The Next Cycle

I was having a brief conversation with my girlfriend last night and I feel helpless. I know that this is just part of growing up and realizing you are no longer a child. It's a scary thing to wonder about going out and having to do things on your own. It has been for years your parents responsability to guide you and make choices for you because it is the way of parenting. She has come to that very important part of her life where she's looking at that next great step towards setting and making her goals come to life. She's a very bright, warm and very beautiful person inside and out and she will figure things out and have a lot of faith she will go very far. It's a proven fact this cycle continues far even after you've been in the work force for years using that degree you worked hard for. It's been shown how often people choose to go back to school and change careers all together from what they have known. I sent this this article to try to help her out. She means a lot to me and I just want to help.


By Susan A. Lieberman
In the past months a trail of students has passed through my office troubled by not having a clear path to follow after graduation. This lack of clarity makes Rice students anxious. But more than that, the students seem somehow embarrassed by not knowing that medical school or graduate school or Andersen Consulting is their right next step. There is a fear of the unknown.
Yet, it may, for many students, be wiser to fear the known. Those undergraduates who are marching toward graduate or professional schools with due diligence and a Princeton Review book but without enthusiasm, without curiosity, without two teaspoons of passion for what lies ahead, should be far more terrified than their classmates mucking about in confusion. Spending tens of thousands of dollars and nearly as many hours grinding away in a program chosen because it seemed like 'what one ought to do' is an idea that truly scares me.
Most Rice students have been in school, steadily, 17 or 18 years without a break. Some have never worked in a professional setting or outside the university. Their folder of information about the possibilities that await them in the world is slim. Their experiences are limited and their awareness of their strengths and weaknesses in the world beyond the academy is undeveloped.
Take a year or two out, I suggest. Go spend time working and see what you discover -- about the world of work and about yourself. “Oh no! What if I get off track and don't go to graduate school?” is a common response. Seems to me that if graduate school is where you should be, you'll go and if you get “off track,” it's because you discovered something that made more sense for you. Actually, after two years of working forty hours a week, of waking up at 7 and battling morning traffic, graduate or professional school may suddenly seem sensible and widely appealing.
“I'll lose the drive to study,” is another common response. If you don't have the drive to study a profession or a discipline, why study it? When we live and work in a university, not having a graduate degree seems to mark you an inferior sort of being. In fact, in the world at large, people are much more interested in what you can do and how well you can do than where you went to school and what your GPA was. For many young people, it is far more likely that a time out will rekindle an already-lost desire to study.
Yes, many interesting and intriguing doors are shut to you without proper credentialing and laying the foundation for a financially and/or intellectually rewarding career is a smart move. If you are clear about your course, if you are sure about the right path, certainly, you might choose to forge ahead. But if you have doubts, be assured that the graduate schools are not closing. The professional schools are not subtracting admissions points for people who took time to work between college and graduate work. To the contrary, most value that experience. What difference does it make whether you work in your field for 40 years or 42 years? What's the hurry to have learning done with in an age in which we are told we must be life-long learners?
Students who take time out after college before continuing their education are NOT wasting time. They are, by my lights, intelligent adventurers. They are using the curiosity we try to foster here. They are developing the self confidence and self-awareness that we hope will make them wiser and better professionals. They are doing the research needed to make wise decisions. Maybe they are even having fun. Soon enough, we find ourselves with careers and families and responsibilities. We take these on because we want it, we like it and we believe it makes a good life. I believe that. But I know that as a busy professional, a wife, a mother, a daughter, a good citizen, it's hard to kick back and fool around, to learn new tricks and find time for old interests. Certainly, there should be time in life for this and the years just after college are, by my lights, a great time to breathe deeply, catch up on foreign films, explore new restaurants and have some fun while learning the rules of the work world.
Trust me on this: students with a Rice education run a minuscule risk of being unemployed for any length of time. The world needs bright, disciplined, thoughtful people in every sector. I can't promise you a high paying job where you get to make important public policy in your first year out of Rice. But if you want a job, you will find one. You will find a place to live, a place to work and the confidence to face the unknown and make it work for you. This is a gift. Don't be afraid.