Is grad school a good idea?

Penelope Trunk trots out one of her regularly visited themes: why grad school is a bad idea. It rankled me a bit but I do have to remember that she's talking to twenty-somethings and I'm a forty-odder. Her advice would be right-on to my 23-year-old self: I had very little direction, a graduate degree would have been wasted on me, and my next 25 years or so would be spent working (or not), gathering experience. and developing as a person.

The comments to her post are as opinionated, so she succeeded in stirring up some thoughts and opinions (much of it taking her to task--rightly--for her crack about the military.) Though I kind of understand her point -- if you don't have a direction, then entering grad school or the military could lead down paths that may not be right for you -- it was a carelessly thought out remark.

As many of the commenters note, a graduate degree can bump up your pay grade (that's what my employer does) and, after years of job-hopping, it can be useful to get a degree that tells the world -- your bosses, your peers -- that you do in fact know what you're doing.

My manager is getting an MBA through NCSU and it's been a transformative experience for him: he's made great local contacts, he's extended his skillset, and he now has a degree that qualifies him for bigger and better-paying jobs. Had he simply read the books and gone to local networking meet-ups, he would never have received the validation that he gets when he meets with his managers and with local executives in meetings set up by his school.

For myself, I have enjoyed my master's experience tremendously. One of the most important things I learned was that I can apply my odd agglomeration of skills and abilities to more than the narrow band of activities I've grown accustomed to. The other important thing was that it awoke my intellectual side, which the last 25 years of work has rather successfully smothered (except when it was useful to the project, of course). And I've found my professors to be up to date on what's happening in the big ol' world outside of Manning and to be very generous with introductions to people they know in academe and industry, thus extending my personal network.

Still, her article is one of those goads that my reticular activating system has been sending my way as I contemplate the PhD. Does it make sense to leave a guaranteed paycheck to go to school full-time in this economy? Will I be able to find work as a 50-something PhD when I graduate? What, really, do I want to do with my life and will grad school help me get there?

That's the real question I think Penelope means for her readers to ask themselves.