2007 Issue

UTAH ENGINEERS COUNCIL JOURNAL 19 The most important questions to start with are, why do I want to go to graduate school and should I go to graduate school? There are many reasons to go to graduate school. First, if your ultimate goal is to teach at a research institution, a PhD is the normal requirement. I N ADDITION, MANY TIMES UPPER MAN- AGEMENT POSITIONS ARE HELD BY PHD ENGINEERS, PARTICULARLY IN SMALLER COMPANIES. SECOND, YOU MIGHT WANT to further your job opportunities or inves- tigate a different career path in your com- pany. In this case, you need to assess what advanced degree might help you the most; for example, an MBA might be the best choice versus a Masters of Science or PhD in an engineering field. Investigate the job opportunity or role fully, looking at examples of other successful employees and their level of education. Consult the advice of mentors and previous professors to help ascertain if graduate school is the best option to fulfill your vision. Remember, while you don’t have to be “brilliant” to go to graduate school, you will be competing with the top percentage of students in your undergraduate class. Most schools require at least a B average get into and stay in the program. To answer the question, should I go to graduate school, seek the advice of other graduate students to help understand the new environment you will be exposed to. If you have had a previous research experience as an undergraduate, that is a starting point for understanding the research environment, but the experience is different as a graduate student versus an undergraduate. Is this en- vironment something that you personally, and if applicable your family, want to spend the next 3 to 6 years in? Graduate school is very demanding on your time and energy – in fact, during a recent discussion with first-year students at the University of Utah, they put it simply as – Graduate School is your life. On the plus side, it is a time of independent thought and work – you are working your way toward new discovery. While you are most likely working on a defined research agenda for your major professor, it is likely that the specifics are rather vague and new. You should not go to graduate school to sim- ply make more money. I am not convinced that stepping out of a high paying job for four to five years to get a PhD stipend, which in turn gets you a higher-paying job, is neces- sarily a payoff in the end when benefits, retirement, and lost advances and raises are taken into account. I haven’t actually done the calculation because for me the driving force was to become a professor. The best place to be when entering graduate school is debt free with some savings, so that you can live relatively normally –a graduate stipend is probably more than a 50% cut in salary for a working engineer. Another option is to investigate whether your company will help with the costs of the degree. While common for an MBA and Master’s Degree, this is a little more difficult with a PhD due primarily to the research involved, but I have known students who have gone this route. If you have decided that this is the move IS Graduate School FOR JOANN LIGHTY Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering Director, Institute for Combustion and Energy Studies, University of Utah continued on page 20