Intro to Considering Grad School

For nearly every field and career track, there is some form of graduate school as an option and potential reasons to attend graduate school to advance in that field. You can choose to go to grad school because it’s a requirement to enter your desired career (MDs, JDs) (in this case, not really much of a choice), because it will provide you a salary boost or access to new titles (MBAs, Masters), because you are passionate about research (PhDs), or because you want to increase your knowledge in a technical field (all the above). These reasons can mix together as motivation for a degree or evolve into other factors entirely. However, graduate school is a major commitment, being more difficult and often taking longer to complete than undergraduate degrees. There are many costs that come along with the benefits of the decision to continue your education. In this map, we will provide a bird’s eye overview of the considerations to make about whether grad school is right for you. To provide the best advice, we’ve asked current graduate students in various disciplines to help author the following content.

This is not meant to be a deep dive into any one kind of degree or personalized advice on what you specifically should do. For that, you’ll need to do your own research - and a lot of it, because choosing to attend graduate school is just as big of a decision (if not more) as choosing to be an undergraduate. But this map will be a great starting place for those considering graduate school or wanting to learn more about whether it should even be considered as an option. With help from Menti mentors who are in the relevant fields, we will take on each of the major types of degrees - Masters, PhDs, MBAs, JDs and MDs, among others. Along the way, we’ll also provide further resources for learning more about the opportunities of each degree and how to decide if it’s the right choice for you.