In the closing semester of my undergraduate days, I received a lot of pressure to further my education. Professors cranked the Scare Tactics dial to 11, warning that we’d be “in debt for the rest of your lives, making only $30,000 per year”, while others touted the increased autonomy and wholly unquantifiable prestige one would get by progressing past a Bachelor’s. However, ignoring this advice has not only not resulted in a prolonged unemployment, it has at times been a solid career move.
Without getting too far into specifics, my life at that point in time simply couldn’t be postponed for two more years; I needed to fly the nest and start earning a living/moving out pronto. The opportunity may have hypothetically existed, however pursuing that path would not have been practical. Besides the time impact, there was another barrier that was in place at the time as well.
In college, I had a clever load management strategy; I would build up my safety net of good grades early on in the semester, then as the semester neared its end, I’d start calculating what I’d need to score on the final to pass the class. As soon as the minimum I needed to score on the final was a zero, that’s when I would start easing off of the gas pedal. I would stop studying entirely, and while I would be physically present for exams, I’d put in the bare minimum and not fret about the results (despite the pleas of one of my best friends); my win was mathematically guaranteed. Contrast that to most of my peers who employed the opposite strategy; keg-stands in September followed by cortisol-fueled cram sessions in December. I never understood the logic of scoring in the low sixties all semester long, then hoping to be saved by a miracle 95% performance on the final exam. While I have no data to back this, this seems highly improbable. As fun and regret-free most of my finals weeks in college were, this wreaked havoc on my GPA; I finished my undergraduate with a mere 2.46, thus ensuring that no graduate program would touch me with a ten-foot pole. However, during finals week each semester I became really good at Metal Gear Solid 3.
Ultimately, time heals the low-GPA wound, especially with a continuous resume to boot. The problem is no longer one of opportunity, after all many companies now offer tuition reimbursement as a benefit. The issue now is one of incentives. Jumping ship every few years is the better move than spending two more years in school, in most cases. While this may be industry-specific (disclaimer), an MS or an MBA are no guarantees for opening doors either. Since the return on investment is rather low on graduate school, the way to make this a winning proposition is to pay as little as humanly possible for the degree. Given the fact that tuition regularly beats inflation, good luck with that. Graduate school is a difficult endeavor, and I’d rather not pursue an objectively difficult and expensive path for such a pitiful return.
The question of need also arises, though it isn’t much of a question at all. To accomplish my life goals, two more years of school not only aren’t required, the yield on the time investment is questionable at best, from a sheer usefulness perspective. Time, after all, is finite for us mere mortals and optimization is necessary. The Interest on my end is hence minimal; the longer and longer I’ve spent in my current line of work, the less and less I envy the MS’s and Ph.D’s who work crushingly long and thankless hours. The pomp-and-circumstance of being called Doctor or having a prestigious job function don’t outweigh the time drain, lack of work-life balance and minimal financial return.
But hey this is just the current state of affairs. If in the future there is at least some intersection of need, want, incentive and opportunity, then I’ll certainly revisit the issue. To my current/former bosses who have read this far, I must ask; Who is the bigger fool? Me for admitting my lackluster collegiate GPA, or you for seeing it and hiring me anyways?
Home Page 