Time off?

[smyleykyley]

Hello all

Comments

[bananainpyjamas]

I'm taking two years off to work in consulting. If I were applying to a liberal arts or sciences program I would've gone straight out of undergrad. But I'm applying to business PhD programs, which are sometimes reluctant to admit young applicants. I graduated at age 20, so I figured I'd play it safe and gain some work experience rather than risk being dinged for being too young.

I do think it was good to gain some "real world" experience. My job's fine and it more than pays the bills, but nevertheless it's made me all the more sure that I want to pursue a PhD and go into academia.

[skeetied]

I took two years off. I didn't know what I wanted to do and my Ph. D program this fall will be in a completely different area than my undergraduate program.

[katia_chan]

Was it a job that helped you figure out which direction you wanted to go? Or just the time to think and plan etc.

I've been trying to work out a specialty in my field, and been having trouble. Someone suggested I wait a year to go to school, but there's not much in my situation that would help me figure things out while out of school. That's why I ask; I'm curious what part of your break really helped you most.

[skeetied]

Actually, the job that I worked for 18 months convinced me that I wanted to do something else, so I decided to my graduate program in a subject I had minored in and very much enjoyed during my undergraduate program.

[smyleykyley]

This was also something I was facing my sr year, which contributed to my decision to take time off. Last Fall I took a grad school course on Lit Theory, which covered a lot of different aspects/approaches in research. This helped me identify what I like and what I don't like.

I also did a lot of brainstorming about what I find interesting/what I don't find interesting. I'm not sure what your field is, but I'm an English person and I don't have direct interests based in a time period/specific time period. It took me some time to put my finger on what it was that I loved to study, because it wasn't so obvious.

Time off definitely helped me sort this out. It seems counter-intuitive, because you'd think more school would be more helpful. I think time off allows you a little distance and the space to be objective. But keep in touch with your profs and other nerdy friends, to talk things through and keep your mind sharp in the mean time.

Yikes, that was a long response. :)

[iluvrob20]

I took 2 years off, I'm really glad I did because it both allowed me to build up a lot of savings and I really have gone in another direction because of the volunteer expierence I had after college. I majored in Religion and Peace and conflict studies. I was looking at religion phD programs during my final year of undergrad and found a few I liked but decided to do some working first.

Now I'm going for my masters in social work focusing on the military. (I start mon)

[smyleykyley]

Haha, yes! I had to stop reading academic blogs for a while because it was freaking me out so much. haha.

[smyleykyley]

It seems like your experience, though, would serve you as a Plan B to being a professor. Is that true?

That's what I tell myself about my current job, to justify this time I'm spending 'working for the man'. :)

[calendae]

I graduated in December of 2006 and did an internship at a museum for a semester. During that time, I had to work out whether I wanted to apply to schools that year or try to find a job. It was mostly luck that I found the job that I'm in currently, which is absolutely one of the best positions I could have found. It's in a large Alaska Native tribal health corporation with its own research department and I get to be incredibly involved in our research projects. I feel it's made me a lot more focused and realistic about what I can accomplish and I'm bringing experience with NIH grant work to whatever institution I finally attend.