I want to go back to school, but everything sounds interesting.
Some background: I graduated in 2001 from a large midwestern state university with a degree in film production with a very good GPA. (I’ll tell if you think it’s important). I got a ‘minor’ (not officially a minor but the equivalent at the time) in English literature. I’ve taken a few design courses (mostly learning computer programs such as photoshop) and a few photography courses.
I have a (freakish) penchant for parentheses.
I kind of want to go for more film school and someday possibly teach but I don’t want to move back to LA. I’d also like a job at some point, so something semi-practical would be good.
Majors I’ve considered: Linguistics, fine art, design, drafting/engineering, photography, film, education, computer science, journalism/photojournalism. The idea of a business degree makes me shudder. I like the concrete ideas of drafting and I love the mechanical part of photography, as well as the artistic side.
I’d like to move to the Pacific Northwest someday (Willamette valley? maybe Corvallis?) and maybe own a used book/roleplaying game store.
I know this is random and rambling, but I’d really like to hear all options no matter how far-fetched.
Where did you go to school? Did you like it? Would I like it?
It’s my understanding that, unless you have a basic education in a particular subject, that going to grad school for it is pretty much right out. You might need to take the equivalent classes of a major or minor in that subject.
Computer science in particular would be very, very difficult without about 12-13 classes at the undergraduate level.
Not entirely ultrafilter. You can, for instance, get an MBA without any sort of undergrad buisiness degree (although the OP said that a buisiness degree was right out), and I’m fairly certain that you can get into Med school and Law school with any undergrad degree (although your chances of being accepted into the post-grad program may be affected).
Research the shit out of available grad schools. Talk to students who are current grad students, not just faculty and admin folks.
Grad school can be a lot of fun but you can’t grab your credits and switch to some other school if you decide this school is not for you. And it can be expensive, although if you’re after a PhD you’ll generally get some funding en route. A lot less so if you’re seeking a Masters. Sorry, I know that sucks, it’s just the way it’s generally been.
Let me explain this thing called “committee”. You need faculty members to voluntarily serve, who will read and critique and ultimately approve (or not) your thesis. They don’t need to justify choosing to not be on your committee. So in a sense it is like trying to get into a fraternity or sorority: if they don’t want you there’s not a whole hell of a lot you can do. This is more of a factor in some departments than others. In some departments, if you sufficiently piss off one faculty member whose specialty area is strongly akin to what you want to do, no one else on faculty will touch you. In other departments, it’s almost pro forma that your advisor will be on your committee and will help you find the others. But know what you’re getting into. If you have a “thing” you want to pursue as a grad student – an interest area, a research topic, an endeavor that you see grad school as the machinery that will allow you to do your stuff – make sure it will play in the environment you choose, for otherwise you’ll get blocked or diverted into whatever is important to your professors, which may not be what you want to do your thesis on.
And if you want to work in academia, keep in mind that doing your thesis on some totally unrelated topic may make it hard for you to get a faculty appointment that lets you focus on your real interests. At least some of them will look at your thesis and the subsequent published articles in your name and associate you with your thesis for better or worse. So doing your major project in the area you really want to do it in, or failing to do so, is going to have repercussions.
Be blunt. Ask them. Can I do blah-blah here, and if I did would you consider being on my committee? I’ve read your papers on blah-blah and my approach is a bit different, I’m sort of part of the bleeble school of thought, or I think I am, and you seem to have approached blah-blah from more of a blibble perspective. If I were to stick to a bleeblish analysis and focus, would you have trouble with that? I don’t mind learning blibble but from what I’ve read of blibble I’m pretty much convinced I’m a bleeble person. Would you nevertheless be supportive of me and serve on my committee if I retained this interest?
Whew. Well, I’m in grad school right now (final semester for my Masters - library/information science) and one thing I’d say is that grad school isn’t what you do because you’re bored and simply want a change in your life. It can be intense, frustrating and expensive. It can also be great.
That said, if you really do want to go back, decide what your goal is - PhD or Masters? And think about what your interests really are. Once you start the program, chances are that you will eat, sleep & breathe that general subject for at least a couple of years. So make sure it’s something that you are interested in.
Anyway, I’m in the Information Sciences program at the University of Tennessee. I love it. Whether you would like it, I can’t say - have you ever wanted to be a librarian?
I agree with Lsura. Being bored and unsure what direction to go in are not good reasons to go to grad school. At least in my field (Economics), programs require superhuman amounts of commitment and focus, which is hard to come by if grad school was a casual decision.
I’m not saying you should never go to grad school, you just need to find out what really interests you first. Find out what you are passionate about, because ideally this field will be your life’s work. Best wishes.
Well, let’s examine your interests here a second. As was pointed out above, there are many subjects where you need the prerequisite undergraduate experience in order to qualify for acceptance in a graduate program.
Let’s take engineering, for instance (this being my specialty). I will absolutely guarantee you that, with only an undergraduate degree in film production in your background, you will never be accepted in an engineering graduate program. Why? Graduate classes presuppose a certain amount of undergraduate background, in math and sciences as well as in the engineering disciplines. You don’t have that background? You’ve got no chance at passing a grad course.
But what if you really really want to get an engineering degree? Then I think your best course of action is to call your local university and find out what it will take to get an undergraduate degree in engineering. Most (really, just about all) engineering graduate schools require you to have an undergraduate degree before admission. It is possible that you may be able to get into an engineering grad school by taking some make-up undergrad courses, but I suspect that engineering and film studies are so different that the sum total of the make-up courses would equate to an entire official undergrad degree.
Now, to continue with your list: There is no such thing as a graduate drafting degree. Two-year degree, maybe, if you’re interested in community college (a viable option, if you’re just bored, nothing wrong with getting an associate’s degree).
I’m reasonably certain that for computer science, and probably linguistics, you would have to do undergraduate work to the same extent that you would for engineering. I don’t really know about journalism.
I suspect that you may qualify for (different from being accepted at) graduate school in fine art, photography, or design by taking “make-up” courses, probably fewer than you’d need for engineering. Best course of action would be to make an appointment at your local U, bring a transcript, and ask what you’d need to do to qualify for their grad program(s) in whatever subject. However, remember that admission to grad school is competitive (and requires a portfolio!), so you’re sort of automatically at a disadvantage when compared to people who’ve spent four undergraduate years honing their skills in their genre.
Now, education: I had had the impression that some schools offer education masters without requiring an undergrad in education. My brother-in-law had an English undergrad degree, for instance, and enrolled in a Masters of Education program. I’m not much of an expert, though, and you may need to take additional courses if your undergrad is not in a traditional secondary school subject.
And finally, of course, film seems like a no-brainer for you, as far as already having the prerequisites.
I think, though, that this might be going at it the wrong way. The question is: What do you want to do? What subject are you willing to spend three, or four, or six, or eight years studying? Figure that out, then call up the appropriate department at a couple universities and ask what you need to do to meet their admission requirements. And if that means spending two solid years obtaining another undergrad degree, then so be it. After all, if you’re willing to spend eight years, what difference does two make?
These are bit different from your typical graduate programs, as there are no undergraduate degrees in law or medicine (or if there are, many universities don’t offer them), and most MBA programs are specifically designed for people with no business background.
You can major in “pre-med” or “pre-law” at a lot of schools. Those most “pre-meds” are biology or chem majors and Poly Sci seems to be pretty popular for “pre-law”
Comparative Literature? Its what I almost went to grad school for. I really wanted to do a thesis on the synergies between film and comic books (my undergrad is Film with a History minor). But you can’t get employed, so its not even really semi-practical.
Journalism with an advertising slant would be more employable. Sociology could set you up to get into a nice advertising/marketing communications type job - visual communications, typing customers, data mining, etc.
Linguistics you don’t need related undergrad work. I have two friends (unemployed) with grad degrees in Linguistics - both had Sociology (maybe Anthropology?) backgrounds as undergrad, IIRC.
If your goal is to own a used bookstore/role playing shop - you really don’t need to be an overeducated geek in anything (though it does seem to help to fit the part) but you can be an overeducated geek in anything.
When I re-read my OP after a good nights sleep, I realized that I want to either stay in film/photography (my focus in filmmaking is cinematography and they’re practically the same thing, one just has a few more frames per second) or eschew school altogether and focus on opening a business. I might have to take a few business courses at the local community college… I believe they have a ‘small business’ program at one of the places I work.
hmmm.
Thanks for everyone’s responses… I know I have a lot more to think about than just being bored and dissatisfied, and working at two different colleges isn’t making it any easier, as I see people I knew from undergrad finishing up their Masters right now. Plus, my SO is still trying for his undergrad. A two person household on a very low income both in school? Sounds like bad mojo.
Thanks again and I hope more people will want to chime in…
Have you considered just doing some continuing education courses at your local university? Grad school is a huge committment, and the admissions, committee selection, etc. processes are usually long and exhausting. Unless you really feel that you need the degree in order to do the kind of work you want to do, I’d strongly advise that you get the education you want in another way.
If you want to own a bookstore, you can do that without getting a grad degree. Really, it seems to me that, for you, going to grad school would just be delaying your goals for a few (or many) years.
Quite right; I think many MBA programs will reject people with bachelor degrees in business. They want breadth. Same for MLS (library school) programs, though I don’t think any undergraduate majors in library science exist anymore. And, I don’t think most colleges even have such a thing as a formal pre-law or pre-med major.
There are some computer science master’s programs that will accept you without a related bachelor’s, but you will have to do pretty much the entire undergraduate major before you can take most grad level courses. And if you’re like most non-science majors, and didn’t do any math beyond the calculus-lite courses they offer, you’ll have to do a bunch of math courses before you can even take the undergrad CS courses.
If you’re not constrained by time or money, and you’re really interested in CS, why not consider getting another bachelor’s degree? That way you’d have a degree to show after doing all that prerequisite stuff.
I don’t know what your financial situation is, but it looks like you are geographically settled for now, or at least while your SO is pursuing his BA.
Since you are interested in ultimately opening a bookstore or shop of some sort, have you considered taking some (possibly non-degree leading) business classes (like how to start your own business courses) at your local college and working at a bookstore that you admire? Learn the ropes on both business and customer service ends, and when you do make it to Corvallis, you will be better educated to pursue your goal.
I, too, have a (freakish) penchant for parentheticals.
I can’t really offer anything except 2 people at uni from the same house (if it can be avoided) should be avoided. And I’m not sure is Kansas is ready for a gaming store.
Oh, and I could kiss you for that .sig the laughter, it never ends.
