Steps to Take Before Enrolling in a Graduate Program to Ensure Career Growth

People with graduate degrees can make 20% more than people with just an undergraduate degree. Not only do they earn more but they have better career outlooks. More opportunities. An easier path toward their dream job.

Graduate school is a great tool for career advancement. It can also just be very rewarding. Most people enrolling in a graduate program can focus on an aspect of their primary discipline that interests them the most.

All of that said, you shouldn’t rush into the decision. In this article, we will take a look at what steps you should take before enrolling in a graduate program.

Figure Out Your Personal Bandwidth

There are so many graduate programs out there. Each one will have unique participation requirements. Some might be accelerated, requiring a lot of your time and attention right away. Others might allow you to work at your own pace.

Programs may also vary in their start times. While popular degree paths—like a nursing program—may be constantly in session, more niche curriculums may only begin once a year. In other words, certain schools may require you to start at a specific time.

Before you begin, figure out: • How fast you want to work. There is a financial advantage to completing the program as quickly as you can. The math on that one is simple. The sooner you finish your degree, the sooner you earn more money. That said, you also want to make sure that the pace of your coursework makes sense based on your current lifestyle. You don’t want to rush in only to realize you don’t have the time to fully commit. • When and how do you want to take your class? You might not want to enroll in an accelerated program that begins in the summer, for example, if you are a travel bug who likes to hit the open road with your family once school lets out. That’s ok. There are so many options. You will find one that works for you.

Graduate school is hard enough in its own right. You don’t want to choose a program that doesn’t align with your current lifestyle. There is nothing wrong with choosing a remote curriculum, or simply taking traditional classes at your own pace.

Choose Your Program

What specific curriculum interests you the most? You’ll find as you get into the weeds that there are so many different directions you can take a graduate degree, even within a single discipline. Nurses, for example, can specialize in psychiatric care, elder care, neonatal care.

Business people can focus on marketing, finance, corporate leadership. The key is to find a program that interests you, but also one that will advance your career in the direction you are hoping for.

To that end, it can help to start by figuring out what you want your ultimate destination to be. What dream job are you trying to get? Identify that, and then walk the cat back to the program that best aligns with your goals.

Note that you may actually complete this step in tandem with the step described in our last heading. The college you are interested in might have a dozen MBA programs but only offers entry-level courses for the one you are interested in in the fall.

Also don’t be afraid to speak with the admissions department. It is their literal job to answer questions and help you find the program that makes the most sense to you.

Talk to Your People

If you have a family, going back to college can be tricky—particularly while managing your career. Being the fiercely independent professional that you are, this isn’t an “asking for permission,” sort of mission. That said, you will want to know what sort of support you have available to you.

Is someone able to help with the kids while you take classes? In what ways are the people who constitute your support system able to help with this?

Naturally, help is never a bad thing. That said, if you don’t have it, you can still get your dream degree. It may make the path a little harder. It may also mean going a little bit easier on yourself when it comes to your other responsibilities. Letting dishes soak in the sink overnight never hurt anyone.

Talk to Your Employer

Finally, if you are already employed—particularly in an industry related to the degree you will be pursuing—now is a good time to sit down and chat with your employer. Many businesses will offer tuition assistance for people who are interested in going back to school.

They don’t do this out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it to: • Incentivize great talent and • Farm leadership from within.

To that latter point, this conversation will also be a great way to put yourself on their radar in terms of career advancement potential. Sometimes great results require less effort than you think. Simply standing up and saying, “I want this and I’m willing to work for it,” will put you on the promotion track.

Tuition assistance is sometimes conditional on the length of your employment or the focus of your degree. A marketing firm, for example, may or may not bankroll your graduate degree in nursing—the same way a hospital may not pay for your MBA in marketing.

That said, it never hurts to find out what is available to you, right?

Look for Grants and Scholarships

People returning to school, particularly after spending years away, often don’t even think about grants or scholarships. Goodness, will you need to dig up your college transcript from ten years ago to qualify?

You might, but what’s on that transcript won’t matter quite as much as you think. Yes, good grades are important. No, tuition assistance is not only available to people with perfect transcripts. If you are entering a career path that is in need of new talent—healthcare, education, social work, etc—there will almost certainly be money available for people willing to make that career change.

Even if you aren’t entering a high-need employment sector, you will almost certainly find that you qualify for at least some scholarship money. Put yourself out there. Even relatively small awards can add up pretty significantly.