- The question regarding one’s decision to go to graduate school or not, isn’t really that hard to answer. Au contraire, if you love answering hard questions, you are probably meant for graduate school in the first place. Based on my own experiences, I’d like to present a possibly naïve, yet probably sensible theory to answer this question. I call my theory: the innate grad school gene theory. Now don’t get me wrong; I am not claiming in any way, that some people are just genetically meant for grad school and others aren’t. Yet the same way that a certain behavioral gene expresses itself in various circumstances, and masks its behaviors in others, the tendency to go to grad school starts expressing or repressing itself, through various stages of one’s undergraduate education. The expression of this tendency (grad school gene) takes the form of choosing research projects over company internships, or building robots over managing the robotics team or as several grad students will tell you- living on caffeine and ramen. And I cannot say for sure, but common sense tells me that those who lack this tendency (which is in no way, a bad thing) would be making the opposite choices as undergrads.
- Without getting into philosophical arguments over determinism v/s free will, I think that the expression of the grad school gene is inevitable in some cases. From my own experience, I found myself mildly indifferent to job fairs and much rather preferred the (at-times maddening) hours of editing a conference paper to near perfection (which by the way is impossible). Now this is why I feel that the tendency is innate. To some people, slaving over seemingly low-reward research might look like something only people who love pain would do. But from my side, I can honestly say that the reward of answering a really, really hard question is far more satisfying than getting five or so A-4 sized sheets of gobbledygook (which 0.00001 % of the world’s population actually reads) printed in a journal.
- So if you see in your behavior, the expression of the grad school gene, I would say that the journey to grad school is only a matter of time. Even if you do pick industry now, like several cases that return to study later, there is a high probability that you will too. The journey through grad school, as I have seen several grad students describe, is painful and challenging, yet immensely satisfying; but to the grad gene, all that matters is the immensely satisfying part.
Related Pages
- "To go to grad school of not, that is the question", By Sourabh Dongaonkar
- "Help! Should I go to grad school or not?"
- How to get through math grad school at Purdue
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