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Will graduate school be a good career step for you? That depends on what you want to do.
If you're considering graduate school primarily for career or vocational reasons, you should be aware that the job or career you're interested in may not require an educational background beyond your bachelor's degree. You should explore the career field you're interested in thoroughly before making your decision. What you may find is that your bachelor's degree is perfectly adequate for securing you an entry-level job in the field of your choice. In many fields, such as publishing, editing, advertising, business, public relations, government and non profit administration, etc., your skills, abilities, talents, and portfolio (history of your experience, samples of the work you have done), and contacts are much more important to employers than an advanced degree. You may find that it will be more important for you to focus on getting some professional experience (through work, volunteer work, or an internship) or some specialized training (technical or skills-based courses or programs) and to pursue contacts through networking rather than to pursue an advanced degree, which may or may not be helpful to you in terms of career entry or advancement. (See Career Information for English Majors for more discussion of career issues.)
A graduate program in English requires a great deal of time, commitment, and passion for English scholarship. Without a high level of motivation to pursue graduate study for academic or scholarly reasons, it doesn't make a lot of sense to seek a graduate degree simply as a credential or for career enhancement outside academia.
Certain careers, on the other hand, will require an advanced degree: if you want to be a lawyer, a college professor/instructor, or a school librarian, for example, then post baccalaureate training will be necessary preparation for you. Before deciding on a graduate program, you should investigate the career field thoroughly to make sure that you have a good understanding of what kind of graduate study will best prepare you for the specific work that you want to do, and how you should prepare for that study. Talk with your professors, with current graduate students in your chosen area, with professionals in your chosen field, and with academic or career counselors about what kinds of graduate programs may be right for you. (If you're interested in a career in K-12 teaching, please click here for information.)
If your goal is to teach English at the college level, you should be aware that the job market is extremely competitive, and that many recent PhDs are finding it difficult to secure full time and permanent academic positions at both the junior college and college/university levels. Many of those recent graduates (with MA, MFA, and PhD degrees) who have found teaching jobs are working in a part-time or temporary capacity teaching composition or beginning literature classes. In these kinds of adjunct, non-tenure-track positions, there are few benefits, there is very little job security from quarter to quarter, and in order to teach in a full-time capacity, instructors may have to teach at more than one college during the same quarter, commuting back and forth from campus to campus. When permanent, full time, "tenure track" positions become available, they attract dozens, often hundreds, of well qualified applicants. Those with PhDs obviously have an advantage over those with master's-level degrees only, but the competition is still extremely vigorous. A number of recent PhDs in the humanities areas are finding themselves seeking employment outside academia.
For some information about non academic careers for those with advanced degrees
in the
humanities, visit the Chronicle of Higher Education site "Beyond
the Ivory Tower
." There is also a good
article on the subject, "A
Little Advice from 32,000 Graduate Students," which comes from the Jan 14,
2002, issue of the
Chronicle of Higher Education. You can also consult the 2000
National Doctoral Program
Survey, which includes information on student satisfaction with English and
American Literature Programs rated in a number of categories by recent
PhD students. You can subscribe to WRK4US,
an
open
international discussion group devoted to nonacademic career options for people
with
graduate
degrees in the humanities. Consult, as well, the UW site, Re-envisioning
the
PhD, which includes a discussion of career pathways.
None of this information is intended to discourage you from pursuing graduate
education. If you have a passionate desire to continue your study in English
language or literature, you should
consider graduate school in English. If, on the other hand, you're considering
graduate school primarily for career interests outside academia, you may want
to investigate terminal master's
programs in other areas which are more directly related to the work you want
to do (e.g., MBA programs, master's degree programs in public affairs, social
work, museology, etc.). For a complete list of graduate
programs available at the University of Washington, click here.
...Thinking about graduate school for scholarly/academic reasons? Read on.
