January 1, 2012
By Andrew S. Griffith, DBA
The opinions presented here do not necessarily represent those of any educational institution. They are only the opinions of the author that were derived from reading published academic research and also from his personal experiences and observations.
The previous article focused primarily on program specific factors that you should consider before committing to a degree program at an institution. Once you’ve established a group of potential institutions and related degree programs for you to apply to, you need to evaluate yourself before you actually spend any funds. The following is a list of factors for self-evaluation that should be considered before proceeding with the application for admissions process.
Personal considerations:
1) Reason(s) for pursuing the degree: You need to be able to clearly articulate your reason(s) for pursuing a degree and its major. You should be able to do this concisely and in the form of a sentence that is no longer than 25 words. Try to complete the following sentence:
The purpose of pursuing the ______ degree in (major) is ______________________.
If you cannot clearly and concisely complete this sentence, you need to re-evaluate why you are even considering attempting the program. Perhaps your reason is the pursuit of additional skills, insight, or a new career path, or some other benefits.
2) Financial constraints: It would be completely irresponsible for you to enter ANY degree program at ANY institution without considering the financial aspect of this decision. You need to determine how you will pay for your education. If you are planning to borrow student loans and the total amount of the student loans you expect to owe at graduation exceeds the amount of annual income you expect to generate immediately after graduation, you need to reconsider your student loans. There are numerous means to successfully pay for your college education WITHOUT borrowing. At the doctoral level, many institutions will pay (including tuition coverage) you to teach their courses or assist with research projects.
If you are taking out student loans, you need to be very aggressive at completing your coursework so the time that you spend in the program is limited and, in turn, that will limit the amount of student loan debt you have at the time of graduation. Remember the expression “time is money” whenever you are using debt to pay for your education. If you must borrow funds, you should only borrow enough to cover your costs and return the excess funds to the lender (so you will owe less later). You should also make ALL of the necessary downward lifestyle changes in order to accommodate your education life. This may mean that you no longer have a cable television subscription or the latest magazine or movie rental subscriptions. This also includes curtailing the social life and the dining out. While a college student, your number one priority is to graduation and nothing else should be occupying your time and interfering with your ability to graduate.
3) Geographical constraints: If you have geographical limitations to your ability to pursue educational opportunities, this may also limit your opportunities. You may find yourself needing to delay the pursuit of your educational goal or pursuing a program that is less desirable for you.
For example, you want to pursue a degree at Oxford University in the U.K. However, you are tied to a rural area in the U.S. and cannot leave that area for another 4 years. If the program you want to enter will allow you to fly to and from the classes at Oxford, then you can make it the geographical constraint work. But if that program requires that you be at the campus throughout the much of the program (often labeled a “residency requirement”), then you either must find another institution and degree program that will allow you to commute from your geographical location (for example, classes only on weekends) OR you must delay entry into the desired program (in our example’s case, Oxford University) until you can make the arrangements to comply with the program’s requirements.
Let’s assume that you take option B: delay entering the desired institution’s program until your geographical constraints have been terminated. What do you do with your time while waiting to enter your desired institution’s program? You intensely evaluate your resume (and CV) and your transcripts. Since you have decided to delay entry into the program, you have some time to improve your application package’s content before applying to the program. This means taking some courses (such as Statistics II or Advance Calculus) to improve your academic background prior to applying for admission to the program. It also means improving your current employment position and doing some additional career-enhancing projects like authoring some articles and papers and becoming actively involved with your professional organizations (networking & service) and not-for-profit organizations (community service). Don’t let the time between degree programs go wasted and uneventful.
4) Employment constraints: Employers do not always understand the long-term benefits of educating their employees. Many will give the idea “lip service” but ignore it or stifle it in practice. This is a major indicator that your time at that firm is limited because management is focused on the short-term and their own self-interests (not the interests of the employees or the shareholders or society). You should develop your transition plan and begin the process of seeking a new employer. Firms that are focused primarily on the short-term results are very vulnerable in the marketplace and will most likely experience financial difficulty in the near future.
If you have to make the hard decision between “current employment” and “education.” You should seriously consider making the decision to sacrifice “current employment” for “education” as long as your current degree program will lead to improved economic options for you that are realizable shortly after graduation. (Reality check: some degree programs do not create immediate economic options for the graduates.) Passing on an opportunity to complete a doctoral program that will directly enhance your economic options is something you cannot afford to do. The long-term benefits will far surpass the short-term sacrifices that you had to make.
5) Your current skill set: You should examine your current skill set. If you are weak in the areas of mathematics or writing, you should invest some time in improving those skills before taking the entrance exams for the master and doctoral level programs. It is better for you to recognize the deficiency in your skill set and take the steps to correct it than to have the prospective institution reject your application or have you enroll in the courses to correct it while the clock is running on the maximum time you are allowed to spend in the program.
Before applying, you should also try to complete some projects that will distinguish you from everyone else who is applying for admission to a program. (This could include working with a current or former professor on an academic research project that will lead to a conference presentation or academic publication.) You want your application package to be very robust and demonstrate to the program’s decision-makers that you can do this degree program and do it well.
6) Future career options after graduation: If you are financially secure, then this section doesn’t necessarily apply to you. But if you have debt or are needing a change in your financial situation, you need to consider the future career options that are available after you graduate. While it is true that you should major in a field that you enjoy working in, it is also true that you should NOT major in an area that the majority of people are pursuing. It is counter-productive to pursue a major that a significant number of people have or are pursuing. The future career options are always limited when a surplus of graduates exist with that major (basic economics… supply & demand). Your selection of a major should be something that is not easily obtained by others (a clue to that is it requires a lot of individual effort to complete) and in a field that is not becoming obsolete (for example: secretarial science has a dim future). When you look at your target discipline’s future (on the doctoral level), you need to examine the current shortage of people with doctorate degrees (in that field) and the projected future shortages (and excesses) over the next 10 years. You should also look at alternative sources for meeting the staffing needs. If an alternative staffing source exists, then the future compensation for that discipline will not be as high (in the long-run) as that of a discipline without such an alternative source. Likewise, the employment opportunities will not be as abundant for a graduate in a field that has an alternative staffing source when compared to a graduate in a field that lacks such an alternative staffing source.
7) Potential consequences associated with a failure to complete the degree program: With every degree program, you should always be aware of any consequences that may occur if you fail to complete the program. For doctoral students, failure to complete the current doctoral degree program may result in the termination of the current employment arrangement. It also may void a future employment opportunity. The time to understand the potential consequences is before you enter a doctoral program.
8) Personal sacrifices: In a perfect world, every opportunity you seek will be presented to you in the ideal situation. However, this world is far from perfect and opportunities often come with some sacrifices that you will have to make in order to reap the full benefit of the opportunities that present themselves to you. Unless you have a very valid reason for rejecting an education opportunity (financial resources is normally not one of them), you should seize the opportunity.
You should be prepared to sacrifice religious activities, personal activities (such as sleep, vacations, a social life, family gatherings, family activities, etc.), financial resources, standard of living, and employment/career-enhancing opportunities that arise during the degree program. You may lose friends and alienate some relatives during your pursuit of a doctoral program (some experienced a divorce while in a doctoral program). The idea is to graduate and, if these other aspects of your life interfere with your ability to meet the program’s requirements and/or to graduate, you need to be prepared to make some hard choices. Failure to make the necessary sacrifices may result in your inability to complete the program. This, in turn, could hinder your ability to afford to do all of these non-employment activities while everyone else is “going broke” doing these activities (because they didn’t make their education needs and goals the priority).
9) Health concerns: You should carefully assess your health before you enter a doctoral program. Doctoral programs tend to be complete with periods of high stress, lack of sleep, and high emotions (and often conflicting). If your health or memory isn’t capable of enduring the rollercoaster ride of a serious doctoral program, then you may want to reconsider it. During your time as a doctoral student, you should attempt to eat healthy meals (food that benefits the brain- for example, fish- is strongly encouraged to be a regular part of your diet) and exercise daily (you will need the regular stress relief).
10) Personal support network: Completing a doctoral program is a huge undertaking. The experience is hard to describe and compare to the experiences of the undergraduate and even most of the master-level degree programs. You should enter the doctoral program with the full support of your family (including your spouse) and try to keep them involved with your progress. (You may want or need to distance yourself from those who are anti-supportive of your efforts to complete a doctoral program while you complete the program.)
You will also find that your fellow doctoral students and professors are part of your support network. Your support network may even extend to academics and doctoral students of other institutions or other programs within your own institution. Those who have completed this before you are often the most understanding and supportive in your network.
11) Your motivation: The last factor you need to assess before entering a doctoral program is your motivation. If you are unwilling to commit and risk everything you have to complete the program, you should probably consider not entering it. If you tend to do things halfway while in your academic studies or “cut corners” in your professional life, you should probably not enter a doctoral program. If you tend to argue with your professors that over how things should be done in a course, you should probably not enter a doctoral program. If you see no issues with borrowing someone else’s ideas or words and presenting them as your own without disclosing the source(s), you should not enter a doctoral program. If you are unwilling to learn any or all parts of the program material entirely on your own, you should not enter a doctoral program. Anything less than a total commitment to completing the doctoral program you entered is insufficient.
Entering a doctoral program is a major decision and should be carefully assessed. Once you’ve entered a doctoral program, you should ALWAYS remember that the idea is to graduate… not drop out of it. A good doctoral program will be a life-changing experience for you. If it was not, the program was not a good match for you (you cannot assess this aspect until the entire program is over with).
Before you apply to a doctoral program, please visit the Ph.D. Completion Project for more insight into this doctoral program experience.
Always remember that, ultimately, you are the one that has to be satisfied with your education decisions and the results of those decisions.
Institution specifc considerations article
Program specific considerations article