You’re nearing the end of your undergraduate studies and it’s time to start searching for your perfect match, the one you’re willing to invest all your love, time and dedication to, even to the point where your finances may change substantially.
Yes, it’s time to find your Graduate School; but, what if you don’t want to meet your ideal Grad School just yet? (Or even at all?)
I get you: the whole practice of just sitting down and typing in the search engine for schools that cater to your field can take up a whole day, at the very least. After you highlight the candidates that appeal to you, that’s where you start filtering them out with a whole set of categories they must comply with to fit your needs: tuition, campus setting, average lifestyle, scholarships, potential jobs you can apply for, etc.
After you narrow it down to four to five schools, now you have to save money just for the application fees and (fingers crossed) hope they’re refundable; before dropping the wad of cash, there’s a whole stack of paperwork you have to submit for each candidate, while your regular classwork is still in session.
After you deposit all your sweat, blood and tears into each school application, now comes the final verdict from each one, and see if they swipe right back. If they don’t, pray it’s not your number one choice; if they do, celebrate with a happy dance and maybe sit down to discuss further negotiations. It’s a lot.
And you know what? Here’s a secret: you don’t have to sign up for that if you don’t want to. At least, not as soon as you finish school. Gap years are also an option you can consider if you need a break from Academia. Unless you realized during your BA that school is just not for you, ditching an MA entirely is also an option! If that’s your case, make sure you have a solid backup plan to land on to help you get a hold of the ground for the first months so you can soar up to where your goals and dreams take you. With so many tech innovations nowadays, and some career fields being so new, having a Master’s is just not reasonable. A couple of certifications also sum up as post-grad preparations if need be.
Sit back, relax and breathe: you got this, you made it this far. It may seem unlikely, but you have time. If it’s still there, banging in your mind, maybe you should try it out. Give Grad School a chance, perhaps you’ll find ajar doors along the way leading to other things that bring you joy.