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| Things to Consider before Applying to Graduate School |
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No one can make the decision to go to graduate school for you. All anyone can do is offer you general advice to help you make up your own mind.
If you do decide to go to graduate school for philosophy, you will then have to decide when and where to do so.
The following is a list of questions you might ask yourself to help you answer these questions.
Should I work first?
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Do you need to recharge your batteries?
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Will the skills you will aquire in the work force help you to be a better student?
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Will a full time job help you to develop confidence in yourself?
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Will the work-a-day world help you to develop motivation for graduate work?
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Do you have the money to enter graduate school now?
Should I pursue an M.A. or a Ph.D.?
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What career do you want and what degree does that career require? Teaching high school requires an M.A., but a Ph.D. provides relatively little benefit. Teaching at the college level requires a Ph.D. However, you are likely to earn a higher salary as a public high school teacher than as an assistant or associate professor at most colleges.
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How much do you enjoy doing research?
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How able are you at managing your own time? Can you work without formal structures enforcing deadlines?
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How good are your credentials? A middling college student is more likely to get accepted into an M.A. program, and at most schools you can use an M.A. to springboard into their Ph.D. program.
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Doctoral students get most of the financial aid, so an M.A. may be a costly endeavor.
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Complicating matters is the fact that some schools allow students to jump directly into their doctoral program straight out of college, without earning a master's degree, first. The advantages of doing so are that it means spending less time in graduate school and racking up a smaller debt while doing so.
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However, not everyone will find this option attractive, especially if doubts remain about the wisdom of pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy. For such reasons, the M.A. might be the best route to take. If at the end of a year or two of graduate studies you should decide that the Ph.D. is not for you, you'll still have an M.A. to show for all your efforts.
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Whether going for a master's or a doctorate, you would do well to go to a school where you will be able to study with philosophers whose work you admire and with whom you would love to study. This is especially true for those thinking about getting a Ph.D. You will have to write a dissertation under the guidance of an advisor, almost always a faculty member in your graduate department. The last thing you want is to be forced to abandon your primary research interests because no one in your department shares them with you. Make of list of people you would love to study with and then apply to study with them at their home institutions.
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There's more to tell, of course, but these are the questions and considerations that you should keep foremost in your mind as you begin to think about applying to graduate school.
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