Does it make sense for you to get more education?
Are you thinking about going back to school, but have a lot of jumbled thoughts swirling around? Let's break them down into manageable steps here.
Hi, Caitlin Faas here. I help busy professionals like you integrate graduate school seamlessly into your lives with productivity tips and career direction. Today, I want to talk about, is going back to school right for you and is more education right for you in general.
A lot of times I see potential clients have swirling thoughts in their head about “Should I go back and would this be good for me?”
And they're kind of starting to think about what will work out like, “Yeah, I think I’ll be good for this and I think it’ll do that, but maybe it’ll take a lot of my time.” But it’s all swirling up here and only the thoughts that pop up are the ones that kind of keep resurfacing and it's jumbled. It's just very jumbled.
1. Your finances
What I want you to do today if you're in this boat is really break down your cost and benefit analysis. I want you to write this down. I want you to think about “What is this going to do for me financially?” If you don't know how to find the nitty-gritty on what will happen if you go to this graduate program, you should be able to find easily the salaries of someone who has this degree. What is their salary? If you don't know where that is, send me a note and we’ll check because I'm happy to help you figure that out for your specific profession. You should be able see that line by line and you know what you make right now – Write this down.
You know what you make right now, what will I make after this program? What does this program cost me financially and how will bridge in between? There's a lot of conversations in between there and I also have resources for that and can send you some great people that are talking about helping graduate students with finances. So we've got those pieces of cost benefit analysis of your financial situation. You're going to write that down on one sheet.
2. Your time
Then I want you to think about what this will do for your time. You know that going to school is going to take your time, but do you have the time right now? Are you in a place where you can say, “Oh, it's okay if I need to do this in the evenings five days a week.” It's also starting to figure out exactly how much time will this program take me.
You may have a rough idea in your head. A graduate adviser might say to you, “It’ll probably take about this…” But talk to some first or second in years that are in the program. Get a realistic perspective from them. Are they working every single night and weekends or do they feel like there's a good balance and what does that look like for your time schedule? Is this worth the time that you would put in? The answer is a time sheet, so to speak, on your cost benefit analysis.
3. Your resources
And then the last thing would be about resources both professionally and personally like, “What resources do you need to use to make this happen? And so one example would be if you know that this is going to take a lot of your time and maybe you need childcare to support you to do this, do you have resources that can help with that so someone else in the home that is going to take on more of a child care role or you're able to hire somebody because your financial situation is pretty good and you're able to make room for that into your budget or family members – all kinds of resources that you could rely on as you go through this graduate school process.
If you think about these things upfront, you're able to prepare to go into your program much more smoothly rather than some graduate students feel lost in this process while they're in the middle of their program.
I can also help with that. So reach out to me if you're struggling. There are a lot of people going through this process and you're not alone.
Beware of the Nostalgia and Romance When Considering More Schooling
Do you find yourself dreaming of graduate school and all the fond memories of your undergraduate career? Does the school supply aisle have you feeling nostalgic? Let's check in with those ideas
Hi, Caitlin Faas here. I help busy professionals like you integrate graduate school seamlessly into your life with productivity hacks and career direction. In today's video, I wanted to talk about de-romanticizing the idea of graduate school a little bit because when I work with potential clients, sometimes I hear them saying phrases like this,
“Oh, I really miss school. I loved everything about college. I really want to be back in the classroom.”
And they kind of have this image of what was going on during their time in college, maybe a little bit differently than what actually happened. I work with undergraduate students almost every day nine months out of the year. A lot of them are not running around saying like, “Oh this is so great. I just love everything about this.”
But when we’re in the moment, we don't usually see those things. It's looking back on the past and those are some psychological terms from your psychology professor here about when we reflect back on the past and we romanticize it.
1. Check in with reality
If you are thinking about going to graduate school, do you have some of these romantic ideas about it stemming from your past? How much of that is a realistic perspective about what it will actually be like?
And so, ways to find that out would be: have you talked to people in the program that you're thinking about or if you're not ready for a program yet, are you actually talking to people about what their graduate experience was like? Why they went back to school? And not just people who graduated because those are people who are reflecting on the past as well, but people who are in the program right now. Are they somebody who is a first year graduate student? Have you talked to them? What's their experience like right now? For a lot of them, it probably isn't like, “Oh, this is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
They're going to give you a much more realistic perspective both positive and negative, but you're able to walk into it with a more realistic idea.
2. Find healthy perspective
The other thing about the de-romanticizing this idea of graduate school is making sure that you're coming in from a place of a healthy perspective rather than being frustrated with the situation you're in right now.
Are you thinking, “Graduate school is my way out of the current job I'm in because I'm really frustrated with that?”
Part of that is, why do you want to go to grad school? Is it only the reason to get out of your current situation? And the common phrase we think of for that is “grass is greener on the other side” right? Like, “Oh, if I go to school that'll transport me out of this situation into a new situation and then my problems will be solved.” And we know that doesn't actually happen right? But I hear a lot of people say things like this, so that's why I want to bring it up. When you stop and think about the phrases that you're using, either in your head or you're starting to tell somebody that, do a check and say, “Wait. Is this reality-based?” “Is this a healthy approach?” “Am I approaching it with a good intention rather than a fear intention of ‘I'm frustrated, I want to get out of this situation, I am going to run away from this to do that.’”
Those are two things I want you to consider on your graduate school decision journey.
In the meantime, take the next step toward achieving your goals and check out my tips for reclaiming your time. Just leave your details below!
How to be successful in graduate school
Wondering what it takes to succeed in graduate school? Here's a video to get you started on the first steps.
Hi, Caitlin Faas, your productivity navigator, excited to talk to you about how to be successful in graduate school.
On the right track
The first thing is, if you're watching this video, that means you looked up something about "can I be successful in graduate school", which already means that you're amazing, right?
I want you to take a deep breath and know that you're amazing for even trying to look into this and think about it. That’s why I'm taking this video outside. It’s a gorgeous day and I want you to look at the trees, take a deep breath, and know that it’s awesome you're looking this up.
Tips for success
So, how to be successful in school? This is true for a lot of different programs. I've talked to a lot of graduate students about their experiences and I've put it into an email challenge for you that I’ll share below.
A lot of the things that you need to be successful for graduate school aren’t actually the things that you think of first. I asked dozens of past and current graduate students and said, “What do you wish you would’ve known before?” And you already know that of course work is going to be important, that you want to do well in your classes, but those weren’t the things that they wanted to you know.
Former graduate students and current graduate students say, “Oh, I really needed to have my time management system in place and I really needed to realize that I'm good enough for this program and I can do really well in this program. They accepted me for a reason.” And so many different topics like that.