A Different World: Graduate School

Everyone is going to college. That sophomore who sits in the back of the room and farts with his idiot friends? College bound. What does a bachelor's degree mean? Or, I guess the question I'm more interested in is what will MY bachelor's degree mean? I won't come away from the $80,000+ worth of debt and immediately be able to report for duty at a marketing firm or office. I will have an English degree. And you know those people who say they have an English degree and just stumbled into these really great careers in which their bachelor's in literature is kind of being put to use, but really they just get paid a lot of money for being intelligent? That will not be me. I do not have that kind of luck. Which means I can go to graduate school, work at the local mall or live with my mom forever. Great.

Eventually, someone is going to expect me to start paying back my loans. I say good luck to them, because I will be poor. Forever. I haven't even taken into account the interest rates. I'm still a few years away from my quarter-life crisis. The interest can wait.

What tests should I be studying for? I was under the impression that the SATs were the last time I would ever have to study analogies. Geometry? Are you kidding? I'm not sure I still know what all the shapes are called. Yet the GREs are in my immediate future. To be a teacher, there's the PRAXIS. At this point, being wonderfully rich but hating my life is looking promising, so I could always try out the LSATs. So many letters! So many tests! So much money to be spent!

With college becoming something that it seems like everyone attends, it seems like grad school is the new undergrad. Do you really need a masters degree to have the edge in the world of real-life jobs? I think, in many cases, the answer is yes. So why is it so goddamn expensive?