100 Reasons Not to Go to Grad School

[Malthus]

Came across this blog:

http://100rsns.blogspot.ca/

Any grad students here? What do Languish grad school-goers think? Accurate or bunk?

[PDH]

I teach good.

[Martinus]

I teach good.

[Eddie Teach]

Better than teaching evil, I suppose.

[Valmy]

Totally agree.

I do love the whiny people who comment on the blog who say crap like 'well maybe happiness does not depend on financial success'

Yeah because people go to get advanced degrees so they can be on food stamps.  If you just really want to learn German History, or whatever, then study German history for the love and do not go deep into debt at some University.  Unless you really think you are, or will be, one of the top German History experts in the United States (or Europe or whatever) but that requires very serious commitment.  As it should for an academic career where the jobs are few, usually low paying, and very competitive.

I like this:

[The Brain]

People who doubt their ability want the degree. People who bring up their degrees are invariably retards desperate to impress.

[CountDeMoney]

I do love the whiny people who comment on the blog who say crap like 'well maybe happiness does not depend on financial success'

The fuck it doesn't.

[Ed Anger]

Droz: What's your major?
Sanskrit Major: Sanskrit.
Droz: Sanskrit. You're majoring in a 5000 year-old dead language?
Sanskrit Major: Yeah.

[Solmyr]

I'm getting a degree because I want to get an education and to interact with academic circles. And besides, I dunno about the US, but in Finland a degree does give you the right to demand a better job and higher pay.

[Malthus]

I like this:

Oh man, that cartoon is painfully funny - I love the expressions. 

[jimmy olsen]

If I had the money I'd go to grad school immediately. I love school.

[Habbaku]

Reading some of the links in that blog makes me cringe in sympathy.

[MadImmortalMan]

I'm getting a degree because I want to get an education and to interact with academic circles. And besides, I dunno about the US, but in Finland a degree does give you the right to demand a better job and higher pay.

It's mostly a method of sorting applicants now. Not so much a thing that gives you an ability to ask for more money.

[PDH]

I am one of those "I don't need money to be happy" people.  Of course, the caveat is that I know I will have a nice retirement due to family, I get to do what I want (I don't adjunct and hope to make ends meet - I work full time and teach because it is fun), and I was very good at going to grad school.

Still, there were some things quite shocking to me - the hierarchies among the students, the fight to get known and accepted by the faculty, the bloodthirsty comments when someone failed...all would have made it much more stressful had I not been pretty good at the whole grad experience.  Even then, I saw it for what it is, I haven't gone on to get a PhD.

[DGuller]

Among actuaries, there is definitely a strong feeling that anything above a bachelor's degree is not worth it, and is often counter-productive.  In my experience, there is some truth to that;  in my company the success record of graduate degree holders is definitely mixed.  Some people are really brilliant, but others are bottom of the barrel, often due to temperamental factors.  One economics PhD recently got cut, to the relief of everyone.  I'm not sure whether it's correlation or causation, though.