still regret not going due to what you’d be able to gain by attending, then the program’s probably right for you.

When evaluating whether a Master’s program is right for someone, they often focus on the potential upsides while underweighting the hard parts that will really impact what their life will be like for a full year or two. The decision feels a lot easier to make if you’ve already considered the most intimidating downsides and still think the program is worth it. Many people do make that call and are glad they did. Especially because the program is only temporary. It’ll last for a small fraction of your lifespan, but its effects on who you are, how you think, and what you can do will stay with you for far longer.

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