As part of my job as grad studies chair, I have received several inquiries into our graduate program. Individuals emailing me are interested in graduate school for a variety of reasons: they love Ohio State and want to teach at OSU, they love teaching and want to teach college students, they love Human Development and Family Science and they want to teach HDFS, they have a lifelong goal of getting a PhD, etcetera.
In my opinion, there really is only one reason to get a non-clinical or practice oriented PhD – you have a research topic, or even a discipline, you are passionate about, and you think that you will be able to self-motivate yourself to study it in depth for the next several years. Often times, students are not emailing me that they are passionate about an area of research related to child development, adolescent development, family science, prevention science, family demography, couple and family therapy, or some other area that our HDFS faculty members study. Instead, they are passionate about teaching, or really liked their undergraduate experience in our discipline. Now they want to pass that passion on to college students. Because PhD programs are primarily grounded in research, a passion for teaching college students will not necessarily be nurtured and rewarded, in the research intensive universities where most PhD programs reside.
Graduate school is long and challenging. The job market for PhDs, at least the academic job market, is very competitive, and research and publications land people jobs, even at teaching-focused universities. So individuals considering graduate school should give some serious thought as to whether a PhD is what they really want. I ask students to google “should I get a PhD” and read some articles, and if they are still interested and have a research topic they are passionate about, they should get back to me. If not, there may be other meaningful ways they could spend the next 5 to 6 years, and less expensive too I might add.
Here are some articles individuals considering graduate school might find helpful:
Making it Through Grad School by Gabriela Montell
So You Want to Go to Grad School? by Thomas H. Benton
Advice: Should You Get Your PhD by Ethan Siegel
Should You Go To Graduate School? by Karen Kelsky
So, what do you think? What advice would you give to students considering getting a PhD?
Claire Kamp Dush 