The Rush to Graduate School
Everyone's applying. Should you, too?
An advanced degree can help career switchers move into new career tracks without starting over in entry-level jobs, says Robert Nachtmann, executive associate dean at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. An engineer who is tired of working on computers might go to law school and focus on intellectual property or patents. A musician with a head for business might try an M.B.A. with a concentration in entertainment.
Robert Flynn decided he was ready for a change after 12 years with the Central Intelligence Agency. He first earned a master's in international affairs at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., and, a few years later, polished his resume with an executive M.B.A. from the University of Connecticut's Hartford campus. Now Flynn, 40, is vice president of account management at DirectAdvice, an online financial services start-up in Hartford. "After working in the government for so long, I needed a degree to wave in front of the hiring partners," he says.
A growing number of career switchers heading into elementary or secondary classrooms are taking advantage of "alternative certification" programs. The programs, which often grant master's degrees, are designed to address teacher shortages by letting qualified candidates start teaching almost immediately after an intensive summer boot camp. Once in the classroom, students typically are closely mentored and take their own classes at night or on weekends. Ruby Williams, 53, spent 25 years as a surgical nurse but had always dreamed of becoming an educator. Her master's program at Alverno College in Milwaukee assigned her to Malcolm X Academy, a local middle school, where within six weeks she was teaching science to 30 students. Williams put in two years of weekend classes covering everything from how to manage a classroom to adolescent development and graduated in May 2001.
Whether they're building on existing know-how or making a clean break with the past, people seeking a new line of work can take advantage of a growing array of short specialty master's programs, which offer instruction geared to specific careers. In 1999, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., began a master's in bioinformatics aimed at both scientists and engineers. The program features classes in molecular biology, computer science, and mathematics and produces graduates prepared to mine databases at pharmaceutical firms or genetics labs. Among the other new niche degrees: Texas Tech University in Lubbock launched an M.B.A. program last year for doctors interested in running HMOs, and Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., recently began a joint education and business degree for people interested in management of for-profit schools, among others.
Graduate programs not only teach you new skills but also put an efficient job-hunting machine--the internship program and career placement office--at your disposal. Kitty McGrath, the director of career services at Arizona State University's business school, spends much of her time establishing relationships with businesses so that they will hire graduates. After the recession dried up the flow of on-campus recruiters, she drummed up possible employers for ASU graduates by reaching out to small- and medium-size Phoenix-area businesses that hadn't typically hired M.B.A.'s in the past.
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