To go to Grad School or Not, That is The Question
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?
The famous soliloquy from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” continues to talk about the many troubles of the human condition, and romanticizes the taking of ones life to escape them. Many times, attending graduate school mirrors these many sufferings. There are classes to attend, exams to take, professors to please, books to read, math to do, and many more presses on ones time that can lead any sane person to scream. Many times, it is tempting to step aside and rejoin the “real world,” where people only work forty hours a week and get compensated fairly for said work. Such a life “must give us pause.”
Graduate school is not only about the “whips and scorns of time,” however it may feel at times. For some people, the joy that is felt when an idea comes to fruition, the ecstasy that comes from truly understanding a topic thoroughly, and the sense of satisfaction that will come when that degree is finally awarded are all well worth the time and effort that must be invested for each of these to be realized. Notice that this is only for some people. The time commitment involved is indeed large.
As with anything, there are benefits and detriments to attending graduate school. Any person who is considering attending must weigh the many factors. “Do I want to start a family right away?” With the current state of stipends for graduate students, starting a family is extremely difficult. A graduate student must be fully committed to the subject that he or she is studying, and this makes it harder to commit to ones family at the same time. “Am I okay with delaying my main career for four to seven years?” “Do I love my subject enough that I’m willing to give up (almost) everything else for the time being to learn everything about it?”
These are hard questions, and ones that only the prospective student can answer for themselves. For the people that do choose to go to graduate school, the journey is long, the road is hard, and there will be many times that they will “grunt and sweat under a weary life.” The ideas learned, however, will be enough for these people to feel that it is “worth it.” So they will enter “that undiscover’d country,” and emerge from it with the knowledge that they have conquered. For the others, (some might call them the “sane” ones), they will have their careers, their families and the extra years.
So, to grad school or not to grad school? I think we must come to the same conclusion that Hamlet did. If the dreams of many years of work do not “give us pause,” then we are ready to “fly to...that we know not of,” and apply to graduate school.
