Going back to school (university) -- Your experience

In My Humble Opinion
21

I first attended college straight out of high school, skipping semesters as necessary to pay for tuition. Mostly because I was under the impression that that’s what you did after graduating high school. Ended up doing 4 semesters over 4 years, all of them academically bad. Way too much partying, way too much skipping class. I was such a dumbass.

Got a job as a jack-of-all-trades in an office, learned some database stuff to help out, and eventually knew enough to consider myself employable as a programmer. Left because of burn-out; working 14-18 hour days for months on end tend to have that effect. Now:

Having learned about computers (sort of) and having an interest in philosophy of mind, I ended up at the local university library reading an awful lot. It was totally hit or miss; I had no idea what I should be reading or whether I was actually making progress. In short, I needed guidance. Once I realized that, it was a no-brainer to go back to school.

My goal was originally a BS in Computer Science (CS). I ended up with a BS in CS and a BA in philosophy. I recently got my MSc/CS, and am currently working on my PhD.

Not much. I wasn’t making much as a database programmer; no real demand for it where I was.

I started off working p/t and going to school p/t. I then received an inheritance that allowed me a year of not working, going to school f/t. If it hadn’t been for that, I could not have done full time school; I made too much to qualify for student loans (I have no idea how that could be) and had to have a year of no income to begin to qualify. When in school, I ran up a credit-card bill. Given the choice of starving/being homeless or going into debt, I chose debt. As of now, my wife and I have paid off the card and are making enough as grad students to put some extra away every month. In other words, it worked out better than I expected.

When I was working, I worked. Not much of a social life. At school, I tended to be more social, but not much. As a 26 year old in a sea of 18 year olds, there was some (perceived on my part) weirdness.

As if there was any comparison. Things are a lot different when you go to school because you choose to. The only detriment was that I needed to cook my own meals, pay my own rent, etc.

No and not at all.

Yes, not at all, not screwed around in the first place. The only real regret that I have is not getting involved in research when I was getting my BS. Of course, I hadn’t planned on continuing, so it didn’t seem important at the time. In addition, I simply had no idea that such things were possible, not being steeped in academia.

Nothing. I can’t think of many situations that would be more satisfying to me than to stay a perpetual student. I can’t/don’t understand people that gripe about school in general.

<mock offense>
DUDE! I answered for your benefit. It’s not an ego thing, it’s to possibly help you learn from my experience.
<\mock offense>

22

I’m going to just give a narrative instead of answering the questions bullet style since others have already answered the questions so well.

I got a B.S. in Industrial & Management Engineering right out of high school. I went to work for a large company right after that. Within 2 weeks I knew I wasn’t going to stay. Within three months I’d figured out the answer was to go back to school as a grad student. I intended to get a Ph.D. and then teach. I started grad school the following fall, and then reality struck.

Grad school is in NO WAY like the undergrad experience. (I thought it was just me at first, but I’ve had friends confirm the same thing.) I had a full scholarship - as others have said, it’s common in certain engineering fields - so financially it wasn’t terrible, but after a cushy job it was still an adjustment. The social issues were totally different. I didn’t really like living in a dorm as an undergrad but it does force you to meet people. The grad experience can be really isolating. Mine wasn’t a particularly warm or sociable department so it was hard to meet people. Check out the department you’re considering very carefully. Also look at the mix of students. Although it’s a great experience to meet and work with a lot of foreign students, it can leave you without anyone who really gets you. My department of about 40 grad students had about 4 American students. Two of them were much older than I was, so that only left one other student who really clicked with me. (Please don’t jump all over me for being anti-foreign students. I’m not at all; some of them eventually became good friends. But I found it takes more time and effort because you don’t have a common background, and there may be language barriers. And those initial weeks and months are when you really need someone who knows where you’re coming from.)

Also, the advisor-student relationship is completely different that what I’d had before. I think I may have seen my undergrad advisor once. Maybe. My grad advisor wanted regular meeting with constant updates on my progress, and he was (or seemed to me to be) very controlling. I wanted to handle things one way and he expected me to do something totally different, and it proved to be a very big conflict. Before selecting an advisor (if you do the grad school route), get to know the advisor and see if your personalities are compatible. You’re going to be working closely with that person and it can make a HUGE difference in whether you make it or not.

I survived a year and a half and actually passed the qualifying exams before I left. I was able to turn the credits into a Master’s so all wasn’t lost, and it certainly wasn’t wasted time. But I was so unhappy by the end that I took a job in a mostly unrelated field and really have no plans to go back to engineering at this point.

My main suggestions would be 1) find something you are passionate about: it’ll sustain you through the dark times; 2) really research the department and advisor for something compatible; and 3) remember to take time off. I had a really hard time relaxing because it constantly felt like there was un-done work. It’s much harder to leave “at the office” than regular 9-5 type work.

Good luck!

23

'Kay, here’s some actual cites for you:

Careers and Rewards in Bio Science
The U.S. Science and Engineering Workforce: An Unconventional Portrait
Science and Engineering Workforce Project
NPA Reply to the Report by the National Science Board… (.pdf)
Workforce Alternatives to Graduate Students?
The Career Structure in Biomedical Research: Implications for Training and Trainees
Training for Today’s Marketplace

It looks kind of grim for anyone wanting to get into bioscience research, and aren’t so luminous in general for scientists and engineers, though again, if your skills can transfer to other fields you always have that option. A lot of computational particle physicists, for instance, have gone into modeling predictive market analysis. Of course, it isn’t what they spent a decade in school to do, but it’s a living.

Stranger

24

I went back to school in January.

  1. I hated my job and desperately wanted to be in an academic environment again. I’d been saying for years that if I were ever to go back to school, I’d kick ass. The song “I Wish I Could Go Back To College” from Avenue Q crystallized how I felt, and I made the decision last September.

  2. My goal is a BFA in Playwriting. (I write musicals, and my first degree was a B.Mus in composition.) I certainly hope to use my education. And, I’ll admit it, I’m hiding out in school for a few years while we get the current show going.

  3. I sacrificed a shitty job in a toxic environment. Money: see below.

  4. I qualify as a disabled student. This means two things: First, I’m considered full-time with a part-time course load, and therefore qualify for financial assistance at the full-time level. Second, Quebec gives recognized disabled students bursaries, not loans. Nothing to pay back. My husband is also a (disabled) student, and with our financial aid put together, we actually net more than we did when I was working full-time.

  5. I don’t feel out-of-place, although I sometimes feel old. The day after Johnny Carson died, I was talking to two girls from my theatre class about the whole Letterman/Leno tug-of-war over who’d get the Tonight Show. They have no idea what I was talking about. Then I realized that they were maybe 9 or 10 when that all went down. I was a freshman.

Everyone seems to like me, and we’re going group work in both my classes, so I’m getting to know some of the other students better.

As for extracurricular activities, instead of the Glee Club and pep rallies, Concordia U is into demos, melodramatic student politics, fair trade coffee, and occasional rioting. OK, there are sports teams and clubs, but the activists are the ones who get on the news.

  1. My previous university experience along with the skills I learned through eight years of working (mainly in writing, which was my job) have made a world of difference.

  2. Everyone’s been supportive, especially my LJ friends and my husband, who a couple of years ago went back to school after an even longer gap than mine.

  3. I’m still doing it.

  4. People who go back to school are there because they want to be, not because it’s the logical next step after high school.

25

I decided to go back after the department I’m in went through its second layoff cycle in two years. I started to ask myself “what would I do if I got laid off” and discovered it wasn’t what I was doing. I didn’t get laid off, am still there, and work 40 hours a week.

I’m going after a B.A. in Accounting. Just started, so don’t know if that is what I’ll end up doing. Suspect I’ll end up in audit.

Sacrifices: Mostly free time to go to class and do homework.

Financing: Still work full time. Brainiac4 still works full time. I just write checks for part time tuition. Works great. We don’t even miss the money (which is a good sign for when our kids need college).

Social: Haven’t. I go to night school. Some people have gone out for drinks or something after class. I’d rather sleep. I’m not looking for a social life though - I have a pretty active one away from school.

Previous experience: School is more fun and I get more out of it this time. I actually read most of the material and do most of the homework. Also, “kid’s today” are either much less prepared or much more whiney. The whole “extra credit” thing and the whole “I paid for this, you have to give me a C” are mysteries.

Supportive family: Yep. Couldn’t do this without a husband willing to take the kids one night a week and a mother willing to take them another night.

Yep, I’d do it again.

The only thing I’d moan about…the school I go to specializes in adult learners. Its a state school - so its cheap - but it isn’t really challenging. That’s actually fine with me, since I have two small children, one fulltime job and a life.

26

[ul]
[li]What made you decide or what impetus drove you to go to school?[/li]
My original imetus to finally do it was a workforce development program my old employer started. I have always wanted a PhD, and this program was assistance in obtaining an MS. Turned out that my grades weren’t good enough for grad school, but I turned the credits around for a 2nd BS with a much better GPA. I’m now with a different employer that will support graduate school for ambitious employees.
[li]What was your goal (BS/BA, MS/MA/MFA, DS/PhD, professional, perpetual student) and in what field? Did you end up working in that field or using your education?[/li]
I’m working in the field. I view the experience as formalizing for academic credit what I’ve been doing in 20 years of employment.
[li]What kind of sacrifices (pay, quality of life, free time, choice of drug habit, et cetera) did you make in order to go to school?[/li]
Nearly wrecked my marriage, but there are other problems feeding that, too.
[li]How did you finance school and living expenses (pt/ft work, loans, blackmail), and how did that work out for you in retrospect?[/li]
It all come out of my pocket, 3 credit hours at a time.
[li]What kind of social experiences did you have? Did you or were you welcomed to participate in extracurricular activities? Did you feel out-of-place?[/li]
I didn’t get into the social stuff much. I still had a career, a mortgage, a wife and teenaged son, etc.
[li]Did your previous experience prepare you better or differently in comparison with students who came straight from high school?[/li]
Immensely. I remember sitting in amazed wonder in my control systems class wondering why this material was so tough the first time around.
[li]Did you have supportive family or friends? How important was that in maintaining your will to finish your program?[/li]
I had support of everyone but my wife.
[li]Would you do it again? Do you regret it? Is there something you wish you’d done instead? [/li]
Hell yes, no regrets. I’m gearing up to apply for grad school now.
[li]Anything else you want to complain, gripe, moan, groan, or otherwise comment about regarding school?[/li]
I’m amazed at the petty bureaucracy perpetuated in univeristies. I’ve had 10 years of Civil Service employment, and the federal government could learn some things about red tape and bullshit from IUPUI.
[/ul]

27

[li]What was your goal (BS/BA, MS/MA/MFA, DS/PhD, professional, perpetual student) and in what field? Did you end up working in that field or using your education?[/li]
My goal was an M.A. in Economics. I currently work as an Economist for the federal government.

[li]What kind of sacrifices (pay, quality of life, free time, choice of drug habit, et cetera) did you make in order to go to school?[/li]
I continued to work full time at my job and attend school part-time, so the only sacrifice was my free time.

[li]How did you finance school and living expenses (pt/ft work, loans, blackmail), and how did that work out for you in retrospect?[/li]
My employer paid my tuition, and since I continued working full time in my job, there was no change in my income.

[li]What kind of social experiences did you have? Did you or were you welcomed to participate in extracurricular activities? Did you feel out-of-place?[/li]
Since I was going part-time, I didn’t really connect with any other students. I was friendly with several classmates, but they weren’t really deep connections. I didn’t really participate in extracurricular activities. However, there were quite a few part-time students in my program who had professional jobs; I didn’t feel out-of-place.

[li]Did your previous experience prepare you better or differently in comparison with students who came straight from high school?[/li]
This was graduate school, and we all had undergraduate degrees already. I don’t think you see the same dichotomy in grad school between those fresh out of college and those who have worked a few years as you do in undergrad between older students and new high school grads. Pretty much everyone in grad school is serious about their work.

[li]Did you have supportive family or friends? How important was that in maintaining your will to finish your program?[/li]
Family support, especially from my husband, was very important. There were many times I just wanted to toss in the towel.

**[li]Would you do it again? Do you regret it? Is there something you wish you’d done instead? **[/li]
I would definitely get a degree again, it’s worth it. No regrets other than I might have preferred to get an MLS and become a librarian.

[li]Anything else you want to complain, gripe, moan, groan, or otherwise comment about regarding school?[/li]
It seems like hell at the time, but it’s worth it. Graduate school is nothing like undergrad, it’s much more work and much less fun. At least in my field.

28

[li]What made you decide or what impetus drove you to go to school?[/li]
Oops, looks like I missed the first question. If I wanted to advance at my job, it was clear that I would need a graduate degree down the road.

29

[li]What made you decide or what impetus drove you to go to school?[/li]I hated computer programming and wanted to make more money.
[li]What was your goal (BS/BA, MS/MA/MFA, DS/PhD, professional, perpetual student) and in what field? Did you end up working in that field or using your education?[/li]MBA (evening program)
Yes and no. I worked as a management consultant for a Big-4 firm for a little over a year. Was laid off and now job-hop from consulting firm to consulting firm doing some variation of data analysis.
[li]What kind of sacrifices (pay, quality of life, free time, choice of drug habit, et cetera) did you make in order to go to school?[/li]-Time and money mostly. Also I suppose there may have been an opportunity cost associated with working a regular 9-5 “industry job” in an IT department instead of something in what I want to do.
[li]How did you finance school and living expenses (pt/ft work, loans, blackmail), and how did that work out for you in retrospect?[/li]-I took out a loan so I would have cash and also worked full-time at a regular professional job.

[li]What kind of social experiences did you have? Did you or were you welcomed to participate in extracurricular activities? Did you feel out-of-place?[/li]-Mostly I socialized with a my existing network of friends outside of school. Evening MBA students tend to be older and have lives outside of school. They are also taking classes at their own pace so you might never actually see any of them again once class ends.

[li]Did your previous experience prepare you better or differently in comparison with students who came straight from high school?[/li]-Probably a better comparison would be full-time vs part time MBA. Full time is shorter (2 yr) and there is a more social aspect to it. Your class starts together and there are more activities geered to the full time students.

[li]Did you have supportive family or friends? How important was that in maintaining your will to finish your program?[/li]-To them? Didn’t matter that much one way or the other.

[li]Would you do it again? Do you regret it? Is there something you wish you’d done instead? [/li]-Should have gone to law school (but then every lawyer says “should have gone to B-school”. Really I shouldn’t have studied engineering in the first place).

[li]Anything else you want to complain, gripe, moan, groan, or otherwise comment about regarding school?[/li]-The working world always seem cooler from campus.