So you want to go to grad school.... (Part 2)

In my prior post, I dispelled three myths that people often have about graduate study. Today, I'll let you know how I learned these lessons.

1. Grad school is NOT a place to find yourself. That is the purpose of college.

In college, I learned a lot about myself.  Like a true West Indian [as my friends describe], I often had 3 jobs at a time.  (They all had flexible schedules, where I could work as much or as little as I wanted.) 
Let's do the job/internship role call: Summer Camp Counselor; On-call Macy's Sales Associate; Kohl's Store Management Intern; Blue Hen Ambassador (tour guide); Coke Campus Manager (marketing and athletic event promotion); and Human Resources Intern.

Through trial and error, I learned what aspects of jobs/careers I liked ...and what I didn't like.  Although, I worked at Macy's for two years, it wasn't until I worked at Kohl's that I realized that I couldn't do retail/fashion for 40 hrs/wk. Nor could I do corporate. I just didn't like clothes that much.  I met a recruiter there and thanks to my Labor Relations and Human Resources classes, I became interested in that area.  My senior year, I applied and was accepted to grad school for Human Resources.  A Human Resources internship showed me that HR was mostly mind numbing paperwork.  I kindly turned down my acceptance.

2. When you apply to graduate school, you should have a defined area of study.

When I first graduated college,  I still wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do.  Working for two years as a Coordinator of Multicultural Recruitment, helped me to define my interests. Working with underprivileged populations made me want to focus on education policy.  I wanted to either work for government, a non-profit, or higher education to improve access to higher education. 

3. You shouldn't pay for graduate school.

In graduate school, I had a graduate assistantship which paid my tuition and provided a living stipend. In return, I worked 20 hours/week on education policy issues. I conducted research and developed reports that were used to attain federal funding and to improve education in our state. I also helped to plan workshops for teachers and administrators.  It was very fulfilling work.  It augmented what I learned in the classroom, AND  it paid.  No, you won't be rich. But with student tax adjustments, my take-home pay was only about $300 less than my meagre salary as an Admission Counselor.

Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions...